Tales from the ancestors

Family history is an obsession, something I have been involved with for many years. I first became mildy interested through my parents. My father and mother had long been interested but it was when my father retired that Mum and dad had the time to properly begin family history research. That was back in the 1980’s. At the time I was just beginning my formal art education, and painting became my life’s focus, and I had also met my life partner Julia so I was somewhat distracted……. I would describe myself at that time as an interested on looker, always when visiting my parents Dad would inevitable bring out red wine or whiskey, the family tree would be laid out on the coffee table and the conversation would turn towards family history and what my parents had found out.

Well my mother passed away in 1991 and my father passed away in 2005 and both my brothers were not particularly interested family history…..so I was able to arrange to have all my fathers research notes, some family photographs and all the records he had accumulated sent to me, we were not a wealthy family at all…… and I as an artist proudly continue this tradition….but as inheritance go this was more precious to me than any amount of money. It was fascinating. I remember as a child drawers full of family photographs and slides, but much of this seems to have been lost. Still the research that my parents did was fascinating and going through all their notes…..well that was it the bug descended and I became quickly and thoroughly obsessed….. and yes there were and still are family mysteries to solve, though I have to say at the outset they are perhaps only relevant to my family. Still It is important to me to record as much of this as possible.

So this page is about my ancestor’s, it’s about lost photo’s, lost military medals family legends and stories once completely lost and forgotten..yet through patience and close friends….. teased back into existence. And that for me is the important thing that there are these stories completely lost and unknown that can be pieced together – there is something in this that I cannot quite articulate. So often when I look at my tree I think how sad it is that a persons life can be reduced to just a few dates…..birth….. marriage…..maybe birth of offspring….. death. So here are some stories from the ancestors……

The case of the missing medals…..

This is a photo of my paternal grandfather Thomas Herbert Hankey. I never met my grandfather. He was born 3rd October 1888 Bootle Liverpool Lancashire, and died 6 Jan 1959 Lancaster Lancashire England. just 4 years before I was born. My grandmother Ellen Cass – Thomas’ wife well she was fab and I did meet her several times and I will come back to her, and her toffee later.

I lifted the following from my good friend Carole’s written memorial on find a grave. Carole has been wonderful at tracking down the last resting place of all my grand parents and great grand parents and she has as a result tutored myself in how to go about this. So a huge thank you to Carole for this…..

…..From find a grave memorial….

Thomas Herbert Hankey was the youngest son of plumber and painter Herbert Hankey and his second wife Margaret Thexton Hankey nee Wearing. He was half-brother to Mary Jane, Emily, Arthur Benson, Louisa Ann and Bertha, and brother to Agnes. The family lived at Ludlow Street, Walton on the Hill.

Thomas was a registered nurse and worked as an asylum attendant when he married Eleanor Cass in April 1912 at St Peter’s Church, Lancaster. They had three children together: Agnes Evelyn, Thomas Herbert and Bernard Wulstan.

In November 1914 Thomas enlisted and served his country in the Great War as Bombardier 47056 in the Royal Garrison Artillery. He was awarded the British War, Victory and Star medals.

Follow this link to Find a grave memorial

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/233097377/thomas-herbert-hankey

…. this photo is not part of the memorial ….

…. This is a photo of my paternal grandmother Elleanor Cass,  and Thomas Herbert Hankey’s wife taken 1912 ….

…Back to the story….

Now as a youngster, and I can’t remember how old I was, but this must be going back over 40 years…..in any case my father always described his father as a very gentle man, He also told me of his enlisting in the army and serving in the great war. I remember I had been rummaging through my fathers desk and came across some very old birth certificates, and family photo’s which I still have,  he told me that for some reason his medals had gone missing, he had no idea where or when they had disappeared. but it stuck with me that they had and it cropped up in conversation from time to time. Since 2005 I had really only occasionally thought about them and I guess I had just come to accept that they were gone for good. There is an authentic streak in me and having replica’s made though an option I occasionally would entertain the meaning of having them would be….well, it is an odd one for a long time I thought there would be little or no meaning at all for me in having replica’s so I never bothered. That changed quite recently through a very close friend, Carole my most wonderful co conspirator in family history research, a sorceress beyond compare  in the dark and mysterious arts of family history research as you will come to understand……

So in 2021…… with Carole’s help I was able to bring two of the three medals back into the family through a very random and completely out of the blue set of circumstances which leaves me still feeling bemused and still unfortunately one medal short….. so this is what happened

Quite out of the blue… May 21st 2021 I received an e mail…..

Hi Chris,

Out of the blue I know but…your two of grandfather’s WW1 medals are up for sale on Ebay, item number 402871911100.

The sale ends at 13.57 tomorrow (1st June) and the seller is a medal dealer based in Sunderland

I have a bit of fun researching these things so just a heads up if you are interested.

…..so I was quite taken aback, (by the way out of privacy I have not included my contact’s name or contact numbers) Anyway later in the day I gathered my courage and gave the chap a call…..not knowing quite what to expect. I had thought what if it’s a scam…..but with my spam folder the way it is I have become quite adept at recognizing scams and this seemed genuine.

I decided to call my co conspirator Carole that evening to see what she thought. Carole has a good friend Paddy who specialises in military history so Carole quickly downloaded the images of the medals and sent them to her friend to see if he could give us an indication as to there authenticity. We were both really excited and really hoping these medals were the real thing. Unbelievably Paddy got back almost straight away and Carole let me know that he thought they were genuine as they had his name and service number on the edge of the medals. So that was it, we talked a while longer…we were both really excited. I had told Carole that the medals had been missing as far as I knew for 40 years at the least and I really wanted them back in the family….we decided to place a bid of £50 – as we were advised that that would be slightly more than there value.

So….. we could but wait…..that night I went to bed as usual straight to sleep and the next morning woke and I must admit it all went completely out of my mind as work was relentless and I had a short amount of time in the morning to do some odds n ends……. I have to admit that….I just completely forgot about the whole thing….and was in town food shopping when Carole called me with just 9 minutes to go before the end of the bid to let me know…… Carole had been desperately trying to warn me via e mail and through Facebook that we had been out bid…..

Bugger….

I was in town with no internet access and no way to get back in time, so Carole continued the bidding from her home and we stayed on the phone talking…full of excitment and anticipation, wondering if someone would out bid us at the last moment….. They didn’t…we got them back….after 40 years I could not believe it. The medals were sent to Carole who has them safe and sound and I finally got to see them in September.

Going back to the thought about authenticity well……Carole did another wonderful thing too. She ordered a replica of the missing medal so that we have the set. Seeing all three together was great and it did not matter at all…..seeing the set is fab and knowing what the missing medal looks like is a great help. I am still searching for the missing medal and hope one day to find it……

…. that they turned up on ebay of all places …

Here are all three together including the star which is the replica…..

This is but one story, the first of many, which will be documented on my blog in a separate catagory…..Tales of the Ancestors