My Father - Revealed

A quite extraordinary thing happened yesterday.

Those of you who have seen my writings on my Father will know that he was raised in an orphanage in Australia. He never spoke of this, nor of any of his family. Right up until the day he died he never shared his childhood with anyone, not even his wife. The best we knew was that in his early teens he joined the Merchant Navy, returning to the UK at the outbreak of WW2 to join the RAF.

I have often wondered about his heritage, his "story".  After his passing I found his Death Certificate, which to my amazement revealed that he had been born in north Wales to  Thomas Herbert Barton and Constance Barton. But still I knew no more - why was he an Orphan, did he have siblings, Uncles, Aunties. He was an enigma.

And then yesterday Anne Waters contacted me. Grand Daughter of my one of my grand fathers brothers. She had been searching, establishing a Genealogy, for the family branch (if any) of my Father. She said that he had disappeared without a trace. It transpired that my Father had two Sisters. And then Anne supplied me with a note that one of her Aunties had made when exploring her genealogy many years ago. 

"Bert was in the Civil Service. He met his wife Connie when he was invalided in the Great War. She was a hospital nurse. They married and then she decided to become a Catholic. She got very obsessed with it and gave as much as she could afford to the church. After a while she began to give away all her housekeeping money, and took to pawning her husbands best clothes to get enough money for food.  She then redeemed them on a Friday when she had her housekeeping money. Eventually this was not enough as she gave more and more money to the church., so she bought things on Hire Purchase and immediately sold them.  But when she was found out and her debts were substantial, she committed suicide by walking in the river Dee until she drowned. Bert had a substantial amount of his pay deducted to pay the debts and this took the rest of his working life."

And so I now understand. Bert, broke and unable to support his children, and all this in the mid 1920s, they are taken into care, and become orphans. 

It may appear to be a very sad and unhappy tale. But at least I now understand. My family tree has blossomed, and the hunt for Grace and Margaret, my fathers sisters has begun.