Page 8 - Just another English family (Sep 2019)
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Long term, I would like to get the manuscript into a state where it could be published as a ‘proper’ book – he would have loved that. Meanwhile, everyone can access and share in the delight of what he produced on behalf of the Soothill tribe.
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Finally, there is one thing he didn’t manage to achieve in his lifetime. Despite all his efforts, he couldn’t prove that all Soothills were directly related; that the branches of the family tree are all connected. A fire in a parish church destroyed crucial records and probably put paid to that. My mother attests that it is obvious we are all related as we all look so alike, but that was not good enough for my father and a scholarly piece of work. Nowadays however, there are tools available that were unimaginable even in the latter years of my father’s life. I wonder whether DNA testing might actually be able to prove we are all one family...
Anthony Soothill
September 2019
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