An ancestor's moment you'd like to have witnessed?

[ThrelfallYorky]

I'd have loved to be there to hear why my ancestor Harriet Toplis decided to leave her husband William Newbould, who seemed to be a straightforward farm worker in Melbourne area of Derbyshire, after a few years as his second wife. And she  then spends a couple of decades racketing round the north with the real husband of a Mrs Brailsford, gathering more children - in 1861 they were in Westmorland, and he was labouring on the railways. The next census he was being a fam labourer in Howden arrea, but they were still together, with children.
By the 1881 census she was in Idle, Bradford, with another chap - this time she was Mrs Robinson (I think that man had left a wife, too).
By 1891 she was down as Mrs Robinson, and died as a respectable widow?? - but I've never manged to find any marriages for Harriet beyond her 1846 one to William Newbould, the one that seemed actually to have managed to produce Anne Newbold, my ancestor, her daughter.
I'd love to have known why she did what she did, so long ago.
TY

[chris_49]

I'd like to have accompanied my step-grandfather (Edwin) Frederick (Basil) Larking, an officer in the Royal Shanghai Police, when he left the Japanese-occupied city in 1939 to try to come back home with war looming.

According to Ancestry shipping records, he left Shanghai on the 11th of May, but didn't depart from Kobe until 10th June. He arrived in San Francisco on the 27th on the Taino Maru, a Japanese steamer. He arrived in Southampton on the 21st July from New York on the Aquitania.

I don't know why it took him so long to leave Japan, perhaps he was waiting for a place on a boat, they might have been scarce. But a fraught time because everyone knew which side Japan would be on in the event of a war.

Likewise, since it didn't take many days to cross the USA by rail, or the Atlantic by steam, he may have had to wait in New York. By September he was back with his parents in Hove, no doubt very relieved.

[Top-of-the-hill]

  I have always known a bit about my great grandfather's time based in Australia as a very young Royal Navy sailor 1845-47, but I have been doing more research lately, using newspapers. What I had not realised was how much time they spent touring the South Sea islands. I would love to know what he and the other lads made of them. They had a horrible captain, so they may not have got ashore much.

[Viktoria]

When my maternal grandmother (,who already had a good number of children,one every two years for over twenty years at roughly two year intervals. Final total was twelve,starting at age eighteen)——
was pregnant again  and a nasty neighbour announced in the corner shop “ I see you are off again MrsP.”
Grandma smiled sweetly, and replied” Yes,I am, as all my children are born out of love and every one is welcome “.


I would love to have witnessed that put down.

So There!
Viktoria.

[Erato]

I'd like to have seen the look of sheer relief when spring finally broke through in 1850 and the Chapmans were able to emerge from the hastily built, one-room log cabin they had shared with the Hawse family for a long Wisconsin winter.  The two families had banded together but they arrived to stake their claims late in the year and so one tiny cabin was all they could manage to get built.  The Chapmans had four children ranging in age from six months [my g-grandmother] to five years and the Hawses had one child, aged six.  It must have been five months of hell and I don't know if they remained friends afterwards.  The Hawses stayed on in the log cabin and the Chapmans built a new cabin about half a mile further north.

[Nanna52]

Another WW2 meeting of brothers.  My father (AIF) was on a train to Cairns.  So was his brother (a conscript).  There had been trouble between conscripts and volunteers (AIF) so the men were ordered to stay away from each other.  How difficult to run into your brother after many years fighting, but ordered to stay apart.  I believe they did manage to get a few moments together.

[gazania]

I wish I could have been at the wharf on the Brisbane river, Moreton bay, in 1846 with my ggggrandfather, James Fox, a former convict, to meet James Benjamin Fox, my gggrandfather, aged 11 who had sailed alone from the UK to join his father. The son had not seen his father since he was a toddler.

I also wonder how  ggggrandmother, Mary Ann Fox, was feeling after saying goodbye to James Jnr. And his sister, too, Jane Mary Fox.

[Gibel]

I would have liked to meet my maternal grandfather but he died in 1928. I have recently found an obituary for him that states, “his chief diversion was reading”. That’s me in a nutshell!  It must be the genes.

[GR2]

Hello

I would like to send a message to a member GR2, in response to their post about their 11x Great Grandmother, Euphemia Dundas who was tried as a witch in Edinburgh in 1653. I wanted to tell GR2 about an exhibition in Lancaster last month which honoured all of the people accused of witchcraft in the UK, many of whom lost their lives. A beautiful memorial in which a prayer flag was embroidered for each person, 4000 in total was incredibly moving. My "witch" was Euphemia Dundas so I thought it would be nice to show GR2 the flag I embroidered for her. But I havent worked out how to send a direct message, Please can you help. Many Thanks Helen

Hi, Helen,

Welcome to Rootschat. I have sent you a personal message with my email so you can get in touch and I will send you a detailed account of Euphemia's life.

[Added - I have just been reminded that you cannot receive personal messages until you have made two or three posts. You will have to post a couple of replies to this first. I can't put my email in this post as that is not permitted. Emails are exchanged via personal messages]

I'd love to see your flag.