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| Me and Peter, my brother at the time |
Well I am on a wild goose chase at the moment, blame it on YP and names. I have never been happy with my name Thelma, in Greek it means Will or Volition. Well you could say I have moved through life with some sort of pace but definitely not violently but more like a slow tortoise, never sure where I am going. I also have a religious middle name (secret) as my Jewish grandfather wanted that aspect of life out of our lives I think.
Discussing this with my daughter and she also claims that she doesn't like her name either, blames it on the decade (1960s) in which she was born. But I believe we cannot change first names, surnames of course we can. During this discussion by the way we talked about the grandchildren choosing their surnames, and one has thoughts of picking up my maiden surname - yikes...
So a brief history, I was born as a result of a liaison between my father and a delightfully named mother called Betsey Louisa Colclough, who given my age now is I presume dead. Now this is a point of contention, was it luck that I was officially adopted by my paternal grandfather, I did not have a particularly happy childhood, but I was brought up in a middle class aura, having what I wanted in the way of large dogs and ponies!!
I still ponder what if I had stayed with my real mother, though she had given birth as a single mother and it would have been extremely difficult for her in the times when babies were practically forcibly taken from single mothers, how different my life would have been. I would have grown up in a completely different environment. That little egg that escaped to the real world outside was already experiencing fate and how it would alter my circumstances.
That I have never traced this family is due to laziness and not wanting to end up in a knot of another family, you never know the outcome after all! And I am by nature a solitary person, too much input and I go to pieces.
Well I went on MyHeritage and found the parents of my second stepmother, who had always treated me as a granddaughter. It was lovely to see their names and remember their little terraced house, typical of the time, outside loo, one cold water tap in the kitchen. I can still feel the dark green velvet curtain that covered the stair door and the piano in the living room, on which I learnt to play 'God Save the Queen' with two fingers. At the back of their house in Wednesbury was a park, and I would often bike round it on my tricycle, completely happy in this world of green.
I doubt if I shall find evidence of my second family, it is not really important after all.
As a family historian, I would disagree with the idea that it is not really important after all. Perhaps not to you, but perhaps it is to your children and grandchildren? I would see that like a locked cupboard of emotion, but that's just me I guess. You don't have to make contact with that other half of your family, after all. Just open a door and look through . . .
ReplyDeleteYes I can see your point Jennie. My daughter has already found out about her father. Been on an interesting trail this morning. It seems my grandfather was born in Antwerp, and emigrated with my father in the 1930s. Goodness knows what I will turn up.
DeleteUntil I found your blog, I invariable thought of 'Thelma' as the Bridget Forsyth character in 'Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads'. It's a great improvement.
ReplyDeleteYes my unfortunate naming has been discussed elsewhere, nicely of course. But if, in fact you look it up, it was quite popular from the early 20th century.
DeleteI was never much interested in my family background. I know some of family is. I guess that it is hard to summon up a lot of interest in a 'place' I never really felt like I belonged to.
DeleteThat of course is the problem Debby, my family are interested, so my snippets of information fills part of the story in. But my early family life was far from 'normal' family life, whatever that maybe.
DeleteInteresting how for a time (1971 to 1987)I lived in the Finchfield area of Wolverhampton - our paths could maybe have crossed?
ReplyDeleteI think not Pat, when I was small we lived in Penn fields, then moving to Willenhall till I was about 12 years old and then we lived opposite Bantock Park in Wolverhampton. School was Ely House and Brewood Convent. The convent I boarded out and nearly died there from the first Asian flu I experienced in my lifetime ;)
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree with Bovey Belle. YOu do not have to adopt them...just know who and where they are.
ReplyDeleteWell yes I agree to a certain point, but my 'entrance' to another family might bring up unforeseen consequences. Pottering around the documents on the ancestry sites has also yielded interesting information about my grandfather and why I could never find his birth certificate in this country...
DeleteYou can call yourself whatever you like and can legally change your first name if needed. My first name was erroneously anglicised when my single parent immigrant mother registered my birth. I changed it legally when I was in my 50's as I was never sure which version to use on documents. We gave our three sons Lithuanian first names but also English middle names which could be used in full or shortened so they had three choices if they wished. (They all use their first names.)
ReplyDeleteI always thought you had to keep the first name, bit late to change mine Ruta;) Signatures ae quite important of course, though in this day of virtual banking, now hardly matters. I use my fingerprint on my phone to unlock it now.
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