Connecting with ancestors

Visiting Halifax

My friends and family have been bored with my tales of digging into my family history during lockdown. I'm little afraid that this became somewhat of an obsession at times with the illusory power of the internet being my tool to track down every last detail of information I could find. Today marked the first time that I went from beyond the computer to taking the time to go to the place where some of my ancestors live.

The town of Halifax is about 30 Miles from where I currently live and it was a great surprise to me that this is the place where one strand of my family come from. I certainly didn't know that I had ancestors from Yorkshire before I moved here and due to the pandemic I hadn't been able to get here. Today was the open day of the Lister Lane Cemetery, an important graveyard for Congregationalists, Non-Conformists and Catholics that was established in 1841. My great great great Grandfather John Riley and his wife Elizabeth are buried there with other members of their family

John Riley (1809-1884) and Elizabeth Haley (1822-1892)

John Riley was the son of a tailor from Ovenden who became a publican in Halifax. This was a much more significant position than in current times and we was of such a statue that he became first a councillor for the Corporation of Halifax and then an Alderman. He married his first wife, Frances in 1832. They had a large number of children including Franny, Martha and John who are all buried here. (See left). Frances, John's wife died in 1852. The cause of death isn't noted but John's grief was noted in the obituary in the local newspaper.

Left alone to manage a busy business and several young children, John looked to marry again. and he married Elizabeth in 1855. Elizabeth Haley was the sister of John's first wife, Frances. They lived together first in Halifax and then in the nearby village of Hipperholme where John and Elizabeth had my great great grandfather Joe in 1856.

John died in 1884 and left a substantial estate and a legacy as an important civic figure in Halifax including serving as a magistrate, a governor of the local Grammar school and a warden of the workhouse.

Elizabeth had a troubled life and was particularly challenged by the actions of her only son and his wife Elizabeth Helen McLaren. Perhaps that life is why she merited the epitaph 'She hath done what she could'

The family pub

After I visited the cemetery I went to another site of remembrance, the Union Cross Hotel. It's now a fairly down at heel place, but with the coaching yard and some of the original fittings I could envisage the place busy and active and a bit of the life my family had there. I only thought about it after the fact, but it would have been a bit of poetic symmetry if I had had a pint of Guinness rather than Stella Artois.

Reflections on what it meant

Today was the first time that I've been any gravesite of my ancestors. I've been to plenty of graveyards previously, in fact when I was growing up a graveyard was often where I would play. But today was the first time that I have been where I have an actual connection. It was the open day of the Friends of Lister Lane, a group who spend their time trying to maintain the cemetery. The cemetery, like Halifax, is a changed place from when the cemetery was opened in 1841.

The walk up from town, and it is a walk up of around 200ft/60m of inexorable climbing, passes through a town of faded glory. It must have been booming in the time of my ancestors and this can be seen in the shops, market and commercial buildings of the mid-late 1800s. As I passed under the 4 lane highway in the middle of town, I came to beautiful stone workers cottages, now the homes of a large South Asian population. And in the middle of this community is the resting place of people of a former time, now unconnected to the people that live around them.

The cemetery itself closed to burials in 1963 and was left to dereliction in the 1980s and 1990s. On the guided tour they noted that it was completely grown over until 1999 and there is a wild look to some parts where the strimmer and mower haven't got too. I had to look for the grave of my family, as all the vaults and graves are on top of each other. I had a rough idea where to look and then I saw it. These stones placed lovingly there 120 years ago, with the damage of time and lack of care. I had the thought that I was probably the first descendent of John and Elizabeth Riley to visit the place for more than 100 years.

I was trying to work out what I should do or say or feel when next to the grave. I certainly didn't feel and mystical power or sense of belonging by being there....no TV induced special effect. I share the inheritance of these people here, but I guess I asked myself the question that were we to meet today, would they recognise any of themselves in me ? My height is different, my accent is different etc but my blood is the same. There is one line from my great, great, great Grandfather's obituary that I would like to think of myself in relation to him.

Mr. Riley, who was of an affable disposition, won friends in what-ever circle business relations or public matters caused him to move.

Halifax Courier, 23 August 1884

I said a prayer for my ancestors, after my own traditions. I feel connected to them and this place, but I don't know that I need to go back regularly, or even that they might want me to. But it did make me think about what place and memory are about. One thing that doing work on the family history has made me reflect on is that is not one home, or a homeland that I can belong to. My family's story is a story of travel and diaspora and living in the present, not the past. That's another thing for another day.

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