Ian Dodson Snr : The Dodson Family Tree

It all started in the kitchen of my mother’s house in Shannon on a Sunday afternoon in the Spring of 1998. I was visiting with my wife Theresa, son Ian and some of my brothers and sisters were there. My mother was recounting stories of the war years, the nightly London blitz, meeting my father, falling in love and the deep sorrow when he was killed in Sicily. Tales of the blackout, bomb shelters, ration books, the struggle to survive, the funny moments and the sad moments.

They were all there – the Dodsons, the Robinsons, the Smiths and the Jones, the family intrigues, the births and the marriages, and the dates recalled with the precision of Big Ben striking the hour! Suddenly someone said “All of this will be lost if we don’t write it down”. I got a sheet of my mother’s notepaper and I recorded the first few names and dates. The Dodson Family Tree was born!

For several years it was left aside, a page added here, a name added there. However trips to Yaxley England, Canada and Southern Italy, where I knelt beside my father’s grave for the first time, have started me on an exhilarating journey into the past. What started as a collection of names and dates has come alive, for these are real people, my people, who experienced the same emotions, dreams, joys and sorrows as you and me. I hope that my children’s children will make this voyage of discovery with me. To contact me, please e-mail iansnr at iandodson dot com.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Locating Florence Dodson's Grave MAY 2007


My great grandmother Florence Dodson was born in Yaxley in 1871. She gave birth to Herbert in 1892 and subsequently married John William Rycraft in March 1896. Florence developed TB and entered Peterborough Infirmary where she died on 26th Sept 1904 aged 32 yrs. She is buried in Broadway Cemetery Peterborough which Theresa and I visited previously but failed to identify her grave as the graveyard was overgrown and many graves were unmarked. We went again in May 2007 and met Steve Tyler an administrator from the Crematorium who would help us to pinpoint Florence's grave no 3222. He brought the Burial Register and a map of the cemetery and we quickly eliminated the duplicate grave with the same number. Using the map and register and by identifying the graves in the immediate vicinity we were able to pinpoint the exaxt location of Florence's grave. We planned to return and mark the grave.

posted by Ian Dodson Snr. | 10:33 PM