I did fear that it might get off to a bad start when my mum told me she was meeting up with my mother-in-law for lunch on the Monday. I feared for the worst when she suggested I come along too. That's the thing, in-laws can be enough of a hassle when you're married, but when the marriage ends you don't necessarily get rid of them.
I did feel kind of bad since my in-laws always send me birthday, Christmas and Easter cards and the occasional 'thought of you' card in between, whilst I have tended to avoid any sort of contact at all. Not because I'm being rude or nasty, but just because it's for the best.
Anyway, as my mum pointed out to me, I'm in a completely different place now, and so much happier with my life that it couldn't really do me any harm. So I agreed to go along. I was glad I did. My mother-in-law was so thrilled to see me, I felt like I'd made her year. And I must admit, I rather enjoyed casually dropping into conversation all the things I'd managed to do in the last 3 years:
- buy my own flat
- earn almost £20,000 more
- write a book
- get a whole new set of friends
- compile my family history
- travel to Mexico, New York (twice), Hong Kong, Thailand, Cambodia, Santorini, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cook Islands, New Zealand and Australia
- start enjoying my life
Somewhat annoyingly, she's still looking for a nice neat explanation for why it all ended. She seems to like the idea that it was a 'youthful romance that just went on too long'. It's nice, but it's nonsense. Unfortunately, she's asking the wrong person. Like her, I don't have any answers. Unlike her, I gave up on looking for them a while back. The only thing I could tell her for sure is that I am happier than I've ever been before, and for the first time since my childhood I actually feel like I'm living the life I wanted to. That seemed to comfort her.
On Wednesday, I went off to the National Registrar's Office in pursuit of my ancestors. I got there at 0915 and was assigned a desk. I had a computer in front of me and access to pretty much any records I wanted to look at. So what did I do when faced with the possibility of looking up anything I wanted to? I searched for myself. I was berating myself even whilst I was doing it. You know all about you. And you actually have a copy of your birth certificate in the flat. What the hell are you doing? Ooh, ooh, ooh, look, I'm there. I exist. After indulging myself with myself, I proceeded to do some general research and then get to the bottom of some irksome points.
Previously I'd thought my ancestors all came from Fife and Ireland, but it's a bit more varied than that - thankfully. My mum's dad's mum's family all come from Clackmannanshire. My dad's mum's mum's side all come from places like Banff, Buchan and Inverallochy. And my dad's dad's mum's side come from East Lothian. My great great great grandparents actually got married in Constitution Street in Leith, which is a street I used to walk down every day on my way to work. I think that's quite cool.
Remember I told you about the rumoured suicide of my great great grandad? Well, I found it. He did commit suicide by coal gas poisoning. He was 70 years old. I thought that was quite unusual. The only old person I know who committed suicide was Brooks in The Shawshank Redemption and that was because he'd been on the inside for over 40 years and couldn't handle modern life. On closer inspection of the certificate, it appeared my great great grandad had malignant prostititis. I've reasoned that he was in so much agony there was no hope of relief other than death itself. It's very sad though.
The other interesting bit of information/gossip was that I found a correction entry for my great great great grandad's birth. I'd already tracked down his birth certificate and noted there was no father listed. Written under his name was the word ILLEGITIMATE. Anyway, this correction entry is like a little book all in itself. Apparently, about a year after he was born, his mum actioned a case in the Cupar Sheriff Court to have an 'Alexander Gilmour' named as his father. The court sided with her. I want to know how you go about proving something like that in 1862. I mean, there's no Jerry Springer DNA test. There's no cameras or mobile phones to record any kind of contact. How did they do it? Also, the Gilmours are the family that owned (and still own) the 'big hoose' in Largoward. High society scandal.
I imagined that if I were famous and taking part in that BBC programme about tracing your relatives that this would be the bit where I would excuse myself and wander off. The camera would zoom in on me and I'd be wiping away a tear and trying to compose myself.
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