General Chat

Believe you me Claire she was - if you had read the emails and she did not believe it - in spite of documentation!!!!

It was as if I made made up the story and invented the marr certs/census!!

She will never know what she has lost - a tree going back to 1622!

Just had an email from her - informs me that 'as we have decided her g.gmother committed a crime' perhaps we should move on as she would like more info.

No apology nothing - hell freezes over comes to mind!

I haven't found a murderer yet, but have an example of just about everything discussed by previous posters, plus a suicide.

Many moons ago, little groups of people would gather at History Society meetings/Record Offices etc and usually the conversation would turn to 'who are you looking for - or what do you hope to find. Mine was always the same in OH's tree I hoped to find a sheepstealer who was deported!

All I found to my horror were Vicars/Rectors for 2-4 generations, then they saw the light and I think discovered sin!

One of mine did time for setting fire to woodland in Herefordshire

.Dunno why,I don't think he lived in Herefordshire,in fact I doubt any of the family have ever been there.

LOL-my eldest worked out at the age of 10 that mummy was 'up the duff' when she anddaddy married!
I congratulated her on her knowledge of biology and maths!!

My g grandfather's brother was convicted and imprisoned in 1851 of trying to derail a train -ironically at Cheddington - the same year my g grandfather (allegedly a very 'pious'man) joined the metropolitan police!!

One of my g grans married her husband the same year her eldest daughter (my gran) married - at least the 10th child was legitimate!!
They'd had to wait until ggrandad's first wife died,but ggrandad called himself a 'bachelor' when he signed the certificate.
Sex really was invented before the 1960's!!

Found an article this week whilst looking at those addictive on line newspapers that my great grandfather (before he met my great grandmother)together with a woman from Bradford were described as a 'riotous couple' because they were extremely drunk and he threatened a window cleaner, it doesn't say why. When the police were sent for he 'downed' the policeman. The woman was given two months jail and he was given three months hard labour. As my father was a man of a fiery nature, I had always presumed it had come from his mother's side of the family, after all these years I am having a rethink.-jle

Oh l'm sure l have some skeletons in a large closets...my dad married 3 times and had affairs everywhere he went. His last wife was his housekeeper...lol
The twins who lived opposte me turned out to be my half siblings.....l would love to find the rest as l'm sure they are out there somewhere.
Looking at some ship records the other day found my grandad went to America aged 65yrs, he was'nt 65yrs but about 6 weeks old, someone has used his passport!!!!!!!

jude :o)

It is the 'tasty' bits which make life interesting. According to my mother her family were all just short of canonisation! To my sorrow she was not around last year when I discovered her g.gfather had died in a lunatic asylum of syphlis!! As a result of this demeanor his family were cut out of the family business (he was one of three brothers who began a very sucessful foundry exporting world wide) and exiled from the rest of the 'good' family.

Found in a newspaper that my Great Grandfather whose children were very 'pious' was arrested for being drunk and disorderly when he was young. Nothing wrong with that but I wonder if his family knew, they were all baptists and T total.

And my Grandmother, the wife of the above's eldest son, she was a pillar of the Baptist church, was a 7 month baby. And her mother another Great Grandmother, had a baby before she was married who was brought up as her sister. I couldn't care less, but they were all so religious and goody goody.

Well Ann the Victorians were a sanctimonious lot. Covered up piano legs, used child prostitution, sent children up chimneys, young children and I mean young in factories craweling under weaving looms etc.

As you say it is the holier than thou attitude which is galling.

I am having great fun rattling the skeletons, hope future generations enjoy mine!! Not spilling the beans now of course!

My Mum was the most Victorian of the lot and she wasn't born until 1909. She would be shocked to know what I now know. Oh but she wouldn't believe me of course.

One of our family married a man called Beauchamp and thought that was something very special.

I expect the wife I found he had at the same time thought it was too.

LOL Chris of Wessex,
your relation should have my family
because i cant find anything that they've done wrong
soooo boring . lol no criminals /robbers /prisoners, nothing at all
I love reading on the boards about others family and what they've been up to .
Hazelx,

My Great grandmother had a child (my grandmother) by a man who was only two years into his marriage.

On her daughter's birth cert she named herself and daughter with his surname quoting her previous maiden name. Although no marriage had taken place.

He then died the same year my grandmother was born. Two years after that my great grandmother married, quoted as spinster. The strange (or clever) thing was that the new husband had the same surname as the dead man although he was no relation. So all of my relatives didnt realise the husband wasnt the father.

It also sent me the wrong way for a while on my tree.

Pat

My husband worked out for himself what had gone on after his grandparents didn't realise he could hear their humdinger of a row. I've just asked him and he said his mom knew that she was created before marriage but Rob was sworn to secrecy that his uncle (younger sibling) must never know.

Elderly colleague of mine once told me I shouldn't be looking at my family tree as I might find something not nice. Poor thing was really put out when I sort of rubbed my hands together and went "Oooh goody".

I'm loving this thread.

Jill

I'm still trying to puzzle out which of my relatives knew that my ggrandfather left his wife for a young widow, took her surname and fathered two girls, the descendants of whom I recently contacted.
At the moment it looks as if it was just one daughter, who registered his death in his correct name, and his brother, who was a witness at his wedding to the mistress a month after his first wife died, twenty six years or so after he left her.

I've not found any illegitimacy in my family tree, as far as I know anyway. The only thing I know is about my ggggrandfather, who must have been well educated as he was a latin teacher, then a school headmaster in a small village. He must have had a problem with alcohol and betting shops, and this is on the school records, and has since been published in a book about the village. Named and shamed, eh? Sad really, as by the age of 40 he had left the school and became a railway gatekeeper

See,Chris, this person who contacted you is weird!!!
We can't change the past, or present in some cases (daughter marrying with 2 children in tow LOL), but human nature is what it is,and always has been!!
Who cares if the parents are married or not,as long as they love each other and their children.
Would this woman have preferred it if her relly had had an abortion -which would have meant she didn't exist?