Alice is the other half of my profile name. At the weekend we went to visit her elderly mother. Before taking her for a walk, Alice looked around her flat to find some gloves for her mother. In a drawer Alice found a small wad of very old looking documents, a brown paper package, tied up with string, so to speak. We immediately recognised them as of of great interest as I am researching her family history as well as my own.
Her great great grandfather was a Scottish sea captain, born in 1820, running away to sea in 1835 aged 15. For the next 50 years he sailed the high seas, ending up as a ship's captain for the second half of his career. Existing documents have told us that he visited North and South America, South Africa, Thailand, China, Australia and many of the Polynesian Islands. Among the documents that we found at the weekend was the original 1835 indenture for his apprenticeship. That alone will take hours to read as it was a very large sheet. We also found a document relating to his purchase of shares in one of the ships which he captained.
The Captain and his wife had both had previous marriages before they were married to each other. She had a daughter born just before she lost her first husband in a sea accident. Amongst the documents, we also found the marriage documents for the daughter's two marriages. Ironically HER first husband also died in a shipping accident, probably suicide, which was documented in the Press at the time. We also found records of his attendance at church. Also in the documents were the original copy of the Captain's Mariners register ticket and Master's certificate. We also found what was either an early will, or a draught version of it, which in itself has raised more questions than answers. I will be probably returning here with a request for help in respect of that, in days and weeks to come. Finally there was a document relating to an 1870 pension.
We were both so excited to find this trove, but I also wanted to tell of the discovery to others reading here, as you never know what you will find in an ancestor's desk drawer, even while they are still alive. It has answered some questions which we thought would go unsolved, but it has also given rise to further mysteries.
Martin
