FINDING AMY: TRACING MY GRANDMA'S FAMILY TREE

FINDING AMY

My maternal grandma died 18 months ago (within a week of my son being born – a bit of an overwhelming time).  Because my own mum died when I was young, we’d always been super close.  She was a massive personality – extremely vivacious, no sense of social awkwardness or embarrassment whatsoever (she would talk to literally anyone and often did), and a brilliant raconteur.  Her early life was pretty tough.  She grew up in poverty in Birmingham, and when she was 5 years old her birth mother essentially ‘sold’ her (adopted her out but there was a pay off) and her adoptive parents were horribly abusive – they also changed her name (at five!) from Amy to Mary.  She talked a lot about how she knew she originally came from a big family (12 older brothers and sisters, many of whom she had memories of); and she was always really sad that she had no real way of finding any of them and having those sorts of familial relationships (because her name changed from Amy Keen to Mary Boycott with the adoption, I think she was pretty lost to them).  My step-grandad said she was talking about it loads towards the end as well; how she wished she had been able to find her family.  I know my uncle had tried to trace my great grandma and my grandma’s half sisters and brothers back in the 80s, but no dice (can’t imagine how hard this kind of thing was before we went digital). So I made it my lockdown mission to try and do just that!