52 Ancestors - Week 12 - Misfortune - Pte. James William Massey
My mother-in-law, Elsie, passed away quite suddenly on 13 August 2000. She was 86 years old. When the funeral director came to complete her death certificate, I scoured the house for Elsie's birth and marriage certificates which she used for a new passport before emigrating to New Zealand. They were nowhere to be found, which was no surprise; Elsie was very good at throwing out things. Her date and place of birth and the details of her husband and her mother were easy. I knew nothing of her father at all, other than the vague, "Oh, he was killed in the Great War." Phone calls to her half-sisters in England were just as unproductive, though they did confirm the story of her father's death. Five years earlier, I had attempted to find out the name of Elsie's father while deciding upon the name for our son. We wanted him to have family names. Elsie had been adamant that her father had been killed in the First World War, but no, she couldn't remember his name. On...