Author Topic: why would you want a black sheep?  (Read 13394 times)

Offline loobylooayr

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 3,322
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: why would you want a black sheep?
« Reply #9 on: Monday 30 September 13 23:42 BST (UK) »
I wasn't aware that "the English" were obsessed by having something "nasty" in their family bloodline :-\.
You find what you find..... black sheep, skeletons rattling in cupboards, bounders, cads, decent people, heroes...no matter where you're from.
I'm Scottish and I've found a couple of fascinating black sheep in my family tree and discovered a couple of family secrets which have puzzled me. And like Erato has said, I've found out a lot more about my black sheep than all the other sheep put together. And they were Presbyterians!
So obviously, to quote Mae West "Goodness had nothing to do with it". ;)
Looby

Offline Ruskie

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 26,196
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: why would you want a black sheep?
« Reply #10 on: Monday 30 September 13 23:54 BST (UK) »
I do find the English obsession  with having something "nasty" in the family bloodline and then making sentimental "non judgemental "excuses for it, when everyone else was working and staying  on the straight and narrow really intriguing .

Agree with this. Examples of mawkishness regularly seen on Who Do You Think You Are, when all sorts of excuses are made and wild stories concocted to explain misdemeanors or other undesirable actions of long dead ancestors.

Offline majm

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 25,385
  • NSW 1806 Bowman Flag Ecce signum.
    • View Profile
Re: why would you want a black sheep?
« Reply #11 on: Tuesday 01 October 13 01:24 BST (UK) »
I do not have any of those, all skilled working class aristocracy in mine and proud of it, Scots non conformists, maybe it is the morality, but somehow going off the rails really never appealed.

 ;D  ;D  ;D

There's many a non conformist Scot who was transported beyond the seas under sentence of a Scottish court  ;D    Those who were transported to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) have their details in the Tasmanian Archives.    The convict records that those Archives hold are among the most detailed anywhere.     

I have one Scottish ancestor who was transported to New South Wales.   She was an arsonist.  Her original sentence was commuted from one of death to one of life.   Her NSW official records include details about her height, the colour of her hair, her eyes, her complexion and other personal details.  I even know what clothing was supplied to her on embarking on the transport ship. 

On the other hand,  I do have Scottish ancestors who migrated to NSW several decades before "my" arsonist.   Official records are scant on information about them.

I do agree with Ruskie re the mawkishness of TV programs offering all sorts of excuses and wild stories.  Those excuses and wild stories develop a "life of their own" and so often become urban myths. 

Some of the Tasmanian Archives Convict records show repeat offenders were in prisons in the UK several times before being sentenced to transportation.   Other times the offence would in today's world result in a collective shrug of the shoulders.   However, I find the TV programs often comment from a 21st Century viewpoint instead of attempting to understand the historical circumstances ..... for example, the development of Manufactories, the Enclosure of Commons,  the Corn Laws, the Wesleyan Dissenters, the 18th and 19th Centuries understanding of the benefits of learning to read and to write,  and soooooooooooooo many other topics.   ;D

Cheers,  JM     
The information in my posts is provided for academic and non-commercial research purposes. 
Random Acts of Kindness Given Freely are never Worthless for they are Priceless.
Qui scit et non docet.    Qui docet et non vivit.    Qui nescit et non interrogat.   
All Census Look Ups Are Crown Copyright from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
I do not have a face book or a twitter account.

Offline Erato

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 6,743
  • Old Powder House, 1703
    • View Profile
Re: why would you want a black sheep?
« Reply #12 on: Tuesday 01 October 13 01:57 BST (UK) »
And how could you not like a husband-and-wife team of serial blasphemers [my 8th g grandparents] who were both hauled into court repeatedly for diverse offenses against the public order, once for "swearing by the life of God & blood of Christ, & that hee was beyond God & above the heavens & the stars, at which tyme the sayd Andrews did seeme to have drunke too much & did at that tyme call those witnesses doggs, toads & hoores bird."
Wiltshire:  Banks, Taylor
Somerset:  Duddridge, Richards, Barnard, Pillinger
Gloucestershire:  Barnard, Marsh, Crossman
Bristol:  Banks, Duddridge, Barnard
Down:  Ennis, McGee
Wicklow:  Chapman, Pepper
Wigtownshire:  Logan, Conning
Wisconsin:  Ennis, Chapman, Logan, Ware
Maine:  Ware, Mitchell, Tarr, Davis


Offline majm

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 25,385
  • NSW 1806 Bowman Flag Ecce signum.
    • View Profile
Re: why would you want a black sheep?
« Reply #13 on: Tuesday 01 October 13 02:14 BST (UK) »
 ;D   

In an 1806 newspaper in Sydney Town NSW Australia there's a report of the editor's reading of London newspapers recently received by ship.   

