My Genealogy Hunt

Part 1 - My Dovaston Family As It Was Then

My name is Susan Ann Dovaston. I was born in 1948, in Caterham Hill, Surrey, the daughter of Reginald Alfred John Dovaston and Margaret Ada Beesley. The only Dovastons I knew of during my childhood, apart from myself, were my father and his brothers; Leslie, Douglas and Gordon, none of whom had any children; my grandfather, John and his brother, Alf; Alf's daughter, Pam; and a family listed in the local telephone directory who ran a newsagents' shop in a nearby town. Perhaps one day I will find out who they were!

My grandparents were living in Twickenham, Middlesex when I was born but then moved to Pitsea in Essex and later to Thorpe, Surrey where my grandfather, John died in 1959. I remember him being a gentle person who never said very much. Army Service in the First World War had left him with a very wheezy chest after being gassed and as one leg was shorter than the other, he had to wear a boot with a thick built-up sole and always limped.  But I didn't like visits to Pitsea as the toilet was an Elsan in an outhouse and I hated the smell! Luckily we didn't go there very often as it was too far to travel in a day by train and the house, which was prefabricated, was too small for us all to stay overnight comfortably.  After my grandfather's death my grandmother, Maude, moved back to a flat in Twickenham, Middlesex, just off the Richmond Road, where her mother, Clara, was still living. From the window she would have been able to see the house in Haggard Road where she and my grandfather lived when they were first married. They later moved to Sherland Road which I visited as a baby. Their four sons were all born in Twickenham.

Les and his wife, Jean lived in nearby Teddington. He was a very gentle, thoughtful person like his father. He was my godfather and I was a bridesmaid at his wedding when I was 6. How insulted I felt when the 'big' bridesmaid queried my reading ability when I asked to share her service sheet! Les worked as a motor mechanic for the Post Office. But he suffered from asthma and died at a relatively young age during a bad attack. My elder daughter was not born until some two years after his death but Jean was able to give her a teddy bear that Les had bought in readiness for just such an occasion. That bear has always been special and is sitting in my daughter's bedroom right now.  I never knew Douglas as he had been killed during the Second World War at the  age of 22. He was a private in the 7th (Airborne) Battalion, King's Own Scottish Borderers and was parachuted into the Netherlands over Arnhem in 1944. My grandmother had been to the Netherlands just after the war but had not been able to find his grave. During a family holiday in 1988, I found that Douglas is listed on the Memorial at the Canadian War Cemetery at Groesbeek along with many other British and Commonwealth soldiers "to whom the fortune of war denied a known and honoured grave". 

Gordon was quite a bit younger than his brothers. Before the first of his three marriages, he lived in Richmond Road, Twickenham with his grandmother, Clara. When I was small, we used to visit Twickenham every other Sunday, despite having no car and how I hated that long walk when we changed trains at Clapham Junction!  But I can still remember jumping on Gordon's bed to wake him up when we arrived - no doubt after a 'heavy'  Saturday night. How he must have loathed me! Alf, his wife Emmy, another daughter of Clara Hendon and their only child, Pamela and her family were all in Worthing, Sussex. I only remember going to see Alf and Emmy twice as a child. I was aware that this was Alf's second marriage but I didn't know how important this knowledge was to become in my later research. He and Emmy ran a guest house in Worthing and on one occasion the whole family stayed there. No doubt it was for something special but what, I can't remember.

My father was fascinated by the Dovaston name. He always told me that the family came originally from the West Felton area of Shropshire near Oswestry and he thought it was his grandfather who had migrated 'down South' to London. Family tradition stated that whoever it was, had brought with them furniture from the 'old house' in Shropshire when they moved and had set up shop in Dulwich.  My father knew there was a hamlet called Dovaston in Shropshire and I can still remember sharing his excitement when we eventually found it named on a very large scale map. He also believed we were related to the family from the 'big house' but he didn't know who these people were or which house it was. I remember going one year to Llandudno in North Wales for our annual holiday. Whilst we were there, we went by train to Oswestry and then took a bus to Dovaston. The driver asked us whether we wanted to get off at 'the top of the bank' or 'the bottom of the bank'. We had no idea and I don't remember which we chose. But all we found when we got off the bus were a few houses, a pub and a church. We looked round the graveyard but couldn't find any Dovaston's buried there. My father wanted to go and look for a Manor House or something similar but my mother wouldn't let him. I think she was afraid he would march up to the front door and demand to be let in!

So, in 1995 that was all I knew. By then I was married to John, with 2 grown-up daughters, Stephanie and Adrienne, all living in Ringmer which is three miles outside Lewes in East Sussex. I was, and still am, a full-time Primary School teacher in Brighton. But then my husband was given a paper copy of his Family Tree dating back to the 1500s. I downloaded a genealogy program from the Internet and entered the information we'd been given. I added me, our daughters, my parents and all I knew of their families. The Dovaston line looked very sparse! I resolved to remedy this. And with such an unusual name it was bound to be easy! Or so I thought then!

Part 2 of Sue's genealogy hunt will appear here next week.

Sue Dovaston

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