Family History Day
An early train to Edinburgh this morning to attend the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Family History Day at the General Register Office for Scotland. It was achingly cold, but I could see the queue as soon as I turned off Princes Street and this was a full hour before the doors opened. Inside, our Radio Events team was busy setting up stalls. One or two of them acknowledged my arrival with a nod, but they had no time for idle chit-chat.
I'd brought the two Zedettes with me (they think train journeys are such a laugh) but Mrs Z was detained elsewhere (buying shoes at Braehead Shopping Centre). They had a better time than I'd imagined. They tasted old-fashioned biscuits, created their own coat of arms with felt-tip pens and used the computers to trawl the birth certificates of school friends.
I had a brief look at the online records of my Mother's side of the family. It was an emotional experience. I found my parents' marriage certificate, with my Mum's signature and her occupation in 1949 listed as "biscuit factory worker". I suddenly remembered her telling me how she got sickened by the smell of chocolate in the McFarlane Laing factory in Glasgow.
I went back a generation. There were my grandparents and great-grandparents. There was no record of the family before 1850. Was that when they had arrived from Ireland? More research was needed.
So many names, so many lives. Children, mostly girls, who had died in infancy. A great, great uncle whose death was recorded during the first world war. Some names wonderfully posh (Isabella) while others (Maggie) suggested informality.
Who would have thought that these old documents could bring tears to the eyes?
On the way out of the building we saw that the queue was now stretched around the block. Almost two hundred people were waiting patiently in the cold to find out more about their families.
I clutched my childrens' hands a little tighter as we scurried past. We were now in a hurry to have some more fun. After all, time flies, you know.
