I’ve had news from cousin David in NI that we’ve lost another Jamison; Carol, who is listed in the family tree as marrying Harold (Hewer) Jamison, has sadly died aged 82.
I’ve updated the information for her birth and death in the tree, and hope to receive some more missing names and dates from the side of the family descended from William Jamison soon.
My thoughts are with Carol’s family and friends at this sad time.
I haven’t had much to update on here for a while, but I’ve now registered for the NI records office online search facility, and have today located the details of my paternal grandmother’s first marriage, aged 16, to Samuel Murdock of Molloy on the 23rd April 1924.
It took place at “Bushmills Presbyterian” church; two such churches are listed so I may need to check records.
I’ve ordered a copy of the marriage certificate, and hope to find out more details – watch this space!
I’ve written this up quite a while after we actually visited, as family things got in the way, but it was a very useful visit and might be of help if you’re considering researching your own Belfast family history.
We took the car and went by ferry, straight into Belfast harbour. We splashed out, staying two nights at the famous Europa Hotel in town, recommended!
Apart from catching up and taking trips out to Portrush and other spots along the coast, I had some specific research in mind that took me to the Belfast Central Library Newspaper archive.
This research was for two reasons; firstly to fill in some gaps around family events in Belfast during the Troubles, and also as primary research for the novel I’m (still) writing, And The Buntings Flew. The novel is based in 1970s Belfast and those of you who have read my blog posts will know that it’s at least partly autobiographical.
My research at the newspaper archive bore some fruit, and was a blast from the past, as the records are nearly all stored on microfiche, which I haven’t used since the early 1990s. There’s a modest fee to print out pages (10p a sheet I think) and it was incredibly useful, and the staff very helpful.
This success was tinged with sadness and uncertainty; the Troubles left very few families untouched, and I now have to contemplate and investigate the new information I uncovered.
Despite any unease I felt while reading through the microfiches from 1975 and 76, they did offer, for a writer, a wonderful window on the past. I was particularly interested in the world news, and closer to home, the adverts; in 1975 the Northern Ireland government had members warning that if the UK voted to join the EEC (Common Market, and we did), that it would grow from a trade agreement to a federation of European states with a loss of UK sovereignty, which was a very topical read!
I’ll be posting some more about some of the information I found in the archive library, but for now, I just wanted to post some pictures from our trip of the wonderful places to visit in Belfast and the rest of County Antrim.
I’m also pleased to relate that I brought back lots of Thompsons Tea and vegetable roll, both Northern Irish treasures that I wrote about in my article lauding the Foods of Ulster!
“Only connect!” (E.M. Forster)
This is a follow-up post to last week’s Filling In Some Gaps post; it’s just to say thank you to Jennifer, who is my great uncle William’s great-granddaughter; it’s beyond me to work out the actual relationship, but I think it’s second cousin removed once or twice!
But more importantly than degrees of relationship, it’s been great to meet a fellow descendant of Old William and Annie, and one who’s also interested in our family history; it’s times like this that make the work of tracing your family history and blogging about it so worthwhile!
Not only have both of our family trees been expanded by the meeting, we’ve made a new connection from an old one, and I am so happy that we have, as I know my cousin Barbs is – it’s an exciting chasing down of historical info, but its wonderful to meet great people and find out you’re related!
Margaret
I had some very exciting news yesterday courtesy of Nevin over at NALIL; Nevin put me and my cousin Barbara in touch with Jennifer, who is a great, great grand-daughter of William McDowell Jamison, the earliest Jamison I’ve managed to trace in our family tree.
Jennifer and Nevin have provided loads of information for my descendent chart, and I hope we gave some to Jennifer in return about our line! (Jennifer’s great-grandfather William and my grandfather Charles (Fred) were brothers, although there was quite an age gap between them, hence I suppose an extra generation slipping in!)
I have updated the Descendant chart; additions were under the family of William Jamison Jnr (son of Old William and Annie) his wife Mary Elizabeth (Betty) Cousins
Children of William Jnr and Betty Cousins:
Christina (Nan) Cousin’s children (unsure of father’s names)
I have more information such as spouse names to add to the chart; this is a wonderful revelation as we only really had information relating to the family of my grandfather Charles Frederick Jamison – Fred was one of four siblings, but one died as a teenager (Oswald Huer), one as a young woman (Harriet Anne), so its great to have such detailed information for William Jnr’s family.I also learnt that William Jnr’s back complaints were as a result of a World War 1 injury sustained when a horse kicked him during his time in the Royal Irish Rifles.
Many thanks to Jennifer and Nevin, and to Barbs for staying up while we pieced it all together!
Margaret
One of the first really good leads I had on my journey to trace back the Jamisons, when faced with a dearth of real information, was a fabulous post by Nevin Taggart in his blog NALIL (North Antrim Local Interest List), a local history, culture and genealogy site with a wealth of fantastic info. The post is here: Jamisons of the Giant’s Causeway.
NALIL is a great place to start your own search for all things North Antrim, or just for a great read!
Many thanks to Nevin
Many thanks to the Belfast forum, where this wonderful picture was posted; it shows most of the family home and garage, which were situated on Shore Road, North Belfast, alas demolished in the 1980’s. Fred and Eliza Jamison moved their young family here from Lisburn in the 1950s’ and Fred set up business as Loughside garage, living in the adjacent house. Apart from the trams, this is how I remember the house and garage when I lived there during the early 1970’s.
This is a wonderful picture and really helped me re-establish details which had become a bit hazy. If you own the copyright to this picture of if you have any more of it, please do let me know!
Margaret x
Having created a WordPress blog for my writing (please check it out! Margaret McGoverne), and been very impressed with the features available, I’ve decided to move the family tree website (jamisonsonline.co.uk) to WordPress; I was having difficulty updating the site to be compatible with Safari etc, and this way I can concentrate on content instead of html and coding!
I’m in the process of moving the content from the old site and from the Blogger blog, so expect to see lots of stuff drop in here in the coming weeks.
Margaret x
Here’s hoping that 2012 is a better year for some of my Jamison family than 2011 was.
2012 is also going to be the year I finally start to get down on paper (or on a Word document) some of the tales, anecdotes and memories of my immediate family, my life in Belfast, and the family history that I have stored up from several sources. There will be a book, and hopefully several, as one book alone couldn’t capture all the events and characters even of the last couple of generations!
Attached is a beautiful chalk rendering of the only picture we have of our paternal grandmother Eliza, by my very talented artist cousin Barb.
Thank you Barb!
I’ve received a copy of Eliza’s death certificate today, and not only does it confirm her age at the time of her death (54), and the date (4/12/1962), there is also a bonus of her last registered address: Hillview Avenue, Newtonabbey, Belfast BT36. Below is a googlemap of the street (I think it’s the house with cream walls and dark brown windows and door).
It’s great to have these details, which I will now check with Uncle Harold, and possibly Uncle Donald,who hopefully can verify them.
