Unexpected Discoveries That Changed a Family’s Understanding

How Research Can Reveal the Truth Behind Family Stories

They were products of their time, their experiences, and their heartbreak.

Family history isn’t just about researching the mysteries of the past or tracing long-lost relatives. Often, family history can change with the perspective of time. Revisiting family stories with the clarity of hindsight allows us to reframe and gain a better understanding of those who came before.

Growing up, I often heard that my great-grandfather, George II, was a moody, hard man. My grandfather, George III, rarely spoke of him, and when he did, it was never fondly. I knew only that George II had worked as a brewer’s labourer for The Distillers Company in Edinburgh.

Years later, when I was able to do my own research on my great-grandfather’s life, I began to realise that there was much more to his story. It unfolded as a narrative of hardship, loss, survival, and quiet resilience.

George II was born in Canongate, Edinburgh, in 1885. The first son of George I, a 23-year-old Scotsman, and Maria, a 24-year-old Irish immigrant. At the time, Canongate was overcrowded and had grim living conditions, with families often confined to small, disease-ridden tenements. Struggling with poverty and unsanitary living conditions. Infant mortality rates were high, amplifying the struggles of those living in the era.

I began to get a picture of the harrowing environment young George II was growing up in. By the time George II was just five years old, he had already suffered the loss of two younger brothers and his mother, Maria. He and his father were left to survive with the help of extended family.

It wasn’t until 1990, when George II was 15, that his father remarried a much younger woman and started a new family, further altering the dynamics of their household. Following in his father’s footsteps, George II initially became an apprentice Iron Dresser; however, after his father’s marriage, he moved in with his uncle and settled in the role of brewer’s labourer.

In 1907, he married Sarah, and by 1915, the couple had welcomed four sons into the world. Yet their joy was tinged with sorrow as their 2 eldest died before they turned 3.

Just two months before my grandfather George III was born, his father went off to war. In March 1915, at the age of 30, he enlisted as a Private in the Army. He served through some of the bloodiest battles of World War I, including the horrors of the Somme and the relentless fighting at Ypres.

Upon his return, he bore no visible scars from the war, only the chronic condition of “flat feet” from relentless marching. He returned with no major physical wounds. Only "flat feet" from miles of marching. He chose to remain after the armistice, volunteering to help recover and bury the dead. He finally returned to Edinburgh in April 1919. By that time, my grandfather was three years old when he met his father.

While it is easy to understand why George II may have been perceived as a cold and hard man, contemporary understanding of the effects of childhood trauma, war, and PTSD allows us to view him through more compassionate eyes. We can now see the man behind the family story: a boy shaped by early loss, a young man pulled from his trade, a father who buried two children, and a soldier who faced the brutalities of war.

From someone who was once dismissed and judged harshly, George II's story has become a story of survival and quiet endurance. It’s a reminder that our ancestors deserve to be more than the labels they were given; they were products of their time, their experiences, and their heartbreak. It is essential to weave together these threads to reveal a fuller, richer portrait of who they truly were.