In my youth it was easier finding out what was happening in horse-drawn Somerset than it was finding out what was happening on ITV. And the former was far more wholesome. I had only to hop up a few stairs above 'Next' and the faded leather-bound volumes in the disused probate registry opened so very easily. No remote control needed.
A gain 'here' equalled a piece of information 'there' as all the families east of the Mendips were connected somehow. You just had to find the right button. At 17 one slightly snowy December, I hopped in my elderly Fiesta and took those ancient addresses and went to visit them. Cousins were still there. Ralph Bush (born 6 November 1900), dairy farmer was still alive, nearly doing the tonne. Extraordinary to think that even the car I was driving has lately turned 50 - on some scrapheap somewhere.
But it all had to end. Reunions and memories and beautiful big trees and photographs, gravestones and stories....
Once the Haine Reunion 2005 had happened in Ohio, it was our swan song. The county had no more left to give. Just roads and endless car-ry traffic-fumed angry London visiting road filled roads. Once-pleasant cottages hard juxta'd onto the endlessly rolling tarmac, sucking in more unhappy Londoners bemoaning the stagnant lonely air. Old family strongholds selling up, and nowhere for anyone to live.
What a relief to escape. I was a genealogical nomad for a while, enjoying the links to Wales, to the Peak District, the Lake District fringes and for a while to Colombia. The joy of studying old maps proving far more reliable than smoky old lorry-belching Somerset. Goodbye old friend!
But then one day, a new county raised its head, and things would never be the same again.
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