Genealogy Chat

My father told me that his father was born in Ireland and was brought to England as a baby. Have now traced him and his family back to 1750 and the furthest west they got was Kingston-upon-Thames! There is an Irish connection but a much more tenuous one than I was led to believe. Myth on my mum's side was that her grandmother was thought to have married beneath her as her father was a successful businessman and her husband's family were agricultural labourers. Except that in the 1881 census a year before she married, there she is living in a pub and working as a barmaid just a few doors down from her future husband's family's successful dairy business. Moral is, family stories are just that! Great fun in trying to prove whether or not they are correct, though. Sue

LOL love this thread On my hubbys side... m-i-l is convinced there are twins in her family.... none found yet. She's almost most insistant she is descended from hanging Judge Jefferies.... not found a connection yet, but haven't really worked much on that line yet. on my side Nan insisted we are local born and bred... until i found ehr dad birth cert in Kent.... suddenly i get stories about visiting her rellies in Kent!!! Her maternal line came from Wilts!!!... have to give the benefit of the doubt with that one... she was suprised when i told her. Latest story am trying to prove/disprove...... Her Nan died after being locked out all night by her husband after a row. She died by 1915 or by time nan was born for certain(1923)!!!!!!! mmmmm no way... have searched for 12yrs after Nan birth and still found nowt...... Will look further when not so squiffy eyed LOL

I've really enjoyed reading this thread some are really funny! Keep them coming!

My Mum maintained that her Grandad always told her that one of his brothers went to Australia and worked on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It turned out to be true. Within a few months of researching our family tree I managed to trace his daughter and grand - daughter. The story was true and they still live in Sydney. We are in touch every week and they have been able to send us photos of him standing on the bridge while it was under construction. They have also sent phoos of my Gt Gt Grandparents that we had never seen and amazingly a photo of a 3 tier cake that my Great Grandad made and decorated for the daughters 21st Birthday and that arrived in Australia in one piece in 1927!

Father in law said his father was adopted, birth name Williams probably from Wales, thought the son of a single mother. I sent for a couple of birth certs on spec. I was disappointed when the most promising turned out to be the son of a married German hairdresser called Fritz and put it to the bottom of the drawer. Some time later I sent for Grandfather in laws m cert - there was his father a Hairdresser. FIL was delighted to hear his roots were German not Welsh. (He had a particularly unpleasant Welsh drill seargent on National Service) When I told my father I had finally found his grandfather twin siblings, he said what twins?. Now I've no idea where I got the idea in the first place. There is Family talk of an ancestor killed at the Peterloo massacre, or could it be a relative attended? There was a John LEES from Oldham killed, and my LEES ancestors came from Oldham so I may find out more some day. As for my Lincolnshire ancestors being cheated of their inheritance following Chancery proceedings ; I'm not even going there. Louise

We were always told that my great grandmother had Spanish blood to explain the dark skin of my grandfather and a number of his siblings. Turns out she was illegitimate, so maybe her father was Spanish but her mother gave the fathers name on her death certificate (she died young) as Metcalfe which does not sound too Spanish to me! That is the only document that gives a fathers name so it was a real surprise to find it. Interestingly all branches of the family were told the same story, I still have to find the correct possible father so maybe when I do I might find he was part Spanish! Christine in NZ

That one branch 'had a bit of money'. Well, no. The ones that weren't carted off to the asylum were either claiming parish relief, living in the workhouse or working as servants to people who had a bit of money.

My husband's mother was always told that her father abandoned her mother when she was a baby (this was in 1918) and that her mother then died of a broken heart a few months later. My mother-in-law was then brought up by her very Victorian grandmother. I have found out that in fact her mother died in the local asylum and the death was actually reported by her husband, my mother-in-law's father. The cause of death was a heart attack (at the age of 27!) which if true is a broken heart of sorts I suppose. Though I'm sceptical - it's seems a strange cause of death for someone so young. I think perhaps she got post-natal depression, possibly committed suicide and of course in those days fathers were not considered suitable for looking after babies so he was just pushed out of the way. He did apparently try (and fail) to get custody of her later but I still have to find out the truth about that. Anyway I'm very glad that my mother-in-law is no longer alive (she died in 1984, many years before I found all this out). I wouldn't have wanted to tell her what I've found out. But I would also have felt guilty knowing about it and not telling her.

