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| Alice Spencer Countess of Derby a portrait attributed to someone connected to Marcus Gheeraerts the younger |
My guilty pleasure in days defined by caring (as well as a possible rat) is Ancestry. It's produced the smoke of charcoal burners, a folk singer, the ache of limbs from hard physical work, views of Irish fields, Welsh mountains.
Tracing those lines is a beautiful distraction, I admit, and this morning when a line beginning with my father in Merthyr snaked into 'society' I felt the clamour of people who made me shouting 'fraud!'. I've always thought the surgeons and dentists were the only ones with money in my past. Then I discovered a couple of baronets which led to Alice Spencer Countess of Derby, an ancestor of the late Princess Diana, and my 12th great grandmother. I may have to pass some of the evidence by my historian friend Sian Rees because I'm in the hands of Ancestry's suggestions here. It makes sense superficially, but by way of disclaimer in case it falls apart, this is today's laugh out loud moment and there've been too few of them recently among the washing, cleaning, shopping and suppers. Also, it's Halloween, the start of the three day festival of the dead - tomorrow All Saints, then All Souls.
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