from beyond the...

I am a keen family historian. Yes it is another obsessive thing I am involved in.
So far I have discovered family tree direct lines back to the late 1700s, who were professors of languages in France and London, Beer and wine merchants, teachers, land owner farmers in Wales , poultry keepers, carters, and railway engine drivers.

It is quite a revelation that most of my ancestors where educated way back, as they did not put their mark as an 'X' when required to sign at marriage or as in my gg grandfathers case when living in France in 1835 to sign for the birth of one of his daughters....

I have discovered illegitimate births including my g grandmother who bears the same Christian name as me (as did her mother, mother-in-law and sister-in-law).. my she was one big problem child to find! Her mother gave birth to her and then married later someone else who brought
her daughter up as his own, and she took his name. That did take some unravelling.

Also the birth of another family member who died after being drowned in the Thames aged 5. I discovered that his 'mother' was not his mother. His mother was his 'mothers' sister who was aged 15 when she had him and then sent off to Canada for a better life, whilst her sister brought him up as her own....

So that preamble gets me to the point of this post. I spend a lot of time in cemeteries searching and photographing ancestors.
My the Victorians knew how to push the boat out when their loved ones left... handing out death cards and building huge monuments in their path.
One of the best (yet scariest) cemetery I have ventured upon was Camberwell Old Cemetery.
Part of it has been given over to nature... that is where my gg grandfather, gg grandmother, their daughter and son-in-law (son-in-law that was not married to the daughter buried there.. ).
Many people over the past 100 odd years must have planted rose trees as they had grown so wild

I visited Mitcham Cemetery recently to find one of my name sakes .. great cem.. great monuments.. my name sake had a bamboo stick to mark where she lay ....oh come on!! so I attached her photograph to the bamboo stick.. gawd a gal trussed up so good in 1860 deserves so much more than a bloody bamboo stick!

I visited the local cemetery where I used to live not long ago. I used play in there as a kid.. my teen thinks it is spooky... I think it is a magical place and holds many works of art.

and there was this grave that had this simple line

Grow young again