An Internet Surprise

The far flung British colonial empire

Although I often bemoan the influence of social media and choose to set my books in times before email and the WWW, the internet does drop surprises in my digital lap when I least suspect them. This week, on what would have been my mother’s 96^th birthday, I received a lovely story about one of her British ancestors named Henry Barnard Hankey (1818-1880).

Cath, a teacher in Zimbabwe, sent me an email about the contents of her grandmother’s camphor chest. It was filled with important family keepsakes such as locks of her children’s hair, old photos, and letters.  But Cath found one surprise, an ancient parchment document dated 2nd July 1845 in which the British Admiralty commissioned Henry Barnard Hankey to take command of the Sloop 'Hazard'.  He was 27 years old.

As far as Cath knows, her family has no connection with this gentleman, but she didn’t stop there. She went looking for Barnard Hankey relations. With lots more research, Cath found me (thanks to the internet’s genealogy opportunities), the one person in my family most fascinated by historical research. The document is currently on its way from Zimbabwe to me in the United States.

This reminded me of a moment in my memoir, Daughter of Spies, when I describe my mother, deep in the throes of dementia, who kept insisting that something was wrong with her eyes. It turned out she couldn’t remember the beginning of a sentence by the time she got to the end of it. However, when I asked her to read sections of the ancient documents from her Gibraltar childhood that I’d found in the basement, her voice came through loud and clear.

WH Mosley, 1902

From Daughter of Spies:

One of our favorites is the official commissioning of her uncle Wilfred as a Second Lieutenant in the Land Forces. Dated 1902, it begins: Edward by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India, Etc. To our Trusty and well-beloved Wilfred Humphrey Mosley, Gentleman, Greeting. And so on and so forth. We giggle together over the language, the lofty tone, the elaborate stamps and signatures.

I wish I could give us more times like these.

Through my mother, I am the child of a British colonial past with all that implies.  Cath and I have found many similarities in our family histories from ancestors who attended Ampleforth, the Catholic equivalent of Eton, to ones who as children, traveled from ports in the far-flung British empire to spend their holidays at “home” in the UK. They came from places like Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in her case and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in mine. Her great uncle and my uncle, (Ian Barnard Hankey) both aged 21, were killed in World War II, six months apart.

So today, I am grateful for the power of the internet because it can expand my knowledge of my own family history while at the same time connecting me to new friends on the other side of the world.

And to those who celebrate this holiday, may you have a blessed and peaceful Easter.