A friend of a friend has graciously offered to research part of my Mother's history, and regularly emails me updates. How intriguing to find out snippets of information from a long dead past.
Just recently she has discovered my great great grandfather was a convict. Apparently he was transported to Australia for 15 years for larceny. I can imagine it was a state of affairs which was kept well hidden by the next generation or two, but today it has become a cause celebre to have a convict in the family.
It will come as a shock to my elder sister who imagines we come from aristocracy, to discover this is our heritage but I find myself smiling at the pretensions we live with and how they affect our lives. For instance, the son of the convict was not happy with his daughter's choice of husband as he considered him "beneath her", and did not speak to her for quite some years.
At that moment in time when my ancestor faced the court and was sentenced he could not be aware that in the year 2010 his descendant would be aware of his fate and in some respect be quite proud of it.
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