An extraordinary video – and I think that the song could grow on me as well.
(hat tip to Obscene Desserts)
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The Smell of Old Books
Here’s something quite bizarre – a perfume called "In The Library". It smells, well, like old books. While I love musty old bookshops, I don’t think I’d really like to smell like one…Leave a comment
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Who Do You Think You Are?
My brother has been trying to piece together our family history for some time now. He started long before it became fashionable. Unfortunately, the trail back through time peters out fairly quickly – the curse of having common family names, I suppose. We would like to know more about our mother’s side of the family in particular, because we have Indian ancestry via our great-great grandmother.
The story goes that our great-great-great grandfather was serving in the British Army in India in the 1820s-1830s. We’re not even sure of his name and rank – family folklore calls him Colonel Murray Holmes, but we’ve drawn a blank on that name in the army records so far. Apparently he married an Indian, but after the birth of a daughter in 1833(?) (our great-great-grandmother) she died. The child was brought back to England by a Major Penrice, who became her guardian. What happened to Colonel Holmes, we don’t know. Did he go mad with grief over the death of his wife? Did he get killed? Did he go AWOL? We are unlikely to find out. In any event, the child grew up and in due course married into a farming family – the Johnsons – in Cumbria. The only photograph we have of her was taken in about 1900, we think. Our mother remembered her visiting the family in about 1910 – as an imposing old lady who arrived in a pony and trap. Our mother would have been about six years old at the time. This is the photograph.
The photographs that we have of our great-aunts (Corra, Annie, Ethel and Emily) and our great-uncle George are even more striking, as they clearly show our Indian roots. These were taken in 1915.
Of course, by the time you get to our generation, mongrelisation has well and truly taken over, and I suppose that all that’s left is my Lamarckian fondness for curry… My Desi roots are all but lost.
Update 16 December 2007: Well thanks to Shelly, we’ve now gleaned a little more of the family history. It turns out that we didn’t have the correct name for our great-great-great grandfather. He turns out to have been Lieutenant Colonel George Home Murray in the 16th Lancers. He died in Cawnpore, India on the 15th December 1833 after a few days illness. It was possibly cholera, since in August of that year there was a cholera epidemic in the Regiment. 364 men out of a total strength of 580 were admitted to hospital during the period of 22nd August to 24th September, and 60 men died of the disease. Colonel Murray was buried in the Cawnpore cemetary, where a monument was erected to his memory by the officers of the Regiment. I wonder whether it still stands?
My brother has also been busy. He’s engaged a genealogist, who, amongst other things, has turned up the last will and testament of Colonel Murray. It turns out that while he acknowledges our great-great grandmother as an heir, she is named in the will as “the daughter of an Asian woman”. Whether she was his flesh and blood or not (and the probability seems high that she was), she took the name of Corra Home. Another piece of the jigsaw fell into place when we saw that the executor of Colonel Murray’s will was a Thomas Penrice. Could this be the “Major Penrice” who became Corra’s guardian? In any case, we now know that Corra was apparently born in 1827 (not 1833) in Calcutta, and she married John Johnson, a soldier in the 2nd Life Guards. He was born in about 1821 in Macclesfield. Further digging is afoot…
Update 17 December 2007: Shelly turned up trumps again – she’s found a photo of the monument to Colonel Murray. The internet is amazing…
19 responses to “Who Do You Think You Are?”
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Dashed handsome family, old boy. Fancy a phal?
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Thanks, Coboró; my uncle looked very like great-uncle George, and my mother turned a few heads in the 1920s… Dunno about the phal, though – it’s a British invention that has about as much to do with Indian cuisine as curry powder has to do with curries…
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Geoff:
I am related to you. I have the same photograph of our Great-Great-Great Grandmother that I got from my grandmother; and I have quite a bit of information about the family. I have a special fondness for the family and have been researching them for quite a few years. I even met some of the other descendants in London. I saw your brother’s Rootsweb post also. I am very excited to speak to you.
