who only by moving can balance

Gosh, I don't think I have anything that interesting about my own tree. I have one great grandfather who was a bigamist (my maternal grandmother's father). I don't think my great grandmother or grandmother or her siblings knew. There was a child born to the original marriage, very sadly in an 'asylum' as they were called in the 1870s. From my research she went on to marry and have children. I wonder why my great grandfather left the wife and child but I am not making any judgement on him. He was a merchant seaman so would have been at sea for most of the time. The family were in Wales (where he met her whilst in port) but his ship operated out of a Cornish harbour. Who knows how often he made it back or whether he went back to find her gone or maybe as a very young man he couldn't cope with having a wife who probably was a depressive (she was in and out of the asylum according to the census records). He married my great grandmother six years later in London and settled there and was forever trying to cover his tracks with regards his background. I had devil of a job tracking down his census records. He and the 'wife' from the second relationship died within 6 weeks of each other and have a pretty gravestone with engraved daffodils. The double grave cost £8 10s 6d according to the entry in the huge leather ledger at the City of London cemetery and just a couple of £s for the funeral. My mum's funeral (she died a few weeks ago) cost more than £3,000. Inflation, eh?

My x3, x4 and x5 great grandfathers (my maternal grandfather's line) were watermen on the river Thames during the 1700s and 1800s and lived close to river in appalling conditions. Charles Dickens used to tour the district to research his books. Oliver Twist was thought to include details of the slums he saw. They each served a 7 year apprenticeship to become watermen. The painter J.M.W. Turner executed his famous painting of 'The Fighting "Temeraire" Tugged to her Last Berth to be Broken Up' in 1839 when x3 great grandfather would have been living by the river and working every day on it. I like to think that he and the family saw the ship as she went past or maybe even Turner painting it.

I went to London to 'walk in their footsteps', visited where they had married, had the children baptised, been buried and visited the street they lived the longest, now not a slum but a desirable place to live on the Thames path with a view of Tower bridge. x3 great grandparents had at least 13 children, six survived until adulthood. Their parent's gravestones were missing from the churchyard as it had been landscaped but when I was at the London Metropolitan Archives I found a notebook into which someone had transcribed the graves in the churchyard a 100 years ago. I found Maria's (my x3 great grandmother). The gravestone had been inscribed with...

"In Memory of Maria, wife of Mr Samuel Evans of this parish who died 15th December 1840 aged 45 and also 7 of their infant children"
Isn't that sad?

My icon is a photo of my x3 great grandfather Samuel Evans, a waterman who died in 1845. The younger orphaned children were taken in by their married elder brother and sister. They were lucky, so many children ended up in the workhouse.

I've rabbited on, sorry. I'm a bit addicted to my ancestry ;) I have no idea if this is what you were after :)