Do you become emotional doing family history?

[ozlady]

I got very upset finding two g.g. aunts "hauling chains" in an ironworks. 10 and 11 years of age.

[Jang]

I can remember two occasions that brought me to tears.

The first was when I visited the War Memorial in Canberra and read the original account of the execution of six brave Australian soldiers who had tried to escape from a POW camp in Burma.

The second was when I discovered that my Merchant seaman great uncle, previously believed to have been lost at sea during WW2, had in fact jumped from Tower Bridge in London in the 1930s because he couldn't get work.

[gazania]

I found out only recently that the nursing sister named as a witness on my own birth certificate, died just near the end of WW2 in a POW camp in the Far East. I cherish my birth certificate more than ever as a memorial to her and all the others who served.

[Nanna52]

I became angry when I read my great grandmothers will.  She made her oldest son executor of her will leaving a bequest to her five children.  Trouble is she had six.  My grandmother was left nothing and at the time she was a widow with a young child and not the best of health.

I have two cousins who were POW's of the Japanese and died, one at Tol Plantation and the other on a slave ship going to Japan.  I felt sorrow for the first as he had a baby daughter.

Mostly though I suffer from frustration when I can't find answers to my questions.

[sallyyorks]

When I'm focusing on my Scottish (New Cumnock Ayrshire) coal mining ancestors and their families, yes, I do get quite emotional. Many of them died in mining accidents, some of them not much more than children.

I remember taking my elder children down big pit in south wales, my son was 6 or 7 at the time and they pointed out he would have been old enough to work down there, and had him opening doors etc as that is what they would be doing at that age - but made us all turn off the head lights we had - as at that age they would be considered too young to be trusted with a candle/lamp so would be there all shift in the dark, waiting to hear sounds of the cart to open the doors - fun for a few minutes with plenty around you - petifying for a 12 hour shift on your own

I have English coal miners in my family and Yes. It was the same in England.

I have read quite a few contemporary accounts of child labour, mostly from the Royal Commissions,  and they can be extremely distressing to read.
Not in my family as far as I know but, like so many of us, my family worked in these conditions during industrialisation
Children who literally dropped dead of exhaustion at machinery. In one case two brothers within weeks of each other (that account is by an extremely angry Nonconformist preacher 1832)
Children kicked to death in mills by their overlooker (account by a Nonconformist radical reformer 1840's)
Children found dead in mine accidents, especially one account of children who had died underground from noxious gas (mines rescue eyewitness account about 1920? told to BBC radio)
Accounts of the deaths of Chimney Sweeps (various)
Children whose bones were so crippled by repeatedly working long hours at industrial machinery from a young age, that they could only 'walk backwards' (Royal Commissions on child labour 1840's)
And many more...

The good old days ? 

[River Tyne Lass]

A few months ago I was doing a death notice look up for someone on RootsChat and I came across a poem someone had written for a boy miner in their family.  I can't remember the words but this was so sad.  The poem read that he had set off that morning cheerful and in the best of health but then had been killed in an accident in the mine .. and that we never know when it might be out turn.  I felt so sorry for that poor little boy who had his life cut off so tragically.  Quite a few of my ancestors were miners - one died a gruesome death mangled in machinery, some like my miner Grandfather didn't live beyond middle age and quite a few became incapacitated with health problems.  My own Father narrowly escaped death when he had a pit accident in the 1960s.  I am so glad that my Dad was the last generation of miners in my family. Definitely not the good old days for the poor miners!

[doddsie4]

Within my family, it was unknown what had happened to my grandfather's sister.       Catherine had last appeared on the 1901 Census at Uddingston, but my grandfather, if he knew, had never passed on any details to my father.      We were all in the dark.

    One day when searching for her, I saw a mysterious census for 1911, with HUNDREDS of young women all living at  the same place in London.      Information on the census was scanty but one of these woman had the same name as my missing ancestor.    It gave was her name, Catherine, date of birth, born in Scotland.    Could it be her?     Million to one chance!      ....And what kind of a place could this be with all these women anyway?     I was mystified.     Eventually, after going through page after page of this census, I discovered that all these women were in fact living at the Salvation Army headquarters in London, training to be Salvation Army Officers!      It couldn't be her, could it?

      I sensed it would be a complete waste of time - but I took the bull by the horns and wrote to the Salvation Army, asking if they might have any details about this Catherine from the 1911 census.      I didn't hold out much hope.    I was convinced it would be someone else.

      ...A short while later, I was dumbfounded to receive an amazing letter from the Salvation Army, telling me EVERYTHING about her - and enclosed was a brilliant, large photograph of her in full S.A. uniform with another S.A. officer she had married in 1907.
   
       The letter explained that Catherine & her husband were very well known to them and they had both been sent out as Missionaries to India, and that's where they had been all there lives, helping the poor, the sick and dying.     They were visiting Leper Colonies, treking over hills on horseback and struggling across remote rivers, just to reach these distant Leper Colonies.      Shivers ran up and down my spine as I read this.     Just couldn't stop the tears.

     Catherine only returned to the U.K. when she became ill in the 1930's and she died shortly after in England.      .... So now I knew what had happened to my long lost ancestor.       She had led a completely unselfish life, devoting herself to helping other people.        How wonderful is that?

[louisa maud]

Yes, this lark is emotional but the way I get over it is to convince myself there is nothing I can do about it, it is history and we cannot change it, sad as some things were

Thank God, for most of us our lives are so much better and hopefully the world is a much more understanding place to be, although with what is going on right now I question it

Happy Christmas everyone

Louisa Maud

[River Tyne Lass]

These stories on here have made me feel quite emotional .. what a catalogue of suffering.

It made me feel particularly emotional reading about the poor girl who had the baby out of wedlock and then spent the rest of her life in institutions.  I have come across stories like this before but I do think it really beggars belief how inhumanely unmarried mothers were treated back in the day .. and no one ever seems to have thought of punishing the putative father in like fashion ..