Richard Mitchell just wanted to answer a few of his son's questions about their family, the Herons and the Wilsons. The result: seven years of research which produced a 233-page book about family history and a subsequent week-long reunion, drawing family members from as far as Australia to Mandeville, Jamaica.

"It was just for my son," a clearly fascinated Mitchell told the Observer, amid the buzz and occasional loud laughter of family members literally meeting and greeting each other. "And it's still evolving."

Enjoying the meet and greet session over dinner. (Inset) Seaga. the more we talk, the more we realise that we're all one happy family. (Photos: Tony Wilson)

When he was a boy, his family used to go on trips past Shooters Hill in Manchester and some relative would always point to where his great grandmother, Eva Heron, was buried, but there was never any real research. But 1998 opened a whole new world for him. "After a while I said, let me start writing this down."

The family story, though running through a number of generations, is simplest at its starting point: There was once a Scotsman, Alexander George Heron of South Manchester who begat many children, the descendant of one of those married a Wilson, so the Heron/Wilson breed was started.

The Herons, it is reported, owned property stretching from North to South Manchester. Russell Place, Mile Gully, Chudleigh, Spitzgergen, Shooters Hill, Virginia, Williamsfield, Rest Store, Wigton, Great Valley, Cocoa Walk, Cane Valley, Warwick, Asia and Bossua, were among the vast holdings of the family.

As community tourism pioneer, Diana McIntyre-Pike, a Heron descendant and member of the organising committee for the reunion put it: "The Herons owned Manchester; and we want to get it back."

She was addressing the first gathering of the family, and all cheered either to signal their agreement or their amusement with the breadth of the family.

The following day, the group of about 100 members gathered again at the Astra Country Inn, to participate in a detailed workshop on family history. The guest speaker there was former prime minister, current distinguished fellow of the University of the West Indies and Heron descendant, Edward Seaga.

He wove an interesting web of how he's connected, concluding that it appears he's connected on both sides, a 'double linkage' he called it; in essence a Heron-Heron.

The long, detailed and incomplete family history board showed a whole host of other family names connected to the Herons: the Seagas, Cores, Blanchets and Mitchells.

Looking on, some people could identify their ancestors. Louis Oscar Heron pointed to his grandfather, uncles, aunts and parents with relative ease. His wife Ruth, noticed an interesting point. His father died four days after his birthday. He claimed to have already made that observation.

"I was two years old and he died four days later."
John and Brenda Heron, who journeyed all the way from Australia, were simply happy to share. Catching up with another Heron, Seymour, John remarked how he looked like a nephew of his who resides in Australia. Things got even more interesting when Seymour revealed that his son's name was Mark, same as John's nephew.

But apart from stories of lineage, Mitchell said he found interesting social history being revealed as well. Kate Coley, he said, who had her first child when she was 15, was a domestic in George Edgerton Heron's house, the man who fathered her child. When she died, however, she was listed as a seamstress - the same occupation as George Edgerton's wife.

Social and genealogical history combined, the descendants who gathered were happy to be close to people related to them.
"It's a great opportunity for us to get to know each other," Pike said.

"The more we talk, the more we realise that we're all one happy family," said Seaga.
"I only knew about four of these people. But I came here," remarked one family member from California in the United States.

Mitchell says his book, entitled: A Heron Family Forest Grew in South Manchester, is just the beginning of a story that keeps growing each day.

A church service and tours of family sites and graves all formed part of the activities for the Heron/Wilson family reunion.

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