Looking at the full picture

I don't know about you but when I first began researching my family history, it was all data collection. I mainly collected all the dates of birth, marriage and death of my ancestors, alongside recording where they were and what they were doing every 10 years on the censuses.

As time went on I started to want to unlock some of the facts in this data collecting exercise that I'd done previously. What did it mean that my ancestor was born in January 1899 or was baptised on 25th December 1888? 

You had to look at the facts around the bigger picture...

• What was happening in your ancestors town, village, street at the time of these significant life events? Eg mass unemployment, opening of a new railway, clearing of slums, new housing?
• What had happened 8-10 months before a birth? Eg, a marriage only months before a birth or a father home on leave from the army?
• What was happening in the World or the Nation? Eg war, peace, temperance movement, strikes, protests, death of a king?
• Was there other events happening within the immediate or extended family? Eg, cousins of similar ages, a daughter old enough to have a baby which the mother was hiding as her own, children helping with house work or child care, the father out of work?
• Where were extended family members located geographically in relation to your relative? Did that have an impact on the relationship the extended family had with one another? Eg in the same or next street, in the neighbouring town or on the otherside of the country?

Harold Poole with his wife Alice Thompson

An example which I discovered in my own family tree once I started to unpack the facts was...

...my great grandmother, Grace Ellen Poole nee Binns died on 31st July 1917 at 2 Rose Avenue, Horsforth, West Yorkshire
...1917 was in the middle of WW1
...did she have family members - sons, husband, nephews, brothers - who had signed up & were away fighting in France?
...her eldest son, Harold Poole, was overseas in France until 1918

...Frederick Poole - Grace's husband remarried on 27th April 1918 only months after his wife had passed away
...Harold, Grace's son married on 26th September 1918 - possibly home on leave?
...remember WW1 ended on 11th November 1918 and even then it may have been 1919 before troops returned home to their loved ones 

...my grandmother always told stories that her father, Harold Poole would never talk to his father Frederick Poole, one wonders whether it was due to the fact that his father remarried so quickly after his mother's death before Harold had the opportunity to grieve for his own mother, Grace.

It wasn't until I had unpacked the facts and looked at the full picture did I realise how quick succession it was between my great, great grandmother's death and her husband's remarriage, alongside the complications of WW1 and her son, his marriage and being away in France.

A few thoughts about Britain's social history and the Welfare State...

Well, I have doing some deep thinking, doesn't happen often so I thought I would share something of my thoughts. You may agree with them but at the same time you may not which is fine, but I would be interested to hear your thoughts...

I have been doing a short course to learn about the differences in cultures between the East and West of the world, to enable us better to befriend our neighbours from other countries to make our city a friendly place to live.

In the West our culture is focussed on:

• individualism, 
• often not community or family focussed, 
• time and efficiency orientated, 
• equality between sexes, 
• secular and sacred divide, 
• having companions through work or the activities we do, 
• fragmented families, 
• the expectation of the state to care for our elderly and infirm.

Whereas in the East the culture is:

• much more heavily focussed around family and wider extended families, 
• communities working and coming together to achieve something, 
• care for one another especially within the extended family,
• relationship and hospitality orientated,
• religion centred, 
• more segregated roles in society.

Having discussed these differences in cultures with some friends who're also on the course, it got me thinking about how our society works and how it has become what it is today, as only a few generations ago our society's values were probably more like the East's are today. We did not institutionalise our elderly or infirm, we cared for them within the extended family, women were expected to care for the elderly alongside the children, so how did our values change on these things?

Well, in the 1940s just after the end of World War II the Welfare System was created, it was a system set up to support those who were unable to work due to ill health, learning difficulties, disabilities etc without the fear of having to enter the dreaded "WORKHOUSE". It was especially important for the government to set up a system in which to support those who were now unable to work due to disabilities sustained through the war.  It was a revolutionary system alongside the start of the National Health Service (NHS) which went on to provide free health care to all. It offered support to those who really needed it, to reduce poverty and improve education and health in our country. Those who lived throughout the transition into a Welfare State and the NHS must have seen a truly transitional community, and even now working in the NHS I see elderly patients who are just so grateful that we have a free healthcare system in which they can be treated for they remember the fear of their parents when a family member became ill or unemployed.

Unfortunately for those of us who're younger and have always lived within the system, it is what we have always known and we expect to get as much as we can for "FREE" (after all we do pay into the system!) and this is what has changed and altered some of the values and cultures within our society.

• We expect the best service that can be offered.
• We expect the government to pay up when our relatives become elderly or we are unable to work for whatever reason so why should we have to help them?
• We no longer need to save money just in case we fall ill and cannot work as we will receive a benefits such as sick pay. 
• We no longer have to care for our elderly relatives as they can go into a nursing home which the state will pay some of the costs of.
• We no longer have to worry about losing our jobs as there will be money we can rely on.
• There are a few who rely on the Welfare State for their income and have become apathetic about the need to work.
• We also know we can get a basic state pension when we reach retirement age, so we do not need to work until the day we cannot.

Do we take our Welfare System and National Health Service for granted, should we be more appreciative of what we can have for "FREE"?

We have lost many of our previous responsibilities where we had to care for elderly relatives, bring them into our homes, share our finances with them when they were in need, take more care of our finances so we had something to fall on if we fell onto hard times. Would you consider bailing your brother and his family out if he was made redundant or would you expect the state to pick up the bill? Would you have cared more for your family if the only other option was the dreaded workhouse? 

Has having a state welfare system affected our "family" lives and created generations who expect to get as much as they can by paying as little as possible and not have to take responsibility for their extended families? We have become so focussed on SELF and what "I" can achieve, not having time to offer to others because we are so time and efficiency focussed.

Don't get me wrong I love the welfare system and the National Health Service and also hate paying my taxes but really I want to get you thinking about the background behind the beginnings of the Welfare State and NHS. Why it was created, for the good of our communities but also what a shift has happened in our communities and extended families since the beginnings of the Welfare State. I realise there are also many other changes which have occurred in society which have altered the way communities work.

In my great, great grandfather's diary, it lists the accounts of the financial support he had to offer his own father in his old age up to his death. Would we expect to do this today? (The story of my great, great grandfather - Edward Davidson can be found on Ruth's Ancestors blog - The Davidson Family Chapter 8 and 13 onwards especially Fig 8.15.)

Copyright © 2013 Ruth Hogan