I recently returned from a trip to the U.K. that was supposed to be a journey to trace my my mother and father’s roots, but turned out to be a perfect example of the best-laid plans often going awry.

This all started last February when I met a young man from Yorkshire, England, while visiting my favourite hostel in Puerto Escondido, Mexico, with my boys.

Dylan had asked George where he was from in England and when George replied Yorkshire, Dylan followed up with, “Where in Yorkshire?”.

When George answered, “Ripon”, Dylan responded, “Oh, that’s where my grand-father’s family is from.” Which was news to me. I always thought my dad’s family was from Nottinghamshire.

Apparently, my sister-in-law Joanne had started an ancestry search and discovered his family was from Ripon in Yorkshire.

Cool.

So when my friend Anthony invited me to spend a week or so at his place in Crete, I thought, why not stop by the UK on the way home and make a pilgrimage to Ripon, which is situated in the northwest of England.

But before heading to Ripon, I thought it would be a good idea to start in London where my family had lived from 1962 to 1964.

My dad served in the Canadian navy and had just been stationed to London.

I was less than a year old at the time and made the journey across the pond with my then five-year-old brother Michael and our mother.

While in London, we lived in the Kenil-worth Apartments in Putney, which is in the west end of London on the south shore of the Thames.

My sister, Michelle, who was born in London while we were there, made the same trip to Putney three years ago and took a selfie with her finger pointing at the ground floor apartment we lived in.

After taking the train from downtown London to Putney, I took the same picture. I also walked down the street to the Duke’s Head pub which dad apparently frequented on his way home from work. The story goes, that my mom would often have to leave the apartment and march down to the pub to haul him back home.

 

The picture above is of my sister Michelle which she took in 2023 pointing to the Kenilworth Court apartment where we lived in Putney, England from 1962-1964. Below, me pointing to the same apartment during my trip to England this summer.

 

They didn’t have Smart phones and texting back in those days and no one in the pub would answer the phone between the hours of 4 and 6 p.m. for fear that it would be one of the patrons’ wives.

Entering the same pub my father fre-quented almost 65 years ago turned out to be fairly emotional. Even more so when I found out from the bartender that the pub hadn’t changed one iota in all that time. After downing a pint in memory of my pops and returned to my hostel to prepare for my journey to Ripon, which is about two hours by train and bus from Manchester.

Fortunately, I have some friends in the city who offered to host me for the couple of days I was there. Amelia is the sister of my friend Jackson in Puerto and Noel is her husband. They’re both amazing people, and as it turned out, Amelia is an amazing cook.

On the first day I was there, they invited all their friends to the local pub to meet me. On day two, I started for Ripon, which is known for having a large cathedral built between the 14th and 16th centuries and is the third smallest city in the England with a population of just over 16,000 people.

When I arrived in Ripon, I went straight to the old cemetery behind the cathedral and started searching for headstones with either the name Jackson or Sherwin on them.

It took me about 20 minutes, but low and behold among the tombstones in the back row was one with the names on it.

I was so thrilled at finding the gravemarker that I had to call my brother right away to tell him the news.

“Hi Mike. I’m in Ripon.”

“Where’s that?” he asked.

“Where mom and dad’s families are from,” I answered.

“Dad’s family is not from Ripon. They’re from Whitby. And mom’s family is from Manchester.”

Doh!

So much for tracing my family roots. I was in the general area, but the wrong town. And to make matters worse, Whiby is another two hours by bus north of Ripon.

Since it was already six o’clock when I called my brother I didn’t have the time to continue my journey. I returned to Manchester a little disappointed but determined to come back next year to finally connect the dots.

In the meantime, I’m going to do a little more research to try and make my search a little easier.

Stay tuned.

(If you wish to comment on this or any other View Point column please write to Fred Sherwin at fsherwin@orleansstar.ca)