Family research and family fiction

Family research may sound geeky, but it is endlessly interesting. Frustrating, too, as it can only take you so far, and you can never tell whether people whistled when they were happy, and whether they loved people well.

Just occasionally, some accident, some chance, suddenly gives a hint of something that shines a light on the person, and you catch a sharper outline than before.

Sometimes there are strong family traditions passed down for generations, and they pass down clear and definite stories about the past, and these give colour to dull records.

And even more fascinating, there are moments when facts and traditions clash and provide something illuminating as a lightning strike.

Robert Parkinson was my great great grandfather. He was born on 28th August 1836 and worked in a Bradford mill. He died in February 1869. His early death aroused my interest.

100 years after his death, a family member wrote an account of his life and death, drawing on oral tradition in the family. This was it:

Robert Parkinson was born in early 1830s of Lancashire parentage. I do not know whether the whole family came to Yorkshire or if our great-grandfather came on his own to work in Bradford. He was in the “Bradford Trade” i.e. the woollen textile industry, and family tradition tells that he was in partnership with another man, establishing a thriving business when he died in his late thirties.
 
The story goes that one winter evening, about Christmas time, great grandfather came home and collapsed. Great-grandmother, detecting the smell of alcohol, and being a staunch Primitive Methodist and therefore fanatically teetotal, decided that he was drunk and left him to sober up. She is supposed to have discovered later that he had been taken ill at work and had been given a drop of brandy to help him home, where he died of a heart attack. How much of this story is fact and how much is ‘embroidery’ I do not know.

Robert ‘s death cert makes clear that he died from an ‘effusion in the brain’ and the primary cause of death is given as intoxication. The certificate notes ‘several falls when running and walking’.

This did not fit with family tradition and was intriguing.

And then came the lightning flash. 

The death certificate mentioned an inquest, and I managed to find the coroner's hand-written notebook which recorded the inquest in full. It is fascinating reading, not least because you can hear the authentic voice of my great great grandmother in the (almost ?) verbatim record of her evidence.

My record contains all the underlinings, spellings and punctuation of the original and I have not edited it in any way:

West Yorkshire Wakefield Charities Coroners Notebooks 

8th Feb 1869

Death of Robert Parkinson

Thos Taylor

Honour Coroner

At the house of Jonathan Priestly the Swain Green Tavern Pudsey on Monday the 8^th day of February 1869 on view of the body of Robert Parkinson deceased

Eliza Parkinson of Stone Street, Swain Green, Pudsey Widow sw (?) says Deceased was my husband. We were married 9 years ago. - He was 32 years old and a Woolsorter. – He frequently had dizzy girds up to about 12 months since. He never had to be away from work on account of them. He generally got too much to drink on Saturday nights. He left home about ½ past 7 o’clock last Saturday morning to go to his work. He did not return home until about 7 o’clock in the evening. He was not quite sober then. He sat still for about an hour & a half & then went out alone. He did not say where he was going. I did not see him again until about a quarter past 12 o’clock last Sunday morning when he was brought home by John Lumby Oakes & Thos Sharp who were quite sober. Deceased walked into the house without assistance but when he reached the hearth he fell. He remained on his knees a short time talking to the two men. He went to the door with them & shook hands with them & they left. Deceased then said he would go to Henry Plurat’s & get a pinch of snuff. He went across the road & tried Henry’s door which was fast. Deceased then came back and tried the door of the house next ours. As the door was also fast he came in. He then told me to see how quickly he could run. He then set off from the hearth & ran round & when he got back to the hearth he fell sideways & his head struck the ribs of the fire grate. I helped him up and he sat in a chair for about a minute. He got up and ran across the street to Henry’s & there fell on the causeway. I then went and called up his father who lives in our street. When his father came he took deceased (who said his head was hurt) by the arm into our house & put him in a chair. Deceased was boisterous and noisy. He got up again & fell gently. I lifted him up but he fell again. I then let him lie. I put 2 Cushions under his head. I had previously unfastened his neckerchief. He laid on his right side & seemed to go to sleep directly. He snored heavily for about 2 hours and then began to vomit food and liquid & dark coloured blood. He frequently had vomited before when tipsy but I never saw any blood until yesterday morning. He seemed to die immediately. About a cupful came altogether out of his mouth. His father left when deceased went to sleep. Deceased was never so boisterous before as he was yesterday morning.

(Signature) Eliza Parkinson

Seth Pickering of Swain Green WR Policeman sw says:  I have known deceased for the last 7 or 8 months. Soon after 12 o’clock yesterday morning I saw deceased walking on the Causeway about 100 yards from his own house toward which he was going. He said “Goodnight”. He was tipsy. He had nobody with him then. There were several other persons in the street.

(Signature) Seth Pickering

Verdict Died from excessive drinking and falling.

Paid Seth Pickering PC 18/- Personal expenses

It's clear that the family story is embroidery without much basis in fact. Robert's long-suffering wife could not really give a better picture, not only of his death, but also of his life. You can almost see Stone Street when you read about his early hours trip to Henry's to borrow a pinch of snuff.

The most surprising thing for me was that surviving family members were keen to hang on to the strong, but erroneous, family tradition rather than even to consider the contradictory facts. Though the facts challenge the tradition at all points, they found the myth far more alluring and have clung to it tenaciously.

The lightning made me think about how easy it is to create and sustain comforting myths, and to wonder how much 'official' history is similarly built on sand.