Three centuries of one Family in a Sussex Village

When the second world war came, thousands of London school children were evacuated and we went with our school from Wapping to Brighton. 

The Baker family that we were billeted with had an allotment out at Moulscombe and we went there many times.

We didn't know then and not for many years that the small village of Falmer which was just a couple of miles up the road from the allotment was the birthplace of our gg-grandmother Rebecca Baldy.
Rebecca had been christened in the parish church in 1797 and was a direct descendant of William Baldie who had been christened there in 1676.

Whilst we were learning to "dig for victory" on the allotment, still living in Falmer in 1940 was Harriett Wilson whose maiden name was Baldey. She also was a direct descendant of William Baldie. She had two sons George and Henry who was also still living in Falmer so they were our cousins that we had no knowledge of. George married and had a daughter who did not marry and Henry did not marry.  So sixteen years short of three hundred years, with the death of Harriett in Falmer in 1960 there came the end of the Baldy family in Falmer. 

Another World War One Book?

If you go to Amazon Books and type in "World War One" you will get over 19000 hits, yes that is right over nineteen thousand or nearly twenty thousand probably in a week or three.

 

So why am I going to suggest that if your are a family historian you should write another one ?

My simple answer, is you can and you should.

If you have an ancestor, Grandfather or Great grandfather, uncles or granduncles who served or died in the the first world war then they deserve to be remembered, not just en masse on Remembrance Sunday but as individuals.
I think there are three main reasons why a family historian or genealogist should write up their family histories in a narrative and there are no doubt others.



First, don’t waste your research.
You have spent a lot of time and effort and perchance a fair bit of money in the process of finding out about your ancestors. It would be a great shame and a waste for it not to be recorded in a way that will be understandable to others, particularly your present day family, who, quite often, do not appear to be particularly interested.

Secondly your ancestors deserve it
Your great grandparents, or whichever part of your family you decide to focus on, should not be left unheard of and unremembered. You have the capacity and the knowledge to record their lives, so that future generations will know of their forbears.

Finally no one else will do it
The chances are no-one else is going to write a book about your ancestors, so it is up to you. Not only can you do it, you should. Consider the alternatives, many years of work recorded in a gedcom on a CD, or a loose-leaf binder full of Family Group Sheets, Descendant charts and so on. Most regard that as being a “no contest” compared to a printed book.

So get down to it and write the story of that one soldier amongst all the others, he was an individual, not just one of the dreadful statistics of the "Great War", a man with a family, mother, wife,children, siblings, all making him unique.  He needs to be remembered not just as an entry  on a group sheet but in words that your family will understand and appreciate.