A hard days work in Darlington

Had a slow start to the day. Light breakfast and walk into town to see if the ‘Citizen’s advice’ could help us locate Paul’s great great grand parent’s grave site.

Lovely lady points us to the Darlington Library and what a gold mine of information and an amazing helpful librarian.

We couldn’t find John in the East or West cemeteries. Librarian suggests looking at the newspapers for the obituaries around the date John passed. Voila…not only did we find the obituary, we also found which cemetery he was buried at!!!

Back to the cemetery index and we find exactly where John and his wife Maud were buried. So off we go to the cemetery.

Paul figured out the logic map and although we walked the whole section they were meant to be buried in, there were no headstones.

We did find a grave of John J Stephenson and his wife Emma. Can’t locate them on the family tree, but they must be related somehow.

Thanks to my darling engineer husband, he figured out the location of John and Mary’s grave site. Unfortunately there is no headstone left there. So we might have to figure out what we can do about it.

Next we drove to Pa’s grandparents house. 41 Woodland Road. Pa still remembers the address. Census corroborated that John Hamilton did indeed live there with his wife Mary.

The house is a back clinic. Osteopaths I think. Paul and I stand outside and bicker about whether we should ring the bell or not. For the record, I’m the brave one in this relationship. I rang the bell and the door was opened by two lovely, generous ladies who were so happy to show us inside the house.

The bonus was they had the original title deeds to the house!! Auntie Evie and Uncle Cam bought the house. Waiting for Pa to wake up in Australia to try and understand why his grandparents didn’t own the house. Auntie Evie sold the house once Uncle Cam passed. Mary Maud had passed before he did.

These amazing ladies showed us their title deeds and also some photos they found d under the floor boards. Picture of two men. Can you see the family resemblance?

Next we walked a very short distance to Arthur Stephenson’s house on 12 West Crescent which is a stone’s throw from where John Hamilton Stephenson lived. Arthur is John’s brother.

A very fruitful day of research. It’s an amazing feeling to know where you come from. I am hoping Paul got the buzz.Read more