FRIDAY FOTO 36 - MADELINE (MADGE) MILNE (b.1908 d.1992)

 Madeline (Madge) Milne

(b.1908 d.1992)

Madeline who we knew as 'Auntie Madge' was married to my Dad Charlie's uncle, William (Bill) Laite.

I remember growing up and looking forward to seeing them when I was a kid, 

having fond memories of them both.

I particularly recall Madge's deep gravelly voice, probably coming from her liking the odd cigarette or three, throughout her life. She also had a liking for huge coats, mostly made from fur, as we can see from the photo above. 

FRIDAY FOTO 20 - A NEW WORLD (Leaving Norway)

My post this week is not a single family history photograph, but rather a video made up of a selection of photos which we have in our family archive.

(click above for video)

I have already written a couple of posts here on the website about my great-grandparents, Peder Ingebretsen and Elizabeth Douglas, featuring a couple of photos we have of them in our possession.

This video is an attempt to tell Peder's story in greater detail; pulling together photographic resources from our collection and also using other material freely available off the Internet.

For my 50th birthday I was taken by family members on a five-day Norwegian cruise holiday, making my first visit to the beautiful homeland of my ancestor. During this visit I saw first-hand the type of community he would have grown up in; seeing for myself the mountains and fjords, together with the types of towns, villages and farms with which he would have been familiar. I have used some of the photographic and video footage I shot during that visit to illustrate this video.

The video attempts to recount a short version of Peder's story; presenting images of what his life would have been like growing up within his Norwegian homeland, and his subsequent journey to England. 

Working as a mariner on ships which regularly sailed between Great Britain, Europe and the America's during the late 1880's, my great-grandfather found himself in Glasgow, Scotland. It was here that he first met my great-grandmother, Elizabeth Douglas, and her family who resided within the city.

The family eventually moved to Liverpool in England, and the couple were married in the city in 1890 and ended their lives here-- but not before founding the family groups from which myself and some of my cousins are descended.

The soundtrack is the beautiful ballad 'Into The West', as featured in the movie 'Lord of the Rings: Return of the King'. The music was written by Howard Shore with lyrics by Annie Lennox and Fran Walsh. I've always loved this song above all the others which appeared in the film series, and at the time I was putting this video together, I felt that the majority of the lyrics seemed to fit the story I was trying to tell.    

     

WALTER LAIT... an unknown Great Grand-Uncle....

Walter Lait... my great grand-uncle

This is a photo of Walter Lait, seventh child of Charles Graham Laite and Eleanor Kaye - my great-grandparents. Walter is a younger brother of Margaret Eleanor Graham Lait, my grandmother. 

He was born in February 1911 when the family lived in Moorgate Street in Wavertree with his parents and five older siblings. Walter was baptised in St Catherines Church, which was just a little way up Tunnel Road. This has since been demolished and replaced by new housing. 

He appeared in the 1921 census when the family were residing in 23 Moorgate Street, and was ten years old... his occupation given to be a scholar. By this time his parents family had grown with two further children, so Walter was living with seven siblings - two younger than himself. 

In 1938, now living at 48 Uxbridge Street, he married Susan Margaret Wardrope... a twenty-two year-old laundry presser of Swallowhurst Crescent, West Derby. Walter was twenty-seven years old and was working as a window cleaner. When the 1939 register was taken however, prior to WW2, Walter could not be found. This could be because he had signed up to go off to war. His wife however was living back at her parents address in West Derby. She was recorded as being married and employed as 'unpaid domestic duties'... another way of saying she worked as a housewife.

In the end, the couple are reported to have had at least four children - two girls (their names unknown), a girl Jean and a son called Frank. This information had been entered into a tree on Ancestry and I have yet to substantiate the data, so this has been flagged for further investigation in my records.

Walter's entry in the Lait family bible (bottom of page) - the date of his death was entered by an unknown family member in blue ink.

Walter died on 22 June 1977. No record has yet been found to substantiate this, but the date has been recorded into the Lait family bible against his name. One day I'll pick up the research on his family to try and fill in some of the gaps.

(c)2024 Graham Seaman

FAMILY FOTO 36 - THE WELSH GIRLS (undated photo)

The Welsh Girls

This photo was one which came into my possession from my Aunt's collection, and found when we had to clear her bungalow for her to go into a nursing home in 2010. 

