I did not write yesterday and happily, it felt strange. I missed writing! I thought about what Mikie said, about needing to write for myself. And I thought about what might give me enough structure that I could write every day (mostly). And I then I read this article today, about uncovering family history with a picture and Google maps: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/23/magazine/italy-photos.html, which gave me an idea for how to continue writing, without the risk of blathering on every day about whatever came to my mind.
When I went to see my parents last week, my stepmother pulled out an album that my grandmother had put together many years ago. I recognized a lot of the pictures and remember a lot of the stories she told me – not all, unfortunately but quite a few. I have the album now. I think I am going to scan the pictures and write about them, one at a time. I don’t know what I will write about them, but I like to think I am leaving something of value for Elias and Annika.
With both of my grandmothers, I used to spend hours with them, looking through old pictures, over and over again. I asked different questions each time we got out the albums, listening to stories about the people in the pictures, and sometimes, I would get new details I did not know before. I know my children do not want to sit on the couch and comb through albums for hours on end. Maybe this project can stand in for that.
So, I bit the bullet and joined Ancestry.com today. This is a screenshot of the 1901 Isle of Man Census for Nelson Marr, my great-grandfather. I think his full name was Robert Nelson Marr. He was my father’s mother’s father. Nelson’s father, Thomas, was a miner in Laxey, Isle of Man, married to Jane (McHarrie) Marr, with ten children. Now I know why my great aunt Ivy was named Ivy: it was my great-grandfather’s sister’s name!
My great aunt Ivy was a pill, to put it nicely. She was rude, crass, cranky, self-centered, and smart. I remember everything but the smart part. I think she was an engineer at Boeing, maybe, in the 1960s so she had an interesting story, probably. She was a pill, though. More on that later.
Even if they are not about people I am related to, I love reading census records. They are a fascinating window into that time in history, relaying information about what life was like, without trying to. It says that the home where the Marr family lived on Glen Road had four rooms. Four rooms for 12 people! The oldest child, whose name I cannot read, was 23 and the youngest was 8 months old. In 1901, Nelson’s next oldest sibling, Willie, was 15 years old and listed as an “ordinary agricultural worker.” Goodness, that likely means that Willie’s education was finished. Nelson was 12 and still in school, maybe?
Well, I think I am done for the evening. I have made a start and that is what I wanted to do. I am off to scan pictures.
Sidenote: I feel insulted and exploited that Ancestry can charge such a grotesque amount of money -$33 per months for six months! – for records that are publicly available. If I could go to the Isle of Man and visit the archives, I could have found this same record. Now that I have spent my hard-earned money on it, I am committed to this venture.