 "A signal of instance of Divine correction  occurred on Monday last at Stamford, which cannot fail to make impression   upon the most profligate character:-   As a young man of that town was giving vent to vehement passion, and uttering the most impious and blasphemous expressions he was suddenly struck dumb.      He has ever since remained in the most deplorable state of mind, and is unable to articulate a single word." 

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/627095 20 April 1806 Sydney Gazette

Earlier in that article there's

 :) mention of the King of Prussia and the King of Sweden and the Order of the Black Eagle....
 :) Bonaparte will not let the Spaniards pay their accounts owed to the USA .....
 :)  the 'lower orders' of the peoples of Bath were not having their small pox innoculations and were succumbing.   

And

 :)  :)  :) The article I like best in that cutting is the one about the chook that is 24 years old, has reared 16 chickens when aged 24, and is still laying eggs.... What a cackle  ;D  ;D

Cheers,  JM
The information in my posts is provided for academic and non-commercial research purposes. 
Random Acts of Kindness Given Freely are never Worthless for they are Priceless.
Qui scit et non docet.    Qui docet et non vivit.    Qui nescit et non interrogat.   
All Census Look Ups Are Crown Copyright from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
I do not have a face book or a twitter account.

Offline a chesters

  • RootsChat Aristocrat
  • ******
  • Posts: 1,157
    • View Profile
Re: why would you want a black sheep?
« Reply #14 on: Tuesday 01 October 13 04:00 BST (UK) »
Two of OH's ancestors were sent from Ireland to Aus, as naughty people, one a catholic, 'tother a Prody. After getting their freedom, they had four children, and THEN got married, at the Catholic church :o ::)

Offline giblet

  • RootsChat Aristocrat
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,450
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: why would you want a black sheep?
« Reply #15 on: Tuesday 01 October 13 06:52 BST (UK) »
I dont know how my convict lot managed to have so many kids, they all lived in a one room hut. There would have been no privacy  ???

[ We know it was a one room hut as there was a inquest into a baby's death in 1838 and the hut was described and the file also indicated that the baby slept between the mother and the wall, father slept on the other side of the bed and 2 small children slept at the foot of the bed]

Offline Flattybasher9

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 3,360
  • Manners cost nothing, and are worth the effort.
    • View Profile
Re: why would you want a black sheep?
« Reply #16 on: Tuesday 01 October 13 07:26 BST (UK) »
You just have to look at the actual crime and the severity of the punishment dished out for said crime. 1 I found, deportation for stealing half a loaf. There's the old saying, "Needs Must". If you were starving, then what's worst. The loaf or the colonies. At least with the loaf, there was a chance that you would not get caught. Some were "black sheep" just because they were caught. Others, just like today, had the wealth to bypass the legal system.

Regards

Malky

Offline giblet

  • RootsChat Aristocrat
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,450
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: why would you want a black sheep?
« Reply #17 on: Tuesday 01 October 13 07:44 BST (UK) »
stormtroop im sure there would be the odd one or 2 blacksheep somewhere in your family line, you just havent come across them as yet. Most of us have several hundred and even thousands of ancestors they couldnt have all been well behaved  ;D

Oh and we cant forget the remittance family members who were banished to far off lands to save the family any further embarrassment  ;D

Quote: Dark-side remittance men

Within Victorian British culture, this often meant the black sheep of an upper or middle-class family who was sent away (from the United Kingdom to the Empire), and paid to stay away. These men were generally of dissolute or drunken character, and may have been sent overseas after one or more disgraces at home. "Remittance men" also lived in several towns in the American [1] and Canadian West [2][3] There were also 'remittance women' but they are rarely discussed in scholarly works.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittance_man