To Ernest, With best love to all

As a budding amateur genealogist, forever chasing the shadows of my Ancestors it's sometimes impossible not to forge opinion of those who we spend hours studying and trying to build a picture of. 

My great, great, great grandmother Annie Poole was born in Derbyshire in 1866, her story is a sad one, her parents died before she reached the age of ten, she married in 1892, had a child in 1893 and her husband died in 1894 when he was 27 of tuberculosis leaving her to raise their son alone, after the death of her husband i could find no trace of her, the child went to live with grandparents and she vanished, until 20 years later she emerges when marrying her brother-in-law. 

I struggled to place myself in her shoes and for many years thought she was heartless, didn't care, abandoned the child and ran away, until one visit to my ancestral town in 2014 having coffee with my late grandfathers sister she pulled out a pile of old papers, handed them to me and said "i want you to have these" and sitting in the middle, was an old birthday card from Annie to my great grandfather and it read "To Earnest, from Grandmmar with best love to all, A.L

From that moment my perception of her changed, and i learnt not to judge those who had it a lot tougher than we did. 

These are among my most treasured possessions