Images copyright and served from FamilySearch and used with permission from FindmyPast. Leah Pringle, Rachel Pringle.
When I think about everything I have achieved in my research, for my own family history and that of others, there is one discovery that simultaneously makes me warm and fuzzy but also emotional at the same time.
My great grandparents had twin daughters who were younger siblings to my grandfather. These two girls were born 107 years ago today, on the 21st December 1916 in Westmoreland, Jamaica. Leah Adina and Rachel Agatha were the daughters of Florence Pringle and Cecil Gordon.
Their father registered their births, but as the girls were born out of wedlock no father is listed and they were officially given the Pringle surname. This was the policy at the time (and for many years after). No matter how involved a father was, if the parents were unmarried no father could be recorded on the birth certificate. This was done in full acknowledgement that the children would grow up being known by their father’s surname, even using it on all official documentation.
When the girls were born they had two elder brothers, Leslie (6) and Clifford (4) – my grandfather, and an elder sister, Daisy (2). Both of their parents were reported to be labourers.
So why do these two great aunts stand out so much to me?
When I started asking elders and family about my grandfather and his family, there was no mention of Leah or Rachel. I was so surprised when I found their records. The names, locations and dates all fit for these to be my great aunts, so why had no-one heard of them?
I went hunting in the death records to see if they died in childhood. Sure enough I found their death certificates. Wherever you research your ancestors you’re likely to come across childhood death. Survival rates were so much lower. It always brings a sadness, thoughts of how scary motherhood would have been and a gratefulness for modern medicine and living conditions.
It is worth noting that although the girls were registered as Pringle on their birth certificates, their death certificates note that they were ‘otherwise Gordon’, despite their father not being the person to register the deaths.
What really struck me about Leah and Rachel though, was that Leah passed away on the 12th November 1918 and Rachel followed just 2 days later, when their younger brother (Charles) was just a week old. Influenza was noted as a cause of death on both certificates. The 1918 influenza epidemic had reached Jamaica.
Images copyright and served from FamilySearch and used with permission from FindmyPast. Leah Pringle, Rachel Pringle.
If you scroll through the records that precede Leah’s death, you find the majority of the entries in late October have the cause of death recorded as ‘Fever’. On the 3rd of November the first death from Influenza was recorded in Sheffield, Westmoreland. In the 2 weeks leading up to Leah’s death all recorded deaths were caused by Influenza, affecting infants, the elderly and those ‘in their prime’.
I cannot imagine what my great grandparents must have been feeling, knowing that influenza was about, with a newborn baby, twin toddlers and 3 more children 8 and under. To see Leah sicken and die and then see Rachel follow her. The fear they must have felt for little Charles. No matter how many times I tell their story it gives me a chill to think what it must have been like.
I did say this story gave me warm fuzzy feelings as well, and it does. I don’t know if it is due to how young their siblings were when Leah and Rachel died, or if it was just too painful for Florence and Cecil, but the girls slipped from our family’s knowledge. No-one living had any knowledge of them. Their siblings had never spoken of them to the younger generations. The story of Leah and Rachel Gordon was lost from living memory.
I’ve always loved the quote about how people die two deaths, first when they take their last breath and then again when their names are spoken for the last time.
Part of genealogy and family history is keeping our ancestor’s memories alive. I was able to bring the names Leah and Rachel back into our family’s knowledge. They had short lives but they lived and loved and now they can be remembered again.
This is such a large part of why I do genealogy and I am honoured to have been able to share their story.
GenieDans
Note: This was previously published by me on 21 December 2023 and copied to this blog on 14 January 2024.
