Longtime no see!
We have had a difficult few years and the genealogy has taken a very back seat but I think we're moving out of the mire now. (We've spent this last year 'running'..... Bali, NSW, Paris, London........ I think just to affirm we're not beaten. Anyway, new house, new life and calm prevails.)
And then, out of the ether emerges a new contact and with him, this photograph.
The groom is Richard Hutton Hepplewhite (b1878) ; yes, another one! The woman on his left is Jane Ann (Hepplewhite) Cox, my Grandma. These I am 100% sure about.
The really interesting one is the elderly man in the bowler hat. This can only be the groom's father: Robert Hepplewhite (b1840), the youngest child of Mary (Hutton) Hepplewhite (b1791) and William Hepplewhite (1788) of Co Durham. I think his wife [Mary (Hay) Hepplewhite b1842] is in the back row in the old-fashioned bonnet but this is conjecture on my part. The other young men are probably the groom's other brothers: William and Richard. The sisters, Jessie and Georgina, are probably there but I don't know where.
The resemblance of some of my uncles to Robert is simply amazing and I wonder if you'll find the same.
The bride's family (top hats, butcher), were a notch above the Hepps (bowler hats) and it's starting to look as if this marriage was arranged by Earl Fitzwilliam after the bride (Alice Hesketh) gave birth to Earl Fitzwilliam's son. How about that for a curved ball? Couldn't see that coming! My contact, name of Hepplewhie (but not a real one) led me to a book: Black Diamonds : The Rise and Fall of a Great English Dynasty by Catherine Baily. I found it rivetting but rather nauseating at times. It explained much in my background.
Pat
