General Chat

Have found a distant one whose father ended up as a lavatory attendant in Fulham while he was doing ten years in Wormwood Scrubs for setting fire to a plantation of trees in Herefordshire.

What was he doing in Herefordshire anyway?

I am so glad this thread has kept going...

I have made one more discovery, a gg aunt had 8 children with her husband in Victoria. They then appear in Queensland a few years later and mt gg aunt is marrying a very well to do lawyer and made teh society page.

Funnily enough, the newspaper describes her as the daughter of the late...(which actually was her husband) and there is no mention of what happened to her first family of children, as she then goes on to have another two with her new husband...

How convenient that he "died" so she could remarry someone else, no deaths in any of the states though to prove this!

nudge...

nudge to keep this one going!

I recently discoverd my late aunty Dinah's son, Raymond's birth registration in Dublin Ireland on the familysearch pilot web site. (I already had his death certificate, he died in London and it was common knowledge in our family.)

However, after a bit more browsing the Dublin Birth Registrations I found another record that could be another son of my aunty Dinah's. My hunch proved right!

So my aunty had another son born in 1937, before Raymond was born.....he was named after his father, Francis. Yet none of my cousins knew this either.

I can't find a death registration for him in Ireland or London..but he is now in my tree and I hope my late aunty Dinah knows that I have found him and he will be recorded in my records for other family members to remember him ....along with his brother Raymond.

Before my Mum was married she used to visit her sister Dinah in Ireland regularly...but I know she never mentioned Francis. How sad is that?

.

nudge...

Fascinating!

Someone mentioned a lady having a stillborn child and then being taken back to the wards, but her husband being told never to mention anything about the baby.

My Mum and Dad had a stillborn baby boy, their firstborn, while they were living with my paternal Gran in a village in Buckinghamshire. Mum always told me my Gran was very unsympathetic to her and the midwife told my Dad to take the baby and bury it in the garden. I assume that's what he did. It would have been in 1946. Mum and Dad moved back to Mum's home city after that and I was born in July 1947. At least my brother was given a name and I know about him.
Next time I visit the area I will ask at the church if there is any mention of my brother anywhere and also might speak to the people who now own the cottage Gran lived in, hope they never dig up any little bones, it would be awful.

I found out a few years back after my parents had died, that my Gran had two miscarriages and a stillbirth herself and also lost a son from appendicitis when he was young. She also went out when widowed to help families when babies were born, by staying and looking after the other children, and she moved to Wales for a while to stay at her sister's house and care for her through her final illness. How can someone who has done all that have been unkind to my Mum over her loss.

Lizx

liz, probably does not help much, but I grew up in an era where you just got on with it. My parents gave no sympathy over such matters either. Stiff upper lip type of thing I suppose. But also agree that time is needed to grieve, difficult to do when others will not, or can not talk to you about it.

Gail

Liz.

Im surprised the midwife told your dad to bury the baby in the garden. It would cause a man hunt today if the baby was dug up.
As for your gran being unsympathetic,perhaps it was because she had experienced the same thing and had to get over it so she couldnt sympathize.
Perhaps that is the way she was treated over her dead babies so thought that was the right thing to do

My father was a great teller of family history and extremely proud of the fact his father survived WW1 albeit it with a life long gammy leg due to an injury received.
I grew up imagining him "going over the top"in dire circumstances and last year managed to obtain a copy of his enlistment papers.That was when I found out some very surprising information indeed.
Great grandad enlisted in 1917 and was discharged two weeks later having been shot in the leg during basic training and having been found to have lied about his age (he was in fact only 14 years oid )
I dont know whether he accidently shot himself or was a victim of a stray bullit but Im glad he survived or I wouldnt be here to pass on the tale of his war time exploits.

How sad all of these poor children...thank goodness now days people are encouraged to grieve and talk about their lost children.

I don't know how some of them coped, who lost multiple children when mortality rates were so high...

ScattyP how funny...I had a great uncle who my mum insisted was killed in the war when poison was introduced into an army training camp....Hmmm I found out the poor chap enlisted under age but had permission from his employer and parents, and then contracted mastoiditis which turned into meningitis and he died after only two weeks in the army.

How about gt gt uncle who was confined to barracks for a week in 1917 for improper conduct of 'urinating in a pot and throwing it out of a window'

.........well when you gotta go, you gotta go ?

or poor great grandad who died in a mental asylum in 1918.............mum says no one ever spoke about him, she thought he had committed suicide but now we know what happened to him.

or gt gt grandfather who died in the middle of a musical performance in Newcastle...... bet that cast a cloud over the proceedings too.

You learn so much dont you

Jan

nudge

Im hooked, just love this thread more stories please !!!!!!!

Gt Gt Gt grandmother who according to the Darlington Echo from Friday 3rd 1870 died 'whilst peeling potatoes for dinner'

They were obviously very short on news that day and I am extra careful when peeling my potatoes now. They are dangerous things you know !

jan

Hi all, funny the places and times when people pass on!

Jan I love the way they reported the news in those earlier days. Even the tinest thing could be dressed up!

nudge

Received a death cert recently from UK stating cause of death as "Fracture of the skull caused by accidental fall down the bedroom stairs in own home" This was in 1933. This is not the first death cert with a fall down stairs as the cause. Another was a fall down stairs, breaking hip and then suffering hypothermia.

So how common is it to pass away in this fashion. We lived in a terrace house when I was very young, it had two sets of stairs and one was very steep, I never used that set of stairs as it was worse than climbing a ladder.

Gail

I was beginning to wonder in my familt if catching trains was a dangerous business...so far four people have died whilst travelling on them between stations!

nudge