Touching up the roots

Ever gone blonde? I have. After I got divorced I did what every brunette who shakes off years of ‘stuff’ does. They go blonde. It was great! I got more job offers as a blonde than at any other time in my life. No joke.. oh and yes, blondes do have more fun… But, after a month or so, my roots needed a ‘touch up’ or I turned into Skunk Woman with a lovely dark stripe down the centre of my head. Not a good look. I went to the hairdressers many times and said “My roots need a touch up please”.

My Nana never went blonde, even though she divorced at about the same age I did. I guess it wasn’t done in those days. But then again, Nana didn’t go grey until she was almost 90. Seriously! It was only then when she started to forget a few things that anyone knew she had a grey hair on her head. A little jar of dye and a few cotton balls on the bathroom sink kept her roots well covered between “do’s” until she started to forget about it occasionally. Nana was great at covering her roots… in more ways than one.

When I first began researching the family tree I found that Nana’s first husband, my Grandad, came from a family with a very strange name. Anlezark. I spoke to Nana, as Grandad had passed away when I was a child, and I said “Hey Nana, what’s with this Anlezark name? Where did they come from?” 

“Oh” she said ,”I don’t remember them at all. Who were they?”

“Alf’s mother was an Anlezark” I reminded her.

“Oh. Her. Oh, she was German”.

“German?!” I squealed. “German!?! Wow! I never knew we had German in our roots!”

“Oh yes” Nana said. ”German through and through.”

So, before I learnt how to research properly, I went around telling my kids and friends that I had German in the blood. No wonder I liked beer! It was true. Nana said it was. I left my Anlezark research for a long time because I was concentrating on my Dad’s family after his death and I really needed to connect with him in some way through that. But then one day I thought I’d start digging in a bit. I found, in quite a short time, that they weren’t German at all, but in fact, were descended from Thomas Anlezark, a quite famous convict who became the trooper who waved the white flag at the infamous Battle of Vinegar Hill.

“Nana. You know the Anlezarks? Um… they weren’t German, they were English”

“Oh really? Well as my mother-in-law she treated me like a nazi would.”

“Nana, she was descended from a convict” I gently explained.

“Oh that would be right!!! Yes, I always knew there was bad blood there! A convict eh? Well that explains a lot!”

I smiled. Nana had covered our roots very well. Beware the mother-in-law syndrome. You never know what side-track you’ll be led down