2025 Week 47: The Name's the Same #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

A recurring name in my paternal line is that of John McAra. That was my dad's name. It was also the name of his father, his grandfather, his great grandfather - and then there's a break - then his 2 x great grandfather - a break - and his 4 x great grandfather! The reason for the two 'breaks' is down to the Scottish naming tradition of naming the firstborn son after the father's father. The two breaks in the line are where my direct ancestor was not the firstborn son and therefore given a name other than John. (If he had been second born, he would have been given that of the mother's father.) But .... my dad was the youngest child born in a family of 12 children! When I first started my family research, I found out that he was actually the second 'John'. The first John had indeed been the first son, born some 26 years before my dad! Sadly he had passed away at the age of 8 from what appears to have been a cerebral haemorrhage. My grandparents decided to call another son, my dad, John. This was a practice that was not uncommon.

So, so far, in my direct line, there are 6 John McAras. I had a cousin named John McAra and his son is also called John McAra. However, in my tree as a whole - so far - there are 10 of them and there are a whole lot more out there!

Sadly though, my grandfather's line of John McAras are coming to an end. We are 'daughtering out' as my cousin John's son is the last.

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2024 Week 43: Lost contact #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

When we research our ancestors and their families, it is all to easy to become a collector of names, dates and places. After all, we want to 'know' who they were and where they lived and when, in order to get a glimpse into what their life was like. We look for photographs of our most recent ancestors to see what they looked like. We trawl censuses, Poor Law Applications, Wills and Testaments to get some detail about their rank in society, their jobs, their financial circumstances. We discover their families, the children they had, the children they lost. We may read their obituaries and gravestones and scan their death certificates for cause of death. Through research, we can slowly start to build up a picture of them, a notion that we know 'who they were'. But something will usually elude us - we will never truly know their feelings/emotions, even if we know the key moments in their lives. Take my grandmother, Christina, who lost her first four children and then anot...

2024 Week 19: Preserve #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

A few years ago, I came into the possession of a family bible. It was the family bible of my paternal grandparents, John McAra and Christina Walker. Until her death in 2018, the bible had been in the hands of my Aunt Inez, widow of my Uncle Will McAra. When I started enquiring as to its whereabouts, I found that it was her grandson, John, who now had it. John himself had no real interest in it at all, so he was quite happy to hand it over to me. However, it was, to say the least, in a bit of a state. The front cover was completely detached and there were many loose pages as the spine of the book was also damaged and detached. I had no choice but to take it to a book repairer in Glasgow, where it was repaired as best it could be. The bible itself had been originally published in Glasgow in the late 19th century. In Victorian times it was common for Christian families to have such a large bible in which they could record events such as births, marriages and deaths. The one I have al...

2025 Week 26 : Favourite name #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

As well as researching my own family, one of the other trees I have spent a lot of time on is that of my daughter-in-law, Lucy. Whereas my heritage is Scots and Irish, Lucy's is English and therefore some of the names I came across were quite different to those found in my own tree. One of my first favourites was a Francis Badger who appeared in the 1851 census for England! He wasn't actually a relative, but an apprentice to Lucy's 3 x great grandfather and who also lodged with the family. I did wonder how that surname came about - did the original Badger have a funnily shaped face? or perhaps a white streak through his hair?? Or was he just an annoying person?? I'll never know, but it was fun to find him! Francis Badger's entry at the bottom in the 1851 census for England. Source: Ancestry.co.uk However, my all time favourite name - and character - from Lucy's tree is a man named Golden Bridge ! He is Lucy's 5x great grandfather and he was born in Essex...

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