Morning, Harry,
My red hair and fair skin , I think came from my father's side, as I was told by one of my aunties that grandma's mother had the loveliest auburn curly hair. She was born in Somerset. Mum's was more brown than red, but I know very little about her family I do have 3 cousins on the Hall side still alive, but none of them have been bitten by the ancestry bug.When I cam to England in 2007, I met second cousins I did not know existed in Northumberland. My research has been a long journey but I am slowly getting a bit more every now and then. My gr Grandfather, William Hall who married Margaret Phillis Elizabeth Parker it is through her that my Welsh connection comes from, was from what I can gather a rogue, he was a policeman before and a short time after they married, then he became an Innkeeper, then a tram car driver in Newcastle on Tyne. In 1881 I found him in Prison, then in 1891 and 1901 and again 1911, he was in a Lunatic Asylum. I lost track of him after 1915, as he was transferred to another Asylum in Sunderland. My grandfather, their son, Robert Nicholas Hall abandoned his wife pregnant with the 4th child in the Workhouse in Hexham,. In 1909she disappeared leaving the 4 children behind. Story had been she and the Master of the Workhouse had left, but he was still there in 1911, however it turns out he was the father of the 3 girls born one, I in 1910 another a couple of years later, and then a third. the first 2 were registered as Hall, but the last one was Newton, the name of the Master. His wife had died by then so she could do that. They knew nothing of the first family and it came as a very big shock to both them and myself when I found reference and a photo of Margaret Ann Hall nee Bird on Ancestry, it was like looking at my mother. I wrote to the person who had put it on, at first he was sceptical as were the children of the other 2 girls but when I started giving details they had to accept the facts. My mother always said her parents had died when she was a little girl and she was raised by a lady in Corbridge. My mother never spoke of her childhood and when I asked my 2 cousins [the other cousin didn't want to meet me], they both said their fathers never spoke of their childhood either. Is there a way we can correspond vial email at all? Bev.