Page 354 - Just another English family (Sep 2019)
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So, what a major surprise emerged for me on that balcony in Sri Lanka. There were two families that almost exactly matched – both parents were named ‘William and Margret’ and both had a son named ‘William’ born in 1861. The danger of confusing these families is quite evident. At least I now know that any suggestion that William Edward had Irish connections probably would be the result of a confusion about his forebears. Or is it? Who are these Irish Soothills? Is it a coincidence that they gave their child the same name? What was even more startling for me was that such a surprise could still be in store for me after almost a decade and a half working on the family tree.
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