eliza

Eliza Cope was one of my four great grandmothers. This photo was taken on the occasion of her marriage on 19th January 1895. I am fortunate to have a lovely photo album which was kept by my grandfather (his are the typed labels).

I have started a free trial of Ancestry and hours have passed by while I look through birth, marriage and census records. I haven't really discovered many new ancestors, but I feel a little closer to the ones I already knew about. I don't know a whole lot about  Eliza, but I have photos of her from when she was 17 and some from later on, when the difficulties of Victorian rural life show in the faces of her and her 6 living children. Four of those children (all girls) lived to be over 80, and one of them was my grandma, who lived to be 103. Eliza died in 1938 while visiting my grandma's house in Friern Barnet.

I often think about the lives that these women led, compared to mine, and I think I was pretty fortunate to have been born in the 20th century.

Joanna and I had a lovely catch up walk this afternoon. It rained on and off but we had lots to talk about so didn't really notice :-)