It wasn’t planned, but I fell into writing up some family history today.   There has been a lot of information retained from Windsor Road, which was my father’s home pre-marriage, and my aunt’s until her death earlier this year. .

I have often read of huge families in the pre war years, but it hits home when you document your own ancestors.

So here’s to Dinah Melville Miller, who bore 11 children within the space of 22 years, and raised her granddaughter too, if the census is anything to go by.   In a two roomed house.

Dinah was our great great grandmother.

I have also resolved, for myself at least, the conundrum surrounding the identity of “Uncle Lawson”.   I was never sure who this was.   It’s another given that first names were rarely unique,  my father was technically Alexander Miller VI (at least), so the practice of naming a child Lawson when the surname of a large part of the family was also Lawson, means that it is a particularly tortuous process to define which Lawson is under discussion.    I have not uncovered anyone called Lawson Lawson…..yet.

I love my family dearly, but their reluctance to use commas in sentences also adds to the confusion.  Legends on the back of photos such as “This is my cousin Robert Janet and I frae Uncle Alex” take a little untangling, although it’s great that they are there at all.