Day Two, no baking but a family story finally told

/ Su Leslie
last coffee shot edited

Turns out, it was a two-coffee story. Image: Su Leslie

For anyone who didn’t know, I originally started blogging to document the family history research I’d begun in 2011. That blog, Shaking the Tree, has been much neglected of late.

In part that’s due to the general bustle of life, but also because every research avenue I’d optimistically entered had turned into a cul de sac. Recently however I’ve had a couple of breakthroughs. And with my enforced Covid 19 confinement to barracks, today seemed like the right time to set out some hypotheses I’ve developed regarding a 3x great grandfather, Thomas Boswell Bisset.

I won’t try and tell the story here, but if you are interested, part one can be found in A tangled web, while today’s tentative conclusions are in Tall tale? Or true.

And a little woo hoo in praise of bloggers. Looking for an image to accompany today’s post, I found Something Over Tea. For completely unrelated reasons, Anne had visited the site where the man who probably wasn’t my 4x great grandfather had died during Britain’s 19th century wars in South Africa. She took photos of the memorials erected there, including one specifically dedicated to my possible ancestor.

fort hare gordon memorial

Memorial to John Gordon (1808-1850). Many thanks to Anne at Something Over Tea, who took this photo and included it in her post ‘The University of Fort Hare.’

How flipping cool is that!

48 thoughts on “Day Two, no baking but a family story finally told”

  1. Super cool, actually!

    In comparison, I would be thrilled to learn a little about my Italian grandfather, let alone a great-grandfather 3 generations back!! The richness of family history you have uncovered is amazing.

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    • Thank Amy. I do.
      All this staying home has definitely lifted my genealogy enthusiasm and given me SO much more time. I have t been reading genealogy blogs lately because I’ve been too busy to really absorb the stories — but now I can and I’m so pleased.

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  5. What an amazing find. How absolutely wonderful. Congrats.

    I cd never do any research for the simple reason that not even my father knew about HIS descendance until he was well into his adult life. And I, not even his wife (!!!!) learned about him when I took him out for a special birthday; in a little hut in the mountains, where Fondue was served to us at 2.30pm by an old man with a twitchy eye (he thought I was this old man’s lover… 😉), he told me stuff nobody knew…. It wd be well worth a story but I can’t do that now.

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  7. I had an aunt and uncle on both my parents’ side do a family tree for me. They went back pretty darn far… Interesting reading your history. I worked with a Leslie Thomas Gordon for many years. She was most definingly Scottish, too. She retired a few years before me but still lives here in Florida with her Navy husband. Wouldn’t that be great if you and she were somehow related??!

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  10. I shall have to save reading the actual stories until I am on any other device than this blinking iPad which won’t let me follow your links. I know my phone and my Mac mini are no such nasties (or is that Nazis) so I shall have the pleasure later BUT I just want to say …. that is beyond cool. All hail blogging …. it leads us to the most extraordinary discoveries. And people. Like you, in fact 💫

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    • 😊 thank you. Blogging rocks!!
      There is such a nice symmetry here that it was someone finding my earlier blog post in searching their family that kick-started the research, and now I can share Anne’s photos with him.

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  11. I was going to add that I originally expected a double espresso story….
    Then I expected to read that you too couldn’t get any yeast for your bread baking….
    Finally I marvelled at the power and imagination of the blogging community and I wrote my comment.
    —– I went shopping for bread, checked out if I could get my hands on any TP (no, still not!) and I looked out for yeast, fresh one, dry one – twice NO….
    Went to the store next to the first one – another check – no TP, no dry yeast, but 4 cubes of fresh one…. they must have gone 5′ later I suppose, but since I had my bread and fresh asparagus I went home.
    Am back to report – and also I told my mum your story, part III, as I haven’t had the opportunity to read the bits 1 and 2. Isn’t life still AMAZING?!

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    • I’m sorry to hear about the TP and yeast. I bake sourdough bread, from a starter we made about four years ago. As long as I have flour an
      and water to feed the starter, I can bake. It’s more time-consuming than using commercial yeasts, but the result is worth it — for me anyway.

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  12. Blogging and bloggers certainly do rock. Very cool to find that photo 🙂
    We found descendants in the UK [Devon] from the Squires family tree two of them are 99 and 98, fingers crossed that they both reach 100. Both still living by themselves with help from family. There is a church that the Squires grandfather help build when he was 14 and a brick has his name on it as one of the stonemasons. Best of all we keep in contact with quite a few of the family. They introduced us to Devonshire clotted cream and had to go back for more 🙂

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      • Su, we are up to about 3500 people affected, and goodness knows how many more tomorrow. Many related to the Ruby Princess. What a disaster. There seems to be quite a few idiots who just don’t get it. And the job losses are huge and the processes to support people overly bureaucratic. I’m scared for the health care workers and the choices they are going to have to make. I hope the situation is better in NZ?
        The pipeline of mental health problems is going to be massive. I know I am not doing well, and I am so far one of the lucky ones.

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        • The Ruby Princess does seem to be a massive cock-up; we have a cluster related to it as well I believe. I’d like to think that we’ve been a little more proactive than other countries, but only time will tell. The economic impact is certainly massive. I can understand your fears; it feels as though the whole underpinning of our worlds have been chopped away. I’m worried for my son’s mental health; he was already struggling, and is in quite a vulnerable position financially. Not being able to see him and gauge how bad things are is worrying me so much.
          I wish there was something I could do for you, beyond truly heart-felt words of concern and aroha. Kia Kaha.

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