Shelly -
Shelly, that’s exciting news. I’m sure that my brother will want to get in touch with you. Cheers, Geoff
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Geoff, I had no idea you were almost a closet-genealogist. Great story; really enjoyed reading it.
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Thanks, JL. My brother and my cousin are far more active than I with the family tree. But what has been amazing is that as a result of this blog entry, we’ve had about half a dozen long lost branches of the tree get in touch – and they all have heard the story of how our g-g-grandmother was “an Indian Princess”…
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That’s what happens. It’s a social network all its own. And the great part (unless you’re a hermit) is that you can share a great-great grandmother with several hundred other living souls.
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Corra was my great grandmother.i o ly discovered it yesterday.i remember my mother mentioned it when I was young.she said there was a link to indian royalty .my brother and sister remember the same.
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Stephen, thanks for your comment. The story about “Indian Royalty” seems to be widespread in the family. I believe that at the time the general term applied to Indian ladies who became “involved” with white British men was “Princesses”. I’m afraid that Corra’s mother did not even get her name mentioned in Colonel Murray’s will…
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Corra emily was the daughter of isaac birch and emily stockbridge.he later remarried ellen (lloyd) potchett and had 1 daughter
(My grandmother) Dora kathleen (johnson)
Wakefield -
I’m sure if all my comments are posting. Im doing this from my phone.i might be reposting repeats.my man (corra’s granddaughter used to tell me of corra being in possibly a park in London and victoria and albert passing probably in a carriage and victoria and albert seeing corra bowed their heads in acknowledgement to corra.not saying it happened but that’s what she told me and my siblings
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[…] mentioned my family tree on the blog before. That post got responses from distant relatives whom I never knew I had. So here’s another post, prompted by […]
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My grandmother was Elsie Johnson Heilig. My great grandmother was Georgina Johnson. Her mother
was Corra Johnson. My mothers’ name was Georgina
Heilig. Please, please tell me who Corra’s mother was.
Thank you. I would greatly appreciate it.-
Hallo Jenny. If we are talking about the same Corra Johnson (b1826-d1909), then we don’t know her mother’s name, only that she was Indian. We suspect that her father (George Home Murray) had an illicit relationship with an Indian woman when he was posted in India. We’ve not found any trace of a marriage certificate, and Corra was only named in his will as his heir.
However, if I look at our family tree, then the only Georgina Johnson I can see was Corra’s great granddaughter, not her daughter. In our tree, Corra had 3 sons and 2 daughters. One of the sons was Edward Thomas Johnson (b1856-d1938) with 3 sons and 4 daughters. One of his sons was George James Johnson (b1887-d1946) – my great-uncle George, shown in the photos above. And Georgina Johnson (b1930-d2004) was one of his daughters.
Following the original Corra, the name Corra has been bestowed on six further descendants in the female line that I can see. And perhaps it is one of these that is your great-great grandmother. There’s one that could fit – Corra Emily Johnson, born in 1879 (we think). She was the daughter of Isaac Birch Johnson (b1854-d1931) and Emily Johnson (née Stockbridge. b1860-d1900). We have no further information on this Corra Johnson, but perhaps she is the person you refer to as your great-great grandmother. Strange though that, if she is the right Corra, that she would hold onto her maiden name and pass it on to her daughter.
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[…] my Indian ancestry, I thought it rather charming and […]
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Cora home is also my three times grandmother and her daughter Annie married Gilbert Jones my great grandfather. I have quite a lot of information about the family, and a lot of it is quite interesting.
