This story is fiction and resemblance to any person, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

William Appleby was researching his family tree. He’d always been interested in social history. He still had plenty of aged uncles and aunts, alive and kicking, to quiz for background material. Several of his pals had already embarked on similar quests and it made a good talking point at their local pub. “Who knows, he remarked. “I might yet dig up some juicy scandal, or better still a wicked criminal or murderer, lurking in the ancient, gnarled branches of the Appleby tree.”

His father Walter Appleby had been a miner, a coalface worker. William was married with a daughter and worked as a draughtsman. He came from a large family, having six brothers and strangely enough, so did his father.

His grandmother used to say William was the seventh son of a seventh son. He had heard that way back on his father’s side, there had been boatmen, working the canal boats and before that, Romany, Gypsies, wandering the highways and byways without a care in the world. That’s the life William would have liked. He was a free soul, restricted by his family commitments and felt a great affinity with the travellers.

One day, a week or two after his grandmother’s death he was helping his mother and old Aunt Grace to sort through some furniture and bric-a-brac that had surrounded the old lady for as long as he could remember. A large cardboard box had been stuffed under the bed in the spare room and opening this through a cloud of dust he found the contents were a collection of old photographs, mainly family members.

On turning these over he found that his Gran, always a meticulous person, had made a few notes on each. This was manna from heaven, to assist him with his family research. One particular photo caught his eye. It was the portrait of a striking young woman. Obviously created in a studio against a background of giant potted palms.

There was something about the eyes that held him spellbound. Something about her beguiling expression that gave the face a haunted, distracted look, as though her mind was somewhere else. She was sitting in a rocking chair and was wearing a black dress of nineteen twenties style with white lace collar. She was certainly a beauty. Aunt Grace, saw him starring at the photo and came over to look more closely. “Ah, now that”s our Lilly, sad, very sad.”