As I have already established, I am incredibly indebted to Percy Garrod for the work he did on my father’s family tree, which meant that by the time I was in my teens I knew more about this branch of my family than any other.
My father, Cyril John Blyth, was the youngest of four children born to Frederick William Blyth and his wife Beatrice Hubbard. Sadly, I never knew these grandparents since Beatrice died in 1935 of peritonitis, aged just 51, and Frederick, who was 16 years older than his wife, in 1942. Although a few small photographs of Beatrice exist, we do not know of any photographic image of Frederick, so I have no idea what my grandfather looked like.
I do know that Frederick, like his father and grandfather, was a farmer. In fact, farming runs as closely through the Blyth family tree as does the association with Norfolk.
My great-grandfather, Edward Blyth, was one of twelve children, some of whom emigrated to America where, in the nineteenth century, farming land would have been plentiful: we have some idea of the immediate families of those who emigrated but I must have relatives living in Ohio of whom I know nothing.
Edward’s father Thomas was himself a ‘farmer of six acres’ and died aged 83 of ‘senile decay’ – and in those days he had a right to, given his age. He had been born back in 1803 in Scarning, near East Dereham, which I have always seen as the seat of the family. I visited the town last year in search of the grave of Thomas’s father William, who married Mary Mays in the church in 1786. Sadly I could not find the gravestone, though I have the parish record of his burial there, but just standing in the church where my great great great grandparents were married was lovely.