Family History Surprises

It really is always surprising when you experience a Family History surprise. I've been going along with my searching and linking of families for over 30 years now but quite regularly I get these surprises which give extra information or documents which provide further insight into members of the Hookins family. The latest surprise was a visit from Debbie who is on the same Family Tree as me and had been given a number of photographs none of which were marked to indicate the subjects involved. I have now accumulated records of over 1500 Hookins people and acquired quite a number of photographs which I have been gradually sharing on this blog so I was quietly confident of being able to identify some of these. That illusion was shattered however when I looked through them and was able to identify 2 people who appeared in one of the photographs!! So - what do I know after all these years?!! Debbie was able to tell me where her father appeared but we are still left with 14 prints involving a number of people unkown to us so I have set about the task of sending them to people in our Family Tree who might just have been around at the same time as these people and/or may have seen pictures of them to identify some. Debbie's father was a William Ewart HOOKINS son of Henry James HOOKINS and it is probably Henry's siblings (there were 10 of them!!) or people of his generation whom we are looking at. Those siblings were Frederick John (my grandfather), Samuel, Ada Jane (married name RODBER), Alice (married name ROBERTS), Jesse (died at age 6), Walter, Charles, William, Nellie and Elizabeth (died at age 12). If anyone has knowledge of the families of any of these or of contact with them I would be delighted to hear from them. In the meantime I will continue to contact those I have come to know over the years to try and help solve this mystery. One thing with these surprises is that it normally involves a bit of work to solve mysteries or to catalogue changes but it's enjoyable all the same and such contact is very welcome. So thanks to Debbie - it was good to meet up again and I hope to get some answers for both of us. And here are the pictures.

Richard Southey HOOKINS (Tree 3Q)

Richard Southey HOOKINS was born in Elsternwick, Victoria, Australia just after Christmas in 1925. He was the only son in a family of 4 children to Spencer Southey HOOKINS and his wife Alma Vera (nee TURNER). Richard's grandfather Sidney Southey HOOKINS was born in Exeter but went out to Australia in 1867 and 13 years later married Fanny BLACKBURN. Richard was an Insurance Clerk but joined the Royal Australian Naval Reserve in 1943 as an Ordinary Seaman serving on a few ships. He was described as being 5ft 7 inches tall with brown hair and hazel eyes on the attached Naval record. Unfortunately he was badly burned and died as a result of the wounds received on 21st October 1944. His mother's details are included on his record and another page indicates that she was awarded a pension of £2.10s per fortnight from the following month.

Alice and Sarah Muriel M HOOKINS (Tree 3N)

This is the final picture I have of the familyof Alfred John & Alice HOOKINS and shows Alice and her daughter Sarah Muriel M. Alice was born in 1876 in Bermondsey and married Alfred in 1898. Alice died around 1972. Sarah Muriel M. was known as Muriel and was born in 1900, the eldest of the surviving children. She married Harry Edward JOHNSON with whom I believe she had 2 children. Muriel died around 1980.