I gave the house clearance team (i.e. the other family members), a clear instruction - "....anything that looks remotely like 'family history' keep to one side, and then we'll put it into a box with 'DO NOT THROW AWAY!' written across its sides in big red letters. This unknown photo was only one of many  lovely items I came across in that box which I had never seen before.

I'm assuming the photo would have been taken by my grandad, William John Welsh, on his Kodak 'box brownie' camera, which I remember being brought out on a few occasions. The location is not at all clear, but I'm assuming that it will be one of the parks in Toxteth - Princes Park, which was a short walk from where the family lived in Hughson Street - or perhaps Sefton Park, which was a little further away. I don't think it is anywhere near their home, for I don't recall ever seeing a green space such as this anywhere near Hughson Street, which was surrounded by terraced houses and large tenement and court property. No... it is clear to me that the photo was probably recording a Sunday day out for the family... one that many families would have taken at that time.

My Mum Joan is the child standing in the front of the group. Aged about three years old, she is dressed in her 'Sunday best' dress, with a hairband holding back her tousled auburn hair. As she was born in 1933, this would place the date around 1936/37. Betty, her elder sister, is standing behind her... and potentially aged between 11 and 12 years old.

My grandmother Elizabeth Welsh (or Lizzie as everyone tended to call her) is also dressed in her Sunday best dress, just like her girls. 

Lizzie was employed 'in service'... working as a maid in one of the larger houses in Toxteth or Aigburth for an affluent family. Her duties might include cleaning or cooking... the latter of which she was really good at as I recall, but I have little hope of finding out which. There is a photograph of her in her younger years, with a team of other girls in uniforms, which implies that her services would be hired from an agency. One of my regular genealogical searches is to see if I can find any such local agencies whose books might have been transcribed and placed online somewhere.... I certainly haven't found it yet, but I'll just keep on searching - just in case. 

    

(c) 2024. G.Seaman

OCCUPATIONS IN GENEALOGY - THE TGWU BADGE

                                                         OCCUPATION - THE TGWU BADGE

In amongst the personal items, removed from my late Aunts bungalow when she moved into a care home in 2010, I found this small non-descript union badge for the TGWU... the Transport and General Workers Union.

She herself had no recollection of where it had come from. It wasn't hers she was sure, (although by this time her memory was failing due to suffering with dementia). I could only think that it belonged to either my grandfather, who worked for a time on the Liverpool docks, or my uncle Johnny Erlis, who was an engine driver on the docks. 

The badge was photographed and put away in a cupboard, along with the rest of my 'family heirloom' items... but thinking now that I should begin to resurrect the many facts (and tales) connected to the Seaman Family History in Liverpool, I've decided to make an effort and see if I can find out exactly who the badge actually belonged to. 

I might, of course, fail.... but at least I will have tried. I can't quite believe it that I haven't started looking into this earlier, and its now spent around fourteen years locked in a cupboard!

I'll now add it to my 'things to do list' and start my research online... then possibly I'll have to make a phone call or two ( and possibly a visit) to the union HQ itself, wherever that now is.

Wish me luck, for this could take some time... but hopefully not fourteen years!  

 

FELICE & MARY - THE D'ANNUNZIO FAMILY IN WHALE STREET, LIVERPOOL (1906)

The photograph above features the family of Felice Andrea D’ANNUNZIO, the great-great uncle of my wife, Sandra. Also in the photograph are his wife Mary Agnes DOUGLAS, and two of their children. The couple look to be approximately in their early thirties. 

There is no firm identification on the photograph for the names of the children nor an indication of when it was actually taken, but looking at the data I already possess on the family, I believe the older child would be their first surviving son, Henry Edward D’ANNUNZIO (b.10 June 1902). He is only young in the photograph, but Henry was reported to have lived to a ripe old age of 93, eventually passing in 1995, after having a family of his own. 

A previous son of the couple, Anthony D’ANNUNZIO (b.31 Dec 1900), survived for only a few months, and unfortunately passed in 1901. 

However, I’m finding that I can not be so certain of the identity of the younger child, in whose honour the photograph would seem to have been taken. 

