v.wells
20-06-2008, 5:57 PM
I need to share this story.
This past weekend I made a contact with someone on A* after all the little green flags popped up when I finished inputting some names and sources ect.
My ggg uncle William’s grand daughter Rosa Stuart born 1880. She met Henry Wheeler b 1880 and he immigrated to Canada before 1901 and sent for her. She travelled alone to Canada about 1907. They were married 1908 in Calgary, Alberta Canada and had 2 sons Kenneth 1911 and Herbert 1913. Henry’s health failed and they all returned to England and had another son Roy 1914. At some point Kenneth went to live permanently with Henry’s brother and then Henry died of TB in 1919. Rosa remarried, then her 2nd son Herbert died age 16 in 1929. Rosa died in her 90’s.
Roy served as a decoder in the Signals WW2, married and had a son John. Roy died last week age 94 - his son John died the week previous age 68. I found the obits yesterday at Exeter online newspaper and I was shocked to see the service was yesterday for Roy and I feel very remorseful in not finishing my searching much sooner. I would have liked to communicate with them both to find out more on the Stuart ancestry and to let them know that someone IS interested AND cared enough to assemble our family history for future generations.
My contact is the grandson of one of Henry Wheeler’s brothers (thereby unrelated to me) and he has kindly offered to email some photos of Rosa’s family. It was a full page of wonderful storytelling which helped to fill in the blanks with some additional information I had yet to get to. When I read it all to my 31 yr old son I nearly weeped and he was extremely touched that we received so much from a stranger.
I hope to contact John’s wife in the future to share what I know. So I have been successful, yet I have failed. I now feel an urgent need to find any living relatives before it is too late because time is such a thief.
This past weekend I made a contact with someone on A* after all the little green flags popped up when I finished inputting some names and sources ect.
My ggg uncle William’s grand daughter Rosa Stuart born 1880. She met Henry Wheeler b 1880 and he immigrated to Canada before 1901 and sent for her. She travelled alone to Canada about 1907. They were married 1908 in Calgary, Alberta Canada and had 2 sons Kenneth 1911 and Herbert 1913. Henry’s health failed and they all returned to England and had another son Roy 1914. At some point Kenneth went to live permanently with Henry’s brother and then Henry died of TB in 1919. Rosa remarried, then her 2nd son Herbert died age 16 in 1929. Rosa died in her 90’s.
Roy served as a decoder in the Signals WW2, married and had a son John. Roy died last week age 94 - his son John died the week previous age 68. I found the obits yesterday at Exeter online newspaper and I was shocked to see the service was yesterday for Roy and I feel very remorseful in not finishing my searching much sooner. I would have liked to communicate with them both to find out more on the Stuart ancestry and to let them know that someone IS interested AND cared enough to assemble our family history for future generations.
My contact is the grandson of one of Henry Wheeler’s brothers (thereby unrelated to me) and he has kindly offered to email some photos of Rosa’s family. It was a full page of wonderful storytelling which helped to fill in the blanks with some additional information I had yet to get to. When I read it all to my 31 yr old son I nearly weeped and he was extremely touched that we received so much from a stranger.
I hope to contact John’s wife in the future to share what I know. So I have been successful, yet I have failed. I now feel an urgent need to find any living relatives before it is too late because time is such a thief.