Connections

Well another day of looking at the family history. Trying to fill in the tree I'm working on. It's my Barbados tree and was sent to me by someone else who put in loads of people connected to me. So I've been doing more digging and filling in what I've discovered.

One of the people on my tree is Charles Kingsley, the author. His mother was Mary Lucas, who was born in Barbados. We are second cousins four times removed. Anyway I looked for his relatives and found that he had a sister called Charlotte. She married a John Mills Chanter and they had quite a large family. The interesting thing is the names that they gave two of their daughters; one was Mabilla and the other was Gratiana. Gratiana inherited the writing talent of the family and wrote a story called The Witch of Withyford. 

Another interesting member of this family is Mary Henrietta Kingsley, who became a traveller in Africa. She was Charles' niece. Part of her work appears in the Virago book of Women Travellers and makes me glad that she got the experience and not me.

My mother's side of the family has all the illustrious connections. Admiral Francis Beaufort features as a connection by marriage. He married the daughter of Bonne Wilson, nee Boileau.  He was famous for creating the Beaufort windscale and it is explained in the cafe of a fantastic museum in Bournemouth. Its called the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum.

  http://www.russell-cotes.bournemouth.gov.uk/

When I was browsing round I saw a huge painting of a place I recognised, Peninnis on St. Mary's, in the Isles of Scilly. I wanted it to be on a postcard but it wasn't. I didn't have a digital camera then so I will just have to scrape it out of my memory.

I'd love to know how to put photos onto this blog as I'd include a description of the Beaufort scale and a pic of Francis Beaufort.

Hooray I've got my pic but its not in the place I wanted it. Its a pic of Francis Beaufort.

That's enough for now.