Rivals Across the Tree?

This post is about one of those coincidences that you might only come across if you really delve deeply into the branches of the family tree. As most of my family know, Mum came from a prominent family of butchers. Her grandfather William and father Gloucester were both long-serving butchers in the town of Yarragon. Most of Mum's siblings worked in the trade at one time or another. My uncles Billy, 'Tiny', 'Butch' and Don all worked in their father's business. And then in the 1960s Billy ran a butcher's business in Trafalgar with Hec Standing, while Don was a butcher in Thorpdale.

Advertisement for Bill Atkin and Hec Standing's butcher's in Trafalgar

There's little doubt that both Billy and Don would have been aware of a fellow Trafalgar butcher by the name of William Kenneth Tatterson. How well they knew each other I'm not sure. Tatterson had been born in 1926 and was part of a family butcher's business in Thorpdale, but following a period of service in the Second World War, spent several years as a butcher in Horsham before returning to Trafalgar in the 1960s. What no-one would have been aware of at the time is that William Tatterson was actually a relative on my Dad's side of the family. Because while in Horsham, William met a woman by the name of Dawn Lorraine Kimberley, who was a descendant of Antony and Hannah Gasperino, via the Shearwood line. William and Dawn were actually married in Trafalgar in 1954. The very roundabout connection is shown in the chart below:

I am sure there are quirky connections such is this to be found in all families, if there is someone who wants to dig deep enough - or more to the point, if there is someone who has the time and patience to do so!

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Phelan and Atkin Family History

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