Goodreads
Goodreads asked Graham Wilson:

What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?

Graham Wilson I have a mystery in my history that I would like to uncover. The story told by my 90 year old aunt whose memory is not so clear now not is.
"Her father (my grandfather) was sent out to New Zealand from England in the care of a family that were not his real parents around 1900. It was said he was fostered as he was the illegitimate son of an aristocrat there. Then in the first World War he is said to have changed his name to John Wilson from a name which may have been John Forbes or Alfred Forbes, taking the name of a dead friend. Apparently before the war he enlisted in the New Zealand navy as a midshipsman as was on a boat that sailed to the rescue of some famous Antarctic explorer. So I would like to find out who he really was, beginning with his NZ Navy records to find out if he had another name before the war and then with this name see if I can trace the people who brought him out from England and then perhaps who he really was and where he was from. If this is discoverable from 120 years ago it could make either a great true life Who are you story and if not it could be used to create a novel based on the same but where truth is not a limiting factor - perhaps he could be a son/grandson of a famous English peer and I could along the way discover another family that I never knew existed, Or perhaps it can all turn out to be a blind rabbit warren and after much searching I find out we were just descended from illiterate Scottish peasants!!

About Goodreads Q&A

Ask and answer questions about books!

You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.

See Featured Authors Answering Questions

Learn more