Page 10 - Just another English family (Sep 2019)

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Geoffrey Soothill who also died before the completion of this project is part of the Halifax branch of the Soothill family (while Eric is part of the Rochdale branch). Geoffrey represents another facet of the Soothill family which will be discussed in the final chapter, but he is mentioned here for another reason. Geoffrey was also very interested and supportive of the project to develop a family tree. However, at first he said that it had already been done and he showed me a copy of the fruits of that previous endeavour. It was invaluable as a source book for there is much there which remains important. Nevertheless, it has its limitations.
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Firstly, the work that Geoffrey presented to me was largely focused on his branch of the family. He thought that it was more or less complete, but I asked him where I was on the tree! Secondly, it was – beyond the work on this branch of the family - a bit fragmented. It certainly did not try to tell the story of the Soothills which I am attempting to do here. Also its sources were not always clear and so I decided to start on my own history independently of what Geoffrey held. Later I returned to the material which Geoffrey had shown me and seeing how my work and this earlier endeavour matched up helped to give me confidence in identifying what could be confidently said and what was more speculative.
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Of course, family trees are not everybody’s ‘cup of tea’. Geoffrey told me the story of when they were researching the family tree of which he was the present custodian, the researcher – I assume that they employed a professional genealogist – was given very short shrift from a Soothill who owned a baker’s shop in Fareham. He made it quite evident that he did not want anything to do with all this. I quickly identified that this was my father’s brother, Eric, who had a keen sense of his own privacy. So with one Eric from the Rochdale branch who was so supportive and enthusiastic and one Eric from the Halifax branch who was obstructive and unenthusiastic, one can appreciate that they are very different takes on developing a family tree. Nevertheless, the question remains, “what can we learn about the Soothill family” and I thank all those who have made this attempt to answer this question so much easier.
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