A rewarding experienceTree climbing - family tree climbing - can be a rewarding experience. There, waiting for you - in an old churchyard, in parish records, in grandfather's oral history or in that bunch of letters you found up in the attic - is a genetic inheritance that goes back, generation upon generation, into the mists of time. Each one of us is the sum of many parts. And how can we truly know ourselves if we know not from whence we came?
I have long been fascinated by these unseen influences, these gifts from the past. And I am fortunate; a lot of digging into family history was done before I was born. Musty documents in cardboard boxes dot my childhood landscape, along with fading photographs and the occasionally embroidered remembrance by aged aunts. Exploring the past is an occupation I highly recommend; climbing the family tree can offer an enthralling view when you reach the upper branches.
Here are a few of the more interesting folk whose genes I have inherited and who have, without ever knowing it, helped shape my life. It's a way, perhaps, of saluting them from a great distance, creating a memorial for them that would have been beyond their wildest imaginings. This listing is of particular interest to the Australian branch of the Begbie family, as it concentrates on our branch of the family line. But if you think you're a part, however distant, of my extended family, I'd be delighted to hear from you and pass on all the information I have.
I must here acknowledge information and assistance from the following: Oxford Slavonic Papers 1975 and an article by Professor A.G. Cross, Yakov Smirnov, A Russian Priest of Many Parts; John Kane, of Queensland for Smirnov and Cooper information; Ms. Signe Hoffos of The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery, London, for Yakov Smirnov updates; the late Jan Hicks, of Wamberal, NSW; and Bud Lindsey, of Big Bear Lake, California, whose late wife Patricia was the great-great-granddaughter of George James Firth Begbie, son of Peter James Begbie and brother of Alfred Daniel Campbell Begbie. And I mustn't forget Anne, who is descended from Emily Maria Begbie and who has inherited a beautiful brooch, featured in this website, from Emily's grandmother Maria Smirnova Cooper. For specific genealogy information, relating to this Australian branch of the Begbie family, in direct descent through the male line since 1584 to the present day (thirteen generations - each generation is numbered)
go here.
Further information about the Begbie family is available from two archives, one in Australia and one in Switzerland:
meischke_rogermarion@bigpond.com
r.s.begbie@swissonline.ch
Please note also that links to the families associated with Campbell Begbie's wife Betty are also listed for the benefit of that family. The links include these names: Deck, Holt and Young
