Mansel Who?

It was just another piece of paper, handwritten, and prepared by someone who assumed that everyone would know who had written it and about whom they had written. It began: "Mother died Aug 31st 1926. Buried Mansel Lacy Sep 14th, 4.30". I guess within me there's an archivist who would rather people always signed and dated primary source material, but there's also someone who enjoys a challenge.

Much of the rest of the note consists of names and dates, some of which were familiar (both names and dates). The key was in the first of them: "Inez Rose Morgan born June 11st [sic] 1923" and on the second line: "S.A.Home" to the left and "Northlands North Rd Cardiff" to the right.

Inez Rose's surname written in black ink is hatched out in pencil, indicating a later correction. 'Inez Rose' was a name familiar to my wife, but with a maiden name of 'Lunn'. A look at the family tree showed that Inez Rose's mother's maiden name was Alice Mary Morgan.

Northlands is still a Salvation Army Hostel, though developed and possibly at a slightly different location. How Inez Rose came to be born there is worth investigating in itself (I've emailed the hostel manager). Meanwhile, the link to Alice Mary Morgan showed a gap in the family tree. We already knew Alice Mary's father was Richard Morgan - game keeper at Bedstone, Herefordshire. However for Alice's mother all we had was 'Annie' and a date of birth around 1871.

We use Family Tree Maker software and Ancestry.co.uk and above Annie's name was a tag showing that there was an online hint waiting. Sure enough, the link gave not only Annie's maiden name of Griffiths, but also a date for her death - 31 August 1926, the date that "Mother died."

I'm not sure that parish records will confirm that Annie's burial took place at 4.30, but at least we're spared a trip to Mansell Lacy (as it now appears on the map) to scour headstones looking for the date in order to get the surname.

As far as we know, Annie and Richard had 6 children. One of them we've already met in this story, Alice, but one of Alice's sisters was Edith May Morgan. She was Sara's maternal grandmother, and therefore the most likely author of the note, and she lived until 1969, aged 70. From that starting point, I will begin investigating some of the other names that appear.

Incidentally, Inez Rose died in 1998 aged 74. This photograph, from the Williams Family Tree and titled 'Aberavon' shows Inez as Sara remembers her.



Inez Rose Williams nee Lunn with her husband Stephen, from the Williams Family Tree.