Thursday 20 April 2023

Family History, Berwick on Tweed


I finally finished the family History printing and sorting.  This was to take a bit longer than intended, as my great niece had manged to insert a child into the wrong spot.  It was as I attempted to work out how a man could be Baptising his child in 1815, when he himself had only been born in 1808 that I realised something was amiss.  Young Mary was sent to her actual father and was probably the better for this.
So I sent off what I thought relevant to the lass somewhere in Canada.  Hopefully she is able to make the journey to Edinburgh and Berwick.  I would like to go back to both places sometime, but not at the moment.  
It is somewhat strange to look at streets 150 years after the forefathers have lived there.  Outwardly much remains the same, yet the conditions were very different.  Gas lighting in the streets, if any that is.  Oil lamps in homes, horses and carts, Cows, pigs, sheep and other farmers goods in the street on market day.  Fancy outfits, all revealing class, especially from the upwardly mobile.  No NHS, leave school at 13, or earlier if no one looking, no radio, tv, yet there was an abundance of newspapers and magazines readily available.  Some like to think this was a better time, unless you had TB or rickets I suppose.
This little intrusion does make me want to look again and check all the facts that we know.  However, as most were farmers in the borders this means I must pay more to the Scotland People site to seek info.  Quite why they could not do a Scotland Ancestry instead of a separate organisation I know not, but I smell money here.
However, here is a short tour of Berwick on Tweed.

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