Great Uncle John Tocher

September 26, 2011 at 6:14 am (Family history, Genealogy, History)

I got an email today from another Tocher cousin, my second (third?) cousin. He was able to give me a bit more information about his grandfather and my great uncle John Tocher. My great uncle John Tocher, seated at right, aboard the Steam Ship Heronpool, circa 1910. Engineer, designer of the Portobello Wave Pool, Edinburgh.He went on to be a successful engineer.

Uncle John narrowly missed death in the sinking of the submarine HMS Thetis on its maiden voyage. Uncle John suffered from claustrophobia and decided not to go aboard. It sank, with 99 lives aboard lost. Two men managed to escape through a hatch and four others died trying the same escape route.

“On June 1, 1939, Thetis prepared to make its maiden voyage. The voyage was to be a test run and dive in the home waters of Liverpool Bay. Conditions on board were extremely cramped, with the submarine carrying 103 men – twice the number she was designed to carry. Thetis being launched Many aboard were engineers from Cammell Lairds. Only 69 of Thetis’s crew were sailors, the rest were mainly engineers from Cammell Laird. Laird’s workers were offered the opportunity to disembark prior to the dive, but all chose to stay aboard.”

For three days, those trapped inside the submarine waited for rescue before succumbing to the effects to carbon dioxide poisoning.

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Family Tree!

February 7, 2011 at 8:30 am (Balfour family, Family history, Genealogy, Turnbull family)

A few weeks ago, someone who I ran into on Facebook and who is someone who has been researching the Tocher family (my grandmother’s family) was able to give me a clue which helped clear up a quandary I had. I was going in circles because my GGgrandfather Tocher had married twice and had two families… That confused my efforts to find the connection farther back with his wife’s family, the Balfours and Turnbulls.

Two nights ago, I finally sat down to add the information she had given me to my family tree on ancestry.com and then did a couple of Googles. Lo and Behold! I found a website where someone had photos from their family tree and two of the tiny thumbnails just about knocked me out of my chair!

I had been looking at them, or at least the faces of the two people all my life! They are my GGG grandmother and GGG grandfather! I have had the locket, seen below, all my life.

 

George Balfour and Margaret Turnbull

And here they are! Along with a large number of photos I hadn’t seen before, many of them Turnbull sisters and brothers and nieces and nephews of my GG grandmother.

Margaret Turnbull and George Balfour

To add to my joy was another pair of photos – Captain Brown and Janet Bell Balfour. Captain John Brown and his wife were familiar to my through two family stories, though I didn’t know how, exactly, they fit into my family. Janet, it turns out was my GG grandmother’s sister.

 

Captain John Brown and Janet Bell Balfour

The first story I have heard is that the Captain, accompanied by his wife sailed the South Seas carrying various lots of cargo about. He was, according to the story, the last or one of the last ships out of the harbour at Java just before the eruption of Krakatoa. They had to jettison their cargo of pianos to lighten the load. Much to Janet’s dismay, her piano had to go, too.

When the Captain retired, he did so bringing his parrot. On day, the parrot escaped and the Captain was forced to go out in the rain to look for it. He found it and to punish it, he held it out from the under the umbrella and it was heard to say, in perfect imitation of his wife, “John! It’s cold out here!”

My cousin and I spoke today, on Skype, and he showed me the album and will be sending me high res. images of any we are able to identify as family.

My family tree is here. I did more work on it last night. Lots of interesting things!

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Interesting!

August 20, 2010 at 10:17 am (Family history, Genealogy, Research)
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I had come across my mother’s Soldier’s Record and pay Book from her days in the Women’s Royal Army Corps, last night. Amongst the documents accompanying it was the receipts tor the announcement of her appointment to 2nd Lieutenant in the WRAC, to appear in the London Gazette Supplement.

I’d not heard of the London Gazette but figured that it was just another newspaper.

From what I can tell, it is actually where announcements from all over the UK, and historically, all over the British Empire, were printed. Everything from insolvency to announcements of the settlement of wills and the appointment to military positions.

I started out by looking for the announcement of my mother’s military appointment (which I found as well as her appointment to the same rank in the Reserves in 1953. Then I found the announcement of her cousin George’s appointment to the same rank. I started looking for the names of other relations and then tried the name Dubash, my step-Dad’s surname, and Shroff, (or Schroff) his mother’s maiden name. There were a few people with the surname Dubash and a few with the surname Shroff. However, the bulk of the entries, some going back to the 1790s, are for the occupation of Dubash (basically a “facilitator” – someone who acts as the agent for a ship or company to arrange for everything from offloading cargo, arranging the sale of cargo, ships chandler….) or Shroff (collector, as in debt or loan collector).

I’m not sure how many people are aware of the Gazette but it would be a resource for anyone doing genealogy research.

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