Episode one: Suzannah's surprising family story

Hello and welcome to Step Into The Past. The podcast where we take you back in time to follow in the footsteps of our ancestors brought you by Find My Past. Throughout this series we'll be uncovering the family tree of a different guest each week and we'll be visiting a central location in the lives of their ancestors, a location cared for by the National Trust. What secrets can these locations reveal about the lives of people who lived or worked there through the generations? I'm Professor Cisanna Lipscomb, historian, author and TV presenter. I've always been fascinated by stories of people from the past and how they experienced the world. I particularly enjoy uncovering the mysteries behind family history and how these can be pieced together through historical records which will be deemed plenty or throughout this series. For this first episode however something a little different. With the help of an expert I'm going to be discovering the history of my own family tree and to help me I'm delighted to welcome an expert from Find My Past, Ellie Aiton. Ellie, welcome to Step Into The Past. Thank you so much for having me today. So you are a family history expert at Find My Past. First of all tell me a little bit about your role and what you do at Find My Past. Absolutely so yeah I work for Find My Past where I family tree company and in my role I help people uncover fascinating stories about their own family trees and family stories just like the ones you have in your family tree. We have billions of records and interconnected trees on our website which means that anybody can start researching their family tree and uncovering stories about their ancestors. Amazing and today you're going to help me discover My Past and uncover the lives of my ancestors. I am indeed yeah we have a few surprises in store for you actually including hopefully revealing ancestors on your mother's side that I think you may not yet know so very very exciting. We've got some ancestors who played roles in both world wars as well as how your family tree spans a great deal of the globe they were very well travelled indeed. So we'll be hearing about family members across three different continents. There is a lot to uncover shall we delve in? Yeah I can't wait. So before we get started as talk we found at Find My Past and your family tree Susanna. I know you've already done a little bit of work yourself. So what do you know so far? Well I know quite a lot about the Lipskins so my paternal grandfather's family. His parents I sit at the desk of my great-grandfather Frederick Martin, Lipskins Martin, Lipskins death and I know about the family of my great-grandmother Dorothy Octavia Robinson. So I know about the Robinson's because my great-ahnt always used to talk to me about the aunts the Robinson's. And then I can trace the Lipskins line back more or less. At least the 18th century I think we can go back to about 1660 but it becomes quite straight down the patron nominal line and you know the women get left out a bit sometimes don't they? Quite often they do yes. And what do you know about your paternal side of your family? What do you know about their roles in in world war while at all or two? Well I know that my great-grandfather was in the Royal Army Medical Corps. I have a trunk at home that was his that says not wanted on voyage which has his address in phantom. So I know that I know that he served at Chelsea Hospital and that he was a doctor. So yes Martin your great-grandfather he actually served over in India and Mesopotamia until 1921 and he stayed in India until 1941 as a medical specialist and he was a commanding officer at the British Military Hospital in Molten. And Martin married your great-grandmother Dorothy? Yes. Dorothy Octavia Robinson in 1913 in South Wimbledon. And then do you know anything about his time in the Second World War at all? I think he was as you said in Mesopotamia and I know about the end of the war. So your great-grandfather Martin Lipscomb he was part of the relief effort at the liberation of Birgimbalson concentration camp. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Is there anything you happen to know? It's amazing isn't it? Yes. So he was a doctor. So he was asked in because there were problems with feeding people who had been in the concentration camp mood starving. And so the first and natural thing for people to do is to try and give them loads of food but actually their systems couldn't process it. So he was invited in to help design a diet really for these people and I know this because he published a paper on it. I think it's in the Lancet and I have a copy of it somewhere. Though I don't necessarily understand all the medicine. An amazing legacy. Yes I mean a lot of people did some very good things during the war didn't they? And I think there is a sense that we don't really know all of the sacrifices or all of the sites that that generation saw because that was a generation that very much kept themselves closed and didn't boast about what they'd done and kept the horrors within them. So we're all sort of beneficiaries of the fact that they held it back. That's a particularly powerful story. How does that make you feel then? I mean I feel very proud of my great grandparents