Thursday, February 20, 2014

Researching Ancestors

I read about a challenge to research 52 different ancestors in 52 weeks.  That is a lofty goal.  I am not going to take that challenge but I am going to work on finding out as much about different ancestors as I can.
I am starting with my Mother, Marguerite Howie Kinloch Hass.  I wanted to find out about her time spent in Scotland.  What her house looked like, where she went to school, what happened during the bombings, etc...
My cousin Stephen went to Scotland a few years ago and took a couple pictures of the house my mother's family lived in and the church they attended and the hill they climbed to escape the bombings.  I know I was not going to post photos on this site but I want to include some of the genealogy things I am finding.
 This is the Duplex they lived in, the one on the right was their home.  When they lived there the windows looked like the ones on the left did.  See the big bush in the next photo?  That is where the air raid shelter was that they had to use to escape the bombings.  It was semi buried underground. This house was struck in the bombing on March 13, 1941.  Mom and her siblings had to put out the fire in the upstairs bedroom. March 14, 1941 they took their blankets and walked up over the Moors and slept on the ground until they got the all clear to return home.
On May 7, 1941 during the air raid my mom's family had been evacuated to Motherwell, and while there she had an appendicitis attack and had to be taken to the hospital.  Because of her hospital stay their home was repaired so she could go home (hospitals, schools and churches were the highest targeted places) and they consider it a blessing that she had appendicitis.  Looking closely at the photo and you will see two windows upstairs.  The first window is at the top of the stairs and the second one is the bathroom.  The window at the bottom is the bottom of the stairs.
 This is the church my Aunt Mary and Uncle Tom got married in and where Mom and them went to church every week.  The church was hit during an air raid and was repaired but the steeple was never put back on.

 The hill close by my Mom's house that she would use as a short cut going to work.  Some people had to escape the bombings going up this hill.
The crane of John Brown Shipyard.  This is where my Great-Grandfather, my Grandfather and his brother as well as many other family members worked.  This is the ship yard where the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth were built.

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