I wasn't really raised a Tutin. My mother's side, the Haywood family, was the one I felt a part of growing up. My father's family seemed smaller, more distant and more disjointed. Not really a family at all.
There were many reasons for this. My dad's mom committed suicide when he was 13 or so (see the March 2007 archives – my post about the song When All Else Fails). My dad was not close to his brother. For some reason his brother wasn't close to anyone. My grandfather only knew about his son's premature death when he read about it in the local newspaper.
It was only when my father died that I found intriguing items in his papers like this death notice for a Thomas Tutin (obviously a relative of mine) who died in World War I.
But I still remember as a young man feeling no emotional connection to my own name - Tutin. In fact, in my younger days, believing that it didn’t sound like the name of a successful artist I changed it, performing for several years under a different name.
My name came to mean something to me only when I finally developed a closer relationship with my father. Which, believe me, took a long time.
But recently, strange things have happened.
Two emails arrived within days of each other. One was from another Thomas Tutin who lives in Minnesota. We haven’t been able to trace our connection yet but he knows his great grandfather left England for America around 1860. I was born in Nottingham, England and almost all the relatives I know of still live there. Thomas knows he is a cousin of the famous actress Dorothy Tutin. I have always joked that I was not related to her I just inherited her initials. It now seems I may have been wrong all these years.
The other email was simply incredible. It was from Richard Tutin in England. He told me we were related. And he should know, he's been researching the Tutin family history for years. He's totally committed to tracing the various offshoots of the Tutin family tree.
He kindly did one for me. Showing my direct line back to Joseph Tutin who was born in Nottingham in 1691. (He has since informed me he has authenticated another generation back, taking my line back to the early 1600s).
Two men named Joseph, two named John, two named Thomas, a William, a Louis, a George and my father Arthur (who was always known as George) and you have traveled from 1691 to me – born in 1952. All but one of these men were born in Nottingham. Seven of the 10 women they married, born in Nottingham. Some died in other places but interestingly their sons stayed, continuing the Tutin/Nottingham connection.
Louis, I immediately realized, was the father of Thomas, whose death notice I found in my dad's possessions. So that Thomas was my grandfather's brother, who died fighting for his country 36 years before I was born. Suddenly my grandfather wasn't just a grandfather. He was a man who had lost a brother, lost a wife to suicide, raised two sons who at an early age had to embrace a 'new' mom. I suddenly regretted not knowing this man better.
So what does all this mean? It's like being given a family where one didn't use to exist. It has made me feel for the first time that I am the convergence of two family trees, the Tutins and the Haywoods, which were both composed of men and women who lived, worked and died building the part of the world that gave birth to me.
Thanks Richard for giving all this back to me. And to Thomas for letting me know I'm not the only Tutin in America and that we are most likely branches of the same tree.
It doesn’t make me want to go back. But it gives me new respect for the place I left. I now see Nottingham less as a place and more as the tangible expression of the lives of those who came before me. And maybe it does make me want to go back for a visit at least. I now know I have family I've never even met who are a link to my dad. I know, if he were still alive, he'd get as big a kick out of this family tree as I did.
But most of all, it makes me very happy that by the time I was finally able to make my voice heard through my music I was proud to do so under my real name: Dave Tutin, son of Arthur George Tutin, son of George…..son of Louis…son of Thomas….son of…..
If I hadn't done that, neither Thomas nor Richard would have found me. They reached me through davetutin.com.
