Short sightedness is a bind in more ways than one, as I’ve discovered whilst recovering from a cataract operation. I’m writing this on a dimmed down iPad, (no pun intended) and on the plus side, my house is starting to look a lot brighter and the enforced down-time has been excellent for ruminating over family history. Principally about the newly-released 1921 Census for Scotland. Eagerly anticipated, I was initially somehow vaguely disappointed, oddly flat. I knew my husband’s Scottish parents were almost a generation older than mine, and I’d had some gems from my English family in 1921, so I dived into ScotlandsPeople with my 80 new credits, hoping for treasure.
I’m not sure why it felt such an anti-climax. They were all there, my husband’s coal mining families, grandparents Alexander and Janet Lindsay, George and Annie McKinstry, doing what I expected them to be doing, born at the right time and place, living where I knew they’d be in 1921. His parents, Thomas and Mary, were still teenagers living at home. To be honest, I felt guilty. Me? Disappointed? In family history?