Friday Quick Tip

This Friday's quick tip is one you can use in everyday life as well as family history - if it's driving you mad, take a break. Have a cup of tea and a biscuit and go back to it.

Hope you have a good weekend!

Some Things Never Change

This is a joke from The Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard from 3rd March, 1916. It's a little tame, but it shows that teenage girls even in 1916 were not always prim and proper:

"What course is Sarah studying at that boarding-school?" "I can't remember, but I think it's cosmetics."

Swansea Jack (The Ripper..?!?)

Jack the Ripper is perhaps this country's most famous murderer, and almost certainly it's most famous serial killer. The agreed upon victims (historians love a good dispute) killed in the autumn of 1888, were Mary Ann 'Polly' Nichols, Annie Chapman, Catherine Eddowes, Elizabeth Stride and Mary 'Marie Jeanette' Kelly.

The identity of the Ripper is something that has been debated ever since the murder spree in Whitechapel in 1888, a fascinating book - The Fifth Victim by Antonia Alexander - suggests that Jack was a prominent Welsh doctor, Sir John Williams, who originally came from the Swansea valleys.


Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Sir John Williams was an obstetrician/gynaecologist who also worked for the royal family. A difficult man to like personally, one of the few people who did like John in a social sense was Queen Victoria. John Williams continued to preside over births within the royal family into the 20th Century - including the birth of the current Queen's father. A prestigious man then, as well as a Freemason, who would probably have seemed above suspicion at the time of the Whitechapel murders.

Antonia Alexander is a direct descendant of Mary Kelly (well, sort of, but I'm not giving the ending of the book away, you'd have to read all the way to the last couple of pages for the final twist in this fascinating tale,) who had been having an affair with Sir John Williams since before he left for London, leaving her family in Swansea behind to follow him there.

The story is certainly a compelling one, and Antonia Alexander puts forward some very persuasive arguments. It has to be remembered however that Ms Alexander wants the evidence to fit in with her view of what happened, and as such this is a subjective, rather than objective, view of the facts.

If Sir John Williams were still alive today, the evidence Ms Alexander puts forward would not be enough to secure a conviction - it would definitely be enough for an arrest though. Not least, the fact that several of the victims seemed to have a connection to the Whitechapel workhouse infirmary, where John Williams worked on a voluntary basis, and the fact that many of the pages of his diary of 1888 have been systematically removed.
The book itself is slow to start - personally, I could have done without the story of how the author met her husband, but I suppose that to some people it would make it more accessible. And I do personally find it a little stylistically irritating that Ms Alexander is constantly speculating without pointing out that she is doing such - but again, that's just me.

Sir John Williams lived into the 1920s, returning to Wales from London to become a prominent figure in Welsh society. He founded the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth, and was present at many prestigious social functions. At one such event, he sat at the table of the man the dinner was to honour - David Lloyd George, along with one of my own (very distant) relatives, a man named Lewis Morgan who was Lord Mayor of Cardiff at the time. Although, this dinner isn't mentioned in the book, it's something I came across in my own research trawling through old newspaper articles.

Whether John Williams was Jack the Ripper or just another in a long line of suspects may never be known, but it certainly makes for one 'helluva' story!

Friday Quick Tip

Ok, this week's handy little genealogy tip is that people were often mistaken, misunderstood, or dishonest on census records - for example, stating their last town of residence instead of their birthplace.

The Welshman and The War Poets

Found this interesting article on the BBC Wales news website about Daniel Cuthbert Thomas, a Powys schoolboy, who fought and was friends with Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves - the ww1 poets.

If you're interested in pursuing research into your own relatives who fought in world war one, check out my range of services on www.familyhistorybycerys.co.uk

Friday Quick Tip

Ok then, here's this week's quick family history tip: books on local history can show you how your ancestors lived, and details on the places they would've seen in their day-to-day lives.

War Snippets

The Glamorgan Gazette from this day (14 May) ninety-nine years ago (1915,) has an account of fighting that supposedly comes from a socialist soldier in Northern France.

It says 'a cry and a murmur here and there...And when the victims of death are so uncannily still, then they speak the loudest...An attempt is made to count the dead. An impossible task. There lies a young officer, beautiful as a god...There he is lying, quiet and friendly. At home, perhaps, there is a faithful wife, a loving sweetheart, an old mother, weeping their eyes out. Who knows?...'