and my grandparents and these generations who did this and I feel particularly touched. I sit to work at my great grandfather's desk. My parents gave it to me when I made Professor and so I have this sort of sense of connection to him on a daily basis. Despite him never knowing who I am, who I became and I never met him. And that's strange isn't it? This connection we have with these ancestors of ours. I think that's a wonderful, wonderful legacy and a wonderful momentum of his that you have and that will stay with you now. I think that's just lovely. And did you know actually in 1945 Martin was honoured by the King himself for distinguished services during the liberation of prisoners in German concentration camps and he's actually, he was actually added to the central chanceary of the orders of knighthood in the London Gazette military notices. So his work is preserved there. That's wonderful. How much do you know about your two times great-grandparents then? So Frederick Bell, Lipscomb and Ethel White. So he was a curate and the story goes that Ethel had married beneath herself. My great aunt Sylvia who only died eight years ago and with whom I was very close used to say that when she was a child they'd occasionally get a hamper from Fort Namomason when they couldn't afford them at all as a family but from Ethel. So there was obviously all Ethel's relatives, some money somewhere and also he died a pretty horrific death. He did, yes. So very very tragically at the age of just 46 on the 27th of September 1899 Frederick fell off his bicycle and he died. He was, you're right, a curious eviker at the time in Flittwick and he left Ethel your two times great-grandmother with five children under the age of 12. How do you think that would have been for her? I mean absolutely terrible. He also, when he was hit, I think it was a runaway horse or it was doing his rounds I think as a vicar. He was carried into the pub and he laid it out there and I think it took him a couple of days to die but it was a pretty horrible death. But you imagine that. So the eldest I think was my great-grandfather Martin and five children under the age of 12 and just trying to make it all work. As I've said she had some relatives who were clearly helping out but still how devastating. He was 46. I mean I'm 44. It's pretty close actually. When you hear these stories when you're a child obviously 46 sounds like as old as the moon but now it seems pretty close. Yeah and you put things into context a little bit like that. Yes and did you know there was actually a stained glass window in his church that's dedicated to him? I didn't know. At Flittwick. Yeah you'll have to go and have a look at him. I will. To go. Wow. Pay your respects to his window. Gosh that suggests that he was quite popular among his parishioners. So the Lipskins are the paternal side of your family that you were quite familiar with already. Did we manage to earn anything that you didn't know? So far I'm familiar with the history because there was pretty good record keeping in my family and I've got archives. I mean especially kept by Martin. So I inherited those stories where it gets a bit murky for me is relating to either my grandmother Margaret, so that was my paternal grandmother and on my mother's side. In that case then we'll move on to the rules. So this is the side of your father's family that you know less about. So hopefully there'll be a few surprises in here for you. So the rules have a fascinating story that spans the globe at the height of the British Empire. We're talking India to the United States and then of course the United Kingdom. The story traces a rise in social standing on both sides of the family that led to grace your grandmother to effectively marry into British Gentry. And actually like Frederick Martin she's known as Margaret, so if I have a second name so she's Grace Margaret Raw and married my grandfather Chris in this very short period of time they met in Philadelphia in three months and I know nothing about her family beyond her surname being Raw. So this is fascinating for me. Excellent. So what we'll do is to start this story we're going to go all the way back to the American Civil War. Okay. So we're going to start with Jonathan and Susan Raw, your three times great-grandparents. So the scene is the American Civil War and Jonathan served as a private in company G of the 164th Ohio Infantry Regiment of the Union Army. That was the National Guard. And the sources that we've had a look at indicate that the Raw family originated in either Holland or in Essex in England. Okay. Well all the other. And if we go back even further we believe they arrived in Pennsylvania in the 1760s along with other people fighting during the time of the American Revolution. So you see I've got a little bit of American in me then. Yes absolutely. Going quite far back. So their son Charles Rule and his wife Sarah they were both born in Ohio. Sarah was born in Ohio but her parents were both born can you guess? In Germany. Oh really? In Germany often indicated as pressure in the sources. So Charles was a grocery dealer and following his business card he was successful in his business and when he died in 1915 he was considered very very well regarded and well regarded enough to have his death mentioned