I have never been to Bristol. Yet I have wandered its streets, found its lost pubs, traced its floating harbour, and followed a Victorian woman through sixty years of her life there. That’s what genealogy research does to you.
I’d stepped sideways in the hope of finding a link for my third and fourth great-grandparents and was astounded by what I discovered. Intrigued, I began to think I’d found a story worth telling, but my cast of characters had lived in Bristol, a place I’ve never visited.
I had little choice but to do extensive research and spent as many hours researching Bristol as I did finding the real-life Sarah, who inspired Sarah’s Destiny, the first book in The Ancestors series. I think I utilised every repository of historical information available in Bristol including family history groups, bloggers writing about the Lost Pubs of Bristol, public transport history, seafarer’s lists, archived and interactive maps, council and government archives, engineering organisations, libraries, and many, many more.
Google Earth gave me the opportunity to ‘follow’ in the footsteps of my ancestors as I ‘wandered’ around the city, both old and modern, making connections and pinpointing buildings and institutions that Sarah would have known, seen built, or had not been in existence at the time.
The maritime history of Bristol is immense dating back several hundred years. Long before the construction of the famous floating harbour in 1809, shipping had been a vital part of Bristol’s economy and way of life. Coastal trade, especially from Wales flourished despite the many dangers of crossing the notorious Bristol Channel.
Through archived maps I found the White Hart Inn where Sarah grew up, one among many along the Welsh Back. A ‘back’ is a Bristolian word for a wharf and the Welsh Back is the cobblestone street running along the length of the floating harbour. That is where the trows, (specially designed boats with folding masts to get under the low bridges) tied up to unload their wares. Today, the area is still dotted with as many bars and restaurants as it was in Sarah’s time.
I’d found Sarah on every census from 1841, starting as a seven-year-old through to 1901. Alongside those records were numerous birth, death, or marriage certificates, baptismal records, newspaper articles and notices. The more I researched, the more I wanted to recreate her story. The time period was a fascinating era, with all its morals and codes and laws and mores, but human nature being what it is, those codes were not always followed.
We can never know what people said or how they felt or behaved, we can only surmise. What writers do is fill in the gaps. I wrap the history of the time around their lives and love imagining what life had been like for them. During Queen Victoria’s reign, a lot was happening, including the opening of the Crystal Palace in London and the Crimean war amongst many other things. For Bristol, the major historical event, of course, was the construction of the Bristol Suspension Bridge in 1864 and what that meant to an already prosperous and progressive city moving towards the 20th century. The bridge’s dedicated website and the newspaper archives provided far too much material about the construction, the delays, the arguments, and the financial constraints, until culminating eventually in a celebration with all its pomp and ceremony. Deciding what to include and what to leave out was a challenge.
The publication of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management and the serialisation of Charles Dickens’ stories both added context and depth to Sarah’s character. Did either she or her mother actually read or use these books? I will never know, but I do know Sarah was literate.
The Bristol dialect and unique words also had to be taken into consideration when writing dialogue. I visited many websites, learnt new words, and listened to many pronunciations trying to capture the essence at least. I would never claim I mastered the nuances, but hopefully I signalled my best intention.
A newspaper article gave me a real-life report on her visit to the courthouse as a witness in a murder trial, and the licencing papers provided details of the associated dates and venues.. Such details provide my framework but the characters provide the resulting drama.
Sarah’s life was full of drama. She broke conventions but was loyal and determined. She loved deeply and committed to a life most other Victorian women would have considered unliveable.
Research gave me the facts; her story fills the gaps. I hope I have done her justice. Read Sarah’s Destiny and decide for yourself — and follow my own research journey in my forthcoming memoir Where Stories Lie Buried.
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