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Thanks, Sharon. I’ll let my cousin know, she’s passionate about family history – she may well get in touch with you… Regards, Geoff Coupe
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My grandmother was dora kathleen johnson daughter of isaac birch johnson and ellan johnson.isaacs parents were john johnson and corra home
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[…] I await the time when I’m deported back to India, because that was where my great-great-grandmother came from. […]
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A Science Project
This, I feel sure, is a science project that I will not be attempting. The thought of the hacksaw at the end is enough to put me off.(hat tip to Pharyngula)Leave a comment
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Windows Home Server
I mentioned the forthcoming Windows Home Server product last month. It’s currently in beta test, and Microsoft have recently widened the scope of testing. There have been over 25,000 people asking to participate in the test. Last Saturday, yours truly received an email from the Windows Home Server team to say that my request to be included in the test had been accepted. So I’m currently kicking the tyres.It has promise, but it’s still clearly at an early beta stage. And I’d still like to see what I pointed out last month – there’s no facility to be able to take backups for offsite storage. It’s all very well having a central server in the home, but if your home goes up in flames, you’ve still lost all your data…I see that the marketing wing of Microsoft are already busy with their Stop Digital Amnesia campaign. Fairly toecurling stuff – and a very poor ripoff of the far superior campaign that John Cleese did for Livevault.Leave a comment
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Still Missing
I see that Jim Gray is still missing. I’m afraid I fear the worst, although it seems that his family has not yet given up hope.Leave a comment
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Clearing Up
After the storm on the 18th January, we had a number of trees that were blown down, and some more that were left in a perilous state. Last week, the lumberjacks came to deal with them…
While the bigger pieces were stored away to be used in the wood stove, most of the branches were fed into a woodchip machine, and the resulting mountain will be used to make paths in the garden…
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Carnaval 2007
Carnaval is Dutch for Carnival. In the Catholic areas of The Netherlands, Carnaval is celebrated with great gusto. See the Wikipedia article for more background. Yesterday we went with friends to the little town of ‘s-Heerenberg to see the carnival parade. This is organised by citizens who belong to an organisation that glories in the name of d’ Olde Waskupen (the Old Washtubs). The whole town – and indeed the whole region – throws themselves into celebrating Carnaval. If they are not in the parade, then they are watching it – and usually in fancy dress themselves.After the parade was over, we retired to a cafe for a beer. The place was already packed when we got there, but shortly after we arrived, the last of the parade passed by and the doors opened and a further deluge of people poured in from the street. I could not help fail to notice that out of this great mass of humanity, I was the only one not in fancy dress. I made my excuses and left, pursued by the quizzical glances of those left behind. I finished my beer out on the street, being eyed at by a man dressed entirely in black, with a black top hat and a stuffed raven perched on his shoulder. I couldn’t help but feel that I was breaking some sort of rule by being dressed in my everyday clothes. OK, next year, I’ll go with the flow…Here’s some of the pictures from the parade, more are up on Flickr.
These clowns were scary – I can see why some people have coulrophobia…
Even the onlookers were in fancy dress…
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Pilobolus
I’ve mentioned Pilobolus and Momix before. Their dance performances always take me to another place of wonderment. Their movements flit between human and alien in the whick of an eyelid. If you’ve never had the opportunity to experience one of their performances, I see that TED Blogs has an example of a dance performed by a duo from the Pilobolus company. Go and see them.Leave a comment
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The Joy of Call Centres
I mentioned my brush with call-centres a couple of days ago. Little did I realise it, but in comparison with some people, I escaped almost intact from that experience. My friend Andy Hayler has emailed me with a link to his own entanglement with call-centres. The Horror! The Horror!Leave a comment
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Security Hits Bottom
Improbable Research draws our attention to a travel risk likely to be encountered by those wishing to enter the US and who happen to have a particular medical condition. Don’t, unless you have a strong constitution, click on the perianal sepsis link…Leave a comment
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Eddies in the Entropy Stream
There’s an article in the New Humanist this month on Frances Crick, written by Matt Ridley. At the heart of it is one of those sentences that, to me, are like the spoken equivalent of an earworm. In answer to the great question: what is life?, Ridley writes:Life is the use of linear digital codes to construct machinery that can cause eddies in the entropy stream.Wow.Leave a comment
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In a Volcano???
