Tuesday 14 October 2014

Rear view mirror

Flickr: photo Big Grey Mare, Icky Pic
A light-hearted post this month. I’ve been reading an article about ‘mirror years’ on the History Today website. "To put your lifespan into historical perspective," it says, "start with the year you were born, then subtract your age. The result is your 'mirror year'." Or just double your age and take it away from 2014, if you like.

For instance, if you’re 40 years old now, your mirror year is 1934. That means the start of your life – 1974 – is as close to the middle of the 30s as it is to today. Your birth is as near to the US dust bowl drought, the shooting of Bonnie and Clyde, Hitler declaring himself Fuhrer, the Flying Scotsman reaching a record-breaking 100 miles an hour, the first-ever photo of Nessie and Donald Duck’s first film as it is to what you had for breakfast today. Eek. As the article says, your date of birth is "often closer to events that seem in the distant past than to the present day."

Baby's behaving herself today
What’s this got to do with genealogy? Well, for me, one of the pleasures of researching my ancestors is finding out how they lived – family social history, if you like. And looking though my own rear-view mirror makes me think how much life has changed since I first gave my parents a sleepless night.

Not everyone had a telephone (and I mean a round-dialled, wall-connected one, kids, not a smartphone). You could park in the centre of town. Washing was done by hand or sent to a laundry. The only pasta dish most people knew was macaroni cheese. TVs were black and white. And playing on the street was normal, not dangerous, for us children. How much more would be different in my mirror year?

And of course the older we get the further back our mirror year stretches. If you’re 50 this year, it’s 1914, the start of the First World War. 60? Welcome to 1894, when The Jungle Book was published, the Manchester Ship Canal opened, Coca-Cola was sold in bottles, Nicholas II became Tsar of Russia, women in South Australia gained the vote and Coxey's Army, the first significant US protest march, arrived in Washington, DC.

A (very) small part of the spreadsheet...
If I could go back through time the other way, to my mirror year, I’d love to meet my ancestors and ask them a few questions. Well, I’d like to ask a lot of questions, but I’m thinking about battering at those brick walls. I’d like to ask my paternal great-grandfather just exactly which of the 13 or so Griffith Owens born on Anglesey around 1847 was him. Then I could delete the spreadsheet I’m using to try and track him down. (Argh!)

I’d like to sit down with my maternal great-grandmother Mary Maude and tease out of her everything she knew about her father, Thomas Robert Sandon Wilson. We don’t know when or where he was born, or died, or even where he disappeared to when she was a girl.

Then I’d like to move on to the social history. Ask another paternal grandfather, Rhys Lloyd, what life was like as a saddler in rural Wales. Find out how Minnie Richards and Thomas Winter, who lived in the Rocks, a notorious area of Sydney, got by and what it was like to be so poor they sent their daughter, my gran, to live with another family. Get Griffith to tell me yarns about his life as a mariner. Those questions might be answered by research, but... how much better it would be to hear their stories in their own words.

If you could go back to your mirror year, who would you like to meet? What would you ask them?

15 comments:

  1. What a fascinating concept! A mirror year. Having reached a landmark birthday this year (eek!), my mirror year is 1914.

    So which ancestor would I like to meet? Well, I'd like to meet my great-uncle - the adored big brother of my adored grandma. He took a gun to his head and blew his brains out in France in July 1916 just as the battle of the Somme had started, and he was in the (relative) comfort of an HQ just miles behind the Somme's front line. He was an long-standing pre-war battle-hardened army regular - so what made him do such a desperate act? What levels of despair was he in?

    I'd also like to meet his father, my great-grandfather, also a pre-war army regular - an old-fashioned military man. A pure military family who had been all over the world in the army prior to the outbreak of the Great War. I'd like to ask him how and why did he cover up his son's death. What lengths did he have to go to hide such a tragedy? Did he tell anyone what he knew? I'd also tell him that his son's death stayed a secret for nearly 100 years until the internet yielded up its secrets.

    No judgment from me at all - we can't judge the actions of brave men from 100 years ago. Just, why?

    Sorry - just realised your blog was meant to be light-hearted! But this is the one burning question I'd like to ask my ancestors.

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    1. Hi Kate, I thought I'd replied ages ago but there must have been a glitch. No need to apologise! You're asking the questions I bet we'd all like to ask, and this year especially. Such a tragic story.

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  2. You've captured my imagination with this post...don't think I've heard of a mirror year before. You know you're getting old when your mirror year takes you back before your grandparents' birth! I can feel a post coming on.

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    1. Haha, yes, I can feel the wrinkles coming on as I contemplate my grandparents' birth years creeping closer... we're a long-lived lot in my family, mostly.

      I'm looking forward to your post!

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  3. Oops, looks like the quilt I'm supposed to be reparing for a friend will have to be done some other time as I'm off to explore 1884. What an interesting concept and a catchy title. I'm going to go look into my rear view mirror.

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    1. Oh, dear, sorry Ann's friend ;)

      The idea really caught my imagination, too. It's a completely new way of looking at our own lives and our ancestors'.

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  4. An interesting idea that I had not heard of before and I must investigate my mirror year of 1872 - my great grandmother would be only 14 years old and my great great grandfather would still be alive. I would like to know why he went from being a yeoman farmer in a home that had been in the family from the start of the 19th century to a change of occupation as a toll keeper at a toll bridge. And what about his large family of 6 daughters and 3 sons. - so many questions to ask!

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    1. Gosh, yes, Sue, that's intriguing. Something big must have happened for such a change. I hope you find out what it was. Let us know if you do!

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  5. This really is a fascinating idea. 1882. Hmmmmm.

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  6. I got 1908, the year the Model T was first sold. My great-grandfather, "The Traveling Dentist" Watson (Frederick) Emory Webster, who was from Ohio, was 44 years old and was traveling in Mexico at the time. About a year later, he married his 2nd wife and my great-grandmother, Esther Matus Villatoro in Mexico. He practiced dentistry in three countries during his life - the United States, Mexico and Brazil.

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  7. Hi,

    I want to let you know that this blog post is listed in today's Fab Finds post at http://janasgenealogyandfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2014/10/follow-friday-fab-finds-for-october-24.html

    Have a great weekend!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much, Jana! I thought I'd posted a reply ages ago, but there must've been a glitch.

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  8. What a fantastic idea! My grandparents would have been children but I would so love to meet my great-grandparents and ask them about their lives in 1888 Kingdom of Hungary. My father's father's father would have been married for 3 years and lived in as many cities with his new bride and two little boys. What were they looking for with all that moving around?
    My mother's father's father had moved from the 'big city' of Sighiosara in Transylvania to a tiny remote village in the mountains. What was the reason for that move?
    Thanks for a really original idea!

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