Family Ties.

This is St. Paul's Parish Church, Deptford, it claims to be one of England's finest Baroque Churches. It was consecrated in 1730.

I found it by chance. I was in Deptford High Street dropping my family off at a florist. Opposite is Hamilton Street, now modern flats, where in 1908 my maternal grandmother was born. I thought I'd do some family skeleton hunting.

The church was just around the corner and I grabbed this shot.

When I got home I checked my records and Ancestry to see if my grandmother had a record of baptism. At first I found her older sister had been baptised in the church. 

Through BMD I found that my grandmother had been baptised there but a new piece of information was revealed. We had always celebrated her birthday on the 3rd September. She was shown baptised on the 18th August, born on the 4th...

This isn't a total surprise to me. When she was 2 years old her mother died leaving 10 children. The younger ones were shipped out to other families and my grandmother ended in Custom House, north of the river with a new unofficial name. Maybe that's when she got a new birthday too.

My Morris Minor Traveller is named after my grandmother. Matilda was her real name. She grew up and was known by everyone as Sue.