This week, I discovered that I’m related to actor, Michael Sheen, who’s a big film star.
His Grandmother, Mary Ann and my Great Grandmother Emma, were sisters, both from a showland family.
Emma married my Great Grandfather Thomas Murphy and travelled fairs all over the UK. Mary Ann, by 18 was a lion tamer with Bostock and Wombwell’s Circus travelling as far as New York with the circus. She eventually married and settled down in Wales working as a market trader.
That means that my Grandfather Charles is First cousin to Mary Ann’s son.
This means that my Dad is second cousin to his son Michael, and as I’m my Dad’s son, I become a second cousin once removed.
Family trees spread widely and you never know where it leads.
Following the links of my family as far back as I can, we’ve come from right across the UK and Ireland. It’s really interesting how we’re all linked.
Of course, we weren’t always showmen. For example, the Murphy side of the family in Ireland were apparently horse dealers, but we can trace links back to showmen as far as the early 1800s.
I’m lucky, as the Freeman-Biddall line of my family is well researched and there is a book about the family going back as far as 1710 when John Freeman died.
On my Mum’s side of the family, I don’t really know too much but I do know that in the 1920s, her mum, my Grandmother was a fortune teller on Great Yarmouth seafront.
So you can pretty much assume the showman bloodline runs strongly through me.
It really makes me wish that when I was younger, I’d not only listened to but recorded my conversations with my elders.
When I was in my late teens, we spent our winters living in a showman’s winter quarters in Ashford, Middlesex, owned by my Dad’s Uncle Charlie Hyatt.
He’d have been in his late 70s or early 80s then and I’d go and have a cup of tea with him and he used to tell me the stories of when he was a boy and a young man. They were wondrous stories of days that we can’t even imagine.
In those days, people didn’t have a lot of money, but they were hard working and in my family at least, entrepreneurial, and the things they used to get up to used to have me in fits of laughter.
I wish I could recall those stories. I suppose that at 18 and 19, I was more interested in finding my way in the world than documenting their past.
As you get older though, for me at least, those stories become more important as they tell me where I came from.
One thing I do know though is that I’m absolutely proud of my heritage. Their story is one of endeavour, of hope, of togetherness and with a never say die spirit.
I’d like to think I’ve inherited their attitudes because I’m the same. Like them, I’ve suffered failures in my life. I’ve lost all my savings twice and had to start over again.
And at my age, I’m still dreaming, looking forward and with things I still want to accomplish.
My goals are big, bigger than the amount of money I've got to achieve them. However, I’m like a little terrier dog that’s forever snapping at your ankles. I just don’t know when to give up. So you never know!
I’ll guarantee that you’ll find stories that you wouldn’t have imagined and end up being so proud of your heritage.
Each of us has a heritage worth sharing. A history to tell and pass down to our families and in the finding out about your past, will help you to understand yourself more.
It’s a truly amazing journey to take.
As for me, well I’m wondering whether ‘our Michael’ would be interested in being a silent partner in my newest business plan!
Well, I can dream, can’t I?
UPDATE: 18/4/21 - Having done further research, I've found out that he's not as closely related as we originally thought.
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