Joining the Dots

Late today Meredith was on the phone at the farm, talking to a lady, Cynthia, she told me after the call finished. Cynthia is from Wagga Wagga and was in West Australia visiting her father Phil Allchin. Phil is in his nineties and served in WW2 with my father in law Bill Meek, in the same unit for 5 years.

I have posted about this connection before. I came into contact with Phil some years ago in a round about way through the niece of my friend Ida in Gembrook, Glenda. Through Ida, who died several years ago, I learned that her brothers George and Hap Atchison were in the 2/2 anti aircraft.They are all long passed on, but I made contact with Phil at Glenda's urging because she had regular contact with him around the ANZAC time of year, having met him numerous times at reunions with her dad George.

Phil was moved that the son in law of Bill Meek had sought him out. At the end of a letter he asked me off handedly one day did I have a great great grandmother by the name of Hannah Williams by any remote chance, seeing that my name is Williams. Well it turned out that yes I did, and the Hannah Williams in question was indeed Phil's great grandmother. Amazingly Hannah was a Wilson, my mother was a Wilson, before she married an Allchin who died, and then she married a Williams who is unrelated to my Williams side. There was a child from the Hannah / Allchin union who was raised by people named Hand. In another strange twist Phil married a Hand from that same family.

I may not have all spot on but Meredith is working on it as she and Cynthia are both into the family tree thing. There are more strange twists.While visiting her father Phil in WA Cynthia was going through his paper work as he's starting to fail being well into his nineties, and she found a letter from Meredith to Phil asking some questions re his family.

Bill Meek and Phil Allchin were in the same unit in the war because the both lived in a Brighton, a street or so apart and joined up at the same time. They already knew each other. I find it uncanny that while Meredith and I were growing up in Mt. Waverley, Cynthia and her sisters were growing up in High St Rd Mt.Waverley. All this has come to light because I so happenned to meet Libby in Wangaratta and marry her, and then befriended Ida through whom the dots started to join up.

Cynthia said she'll come down from Wagga Wagga and visit Meredith to further research. Meredith is chuffed and so am I.