TONY BURGOYNE
WHAT'S IN A LIFE?
WHAT'S IN A LIFE?
HELPING YOU DISCOVER YOUR FAMILY HISTORY
SOME FAMILY SCENARIOS
REAR GUNNER B17 USAF WWII
We knew Mum had an American airman boyfriend from Portland, Oregon during the War and that he had been killed. As Mum was nearing the end of her life, worn down by emphysema, she told me she wished she had known how he died, where he was buried and why she hadn't seen him for three months before his death.
I spent the next 12 months determined to find out hoping Mum would still be around when I did.
I first went to England to see a man who had developed a museum in honour of the US 8th Airforce - he told me he knew of a man living in Virginia who had flown with Mum's boyfriend and agreed to try and make contact with him.
He succeeded and then I flew to the US (shortly after 9/11) and spoke with this 80yo ex-airman who could tell me why Mum's boyfriend had been out of contact before his death and where he had died (over Hungary). He then agreed to contact the Pentagon(!) to get as much information as he could for me. And then.....on the shuttle bus between my hotel in San Francisco and the airport I got speaking with a very friendly lady and asked her where she was from .....Portland , Oregon ....I couldn't believe it! In the thirty minutes we had together she offered to try and find where the young airman was buried.
I kept in touch with these two kind people and almost one year later I received over 100 pages of the young airman's military history from Virginia and, the very next day, received photographs of the burial plot from Oregon.
The 21 year old flight sergeant had completed his 25 missions over Europe and was sent back to the US as he was no longer required to do any more combat flying. He , nevertheless, applied to do another 25 so he could be reunited with my Mum. It was granted but he was sent to Italy instead of England and , on just his second mission, his plane was shot down and all of the crew killed.
Mum was overwhelmed with this news, as you could imagine. She died three months later after finally knowing that Ray did not abandon her after all but gave his life to be with her again.
THE "HOUSE"
Well a castle it certainly was not but those two windows to the extreme left and a door just out of the picture were the front of my grandparents house for over 40 years. My Mum and her sister were born there and so were my brother and I. My great grandfather also spent the last years of his life in that house. It was built around 1880 and demolished in the mid 1960's. A sturdy sycamore tree (over 70yrs old) stood just a few yards to the left of the house and still stands today. (The photo from County Archives - other sources are heritage centres)
HE DIDN'T KNOW HE HAD A JEWISH GRANDFATHER
And it's just as well he didn't!
Jakob was born in Hungary in 1872 and was my wife's paternal Great Grandfather. Her father did not know Jakob was his grandfather until he went through his mother's belongings after she had died in 1989. He had only known him as a kindly old man who showed a great deal of interest and love for him. He was Jewish and Eva's father was in the German Army during the War . Had it been shown he had a direct blood connection with a Jewish man then his life would have been at extreme risk.
This photograph shows Jakob as a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army during World War 1.
THE RICH AND THE POOR
The death certificate of William Burgoyne at the Bedford Workhouse is reproduced below. He and these three gentlemen are all descended from Norman Burgoine who also ended his days in a Workhouse in 1866.
Two of us are descended from William's son John and the other is from John's brother George. These two men had quite different journeys in life. The former worked most of his life as a stable hand, horse groom and general labourer whereas the latter walked 50 miles to London (so it is said) and started working as a butler. He went on to develop his own real estate business and became quite a wealthy man.
It was a combination of family research and Facebook that led me finally to a descendant of George. We got together in 2015.
A LONG LOST COUSIN & THE VALUE OF FAMILY TREES PLACED ON THE NET
This is perhaps the most amazing story of all.
It involved a young woman contacting me via ancestry.com as she had seen a name on my public family tree that matched that of a grandfather she had never known. She told me he had been in the RAF and was based in Australia for some time during the War and had fathered a child who was her mother.
I knew one of my Dad's brothers (he had five)was based in Australia during WW11 and although he had the same name I was sure he had been in the Navy so I told her it wasn't likely to be the same person.
I made a quick call, however, to a cousin in England who told me it was, in fact, the RAF his father had been in and that it was known within the family that there was a child in Australia! I then made another call to the woman to say, in all likelihood, her mother was my cousin and that she was my niece. Subsequent investigation confirmed this to be true.
The mother was only a baby when my uncle left Australia and was subsequently adopted. That little girl named Jeanette grew up in a happy home with her adoptive parents not knowing she was adopted and thinking she was an only child.
When she was 54 years old she discovered she was adopted and the search for her biological family began. Through the adoption agency she learnt her mother’s (maiden) and father’s surnames and quite quickly located and made contact with her mother’s family members. She had a living half brother and 2 sisters and was not an only child after all!
For two years she had tried to find information about her English father through UK military organizations and newspapers without success.
Then her daughter rang her and suggested she sit down because she said she had spoken with me and had discovered her father’s family in England. She now had 4 more half brothers and sisters in England revealing an ever expanding family. Sadly both her biological parents had died by the time she got the information she needed but she was able to build a good relationship with her biological parent's other children both in Australia and England. The cousin in England was able to send photographs of Jeanette's father both from the war years and subsequently.
Jeanette herself became sick in 2005 and died in 2007 aged 60 years. Before she died I was able to visit her at her home interstate meeting her 2 children and other family members. A few months later one of her half-brothers was able to visit with his wife from England...fortunately they had been able to Skype each other several times before she died.
We held a family reunion with her husband, daughter and other family members in her honour.
