The scandalous mystery of my great-great-grandfather’s identity
I’ve told you about poor Emma Bailey, my great great grandmother who had an illegitimate son (my great grandfather) in 1860 and then died in 1863. We never knew why she died at the age of 25 until my sister requested a copy of her death certificate, which arrived recently. I apologize for the poor…
Lying in bed this morning, I lazily checked my email on my ever-handy iPhone. Suddenly I bolted up in excitement. (The truth is that I continued to lie lazily, but my brain did perk up.) I had received by email, a blog comment from a hitherto unknown half-second-cousin-once-removed, who found my post about Charles Douglass Waddell, who happened to her great-grandfather.…
For 100 years, my family gossiped about the identity of my great-great-grandfather. Presumably he was named Charles Waddell, since those two names were given to the child who took his mother’s surname (B) when he was born in 1860. According to lore, the erstwhile father was an officer in the military, based at Windsor Castle where the…
Seeing Clarely 