in the local newspapers. We actually have a copy of the obituary here. Oh wow. And it goes into a lot of detail about his life and his associates. He was engaged in business and by his upright life and correct business methods made numerous friends. Well the wonderful isn't it? I'm sorry touching. It's always something when you find an obituary for a direct ancestor and not one that just says this person passed away and this is when their funeral is this is a really really detailed obituary and it shows us that he was so well esteemed in his community and in the in the local area. I mean by his upright life and correct business methods he made numerous friends that's the sort of line each of us hopes might be put in how obituary it's right exactly. Actually they were a decent person. They conducted themselves well and then people liked them. I mean that's isn't a nutshell isn't it really? Exactly. How does that feel reading that then? Well moving it feels really moving. I'm trying not to be all sniffy. So because Charles Rool was so well thought of and he worked himself up from relatively humble beginnings actually he had five children and he was able to educate those five children and this might be why one of his children William was able to become a dental surgeon. Do you like going to the dentist? I mean who life going to the dentist? So now we're going to have a look at your two times great-grandfather William Rool. Now he was born on the 25th July 1884 in Clyde, Ohio and he lives quite alive. I'm not going to lie. He actually arrived in India on the 17th of June 1910. He was 26 years old quite a young man at the time to practice as a dental surgeon. Now he worked across India in this trade for many many decades and this is where he met Nelly Orn in Bombay India and they got married in 1913 and they had three children including your grandmother Margaret. So it's really interesting because we've had I always thought the India connection in my family came from my paternal great-grandfather Martin but actually it turns out that on Margaret's side as well the family's been there for a really long time. I just didn't know that they were present there for so many decades. I know that my grandparents met in India and I've gone to where they met and all the rest of it but I didn't realise that there's presence there was already three decades long by that point in time. Very well established. So we've got William who came from relatively humble beginnings. He was educated well and became a dental surgeon but Nelly his wife also came from relatively humble beginnings and she was born in 1882 in Sutton, Bonington in Nottinghamshire. Oh goodness. Yes you have some Nottinghamshire ancestry as well. Now her father was a Feynman and her mother was a machinist and the couple moved the whole family from England to New Jersey in 1906. I mean they're really all over the place. Really are yes. Now this is the time where there is a huge boom in immigration to the US in the early 20th century from Europe. They were just better economic prospects over there for them and they probably thought they would have a much better life over there. And she was Nelly. She was clearly very very adventurous. She had a real adventurous streak in her. We have found photos that show her love of outdoor sports for example and she was moving around herself as well. So from the UK to the US, India, Canada all through her life. She she wasn't sitting still. She was always going up doing things and seeing things. We're not sure how she ended up in India but she was there by 1913 when she met William age 31. And here we go. We have first an undated photograph of her and then we also have a photograph of both of them in India as well. I find this really touching not least because the great-grandparents I know about married also in 1913 and I've seen pictures of them all my life and I've never seen these pictures before and these are also my great-grandparents. It's a really special moment where you see a photograph of a great-grandparent. You never you never had the chance to meet. I never even knew their names. Let alone have a chance to meet them. These are the first time I've ever looked at them. Nelly in particular as we can see from photographs that we found that real adventurous spirit. She has a certain hood spa. She looks slightly challenging. I mean it might be the just the way that she's looking at the camera and you had to stay still for photographs at the time but there's a certain defiance about her. And then what are they holding? Oh they've been hunting. Haven't they? Look, they're holding birds. That's the sort of thing they did back then in India but they're smiling. And they've obviously had a jolly time of it. Birds not so much. Oh and here they are later. Now they've become quite respectable. They're wearing very smart, tweed suits and base wearing glasses. But what's interesting there in the later picture of them, I can see the shape of her face is very much like my grandmother's face and my grandmother you know left married very quickly so my grandfather they left India after the war and I don't think she ever sold them again. I don't know that she ever sold them again. So that's why I haven't known this history. Well her parents actually moved to Canada together