I've been unwittingly creating a myth. With great confidence I had been telling people that you can tell my husband's family come from SW because of the way the surname is spelled. If you look at a SW telephone directory that will demonstrate that it was a very reasonable hypothesis. However... After quite a bit of searching around, I found his g-g-father was born in Liverpool; and that his gg-g-father was born in Spitalfields; and that his ggg-g-father was a coal & potato merchant in Wapping High Street! Not terribly SW after all, I have to admit. In mitigation, he, his father & grandfather were born in Plymouth/Devonport. Christine

Three big myths in my family. My Grandmother, who was a terrible snob, always said that her father was a Master Jeweller. FACT - he is on the 1891 census, aged 62, a Pawnbroker's Shopman! (Perhaps he became a Master Jeweller AFTER the 1891????) My Grandfather was captured in France on the fifth day of WW1, terribly injured. He did not return home after the War, and his mother died of a broken heart, never knowing what had become of him. FACT. My Grandfather was conscripted in late 1916. He reached France in July 1917, was injured and taken to a German Officer's Hospital in Dusseldorf, where he was operated on and very well treated. He was repatriated early 1918. His mother died in 1919 of a heart attack and he was present at her death. Her sister allegedly also had a heart attack at the age of 45 and was put to bed to die. FACT. She died at the age of 91, of old age. My 2 x GGF was a Train Diver and drove the Flying Scotsman. FACT. He never drove a train in his life, never even worked for the railway. He did however, operate a stationary engine in a Mill! Olde Crone

Apparently my grandfather got it into his head that because his grandmother was a Moss, there was a bit of Jewish blood in the family. A little unlikely for a family of ag. labs from the boondocks of Essex!

And supposedly we have some Spanish blood in the family, according to someone's aunt. A fanciful notion based on the idea of shipwrecked sailors from the Armada; quite a common story, I think!

I love this thread. I am just as suprised by the true family stories that don't make it into family legend. I had assumed that one of my grandfather's uncles had died young as I could find no trace of him after 1861. No I was recently contacted by his grandson. He had gone to the University of Chicago to take a theology degree and become a missionary to red indians in Olklohoma - now you would think someone in the family would mention .it. Another recent discovery was that one of my grandfather's cousins who was M.P. for Ipswich died of a heart attack while on a lecture tour in Toronto. I had to buy his biography to find that out. Family myths. One of my grandmothers ancestors had been a famous doctor. This seemed very unlikely as her father was a coalminer and she married a market gardener. True he even made the poor census ennumerator list all his degrees. I think he thought the census was a free ad. My Harveys are related to the wine merchants. Jury still out. I have found great grandmother's sister working as a lady's maid to a wine merchant's mother but I don't think that counts. Grandfather worked on the Taff vale railway no evidence so far.

Nudge for later Thanx

My side of the family said GGrandad married for the second time to an 'American'....Not true as she was British born and bred. GGrandad's Second Wife's Family said the first wife was Foreign......Only if you class Ireland as Foreign!! lol Then there is the story of men in black suits visiting my Grandparents in the 1930/40s? and asking if Grandmother had any connection to the Harrod name and did she have any documents to prove it? Family legend has it that it was to establish a link to the Harrod's Store (Knightsbridge) or the land it stood on, none of which my lowly born Nan and Grandad could supply :((( But two years down the line in my research I do have a Harrod link.....But to the 'Peculiar Religion' founded in Essex. Chris

