I have come up with a bit of a mystery, which echoes some of the mysteries my character Thomas Radwinter came across when investigating his family tree. I wasn’t investigating anything, I was just taking advantage of a wonderful sunny day on Sunday, walking with my husband over the hill above our village, enjoying the gorgeous weather and taking photos. I took some pictures of the view from the hill, I took lots of pictures of lichen and when we were in the graveyard around the ruined church of St Nicholas, I also took a couple of pictures of the gravestones of people with unusual names. Unusual names… people reading my books sometimes accuse me of having outlandish names for my characters… I ave never chosen a name as unusual as Thrisselldew.
I took the photo of the gravestone of Edward Thrisselldew who died in at the end of 1924, at the age of eighty-four; he must have been born in 1840. The memorial also commemorates his wife, Jane who died eight weeks later; she too was aged eighty-four.
I had never ever heard such an unusual name, and with a strange spelling, Thistledew I could imagine, but Thrisselldew? I searched birth records, but there was no Edward, nor indeed any other Thrisselldew. I searched deaths… but although I can see his gravestone, I can’t find a record of his death. Marriage records, censuses, land registries, shipping records… nothing, absolutely nothing. I Google the name, but nil results… This really is a mystery… I shall pursue it!
My character Thomas discovered answers to his genealogical mystery by serendipity, lateral thinking and detective work… I wonder if I can do the same for Mr Thrisselldew?
Lois Elsden 