© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Family history

Read more about the article Life, death and a fragment of gravestone
Newcastle's Christ Church Cathedral before the graveyard was demolished.

Life, death and a fragment of gravestone

This item was originally written for the newsletter of Newcastle Family History Society In the midst of life we are in death This haunting sentence has a long history. In its Latin form it’s an ancient Gregorian chant and it is familiar to many as part of the burial service in the book of common prayer. As a reminder that the dead are always with us, and that – as Shakespeare memorably observed, “our little life is rounded with a sleep” – the sentence is natural epitaph material. It was, for example, engraved on the tombstone…

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Read more about the article In praise of family history
Jack and Lily with their adopted daughter - my mother

In praise of family history

In my younger days I couldn't find a reason to be interested in family history. I mean, I listened to the stories my parents and grandparents told about their early lives and usually found them interesting and often surprising, but the general idea of "family history" left me cold. That was, I think, mostly because a lot of people who talked to me about family history were eager for me to know that they were descended from some illustrious famous personage or a convict First-Fleeter and it was clear that I was supposed to be impressed.…

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Read more about the article Mementos of my grandparents

Mementos of my grandparents

My family has been talking, recently, about mementos. Specifically, what mementos will my children have of their grandparents? As I know from experience, the most significant and enduring mementos are those of attachment, emotion and sentiment, forged in the relationships between people. But it's nice, too, to have at least one or two physical reminders of the people we have known and loved. Of my four grandparents, the one to whom I was closest as a child was my maternal grandmother, Lily Jane Pritchell, nee Allsopp. Interestingly, she was not a blood relation. She and her…

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