Heritage

In my early teens I took an interest in my family tree. It was a good time to do so as I was able to quiz my grandparents and their sisters and brothers. My grandfather on my mother's side Harry Turner was extremely supportive and interested in my efforts to find out about my heritage. In more recent times I have used ancestry.co.uk to confirm many of the snippets of information I was given and in some cases find out other facts that are further back in time than the memories shared with me.

My Great Grandparent's families were mostly from the North of England, although the Smiths themselves originate in North Berwick, Scotland about 15 miles east of Edinburgh. In 2005 I visited North Berwick, which is a beautiful fishing village on the estuary of the River Forth and wondered why my namesake Andrew Smith, a tailor by profession, had ever left there to move to Bradford, a mill town? :) 

Andrew my Great Grandfather who I was named after, was born in 1844 in North Berwick and moved to Bradford before December 1871. I know this because that is when he married Elizabeth Sharp, who was from York. These two were the parents of four girls and three boys, amongst them my Granddad John William Smith who married Annice Pogson in 1912. She was from a mining family that originated in Stalybridge, Lancashire. Both her father and grandfather had died in mining accidents. Sadly I know nothing of the Daveys, my Great Grandma Pogson's birth family.

My Great Grandfather Joseph Turner, born 1859 was a Journeyman Mason. The son of John Turner the village cobbler of Great Horton, Bradford. They lived in a house in Crossley Street, the one that had a natural well in the cellar. Each morning the neighbors came to the house to get their buckets filled with water! Harry Turner and his 3 brothers and 4 sisters, Joseph Turner and John Turner were all born in that house. Joseph Turner married Kate Jameson on Christmas Day, 1887 at Bradford Cathedral. Kate's father was the caretaker of the Opera House in Harrogate and the Jamesons lived in Parliament Street in the first house to have gas fitted.

My maternal Grandmother Daisy Fisher's family were from the Bradford area. Her father Ernest married Rosanna the daughter of Henry Carter and Rosanna Dykes. Henry was a Cabinet Maker from Huddersfield and the Rosanna Dykes was from Norfolk. The fact that all these people lives were involved in bringing my parents into the world, so that I could be born is an amazing heritage and my ability to learn much more than I have written here about them is a blessing to me. I know my roots are not just in Bradford but in other parts of the UK. The fact that I live in Sheffield seems to me like just another unfolding of my families story! :)