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I was very keen to see the list as I had recently learned that my great aunt Madge Meads (nee Relf) spoke of her aunt who perished in the icy Atlantic waters on the night of April 12th 1912. Jean Davies (#198) helped to nurse Madge in her final days and related the brief details to me. No other living family members have ever mentioned this story. Who was this unfortunate aunt?
When the record office released the free records it was clear that there were no female Relfs (or alternate spelling) in 1st, 2nd or 3rd class boarding at Southhampton or Queenstown, Ireland. My task was then to determine if the aunt was married before 1912 and to determine the surname. Also, the aunt could have been related to the female side of our family (surname Lawson) and again, may have married and changed her surname. No female Lawsons were recorded as passengers either.
After reviewing the family tree, I drew out a list of possible females. One thought struck me – I had many details about the males in our family but very few details about our female aunts and their marriages and deaths. There seemed to be two possible females who fitted the ages of some of the passengers and I decided to trace their marriages – cross checking with the 1901 census. To my surprise, instead of solving this mystery, I managed to find two more great, great aunts that I didn't know I possessed from the Lawson clan To confuse matters even more, both were possible passengers if married. I now had four marriages to find.
I have been studying my family tree for years now and am continually amazed when suddenly finding additional people. This made me rethink the RELF tree and I have decided to recheck to make sure that there are no more great, great aunts out there before continuing my research.
In the meantime, if anyone knows of any married females, born a RELF and sailed on the Titanic, please let me know as it will be saving me so much time and you will be solving our family mystery.
Jenny Mayes (#152).