and that's where they spent the rest of their lives together and that's where they're both buried. How did you find these? That was amazing. It's amazing to see them. I'm funny at really moving. Thank you. I can imagine. So we've gone back a few generations on your father's side. We've had a look at the Lipskins, we've had a look at the rules. What do you know about your mother's side of the family then? My mother was adopted when she was two weeks old. Her adoptive parents, Charlie and Betty, Fairmeiner, I knew very much growing up my nanny and granddad and I met my Betty's mother. We called nanny K because her surname was Kettle and later in life my mother was in her 30s. She sought out her birth parents. So we know that my mother, we know my mother's original. original name and I've just told you the sum total of what I know. Okay, so as you know your mum is named Margarit. Certainly is. So we actually have a copy of her original birth certificate. Oh do you? Which I will. I think the only one we have is the later one when the name's changed. So although Margarit was born Rita Watson we will from now on refer to her as Margarit as you know her. So when Margarit was born her parents were a married couple and they were living at 88 chart lane. This is a semi detached house in Rige Gates. We actually have a photograph of that just here for you. This was where they were living when your mum was born. It's funny because quite recently I lived quite near Rige. Do you know what this house, it makes me a little bit angry to be perfectly honest because it's a very decent looking house. It's got a lovely bay window. It's a semi, it's not somebody who's struggling for money. But they chose to have my mother adopted and I found that quite painful. I can completely appreciate that. I'm going to draw your attention back to the birth certificate for a moment. It's quite small but what is very unusual here is a note made in the margin. Oh that's interesting. This indicates the fact that this adoption was pre-arranged. So adoptions like these weren't necessarily done through official channels like they are today for example. And what we seem to think is that the registrar made a little note here to confirm that that's what had happened. Some arrangement had taken place before your mum was born so she would be adopted by the firmmaness. The immediate thing that suggests to me is that how doubted it was his child. Don't you think? I don't know any evidence but I'm just thinking why would you, unless you have decided there were just too many mouths to feed. That house doesn't look like there were too many mouths to feed. It feels like there's more to figure out there. We haven't been able to ascertain why your mum was put up for adoption. It's possible that they were unable to care for her. Perhaps their marriage may have been in trouble by this point because Joan would actually remarry in 1960. We also wonder whether Harold had a part to play in the Second World War as well but we've been unable to ascertain that but it could have been a factor. So Olive Joan Smith, Joan your grandmother. She was born in 1911 in Brixton and her parents, your great-grandparents, were Charles and Alice Smith. Now Charles, he was a travelling salesman and he sold biscuits and chocolates for a company called Peak Freens and Co Limited, Biscuit and Chocolate Manufacturers. This was a huge London-based manufacturer and they invented Gary Bolde biscuits and twiglets. I love Gary Bolde biscuits. He invented those. Squash fly biscuits were used to go when I was a child. I love my mind so good. Although actually my brother used to call me twiglet because he used to say my arms were like twiglets. That's my chief association with twiglets. Charles and Alice actually had another child. So when we found them in the 1911 census which was dubbed the Fatility Census, we actually discovered that they had another child before Joan and tragically she died in infancy. Oh goodness. And then two years later after the 1911 census the family moved to Westcliffe on C. Essex probably for Charles's job and that's where Joan was baptized. So yes, this is Charles Smith here in the 1921 census and they were living at 56 Cornfield Road in Ryegate in 1921. How interesting. Wow. And then if we skip ahead a little bit by the time of the 1939 register Joan is a young working woman she's working as a bank clerk. She's living with her parents and at this point they've moved back to Ryegate probably for Charles's work because he probably moved around a lot for his job as well. Okay. Did you know any of that? I didn't know any of this at all. No. And I didn't know that Joan was working as a bank clerk either. So nine years after your mum was born your grandmother Joan she remarried in 1960 to a man called Charles Bachel. Now Charles was in the baking industry. He on his marriage certificate was listed as a former bread baker journey man. It's a very very long title. So he was doing that in and around London. So there are a few things that strike me about that. One is that my grandparents marriage might well have been in troubles around the time of my mother's birth or soon afterwards if she's marrying again in 1960 because divorces took time. And she's marrying someone who's older than her what my dozen years or