In denial?

[Ayashi]

The mystery is why Hythe.. He had no connection there whatsoever.   

I don't know how geographically close those two are, but my most interesting location mystery is my great great grandmother's first child. On census, in Plymouth, Devon, in the household of her mother's new husband, she's down as being born in Folkestone, Kent. The birth was registered in Launceston, Cornwall, the household of her maternal grandmother, and the mother pretended to be married to the named father, Edwin Walker of the 16th Lancers. Now, there's no documentation to say that my 2xgt ever left Cornwall/Devon but duly there is an Edwin Walker of the 16th Lancers. Where is he at the time of conception? Just outside Folkestone, Kent... getting treatment for syphilis and gonorrhoea 

I might never know how they met up. My best guess is that my 2xgt was with a host family as a domestic servant and travelled all that way. Better yet, she blamed Edwin for the second illegitimate child too, when he was in Leeds 

[majm]

 

Long before the internet made this hobby a popular one, I spent many a year on various family history committees.    I am in New South Wales, Australia.   I share one particular incident.   A newbie member asked for help with some early settlers to NSW ... so back in the 1810s.  -
  We established that  her ancestor "John" was in one of the regiments who escorted the convicts to NSW on the transport ships, and his regiment was on rotation.  He was a married man, but it did not seem that his wife and family came with him.   
  We next established that she may have had a child born some 15 months after he had been sent to NSW, and we could find him in NSW across all that time   

The newbie then decided that the wife had travelled out to spend time with him and had returned home to have her baby.    The newbie was not willing to concede that wife had had a relationship with someone else, afterall, "Once married, you cannot fall pregnant by anyone apart from your husband".

Our volunteer research officer did spend a great deal of time looking at possible shipping opportunities, bearing in mind that 1810s - well err it was a time of sail,  trade winds, pre Suez canal etc.   

If I recall correctly, we found the baptism for the baby,  and there was a middle name that may have pointed to the 'punative' father, and a margin note too  but the newbie did not want to acknowledge any of those aspects.   
 
JM

[Jool]

As a child I remember my paternal grandmother talking about my grandfather being related to the escapologist Harry Houdini (Erik Weisz).  So, when I became interested in family history (after my grandparents had passed away) this was something I was interested in researching.  But no! his family lived and died in Wolverhampton going back generation after generation.  No sign of Hungarian ancestry, no connections in America, no sign of a showman.

When I asked my dad about it he told me it was a bit of a joke between my grandparents, but as a child I believed it was true.  It just goes to show how we can easily be mislead, especially as children.

[BumbleB]

My parents had a dialogue of my father saying "when we lived at the castle" to which my mother retorted "you mean when you lived on your barge".  Both turned out to be correct.

My father's ancestor married a boatman's daughter, and his uncle married a Castle. 

[groom]

On the other hand some family stories are correct. My grandmother always claimed that she was related to Bobby Howell, a fairly famous band leader in the 1920s/30s. After a lot of searching I found what I thought could be the link but couldn't find the final bit to connect them and prove it. I posted on here and Jool found the missing link! He was my grandmother's cousin. Even better his granddaughter saw my post and got in touch!

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=764502.0

[glenclare]

A few years ago, I was very pleased to receive a message via a well known site, from a person who appeared to be an unknown close relative. We swopped info and then the other person wrote " why won't you acknowledge we are half siblings?"  To say I was shocked was an understatement, but replied that we were not! He then went on to describe how my father had left us and started a new family miles away. I carefully explained that this was not possible as my father had died three years before he was born. His reaction was that he was sure that is what I was told, but I was mistaken. I will for clarity say at this point that my father died after a long and painful battle with cancer, at home.
He could not be convinced even after I sent him the death certificate. He responded with a photo of "our" father, who bore no resemblance what so ever to my father. I gave up trying to convince him as he had started to get aggressive in his messages.
I checked recently and the tree is still unchanged despite recent work on it and so he has a totally incorrect paternal side to it. I also looked for the correct records for his tree and going from his parents marriage there is a clear line of records available.

Why would you want to claim the wrong father?

[groom]

That really is strange, glenclare. You can understand mistakes being made with great grandparents and beyond, or with distant relatives, but not with your own father. I can only presume that the man left that family and so he didn't know him at all, so was clutching at straws. The death certificate and your personal knowledge should have been enough to convince any sensible person!

[glenclare]

That is what made it so strange. From what he was saying, his father was certainly around for a considerable part if not all his childhood and there were other children too, so you would think he would accept the mistaken identity. Maybe his father didn't have living family or talk about his family.

It's not like my father's line is amazing. Interesting, and much determination to survive,  with brave decisions made at times, but not really the type that you would envy. I just like them cos they're mine.

[CarolA3]

I was chatting to a born-and-bred Aussie a couple of years ago and mentioned my interest in family history.
 
'That's great,' she said, 'my cousin did ours and found out that our (unusual, 2-syllable) surname doesn't exist in England because the family changed it when they emigrated.  Before that, they were called (less unusual, 2nd syllable different).'

Before I could say that her surname does exist in England and I'd worked with an English guy with that name, she'd moved on to the cousin having proved their descent from one of King Arthur's knights.

I tried, gently and tactfully of course, to explain that: (a) the Aussie cousin might have researched the wrong English name (she had, I checked later); and (b) King Arthur probably wasn't real and nor were his knights.

Denial is a powerful thing.  Next day, I heard her repeating the same load of guff to someone else

Carol