Hello Nicholls49.
You have nicely confirmed that Ena is short for Georgina and that Ada Smith - her mother - became Ada Hemson. That was all conjecture until you confirmed it, though confidence was high that it was the right answer. Thanks.
As everyone else has pointed out, Rootschat is an amazing place to share and support research. I have had incredible assistance over the years from some very smart and very skilled people.
You surmised correctly that I am related to you through the Ramsgate Smith clan. Maud Smith, whom you mentioned, did migrate to NZ and I am her grandson.
I have sent you my email link on Personal Message. On the bar at the top of the HOME screen look for 'personal messages' or similar. The experts will guide you if necessary.
For those that are curious, my grandmother (Maud) married a former soldier in 1911 or thereabouts. A year or so later he was sent out to NZ on a work contract as he was a specialist in window glazing or something similar. He expected to be in the country only a few years, but war broke out and made it impossible for him to get back. Since he had once been a rifleman for the army, he was asked to train the Kiwi volunteer soldiers in the use of firearms. On a night exercise in damp conditions he contracted a severe flu and died as a result, leaving Maud and her four very young children to fend for themselves. She wanted to return to England but travel was impossible during the war years. How she survived financially I don't know, but life was very hard for her during those years. Even after the war she had no money for a return journey. Maud met and married a Kiwi fellow in the early 1920s and accepted that she would be staying in NZ for the rest of her days. They had two children to join the four step-siblings. My mother was the younger of these two. My mother always planned to take her mother back to England to visit the brothers and sisters that she had exchanged letters with regularly, but then events changed all of that. My mother met my dad in 1951 and had to choose between taking her mum home to England and investing in her own children. Sadly, Maud's return to England was delayed to the point where she was too old ever to make the journey. In 1964, at a very advanced age, she developed an illness that I have no name for and which caused her to be warded in hospital for the last of her days. I knew her only as the grandmother that we would visit occasionally in the hospital and who would sing songs gently with my father in the absence of things to talk about. She died in 1976.
My mother took up writing to her cousins in England many years later and my sister finally pushed her into making a visit about ten years ago. She was well received by the children of the Smith family and exchanged photos and letters. Since then a few people have died and the trade of letters has ceased. However I have been in contact myself through the internet with a small number of people my age who are the grandchildren of the Smiths, so we may have a lot to talk about when Nicholls49 contacts me via email.
Thanks again, Rootschat people.
-DC
