Holding in my hot little hand

I have pictures of our newly connected cousins. There will be more but just this one will have to do for now

Let me introduce you to Kesha and her husband David with their oldest daughter T, daughter L. and youngest son D2. There is an eldest son D1 too. I am reluctant to name children on this open access intarwebby thingy.

Anyhow, Isn't this a fabulous picture and aren't we lucky to have such good looking relatives? I am so excited and can't wait to get an edition of the Gazette out to everyone because ...... wait for it ..... there ought to be a drum roll here

I have a copy of Bessie Hope's autobiography - yup, in my hot little hands as we speak. Well lying next to the keyboard really but you get the gist of it yeah?

I am delighted to tell you that she inherited the lying gene and I can't wait to share it with you all. There are ten handwritten pages and I intend transcribing them and serialising it in the gazette. I also have copies of the pictures from the scrap book - and now, perhaps we can get to the bottom of the picture of what looks like a football team. More of that in the gazette.

For now let's just sit and be thankful for this here intarwebby for connecting us to Kesha and her lovely family and bringing our strange and disfunctional family together.

Another newly connected Cousin

First a picture of being eight years old and living by the sea. Isn't that just wonderful? Seeing my Grandson Matthew thoroughly enjoying himself dashing in and out of the water, just amazing.

 Then we move on to Wednesday morning when we stopped in Morrisons in Rhyl for coffee and to say cheerio to Patricia and Ela. We spent Tuesday afternoon and evening with them and we simply never stopped talking. I am sure that Patricia was wondering why I kept on staring at her. It is because she looks so like Cousin Pam in Australia.

We came home from North Wales and I sat down on Saturday to go through the emails stacked up in my inbox. To my absolute delight there was a message from someone called Kesha Pugh. She says she is a 4xgreat granddaughter of Bessie Nathan. She has seen the scrapbook that Bessie Hope was given that belonged to Bessie Nathan and says she has lots of information about family stuff.

A pause while I connected the dots and she has to be descended from Alice and her daughter Pat. I don't think Alice had any other children but I am open to correction. If the number of greats is correct then Kesha has two more generations between her and Pat so that puts her on the same generation level as........................... my head hurts now ................. my great grand children Anwyn, Bleddyn and Alma. I hope for pictures.

Just before we went away I connected with Wendy Herlinge Krause who is descended from Harry Edward Lewis Holder. She was away from home when we connected and she will be bringing me up to speed with her family story and I hope for pictures.

Don't you all just love this family? Just when you think the tree is nearly sorted a new shoot appears and we haven't gone back that many generations yet. I must make a concerted effort to find stuff about the siblings of Bessie Nathan AND find out more about the Irish family connection and Charles John Guilfoyle.................... That should be really exciting LOL

Getting those stories collected

Ann, Cousin Sandy and Emily

We have all heard the "family stories". You know the ones about "OH Gran was an actress" or "we have a Spanish Jewess in our family" or even "Well Grandma Bessie was married about five times I think". The time has come for those little snippets of our history to be gathered together. I think I will be finding a way to get the PDF files of back issues of the Gibbon Gazette uploaded somewhere.
Do you remember that Cousin Colin gave us a website and we did diddley squat with it? UHhuh, well we could have had a place where we could dum put all such things and also upload pictures. Instead we all waited for someone else to do it. Seems like it is going to be me but some of you younger ones had better consider stepping up because I am 70 - nearly 71 and half of my first cousins are older!!!

In the mean time I will just say that Cousin Roxanne has connected us to a new member of our family. Descended from Bessie Hope Seymour and Harry Holder. There will be more details in the next Gazette. I'll just say that her name is Wendy and she lives in the Pacific North West.

What I need you all to do is to get out the old photographs and see if you can remember any stories that your parents told you about them. Then you contact me - email, messenger, facebook or even that old fashioned thing called the telephone. My email and my phone number are both on the back of the latest gazette.

So go on! What are you waiting for? you tell me and I'll write it.

Harriet Guilfoyle

Is this Harriet?

OK family it has taken me a while but I had it in my mind that this was a picture of a young Bessie Nathan - it very well could be - but during the course of a sleepless night I was going through the information we have gained recently and I thought................ well, let's try to explain

Bessie Hope

Bessie Nathan passport photo

Bessie had a scrapbook in which she kept her reviews and cuttings and some pictures. A couple of portraits of Charles GS in costume, A couple of pictures of her youngest daughter Bessie Hope when she was already living in the USA. A picture of a sailor that has turned out to be her eldest son Daniel

The eyes are Bessie's but the shape of the face isn't quite right and the mouth is slightly different.

"She must have been very young", I thought, "unless it is Harriet" fell into my mind. I didn't get up and come down stairs to look at the picture as it was 3am and Mr M was asleep. I would appreciate any feedback on this. I have no idea how we will ever prove it unless Pat, daughter of Alice responds to my letter and shares the scrapbook again. It is so frustrating to be so far away. I would be on her doorstep there in San Diego, demanding to see the bloomin' thing if it wasn't for the long plane journey to get there.

One day

Chasing the Children of Daniel Guilfoyle Seymour

note the place of birth and the nearly correct date

Today I received two of the three certificates I ordered last week. The John Seymour that was born in 1911 is, as far as I can tell, not ours. The mother's name is not one that we know but we cannot be sure that old Danny-Boy wasn't in Yorkshire  at the appropriate time and calling himself Charles.

The second certificate is for Herrman Edward born 1st May 1910 at 106 Eascott Hill, Swindon Father Daniel Seymour, Mother Luisa Emily Seymour formerly Braun. Father's occupation is Retail Dealer.
Interestingly the registration was made by Luisa and we know that Karl Benjamin was also registered by Luisa so I think it unlikely that she didn't register "Arthur". I think we just haven't found the real names she gave him.

I continue the chase!!

Cousin Colin

Colin Carlson, aka The Lord Admiral Bluefunnel Died today. Thursday 6th October 2016.

Charles GS and his reviews in South Africa

The Natal Witness 8 June 1877.

Mr Guilfoyle Seymour as Hamlet, had already given us a taste of his mettle quite sufficient to whet our appetite and increase our anxiety to see his impersonation of Othello; and, notwithstanding the fact that there are very few, even of our greatest actors, who succeed in both characters, we were most pleased with his Othello.
At first he is rather cold but from the moment when Iago begins to whisper doubts of Desdemona into his ears, until the closing of the play, his rendering of the different phases of the evil effects of the 'green ey'd monster' with occasional moments of doubt and reproach for so doing is very grand and completely carried his audience with him.