The maiden aunt

Typical isn’t it, I write about maiden aunts for three of the last four weeks under different topics, and then this week’s  #52ancestor challenge topic is ‘The maiden aunt’! So I’ve had to cast more widely. Isabella H Groundwater (1853-1929) Isabella was a younger sister of Tomima Groundwater, my maternal grandfather’s mother.  She was born  |  more…

Misfortune

Many of my direct ancestors had hard lives with deaths at sea, loss of children at a young age, poverty and hardship, but their stories and their lives are known.  Is the greatest misfortune perhaps to be unremembered? My father knew the names of all his grandfather’s brothers and sisters, married names, where they lived,  |  more…