In the light of recent events, Chris Clarke and his partner Becky are in need of some diversion. So he rents a film – a deliberately schlocky film. But he wasn’t prepared for just how bad the science would be…Leave a comment
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Happy Birthday, Charles!
I realise that I’m a little late in adding my best wishes – so many other bloggers have got there before me – but Charles Darwin has his 198th birthday today. Only two more years to go, and then we’ll really put out the flags…Leave a comment
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Technology – Part II
Since Saturday evening, I’ve been without ADSL service, and suffering withdrawal symptoms. As I suspected yesterday, the fault was not, as the nice man on the KPN helpdesk tried to persuade me, caused by a faulty splitter in the meter cupboard.That’s because today I watched a KPN engineer drive past in his van on his way to my neighbour’s farm. She had a problem with her phone line, and also her ADSL service was gone. Because her phone service was completely dead, an engineer was despatched. A short time later, he drove back, returning to base. Now, it may have been purely a coincidence, but guess what? My ADSL service was back and steady as a rock.So tomorrow, the postman will deliver a new, and surplus to requirements, splitter. Perhaps I can use it as a paperweight.Leave a comment
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Technology…
…when it works, it’s wonderful; when it doesn’t, it – well – it sucks… to quote our American cousins.My ADSL line has gone on the blink, so communication with the outside world, for the moment, will be of the message in a bottle variety. I’ve had to resurrect a dial-up modem (which has the speed of a Galapogos tortoise), but at least I can squirt a few bits out into the ether.Hear Ye, hear ye… I shall be withdrawing from the frenetic pace of today’s internet for now. Hopefully, my service provider (KPN) will repair the problem in the course of the next few days. Although, I have to say, I am not convinced. The problem is that my ADSL line is going up and down like a yo-yo. According to the pleasant gentleman on the helpdesk, this will be solved by a new splitter. In which case, why is it that without the splitter involved in the connection at all, I can still see the ADSL line going up and down like a yo-yo? Ho-hum, let’s follow the script… This means that I shall install the new splitter that they will send me on Tuesday, and then report it has made fuck-all difference. Then, once again, on the merry-go-round we climb to see what the next solution will be that is spat out by the script.The fact that my neighbour has also got a problem with her ADSL connection is totally irrelevant. It is not in the script. It does not compute.Sigh.Leave a comment
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Friends and Enemies
I’ve mentioned the ding-dong between Pascal Bruckner, Timothy Garton-Ash and Ian Buruma before. Other voices are joining in, but can I just refer you (at the risk of seeming a trifle immodest) to the excellent commentary on the whole affair by J. Carter-Wood over at Obscene Desserts…Leave a comment
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Taking Me Back…
In a former life, I was a software architect. Reading Roger Sessions’ excellent paper on A Better Path To Enterprise Architectures brings it all back. Do I miss it? Nah…(hat tip to Coding Horror)Leave a comment
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It’s Alive…
I remember the days when I had a live yoghurt culture lurking in the kitchen. That was bad enough, but I don’t think I would have let a Kombucha loose in the house; ever.Leave a comment
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Short And Sweet…
…that was the snow that fell today around us. It’s already melting, alas, but it was pretty while it lasted…
3 responses to “Short And Sweet…”
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As ever, I love your photos Geoff
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btw – there was the first of a series of programmes on tv tonight which aims to follow giften children into adulthood. there were ten kids with iq’s from 150 – 170. fascinating.
I suspect your iq is up there if you had it tested. when I qualified for mensa as a teen, my mother said ‘Oh. well that goes to show they’re not that smart’ Heck eh? lol. thanks mum.
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Mothers, eh? They can say the daftest things… I assume that the programme was on Channel 4? That’s one channel that I haven’t found among the hundreds on the satellite… shopping – check, god – check, porn – check, dreck – check; but no C4…
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