EXCITING NEWS

It is difficult to gauge how excited people get when a picture of a long lost relative is found but I know it gives me a real thrill to be able to present such pictures. Since I have been doing my research and since I began this blog to share things with you there have been certain areas of family history that have held a particular fascination for me. One, of course, was the long sought after picture of my grandmother's second husband - the man known as Richard Barrett - and after years of searching it turned out that cousin Alvin had one all the time, so thanks to him I was able to show the picture on this blog. Likewise cousin Alva came up with some wonderful pictures of her mum's family that I never expected to see.

Only today I received a communication from a grandchild of Mary Ann Elizabeth Abbotts. Mary Ann was the sister of my grandmother, Esther, who is, of course, a central figure in our family history. They said they were an avid reader of THE BAYLISS LINE blog. This, of course, gave me great satisfaction but what really excited me was that their family tree contained a picture of Mary Ann Elizabeth Abbotts and also her husband Charles Timms.  Until now I couldn't even begin to guess what any of my grand aunts looked like with the exception of the youngest, Daisy, of whom we have one picture.  I hope to be able to bring you the picture of Mary Ann (who my mother remembered as "Aunt Polly") in the near future.

Next week I'm meeting with cousin's Robin and Ian and soon after that I will be able to bring you the promised article on Joe Slater, their father.