Today there was a birthday

The birthday girl listening hard

Today, Sunday, we celebrated a birthday. Cousin Colin's wife had an at home birthday this year because cousin Colin had keyhole surgery on his knee yesterday. He has arthritis which has damaged the joint so the nice kind surgeon rummaged around and smoothed off  some sharp bits, repaired the cartilage, wrapped it all in a dressing and sent him home.

Two Colins for the price of one

cousin Len

Cousin Len's wife Brenda

Abirthday gift

Lots of people made their way to the top of their hill and spent a while laughing and talking and eating birthday cake. I took a few pictures.

We ate chocolate - this was an important taste test of the new Kit Kat bars. We all agreed that the Orange chunky bar tasted of orange, the double choc was chocolatey but the caramel was not really flavourful. We could not test the peanut butter flavour because it could not be found in Morrisons that morning.

Cousin Len regaled us with stories about my father and the fox. This was a tale from before I was born so I found it very interesting.

We talked about our ancestry and how the family looks have been passed down. How Len's daughter Debra is so like her Grandmother and how my grandson, Martyn, is the image of Cousin Leroy.

All these relationships will be made clear when we get the website up and secure.

All in all it was a lovely afternoon

More about Josephine

I now know that Josephine married Edward Joseph in the March quarter of 1909 in Fulham, London. Edward's death was registered in the June quarter 1921 Steying, Brighton and according to the probate calendar he was at a sanitorium. Could this be TB? Do I need to get the death certificate or can we live without knowing? Hmmm, I'll think about it.
Were there any children of the marriage? Do our Australian cousins have any letters from England at that time telling them about family events. Perhaps something on the back of a photograph will make sense with this new information.... we'll see.
In the mean time I would love any photographs of older relatives to share on this blog.

another piece of the jigsaw

Today I received the marriage certificate of Josephine Joseph and William George DAER. Josephine is the person who registered the death of Bessie NATHAN. She said that she was a niece of Bessie so I searched for a marriage of a Josephine to someone called DAER and sent for the certificate.
Josephine is a widow aged 43 and her father's name is James JACOBS.
Bessie's sister Rachel NATHAN married James JACOBS in 1877 so that fits.
The witnesses at the marriage of Josephine and William are George and Amelia Baselgia.
Amelia is the youngest sister of Bessie and Rachel.
See how it is all meshing together? Well it gets a little better too because Josephine gives her address as 6 Iliffe St, Walworth and somewhere I have a note telling me that a Hannah NATHAN was living at Iliffe St around the time that Frederic GIBBON and Margaret Annie GUILFOYLE were married - 1905 -
Now what I have to do is find out if Josephine had any children when married the first time and if she had any brothers or sisters.