Richard CARRUTHERS-ZUROWSKI
My blogs
| Gender | Male |
|---|---|
| Industry | Consulting |
| Occupation | historian and genealogist |
| Location | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
| Introduction | I was inspired to start investigating my own genealogy back in the summer of 1973 aged 10. I took it up following a summer road trip from Vancouver to Ontario with my mum. At the end of the road, my mother took me to visit one of her oldest living relatives, Miss Edith Bray ROBERTSON (1881-1974), the 92-year-old first cousin of my maternal grandmother, Beatrice Florence Elizabeth LARGE (1885-1963), Mrs Herbert Chatterton ROBERTS. Cousin Edith lived alone in the Jalna-esque mansion, Ard-na-Chree, in Newmarket, Ontario that her parents Thomas Jaffray George Mahon ROBERTSON, barrister and sometime mayor of Newmarket, and his wife, my great-grand aunt Florence Amy née BRAY, had moved into following their 1881 marriage. You might say that once started, I never looked back, though as an historian and genealogist, looking back is the nature of the beast.;) |
| Interests | genealogy, family history, heraldry, symbols, history, languages, correct usage, correct form, pronunciation, linguistics, writing and editing, READING;), book collecting, conversation, research, correcting others;)(sometimes I try to keep this in check...One of my friends calls me Richard Correctothers, a play on part of my surname, Carruthers); gardens, flowers, historical dramas, alternate history, some forms of science fiction, the Commonwealth, Church History, the Anglican Communion, the Oxford Movement, the Book of Common Prayer, the Monarchy, Robertson Davies and his take on what he semi-affectionately referred to as Anglican "guff", pulchritude, British Columbia history, Canadian history, British history, Wiltshire, Purton, Rodbourne Cheney, North Wiltshire especially, historical dance, Scots culture, rugby, 20s and 30s jazz, classical music, baroque music, Gilbert and Sullivan, Hinge and Bracket, Barbara Pym, A.N. Wilson, tea (along with cream teas! stuffing my cakehole! baklava! my mum's chocolate cake, but not many others because they're too dark and don't have jam in between the layers, Eccles cakes, Bakewell tarts, Banbury cakes, Stilton, Double Gloucester, aged white Cheddar, and ripe Brie and Camenbert, and good cheese in general, with good wine, good friends and interesting conversation, dark beer, flags, imperialism, culture, travel, recovering the past, clothes (not at much as when I was in my 20s!), etiquette, Old High Toryism, Red Toryism, paternalism, Pax Britannica, titles and styles, doing things well, getting things right, anything done well by someone who knows what they're doing even if I am unfamiliar with it, etc. ad infinitem. |
| Favorite Books | More about me since I used up the 1200 characters allowed... Education: Shawnigan Lake School, Vancouver Island, B.C. (1976-1981; Scholar and Head of School, 1980-81), French-language training, l'institut des études françaises pour étudiants étrangers, faculté de Droit, l'université d'Aix-Marseille III, Aix-en-Provence, France (1981-82); Balliol College, Oxford (1982-1985; B.A. (Honours), Modern History, 1987; M.A. 2004). German Language training, private, Vancouver night school and Goethe Institut, Ottawa Genealogical Societies: British Columbia Genealogical Society (joined in 1975 at age 12, as their youngest ever member); Society of Genealogists (London)(from 1982); Wiltshire Family History Society; Hampshire Family History Society; Oxfordshire Family History Society; American Historical Society of Germans from Russia; Bukovina Society of the Americas (Life Member). Also president of the Oxford University Heraldry Society; sometime Heraldic Consultant, Canadian Heraldic Authority, Government House (Rideau Hall), Ottawa (1996-1999). |