Within Living Memory

A chance conversation when out walking back in January, as well as some conversations at my gentle exercise class, reminded me that once people get to a certain age, they have lived through history. They may not think of it as history, because it's their everyday life, normal, mundane, nothing remarkable. History is generally thought of as rulers, politics, wars and battles, inventions, constructions and disasters. The small, everyday lives of the little people, many of whom were illiterate, were scarcely recorded.

I did some research into the small Carmarthenshire farm I bought with my former partner in 1999. It was very difficult. Some locals shared their knowledge, although most of that resided with a local historian, who was loath to share what he knew as he was writing a book about the village (which ended up with very little indeed about 'my' farm). Chatting with the archivist at Carmarthen archives, I was advised to try to get to its history through the people who lived there. But it was a small farm with tenant farmers and north-facing land used to support the livings of clergy under Queen Anne's Bounty until it was bought out. Without original deeds and with little to go on from the tithe maps, there was no way of getting to the history of the buildings and farm itself. However, I was very interested in how the lives of those poor tenant farmers might have been. There were cottages reduced to rubble at the bottom of the hill adjacent to one corner of the land, apparently still owned by the family who'd had the farm from the early 1900s until the 1970s. There was also the remains of a cottage in a little corner of the adjoining farm's land, with no track and only the merest trace on an old Ordnance Survey map, presumably a farm worker's cottage. Was it a tŷ unnos - a cottage built in one night to claim that little parcel of land and create a home? They were usually built on common land, but some landowners allowed them, or wagered that their workers couldn't build their cottage and have a fire in the hearth within a day and night. I doubt the answer could ever be known now.

Yet in personal, family and local history lie all the details and stories which we can identify with. Who married whom, lived where, their occupations and how they lived their lives and coped with adversity and change; these are the things which are important to people. Who is on the throne, which laws were passed are all context.

Having moved a lot when young, I've never felt that I have roots and am fascinated by the stories of people who have been born and brought up in one locality. They are the guardians of a local and personal history which is still largely untold, although titbits are increasingly shared through social media. Similarly, interest has increased in family history, particularly since programmes such as the BBC's 'Who Do You Think You Are?' started.

The woman I met out walking in January said 'you should meet my husband, he was born and brought up down here' and it made me wonder how I should go about talking to people about their memories, and record them. Then I came across a project relating to shared histories between Pembrokeshire and Ireland called Ancient Connections. They were running 'History Hunters' courses on collecting and sharing oral histories, and since I very much doubt I have any ancient connections here or in ROI, but it matched a growing fascination, I asked if I might be eligible to join in. I was, and went to the first two sessions in St David's at the end of February. It was very well organised and completely engrossing. I left, looking forward to working out a project and coming to the two sessions in March, which, because of this horrible virus, have, understandably, been cancelled. Visiting people in their homes isn't really possible now.

At the same time that I was connecting with Ancient Connections, the family history bug bit me and I took advantage of a free trial on MyHeritage to start building my tree. Then I missed cancelling the fortnight's trial by a day and have ended up with a year's subscription, so I may as well make the most of it. I don't expect to find anyone famous, but who knows? Will I find ancestors who shared my passions for dance, art and crafts and the natural world, and uncover the truth of family stories about French ancestors on one side and Irish on the other?