I often think it is easier to explore the histories of others, and whilst I enjoy genealogy I have deliberately shied away from delving into my own family history. I briefly toyed with various websites and censuses but too often found myself searching out parts of the family puzzle and forcing them to fit instead of letting pieces slip gently into place. Consequently much of what I know has been passed down word-of-mouth to me from grandparents and distant cousins.
Of course everybody is proud of their family, and finds them uniquely interesting, and I won’t pretend that I don’t share any of this [self-centred ness]. That being said, I have always been proud to talk at great lengths about the members of my family and I wanted to write a series of posts about them. As pointed out earlier, genealogy websites are not particularly my style, but I am the very lucky owner of my family’s archive. I have two large airtight plastic boxes crammed with photographs, letters, interviews, bibles, and all the other ephemera that families love to keep for future generations. I thought I would start with one of my favourite set of items – the postcard collection kept by my Great Grandmother Honor Cattigan.
Honor Cattigan (Russia, 1906)
This is Honor Cattigan, she is my great-grandmother on my maternal side. I know very little about my grandmothers early life. I don’t know when she was born other than that I assume it was in the late 1880s or early 1890s. I have assumed that she grew up in or around Glasow or Paisley area in Scotland, as most of my grandmother’s family did. Her early life is, as far as the family archive is concerned, was fairly unremarkable. As she reacher her late teens and early 20s her life become a lot more interesting, or at least I find it to be.
Honor worked as a cotton worker, manufacturing cotton spools in the UK. Eventually she was selected to travel abroad to teach other workers the same manufacturing procedure. First she was sent to Italy and then to Russia. Throughout her travels she kept postcards and photos of the places she visited and the friends she made. Honor kept postcards from Rome, Milan, Florence and Lucca.She ended up being based in Lucca. Honor was a devoutly Catholic woman and many of the postcards feature photos and illustrations of cathedrals, churches, monasteries, relics and ruins. They shine a beautiful light on her faith and adventurous spirit.
Here is a ticket from the communion she took at a mass in Lucca.
I have always assumed she met her future husband James McGough before her travels. I know they married in April 1914 and there is a postcard from James to Honor whilst he was living in Baltimore and she was based in Lucca in 1908.
After her time in Lucca she moved with the company to St. Petersburg, Russia, where she lived with the other female employees. Here is the receipt for her Russian passport from 1912.
They stayed at a house called Mackenzie Cottage, shown here in a postcard photo. It is also important to note that my grandmother had her hands on this material long before I did and took, clearly with great glee, to labelling various elements of the photographs with blue biro.
And below is Honor with her colleagues and friends in St. Petersburg.
Like her time in Italy, Honor kept a collection of postcards that leave a trail as to where she visited and what she saw during her time in Russia. One of my favourites is the photograph of her and two of her friends at the beach. My grandmother has labelled it as the shore of Finland, although I’m not sure how she was able to know that.
I love their dresses and Honor’s brolly. Honor also kept more touristy items, like her collection of postcards featuring Russian occupations and their traditional dress. She has pictures of postmen, newspaper sellers, military people, Cossacks, and the ‘people’ and policemen show below.
Her collection also brings to life pre-revolution Russia. Judging by her letters I believe she returned to Scotland before April 1914, as that was the month she was wed. This may have been a coincidental action, to return to her family and soon-to-be husband, although political and military issues that were bubbling up around the Balkans and the Russian empire may have also driven her out of Eastern Europe. As a consequence of being there pre-war and pre-revolution she has several postcards that feature the Russian royal family and their palaces. The postcards also contain pre-revolution language which features additional and different characters.
Another of my favourite postcard photos features a well-dressed couple in a photography studio, my grandmother has penned the name ‘Mr and Mrs Neary’ on the reverse. The photo is fairly inconsequential but the story behind the people in it has always enchanted me. I suppose every family has stories, more likely myths, associated with certain members of their family. One of my family’s is that we are descended from the Irish pirate queen Grace O’Malley based on the fact that the surname O’Malley can be traced so far back; although I conclude this to be tenuous genealogy at its best, the story is always pulled out at family gatherings or to anybody who might listen!
The story associated with this photograph is to do with the woman seated. The story goes, as my grandma would tell, is that the seated woman was one of Honor’s closest friends and Honor introduced them to one another, they fell in love, and were married in the French Chapel in St. Petersburg. This woman was one of the governesses to the Romanov family children. Whether it is true or not it has always captivated me.
The final artefact that I would like to include in this post is by far my favourite. It is a handwritten knitting pattern (that I am yet to try) written on ‘St. Petersburg Express Line, S.S. Imperator Nikolai II’ stationery. It tells me so much about her. It shows me her beautiful handwriting. It tells me how she travelled: The St. Petersburg Express Line was a a passenger and cargo service which ran (at the time my great grandmother was travelling) between London and St. Petersburg; and I would assume that she would have travelled via this service to probably return home. It tells me she enjoyed knitting, something I am yet to master, but am more keen than ever to recreate this pattern.
Going through my great grandmother Honor’s documents made me feel connected to her. Despite never knowing her in person I know what she looked like, some of the family stories she would no doubt have spread (regardless of their authenticity), and I know some of her hobbies and that she had friends that spanned countries. Mostly though, I know that the experience she passed on to my grandmother who then passed on to my mother who then passed on to me has been ingrained in the female family psyche of adventure and fascination, and probably hoarding looking at the sheer quantity of material in the family archive.
Ginny Dawe-Woodings
ginnyandthemoon 
