Music, money, madness & other mysterious things. This is the karmic tale of the author, adventurer, martial artist & time traveller, Mark D Bishop; an objective look at his genetic ancestral past. It is DNA family history in fascinating detail, a journey through ancestral time, when industrious, creative hard work, births, marriages and burials focused around church life. The reader begins the excursion in a grocer's shop in upmarket Teddington on Thames, before being transported to Rochester on the Medway, with its Norman castle and cathedral; then along the Roman Fosse Way to Chatham, which once was host to the Royal Naval Dockyard. Woodworking trades, such as cart-wheelwrights & cabinetmakers are imbedded in the ancestral search, with Kentish & Sussex surnames;the Wrens who went to America, the Mitchells who were shipwrights. Ancestry often has a darker side too, necessitating a trip through the sordid conditions of 19th century 'madhouses' and a realisation that lovemaking never really changes.

Like the phases of the moon, fortunes wax & wane. From humble beginnings in Lacock; from hard-working agricultural labourer stock in Avon, to mining and engineering, the Fortune family flourished as it spread throughout the globe. From gold digging in NZ, to administration in Hong Kong, the Fortunes worked far & wide. The inevitability of war sorted the men from the boys & the Fortunes were there; but sometimes at a terrible price. Not only did great-grandfather, John Alfred Fortune, lose cousins though; his own mother was to disappear in very mysterious circumstances. Was it murder? Did she run off with Sailor Sam to the antipodes, or was she just not able to deal with family life? But what she left behind was an urge to travel in John Alfred Fortune, an urge to help others and a benevolent attitude to those who worked for him. In his short life he served the aorta of England, the River Thames as Conservancy Engineer, but did the River serve him? However one views it, his legacy, his monument, is that River.

Refugees have been part & parcel of the social history & landscape of the British Isles since time immemorial. They have come in waves and they have arrived in droves. They have melted into the DNA pot, enhancing and enriching all aspects of society. Growing up in the Thames Valley, the author would often hear the Italian name Gagette, one or several refugees who arrived on these shores as a result of the French Revolution. One Gagette descendant married into the Meers family of Dickensian Bethnal Green; and they were poor by the standards of some of his other ancestors. It was when Eliza Priscilla Meers married a hard working and enthusiastic young man who was to work as an engineer in Gibraltar and later as the Thames Conservancy Engineer for the area between Teddington and Windsor, that fortunes changed for the better. But in ancestral research, change is never far away it seems and tragedy can be found just around the next bend of Old Father Thames. For, like that river, life has its currents and eddies.

Ancestry is a dual aspect entity, both private and public. It is private because it is personal. It is public because the stories of the ancestors need to be told. This work deals with both these aspects, while recording the facts for the family researcher and putting across the stories and lives that shaped the ancestors and how they saw and understood the world around them. One should never be ashamed of one's ancestors, for we have no more a right to judge them than they have to judge us. Yes, they really do live among us and they really do affect us from beyond the grave, not only with the material goods they leave us, but also with the karma that is passed down to us. It is our job, the living, to deal with this karma, to dig out the hidden aspects of our ancestors' lives that society and culture would not allow them to express. Seen through her eyes, Volume IV is the life & ancestry, the somewhat sad story, of that 19th-century matriarch of the Parr family, dear Florence -bless her tender heart.

Following on from Ancestral Chains DNA Part I, this work takes the reader a step further along the intrigue of the Family Tree. Viewing Victorian life through the mind-set of great-grandmother, Kate, the stage is set in a posh Georgian terrace in Lewes that serves as the Sussex Probate Office. Money matters are inevitable, but madness and attempted murder play out the scenes of life, as a large family adapt to the sudden incarceration of their father. Clockmakers, the Tolkiens and the creator of Lorna Doone in Teddington, all play their roles in the Battersby family saga. There is mischief and innuendo too, as when the early 19th century grocer from Isleworth is buried with 2 of his 3 wives; the headstone even today forming a paving stone in the church path, regularly walked over by worshippers. A search & locate mission for a great uncle lost in the Battlefield at Passchendaele in 1917 is launched; love was not lost on his finance though because his elder brother took on the cause.

In this work, the reader is directed to Claydon village in rural Suffolk. Here the Morgan family of the author's memory lived, worked and propagated. Life was generally good with some up-and-downs, as these Morgans were descended from the minor gentry of Suffolk who originally hailed from Ipswich. Yet the Morgan Bloodline in the 19th and 20th centuries was ruled by trades people; the butchers & blacksmiths of the village, each with his business at the other end of town. Butcher by trade, but not by temperament and sporting the name Winfred Edward Mosart Morgan, this great-grandfather had had much trauma in his early life, but was fun to be with. Even then, he would never admit that he and the Morgan blacksmith family down the lane were distant cousins. Musical flair was in the church-going family who were integral to village life, but tragedy was never far away, as attested by the Henry Moore sculpture that graced their local church before strangely being moved to nearby Barham. Oh yes, there was money, too!

Fanciful stories of rags-to-riches are fascinating. Yet, when such is part & parcel of one's ancestry, it becomes real. Having known physical hardship in the back-to-backs of Birmingham, great-grandfather Allden determined never to be poor again. An inherent ability in mental arithmetic was to play a major role in the family Commission Agent business; but did the gamble pay off? The Industrial Revolution is never far away in Birmingham & the Black Country, where the Alldens played their part in firing up and arming the nation. Jockeying around was also a major pastime and a money earner for the boys. Complex family relationships also set the scene when it was better to keep Mum; but lose her they did. A fun-loving Step-Mum & private education stepped in, but did the Alldens find their middle-class roots again. From whence did they hail & why had they fallen? Ancestry is but a game of Snakes & Ladders, so did the Alldens win in the end? Also, is there more of the Allden in the author than he cares to admit?