so. And the fact that he is in the same sort of business as her father had been suggests why maybe they've met and maybe he's an associate of her father. And it explains that age gap I don't know. And also struck by the fact he's a journeyman because the journeyman is an entry level. You haven't become a master of your trade. So it suggests that he hasn't got perhaps as quite a spot on life as one might have hoped at that age. Okay so that's really interesting. I hadn't heard of him before. Yeah so as you say they may have met through work, through the baking industry. It's entirely possible. Cakes brought him together. Do you enjoy spending time in the garden at all? Do you consider yourself particularly green-fingered? I love spending time in the garden and I have moments of mania about it but I have quite a busy life so my garden goes through fits and starts. It needs more regular care so I love it but I don't do it as much as I'd like to. So we're going to talk a little bit now about your two times great grandparents on your mum's side. So we've got Edwin Dennis Smith born in 1882 in Sheffield. We're all over the place aren't we? You are. We're putting yet another pin on your family history map. So Edwin, he was married to Mary Jamima Nicholson and Edwin was a gardener. So Edwin Dennis Smith was born in 1882 in Sheffield and by 1901 he and his wife Mary they've moved the family down to Epsom in sorry. Because we find them at the gardener's cottage at a house at Barrow hedges. Are you familiar with Barrow hedges at all? No I don't think so. So the house sadly is no longer there. This is an Epsom in sorry. I know Epsom in sorry. Yeah my parents lived just down the road. I went to school in Epsom. It was so strange. So until a few years ago I lived in, I lived for a couple of years during lockdown in Bandstead which is just between Rhygate and Epsom. Both these places have come up in this history. It's so strange. So the gardener's the house itself near Barrow hedges. It was owned by a man called Henry Janks. Now he was a brewery proprietor. Okay so I guess he was a man with money. So he's employing Edwin at his gardener. That's right. He wants his place to look nice. He wants his lawn looking nice. He wants as you say a nice beer garden. And it's such a lovely part of the world. It's a really beautiful part of the world in horticultural terms. I'm amazed to discover an ancestor working there. In that part of the world it's such a small world as until it feels extraordinary to me that my child was born in Epsom and actually we have here evidence that my ancestors lived there too. Amazing. Well we've almost come full circle. We've gone all the way around the world today looking at your family tree. We've been to India, we've been to Ohio, we've been to Canada and now we're coming back home to Epsom in Surrey. Oh let's not forget Essex. We had Essex family right here. How does that feel then to know that you've got ancestral family connections all over the world? It's exciting. I love the fact that we're clearly the sort of people if you can make generalizations about character from this that don't stay still. I mean travelling salesmen, whether it's dentists or gardeners, everybody's getting up and going somewhere. Do you recognise that inability to stand still a little bit in your self at all? I certainly have an interest in seeing other places and have lived in other countries so I guess it is in me as well. And experiencing life to the full. I think we're all interested in that don't we? So we've had a look at your father's side, we've had a look at your mother's biological side. How do you feel now now that you know a little bit more about where she came from? interested. I mean I feel that it's still the central mystery about the adoption. But of course it's very interesting to know something about one's bloodlines. But from my point of view I consider her real parents to be the people who parented her. Exactly. Well let's talk a little bit about the Fair Mainers then. So your mother she was born, raised from 1951. She became Marguerite Fair Mainer. How much do you know about the Fair Mainers then and their family history? I know my granddad Charlie and that's all I know. Okay so yes so your mum was adopted by Charles Fair Mainer and Betty. Now you know a little bit about Betty in terms of her surname. Oh yes I mean and you know I know her and character as well. I mean I spent a lot of time with my grandparents as a child and I knew she was a kettle so and I knew my great-grandmother as I say when I was a very small child. Fantastic surname Kettle. It's a Betty Kettle. It's a great name and in fact Betty has been a little bit of a tough nut for our researchers to crack actually. Luckily we actually found it a key piece of information that unlocked Betty's story in a way we could never have imagined so we're very very excited by this and it was all a newspaper clipping. Okay good news paper article and it managed to solve this little mystery for us of who Betty was and where she came from. So in July 1940 a lady called Betty Florence Joan Parker married a private Leslie Leonard Lockhead in Richmond. So the newspaper reported that Betty's biological father was dead sadly her mother had remarried a man named Cyril Kettle. Aha so he was Betty's