Who this man was may never be known, but his account seems truly heartfelt, and shows the humanity and reality of war.



Image Courtesy of dan/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A Note on Craft and Family History

Hi, I know some people like to use their old family photos, letters, and postcards for scrapbooks, jewellery, etc., etc., but please, please, please if you are going to do this then use copies! You will never get the original back, and if you damage it you will have lost something precious. So bare that in mind and happy crafting (with copies!)

Friday Quick Tip

Ok, here's this week's quick genealogy tip: Details passed down by family members can be a great help, but aren't always 100% accurate - dates, places, etc., can often be changed slightly in the telling and the remembering.

War Snippets

This is one of the more unusual newspaper articles of world war one that I've come across:

The Abergavenny Chronicle of 18th February 1916 describes the sentencing of Horace Dennis Kingley at Folkestone Police court for supplying cocaine to soldiers. Horace was convicted on the evidence of Corporal Price of the 8th Canadian Battalion, and Captain Murray of the Canadian Army Medical Corps; Captain Murray asserted that the drug led to insanity, and that he knew of at least forty soldiers with an addiction.

Horace Dennis Kingley's defence was that he gave the cocaine away instead of selling it, and that 'He had taken it five or six years, and it made one most keen on what he was doing.'

Finding the Past

A little while ago I found this book - Through the Linn by Agnes Giburne - in an old cupboard. It may have been my mother's or my auntie's, but how they got it, nobody can remember. The book itself though, is far older than either of them (I have to point this out - they are not as old as this book! If I implied otherwise I'd be in big trouble.)

Ok, so there it is, in my hands, this slightly odd old book, and when I open it there's a label inside the front cover. The label tells me that the book was once owned by Annie Long, and that it was presented to her for attendance at Sunday school in the Cymmer and Porth parish of St. Paul's. For those who aren't familiar with the area, this is a Rhondda Church in Wales parish. Annie was nothing to do with my family, but my great-gran lived in the area and was always buying things from chapel second-hand sales (guess bargain hunting runs in the family,) so it's possible she picked it up that way. I haven't been able to find Annie Long (there are a couple of possibilities, but none I'm sure about,) in historical records, so if anyone out there knows about her please let me know. The book was presented to Annie on May 16th 1915, by Mr and Mrs E. S. Williams. As books would have not been cheap at the time, I certainly hope that she enjoyed it - she definitely took good care of it, because despite a few loose pages, it's still in one piece ninety-nine years later.



I have been able to track down some of the other people named on the label - William Hutchings, the Church's superintendent was a Railway Inspector who was loving at 107 Birchgrove, Porth, in 1911, and was originally from Bishop's Lydeard, Somerset. David A Collier, one of the treasurers, would have been one of two men (a father and son, David and David Arthur Collier,) who were also working in the railway industry - at a wagon works. Fellow treasurer Samuel Pugh would've been one of two men, both born in Shropshire. One was a miner living in Trebanog, just outside Porth and not far from Cymmer in 1911; the other was a carter of wine and spirits who lived on the same street as William Hutchings in 1911 - at 76 Birchgrove.


So, what is this book, Through the Linn? It's an evangelical, moral tale, that would've been seen as a way of teaching children right from wrong and the importance of faith in God. Very appropriate for a book presented by a Sunday school, but it would probably be seen as more than a little dour today. Agnes Giburne, who wrote the novel, was born in Belgaum Town, Bombay Presidency, India - presumably while her father, who lived into his 90s, was an East Indian Service Major. Eventually Agnes and father Charles moved to Eastbourne, Suffolk, where Agnes lived with her father until his death; in 1911 she is renting rooms, and living alone, at 2 The Avenue, Eastbourne. She herself lived from 1845 to 1939 (The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English.)

Still, it is a beautiful old book, with lovely illustrations, and one I'm happy I now own.

Friday Quick Tip

Hi - it's time for your second Friday Quick Tip. If you didn't see last week, this is where I provide a quick genealogy tip that may be helpful for someone new to family history, or someone who would just like a fresh perspective.

So, today's Friday Quick Tip: Don't always trust the online trees of other amateur genealogists - they may have made an error, so check their research carefully.