The couple had a third son, Francis D’ANNUNZIO, who had been born in 1904. It is not known if he survived very far through infancy, as I have not been able to locate a death record for this child. However, if the baby was indeed Francis, then that would suggest Henry’s age to be around two and a half years old. In my mind this does not seem to correct as Henry appears to be a little older in the photograph - perhaps three to four years old.

If the above theory is accepted, then it might indicate that the baby could actually be the couples’ fourth child, Maria Eleanora D’Annunzio (b. 7 May 1906). It is known for sure that Maria survived into adulthood, again having a family of her own after marriage, although at this time no evidence of her death has been found. 

Furthermore, with the couples’ previous three children having been boys, the birth of a girl might also be imagined to be an excellent reason why the couple might employ a professional photographer to take the familys’ portrait. Which proud parent would not want a memento of such an occasion? 

With these facts in mind, for the time being in any case, I will identify the baby to be Maria in my records, until such time as I receive firm proof that I am mistaken. 

This highlights just how difficult it is to identify a persons ancestors from unmarked photographs. It is something we have all come across and each of us knows how virtually impossible and downright frustrating it can be at times, but it can also be so worthwhile if you can work out the details successfully by looking for the smallest clues.

Finally, one last snippet of information about this family.

While researching the various censuses, I decided a while back to try and find photographs of the properties or even streets, where our ancestors lived. As well as keeping the photographs connected to my local family dataset, I also upload them to Google Earth and fix place-markers into the locations where the properties once stood. 

In searching for the D’Annunzio family’s address on the 1921 census, which I found to be 7 Whale Street, Liverpool, I located the above image on one of the Liverpool Facebook local history groups which post old photos of the city.

Obviously, there are no property numbers to be seen in the photograph (above), but Whale Street itself is physically tiny. It can therefore be safely assumed that the family resided in one of the properties on the left of the photo, as the street possessed more odd numbers than even ones.

But a feature which caught my eye almost immediately was the small wall which stood at the very end of the street (see the enlargement above). 

I was already aware that the D’Annunzio family had been photographed out in the open in front of a similar brick wall, possibly due to a lack of suitable light being available within their own home. Looking at the family photo further one can just make out what appears to be the edge of the brickwork as it would frame a door or gateway. In addition, there is also what would appear to be a small step behind the child on the left, at the base of the wall.

It appeared to me that there was little doubt that, as in the enlargement of the Whale Street photograph above, one could clearly see the gateway which led to the rear of an adjacent property, and also the pavement kerbside (the small step in the photograph) laying in front of it. These small details almost certainly confirmed where the family portrait had been taken. 

Call me daft if you like, (my other half certainly did at the time!), but I was genuinely overjoyed to find this information just by chance - two totally separate photographs which could be linked together to show the actual location where the original family photograph had been taken.

For this might indeed only be a small unimportant detail in the overall history of the Liverpool D’Annunzio family, but I believe it is one which brings them a little closer to us, and gives us a clear indication as to how closely family history and social history can be related to each other.  

Sources: Ancestry, Find My Past, D’Annunzio ‘Generations’, Seaman Family History

THE UNKNOWN BRIDESMAID - ST.PAUL'S CHURCH, PRINCES PARK, LIVERPOOL - 9th MARCH 1955

 

Pictured on her wedding day to my father, Charles SEAMAN, is my mother, Joan WELSH, together with her three bridesmaids.

On the right is her cousin, Marion ERLIS, and on her immediate left her chief bridesmaid, her sister, Elizabeth WELSH. 

However the identity of the lady on the absolute left is unknown. A replacement for my father's sister who was not able to attend, she was reported to be a friend of a cousin, and was said to not actually be a member of our family. Unfortunately, my mother cannot recall her name, and as far as I'm aware we don't have any other photographs of her apart from these, and certainly none with her name written on them. If anyone does happen to recognise her, I'd therefore appreciate if you could let me know, so I can let my Mum know once and for all!

The couple were married in St Paul's Church, Princes Park, Liverpool which had been situated on Belvedere Road. The church was demolished in 1970 and replaced by the new Belvedere School... now a successful preparatory school and Academy.

Further information about St Paul's Church can be found < here >....

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