It all began with a promise Susan, 61, made to her mum in the early 90s. As they sat watching a documentary about the community of Bogotá, Colombia, she vowed to one day track down her mum’s uncle, who had emigrated to the South American country decades before.
But it was only when Susan signed up to Ancestry that she was able to get properly stuck into unravelling her mum’s family history.
Susan holds a photo of her three-times great-grandmother Marjorie May Douglas
Susan says: “Neither of my parents talked about their family, and mum’s family died relatively young – she was the last of her family.
“I knew her father was a Geordie, and I knew she had an uncle who had emigrated to South America, and one who was in Montreal, but I always felt there were some more things hanging around.
“I always believed that my mother’s family held a treasure trove of information.
“After I took early retirement and had time to really look into our family history, it turned out I was right.”
The first of three major breakthroughs came when she connected with her mum’s cousin Maria, who was born in Colombia but now lives in Arizona. They connected through a photograph of Maria’s grandmother. Susan was ecstatic, and couldn’t wait to tell her mum that she had tracked down her long-lost family.
Susan’s mum sadly passed away last year, which meant she never heard about two more exciting discoveries. Susan found out her grandfather also had an interesting lineage, after she was contacted by a cousin five times removed, Sheila, who had used Ancestry’s DNA kit to expand on her own research.
She told Susan that she is the three-times great granddaughter of Thomas Clough, the father of a dynasty of Northumbrian pipers whose influence continues to today.
“If she hadn’t contacted me, I would have known nothing about mum’s Geordie family,” says Susan, who adds that her sister, Alyson, has been particularly enamoured with this area of their history.
There are YouTube videos and books about the Clough family’s importance in English piping, and Susan admits that she thought there must have been a mistake when she saw just how revered the musical clan were.
She says: “They were all miners but also renowned pipers. The last one of them died in the 1980s. There is a photo of him on Ancestry – he looks an old man.
“He died when he was only 57, but he looks 80. It shows you exactly what life was like for the miners. Dreadful.”
However, not all of Susan’s relatives met a sad end. Her three-times great-grandmother Marjorie May Douglas has proved to be one of the most inspirational people in her life … despite dying in 1874.
Marjorie was born in 1790 in a remote corner of Perthshire, and after marrying went on to have a total of seven children, and live in London as well as her home village.
But this wasn’t all – at the age of 70, she upped sticks to Illinois, in the US, where she lived until her death in 1874, at the ripe old age of 84.
Susan says: “I cannot think of what she’s done. Even going down to London in those days would have been uncomfortable, and then the sailing ship and perhaps a stagecoach travelling thousands of miles to Illinois at the other end.
Susan’s ancestor Thomas Clough (right), father of a dynasty of Northumbrian pipers
“I printed a photo of her from Ancestry, and she looked very severe, like they always did in those days.
“Then I looked again and I realised this was a woman who loved to laugh and loved to giggle, and if she was alive today we would have been laughing non-stop. I really connected with her.
“Even when I look at it now, I can see a smile forming on her lips.
“It’s amazing how I have bonded with someone I’ve never met.”
Susan has been so moved by Marjorie’s story that she hopes to use her passion for history and enthusiasm for research to work on a book telling the story of her life.
She says: “You are connected to these people, and it’s the weirdest of things to think that your DNA is travelling through the family.
“But I look at Marjorie May Douglas and I know we would have been the best of friends.”
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