Heritage & Legacy

My Great-Uncle Arthur Rudge - progenitor of the Australian branch of the family.

    I've been trying to make some sense of a couple of very convoluted family trees, compiled variously by my Dad, his latterly found cousin in Australia and a Judith Stark, who I think was based in Singapore, although I'm hazy on the detail. The family tree in question is the Rudge (Dad's mother's) side. The three trees were assembled in isolation over some twenty years and coalescence only happened after Dad decided to follow up the fate of an uncle of his - Arthur Rudge.
    Dad had a memory from childhood that a member of the family had very suddenly upped sticks and gone to Australia. He didn't have any detail, apart from a christian name - Arthur. So, in his early internet-using days, he started trawling around for connections. Eventually, after a lot of back-and-to, he made contact with Gladys. He started an online conversation which led to the realisation that they were cousins, linked by the man in the photo above, my great-uncle Arthur, who eventually drowned in the River Yarra in Melbourne, trying to rescue someone, at the age of sixty-eight. He was born in Winson Green Road in Birmingham. From the Green. To Melbourne. And another branch was born.
    My sister & I now have cousins all over the world. A lot - and I mean a lot - came from from one small segment of the family: my uncle Sam, who I could write much about, and will; and his wife, my Aunt Annie. They had a large family and although it was many years after Sam died, we had a reunion for Annie with all the cousins that resulted from their marriage. A Community Hall was hired for the event, and a lot of Harvey's and relatives turned up - at least two-hundred-and-fifty. All my cousins from just one uncle. The glorious thing was that just about every ethnic group in the UK and beyond was represented. We have Sikh, Chinese, & Afro-Caribbean cousins. Why can't people just embrace multi-culturalism? It is part of us all.
    The marriage of the three family trees confirmed that I and my sister are largely Welsh (although there is still the as-yet-unconfirmed Roma strand to the story!), as of course is Jane and both our families hail from within a few short miles of one another in North-East Wales - her's from Ruthin and mine from Ruabon. Both migrated, married and settled in the West Midlands. Jane & I met, married and eventually moved back to Wales. Maybe a deep-seated, cellular hiraeth - who knows; but we've lived here for forty years and it is our home, in the truest sense of the word.