stepfather. The news paper article is very very sweet describing the wedding. It also goes on to say that when she married her sisters and her cousin were her bridesmaids. So this is Betty's wedding. This is my grandmother's wedding. Yes. Oh wow. The reason it was in the papers is because private Lockhead was on 48 hours leave from the army. Gosh I guess people did that during the war right they had a sense that they might die tomorrow and so they see us the day and married quickly so they would have been married if anything happened. But private Lockhead is not my grandfather. No he's not you're absolutely right. So because of this one newspaper article that describes her first marriage this very very exciting 48 hour not quite written away marriage but along those sorts of lines very very exciting because of this one newspaper article we know that Betty Kettle was born Betty Parker and then later becomes Betty Firmaine. So after her first marriage Betty now with the surname Lockhead she married the grandfather you knew Charles Firmaine in 1947 in Deftford in London and then the pair go on to adopt Rita four years later changing her name to Marguerite. So it's something happened after my grandmother died which is that we discovered in her bedside table under the lining of the drawer pictures of a young child and it seems that my grandparents met during the war so perhaps her first wedding had been during the war but then she met Charlie as he was known there after and obviously they fell in love I have a picture of them and when he's in uniform and I guess they must have had an affair because it seems that the child so Betty's child went with I didn't know his name before but with Leslie Lockhead and after the age of three she never saw him again. Gosh and I don't know if she couldn't have any more children or what what the situation was but she my mother says she was always obsessed with babies and infants and didn't have much interest in children after they reached a certain age which obviously wasn't great for my mother but this is very sad story and that's sort of you know the cost of these things at that time you could do that sort of thing and take a child away from its mother. So as I say we discovered these pictures after she died. It was quite an emotional thing to discover then. Yes I think the generations before ours carried around so much pain and shame because there was a sense of needing behave correctly and yet during the war you know all bets were off everyone thought that they might die tomorrow and you know they felt like they had to live but the cost of this were really great. Yes. Very powerful stuff. Clearly they were very keen to have a child and so as much as I can feel annoyed at the Watson's for giving her up you know the Fair Maneers as they were Betty and Charlie wanted to give her a home and I read this beautiful thing the other day that one adoptive mother said to her child which is you didn't grow under my heart you grew in my heart. That's that sense of being desired as it seems before she was born we even see that on birth certificate. Absolutely. That little note. Sorry I've got goosebumps you're just telling me that the quote that that's really really lovely. Well Ellie this has been incredible thank you so much for taking me back in time to learn about my family tree. It's been very moving I am so grateful to you for doing this research but I guess at far my past you have those resources and I suppose we can figure out these details about our family tree but I never knew half of this stuff I didn't know what globe trotters we've been I didn't know the way in which people have worked hard and made themselves from these humble beginnings in order to educate their children you know biscuit sellers and dentists and all the rest among them and yet I'm also really touched by some of the sad things we've uncovered and it's important to confront those as well thank you so much Ellie. It's been absolute pleasure and thank you so much for letting us look at your your family tree. Family history is like a puzzle sometimes and sometimes you just need to take little pieces from India from Ohio from Essex and put them all together and then you can tell that bigger story whether it be a story of adventure or excitement or a story of deep emotion but it's it's part of what makes you who you are. It's certainly is. Well that's it for this episode of Step Into the Past. My thanks to Ellie Aten for being such a fantastic guest while you hosted it really and for uncovering such fascinating insights into my family history you can find all the info about this episode on the Find My Past website and you can get started on your own family tree for free. Where will your past take you? I'm Professor Cizanna Lipscomb. Join me next time when I'll be at Quarry Bank Mill an industrial revolution cotton mill cared for by the National Trust. We'll be discovering a family who worked there for many generations and I'll be joined by one of their living descendants to find out what life would have been like working in that mill. Don't forget to hit follow in your favorite podcast app so you'll be notified whenever a new episode is released and hopefully I'll be crying a bit less next time. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.