An Introduction to "My Mother's People"

As one of the “keepers” of Family History, and the recipient of many family stories, I have decided to take up the challenge of my daughter Elizabeth, and commit some of these stories to a wider audience via what I am loosely calling “A Calendar of Family History” - I promise one story a month for the next year!

There is no particular rhyme or reason to the choice of stories, except to say that these are ancestors I would love to have known, or family members who perhaps had no direct descendants but do not deserve to be forgotten.

Elizabeth is writing about her father's side of the family, and on my side of the family my sister-in-law Katie has compiled a history of the Francis family. I want to tell the stories of my mother's people, the ancestors and connections of the Cossins and Twelves families, many of whom I find so fascinating. (Just a reminder here – Joan (Cossins) Francis, my mother, was the daughter of Louis Robert Cossins and Violet Winifride Twelves who married in Malta in 1909).