''great-great grandfather James Angel was a doctor'' - FALSE! He was an ag lab from a Wiltshire village, and even ended up in Devizes gaol (for illegally cutting wood, not for medical malpractice!!) ''Our Gilbert line is related to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, founder of the first English colony in North America'' - (Probably) FALSE! Sir Humphrey's roots were from an aristocratic family from Devon, whereas our Gilberts were from Tenterden, Kent (more ag labs, of course!). However, as Sir Humphrey left England in 1583 and I have only got the Kent lot back to the 1700's, the jury's still out on this one. ''My great grandparents were 1st cousins'' - TRUE! ggf's father came from Germany and ggm was from a little Shropshire village, so I thought at first that this was another myth ready to bust. However, ggf's mother did have the same surname (Davies) as ggm, and sure enough it turns out that ggf's mother and ggm's father were siblings. ''Gt-grand aunt Nelly abandoned her husband and ran off to Australia, where she remarried'' - TRUE! Found her 2nd marriage cert in Sydney, on which she claimed to be a spinster and was using her maiden name. However, 4 years earlier she had married in Battersea. Even stranger was the fact that her 2nd husband was also from Battersea - in fact he had lived next door to Nelly's family in 1891. Seems that they had planned their elopement (and her bigamy) well in advance - he had enrolled with the Australian Navy a couple of years earlier, and after he had sailed to Sydney, Nelly came over and joined him. They never returned to England and the rest of the family disowned her, but I've since tracked down her descendants in Sydney. And one that they didn't know about - turns out that Mum's great-grand uncle was Horatio Frederick Phillips, who was an aviation pioneer. He built some weird and wonderful flying machines in the early 20th century and almost beat the Wright brothers to the record for the first powered flight. One of his machines looked like a giant venetian blind on wheels, which surprisingly did get airbourne for a few metres! Mum now remembers that her grandfather's toolshed was full of bits of propellers, etc - no doubt souvenirs that her grandfather got from his uncle.

:-) Don't you just love 'em! Sounds a bit like Chinese whispers. Myth...Maternal g/grandmothers were twins...wrong...born 4 years apart to different mothers, one was illegitimate. Sylvia

When i was little we used to sing 'the big ship sails on the Ally Ally oh' and my mother told me that her father started building that ship in the song on the clyde, it was brought down to Liverpool docks to be finished and my grandfather came with it, (no he wasn't the owner, he was a boilermaker)when the ship sailed and sank on her maiden voyage my grandfather was supposed to be on it, but i have since found out from this site the song is connected to the manchester canal, rather than the wide blue ocean, maybe it was a barge,......LOL i do believe though that this tale relates to 2 stories mixed up as my grandfather arrived in Liverpool from Glasgow between 1901-1920, roll on 1911 census....MOE!

This is a fasinating thread. I never really thought of anything being a myth in the family, but I don't know that many stories. My nan always claimed that my pop was suppose to be on duty the night that the Kuttable was sunk in Sydney WWII but had actually swapped duties and the guy that had offered the swap was killed, I don't know that there's any way of varifying that one. She also said that as a torpedo rate he use to help dedetinate (make safe mines etc) and that one time there was one washed up at Terrigal NSW Central Coast and that the officer that was suppose to do the job basically got cold feet and that my pop went and did the job and the officer took the credit , again not something that really can be proven as far as I'm aware. Dad reconed he served in Vietnam and that only his parents knew about it and that he was discharged for shooting an American (not fatally, only in the leg or something) they had on patrol with them because he wouln't keep quiet. Well NOT TRUE DADDY dearest got some papers from the military and he only did the compulsory service at 21. Another rumour like so many is that we have Spanish in the blood then the story changed to it was actually on dads mother side it's Italian but because we were at war with Italy WWII it was said that it was Spanish to avoid backlash etc. This one I'll have to wait for as I don't know my grandmothers mothers maiden name. On dads fathers side it was said that either his father or father was from Ireland, though I haven't been able to completly double check so far it looks like G grandfather Foley was born in England but may have had a brother born in Ireland so not too far off. My Uncle mentioned something about that he remembered a mention of twin brothers coming to England, if it's the right family according to census info I was given from a lovely member of GR, there are actually two sets of twin boys and both were born in England. Still looking into it but it looks like the right family. I had no idea there was twins in the family, at least not on that side anyway. No real stories on mums side sadly, would have been fun to check out. Have fun looking I know I will now. Gypsy Joe