Back to Southampton and the New Forest

We are spending four nights at Ower, a district just off the M27 (and don't we know it, with the traffic noise!). The site is well located for our purposes though - just 5-10 minutes from Totten where Ange and Paul live, and on the edge of the New Forest and seven miles from Fordingbridge.

After gathering our energy, Ange came round to the campsite on Wednesday, bringing her new Motorbility Peugeot (more about that later) and drove us both to the Old Cemetery at Southampton Common. This is where many of my ancestors are buried, including three generations of Tuckers. I found my grandfather Sydney George Tucker's grave (1919, aged 36) and the pot of chrysanthums, sadly full of weeds now that my cousin Linda had placed on the grave in February last year.

It was a bit tricky finding the graves, since being summer, there were many blackberries and other weeds to fight our way through. We couldn't find the other two graves, those of my great grandfather and great great grandfather, although Linda did last year, and sent us photos.

It was serendipitous though, because after we'd given up looking for the graves, Ange suddenly saw a grave of George Henry Rose, and said - isn't he one of yours? Indeed he was - another great great grandfather. I might have mentioned once that Ange is my 4th cousin, and his wife Hannah, also inscribed was her gggreat aunt! So how about that. Of course we had to get a photo of the two of us, and here it is.

That evening, we met up with yet another John Moxon, of Southampton - no relation that we can figure out - but he belongs to the Moxon Society and his passion - like John's - is VWs, so John had already contacted him a couple of years ago intrigued by the co-incidence of names. He and his wife Jacqui were great company. The two John Moxons posed in front of the other John's Karmen Ghia. Our John can only wish!

Yesterday (Thursday), Ange and her husband Paul arrived mid morning and we set off in convoy across the New Forest (avoiding the cows, calves, ponies and foals on the road) to Fordingbridge, where yet another of my great great grandmothers, Sophia Jefferis was born in 1836. Her mother's surname was Tiller, and some of them still live around there. We had lunch in a pub, after checking out the old church and taking lots of photos of the village, then visited a museum, entirely run by volunteers (aren't they all!).

I then wanted to visit Rockbourne, where a ggg grandmother - Hannah Isacc - was born. The lanes were very narrow between Fordingbridge and Rockbourne, and we held our breath in case a bus came, but none did.

Rockbourne is home to a Roman Villa, so we visited that and it was most interesting. Many of the mosaic floors can still be seen. It was discovered in 1942 when a farmer ploughed up a large shell which couldn't possibly come from there, and referred his find to a local real estate agent and antiquarian who of course purchased the land, which any good real estate agent would do!

So a long but happy day. Ange and Paul are great company. We will put some photos on the blog of course.

Later today we are going to Ange and Paul's for tea and meeting both their mothers. One is my dad's third cousin. (Don't you just love these relationships?) You need a genealogy software program to work them out.