How often in our research do we find a newspaper report of how our ancestors met?
Most of us have, at least, the tale of how our parents met. I can, for instance, recite, word for word, the night mine met I've heard it that many times. Then there are the lucky lot who even know how their grandparents met(I don't by the way). If you know how your Great Grandparents met, you have one envious family historian right now.
My Great Great Grandparents on my mums paternal line were George Belt(30 Jul 1865 - 24 Nov 1930) and Harriet Higo(1867 - 28 Mar 1908) from Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire. Now, at this point I'd already began to flesh out the lives of these two, George especially, from various different sources(too much for one blog post, so we'll be revisiting him another time).
The website I go to time and time again is www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk, and with my Belt line it has been invaluable. One day, when scrolling through the many articles featuring my 2x Great Grandfather, I came across one from The Hull Daily Mail dated 13 January 1886 that featured both his and Harriet Higo's name.
As you can imagine, I was a little taken aback when I first read this, after all, these people are my direct ancestors, what could possibly have been the reason for such a savage attack?
Pondering this information, I clicked on the next result. Again from the The Hull Daily Mail, dated 15 January 1886, and this time there was a little more detail of the incident.
As you can imagine, I was a little taken aback when I first read this, after all, these people are my direct ancestors, what could possibly have been the reason for such a savage attack?
Pondering this information, I clicked on the next result. Again from the The Hull Daily Mail, dated 15 January 1886, and this time there was a little more detail of the incident.
This is the line that leads me to believe that this was the night that George and Harriet first met. A case of him being a gentleman, stepping in to rescue a damsel in distress. I like to think that maybe he visited her to see how she was recovering after her ordeal, and a relationship sprang from there.
They were married later that year on the 13th December.
It wasn't to be a happy ever after story however, but that's for another time.
So, did, I make the right assumption? Do you get that feeling after reading it? Was this the night they met?
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