This is the question that got me started? But it wasn’t a question I consciously asked. It was more something that had been bubbling in the back of my mind for years.

One day, for what reason I no longer recall, I sent off to the Registrar’s office for the marriage certificates of my grandparents – Bert & Kath Watson and Ted and Addie Hamilton.

When they turned up in the post weeks later, I was surprised having forgotten I sent for them, but something on those certificates caught my attention and the rest, as they say, is history. Or at least family history.

Two of my great grandmothers had the same surname – Roseanna Watson nee McLaughlan and Ellen Phemister nee McLaughlan. That set me to wondering if Mum and Dad were actually cousins. They weren’t of course, but in the 40 years since then I have failed to find out very much at all about either McLaughlan family. BTW it didn’t help that both of their fathers were called James.