Family trees | Rosie Amber

This book begins with two people finding that they have been left a half share of a house in Ireland by Miss Helena Keating, a lady neither of them had ever heard of. Jenna Sutton is an aspiring English actress, while Guy Sinclair is an American artist.

The house is in Clifden, County Galway and known by it’s Irish name of “Mist Na Mara”. The two travel to Ireland to find out more about the house and find themselves on a mystery. Research through family trees reveal unexpected relatives and big decisions to be made about the future of the house.

The story takes the reader on a lovely trail around the Emerald Isle mixed with the people through history who brought Jenna and Guy to the romantic house of the cliff tops of the wild rugged coastline, and where ghosts can finally be laid to rest. The couple must work through their own needs for the future so that they can decide what to do with their inheritance.

Find a copy here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

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Paula will be our guest author tomorrow on the blog, come back and find out more about her and her books.

It’s difficult proving that you are the rightful owner of a piece of land that was leased for a period of 999 years, back in the 18th Century! This weekend we have been having family discussions about the matter. Our lovely ancestors leased a piece of land, back then, to the churchyard of Mary Magdalene Church, Bermondsey, London. Since then the paperwork has descended through the family, each new owner of the entitlement goes through a difficult process to prove he or she should be the next recipient of the lease papers and the annual lease fee. Back then £15 a year was a good deal,I’m not so sure the future generations will think the same!

Problems have occurred now that the Church no longer handle the payouts, it’s the local council. Back in the 1950’s there was a small piece of evidence that payment was being refused and legal help was required.

The issue now, that my father-in-law has passed over, and my brother-in-law must prove his right to the entitlement. Yet the council say they have bought the Freehold on the land and they now own it?! A difficult position as we have not sold the land or the freehold. So now we have to delve through files of seriously old paperwork to see if we have a map of the plot of land and a copy of the lease. And trust me, the legal language and spelling in the 1700’s is certainly one for the serious historians.

For me the most exciting end was from a Google search which brought up evidence of a plaque in Mary Magdalene Church bearing names of our ancestors which has now confirmed a tenuous link which I had in the family tree. I now go back as far as the 1730’s! Hip hip hooray!