Time and remembering

 

In my DNA update of April 3, I wrote about the information my DNA cousin had given me about our mutual family line in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire. I had the bright idea of checking the wills of William Long's employers to see if they would give me any clues to where I could find further records about our family line. After some sleuthing through the wills on the National Archives site, I came up with the documents which record the final wishes of two of these employers. However, while patting myself on the back for my discovery, I'd forgotten the difficulty of interpreting wills from the early 1800s. It's going to take more time than I bargained for.

                                                       snippet from a will downloaded from the National Archives site 

Time came up in another context this week. It had to do with a story that I'm writing. It's a tale that goes back to Vancouver in the '70s. It didn't dawn on me until after I'd written that it was legal to drink after the age of 21 that the drinking ages in Canada had changed in that decade. Of course, that thought came to me when my computer was shut down for the night. When I checked the following morning, I discovered that the legal drinking age in most of the various provinces changed in or close to 1970. Why hadn't I clued in when I wrote that part of the story?

Remembering is like that. Our brains can cough up incorrect facts and build whole histories that rely on them. Which is why it is always good to have corroborating evidence to any source or oral history. Even to your own memory it seems.

 

Sources:

The National Archives UK wills help guide https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/wills-and-probate-before-1858-further-research/