In denial?

[Andrew Tarr]

... even when confronted with DNA evidence....some people just refuse to believe things.

One of the most reliable rules in life is that people believe what they want to believe, and I suspect that applies to most of us on here.  Perhaps one of the best examples is the question of climate change, but we'd better not go there ...    Or membership of the Flat Earth Society ...

Even when written evidence - say census or BMD records - is there for all to see and interpret, there remains the possibility that what was recorded was simply untrue.  For example one of my great-uncles was stated in 1901 to have been born in Jamaica; he was actually one of a pair of twins born in Anglesey.

[Mary8]

For years my neighbour has been telling me /bragging?? about her grandfather who she said was a very wealthy mill owner in Yorkshire.

Anyone else come across this type of denial?

I'v come across many people who claim someone in their family tree just because they are either of wealth or  of royal blood line.  Not only on this forum but many others & some people i know.
Very much like 99.999% people on F.B. Always want to be more than they are. They do seems to get quite upset when i say  Oh! hasn't your family fallen a long way down the ladder and i see your working hard to keep it that way 

Now our friends from down-under really do love these days having a family member who had a dodgy history (Prison records or been transported), but it took them a while to like the idea.
These days it's a sort of badge of honour to have a family member with some sort of dubious past as long as it is in the past   

Mary

[pharmaT]

For years my neighbour has been telling me /bragging?? about her grandfather who she said was a very wealthy mill owner in Yorkshire.

Anyone else come across this type of denial?

I'v come across many people who claim someone in their family tree just because they are either of wealth or  of royal blood line.  Not only on this forum but many others & some people i know.
Very much like 99.999% people on F.B. Always want to be more than they are. They do seems to get quite upset when i say  Oh! hasn't your family fallen a long way down the ladder and i see your working hard to keep it that way 

Now our friends from down-under really do love these days having a family member who had a dodgy history (Prison records or been transported), but it took them a while to like the idea.
These days it's a sort of badge of honour to have a family member with some sort of dubious past as long as it is in the past   

Mary

There's a book on one line of my daughter's family and it refers to our line as the "poor embarrassing branch" 

[Mark1973]

I'd tell them to do it themselves then!

[coombs]

I once proved that an ancestor was indeed the right person and she registered a death in 1839, of her grandchild. One cousin said "If she was the grandmother, then why was the relationship status not listed on the death cert?" The informant told what they were asked, and sometimes registrars did not always list relationship of informant to deceased.

I have found lots of death certs registered by rellies and their status to deceased is not given.

[iluleah]

We are who we are and we are not our ancestors...... and personally I love it if they were rich or rogue simply as there are potentially more records to find.

My ancestors seemed to fit in the category of hard working Agr Labs, shoe makers, water boatmen and FWKs many of them wrote a Will, so they worked hard to achieve what they got and it seems also encouraged their off spring to get good educations.

So some of the most interesting research I have done is on extended family from a world famous engineer, well known architect and the beautiful work he did which is still there and surprisingly work I admired as a child/young person and I did part of my degree about ( although at that time had no clue I was 'related' to him) and shoe manufacturers which developed into a chain of UK shoe shops still in business today and where I used to spend all my money in as a teenager.

[ThrelfallYorky]

Oh, it can be so hard to convince some rellies they are wrong, I agree.
One of mine was adamant that our, and her ancestors were Scottish, her mother said so!
MY mother had disagreed, but kept quiet for family peace. This rellie celebrated Burns night, etc, and for a very long time would not believe another relative and I who, each alone had traced those "Scots"  firmly over to origins in Ireland! We had to be wrong - she KNEW! Even though our researches exactly matched up, and were proveable.
(A few years later I almost got back into her good books because I found one of those Irish ones had married a Scottish woman - and she had impeccable Scots lineage going back to when (Mc)Adam was a lad!
Perhaps still not good enough - lowland Scots, not glamorous highlanders!
Then I added the news that the line also traced down to our generation, and that meant we were related to a Scottish politician she particularly disliked! Ah well...

[Skoosh]

Apparently in Victorian times servants often romanticised their origins to secure a post.

 This excellent book deals with this & "draws aside the curtain of deceit & lies behind the genteel façade of Victorian England!"  The celebrated Druce-Portland case was a bigger scandal at the time than Jack the Ripper.

"The Dead Duke his Secret Wife & the Missing Corpse!" by Piu Marie Eatwell.  A must read for any intrepid soul who mines the public records.

Skoosh.

[Borley Manor]

These intrigues are fascinating in the extreme, I love 'em....

My Gt Grandpa gave the family the knowledge that he was born in Hythe... the story went on for generations until I found out he was actually born in Bethnal Green Workhouse.... The mystery is why Hythe.. He had no connection there whatsoever.