RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: coombs on Sunday 25 February 24 13:29 GMT (UK)
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I know some celebrities on WDYTYA were surprised when they found an East End ancestor had a parent or parents from, for example Suffolk or Norfolk and they say "I always thought we were true East Enders" such as Barbara Windsor was surprised to find an ancestor Golding Deeks was from Suffolk and had moved to London. I guess she had done very little genealogy before and was unaware that London always was a hotspot for people from all over the country in the 1700s and 1800s, as well as French, Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Jewish immigrants. Of course since the late 1940s people from all over the world made London their home.
My dad and aunty were shocked to be told that a great gran was pregnant at the time she married and they said "I am sure that was not allowed" when bridal pregnancy has been rife, and known since the year dot.
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We have two myths -
1–We are descended from Florence Nightingale. The fact that she was never married and never had children is just an inconvenient factoid for most of my family.
2–Stonewall Jackson (of American fame) is either an ancestor, or a descendant of our Jackson primogenitor. Nobody seems to know which.
No amount of debunking is changing anybody's mind.
Regards
Chas
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I, to some extent, have a myth in reverse. I discovered that a widowed great aunt emigrated from the UK to the US and became the third wife of an apparently well regarded doctor who himself had emigrated from the same town some years before. His obituary gives a glowing account of his life and education both before and after his emigration.
Having sparked my interest - I have had a photograph of them since my teens but had no idea of who they were - I set about following his life in the UK only to find out that the obituary is a tissue of lies and have conclusively proven that he was a complete charlatan. Although, in the years leading up to his emigration, he worked as a herbalist, most of his time was spent in the hatting industry and, despite being listed in the register of deceased American physicians, he had no formal medical training whatsoever.
Unfortunately, there are those researching this person who insist on believing the obituary rather than the proven facts.
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According to Wikipedia, 'Stonewall' Jackson was a descendant of thieves deported to North America in 1749. He was a highly regarded military tactician but a bit of an odd duck, personally. No matter how you slice it, he was a traitor to his country. I'm not sure why your family would want him in the tree.
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Yes, well, you can't choose your family ...
Regards
Chas
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"Yes, well, you can't choose your family ... "
True. The closest thing to a family myth that I have investigated (and debunked) is that we are related to Edward Cox, the husband of Richard Nixon's daughter Tricia. I have a distinct recollection of my father telling me that we were related to Cox at the time of the wedding in the White House Rose Garden in 1971. (It was a shocking and horrifying revelation inasmuch as everyone in my family is decidedly leftwing). I spent ages working out the Cox ancestry, looking for a connection, but fortunately found none. When I later asked my father for further information, he said he had no recollection of ever making the statement and knew of no link to the Coxes. Thanks, Dad.
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I was told Uncle Harry was related to U.S. President Richard Nixon... until the business about Watergate and his resignation when this 'fact' was never mentioned again. The truth is that both families were Quakers and lived in Whittier, California at the same time but not related either by blood or marriage.
Was also told an ancestor 'drowned at sea' so when I discovered he was the captain of a coastal vessel the story seemed reasonable. Found his headstone (no cause of death mentioned) and the newspaper account of his tragic death. The truth is that he did drown but after he stumble down the well behind his house whilst intoxicated.
Then there's my grandfather "English, an orphan and an only child." This one rang alarm bells right away because I remember meeting two of his sisters and my father used to mention two others (one fondly and the other not so much). The truth is that he was one of ten children and the only English thing about the family is that was the language they spoke at home! The orphan bit I can kind of understand as his mother died just after he was born and he was mainly raised by his eldest sister and with his eldest brothers' family.
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Oddly many members of my wife's family claim that their ancestor was Mary Seton, one of the four Mary's of Mary Queen of Scots fame.However the reality is that she died as a nun in France never having married. Our research has traced my wife's Seton line back to Fife with no connections to the nobility. Also Queen Mary wasn't exactly the most popular of monarchs so why even claim such a connection?
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This is on Ancestry , My cousin,son of my mother’s older brother.
Photograph is correct person in RAF uniform ,but he died before he was born
according to Ancestry—— they have mixed up father and son - same Christian names!
My paternal grandfather “ was a guard”——- Coldstream ? Grenadiers?
Welsh ?Irish ?Scots?
?
Eventually found he was a guard, on The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway!
He was a blacksmith ,bad accident shoeing a great big shire horse that pulled great carts with full beams of cotton on the beams ,through Manchester from
Lancs and York’s railway depot on Oldham Road to Portland Street crossing Piccadilly to S&J Watts Venetian style warehouse .
The guard’s job was a sort of compensation .
Also he had worked in Boston ,well what was he doing in The U.S.?
Well he was’nt — he was in The Fens.
I wish I had talked to him but he died when I was nine, 1946 .
Viktoria.
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Oddly many members of my wife's family claim that their ancestor was Mary Seton, one of the four Mary's of Mary Queen of Scots fame.However the reality is that she died as a nun in France never having married. Our research has traced my wife's Seton line back to Fife with no connections to the nobility. Also Queen Mary wasn't exactly the most popular of monarchs so why even claim such a connection?
Well Queen Mary was a Roman Catholic and was it John Knox who so defamed her?
She was a pawn in the hands of men from rotten Darnley to Bothwell.
“The Queen had four Marys,but now there are only three
Mary Seton, Mary Beaton ,Mary Carmichael and me ,(ie Mary Fleming. )
A lovely sad song.
Viktoria.
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One myth I've seen so many times is "So-and-so had a ticket to sail on the Titanic, but they didn't go because of x reason".
I've seen it so many times, it's a wonder anyone actually made it on board. ;D
I don't think I had many myths handed down in my own family, as there wasn't much knowledge about the family really at all. The big 'myths' have been the illegitimacies, which were usually open knowledge although hidden in at least one case. That required some debunking.
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My sister-in-law is convinced that we are an unusual family, having a variety of members who misbehaved; experienced everything from poverty to bankruptcy and so on whilst her family is squeaky clean.
I am trying very hard to dispel her perception of her family!
Jackie
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Henry Ford of automotive fame, is supposedly related to us. My great-grandmother was a Ford from Yorkshire and her father deserted the family around 1860 and “went to America” so I think my uncle just decided to make up a connection. I haven’t even bothered to look at Henry’s background.
My mother told me there was gypsy blood in her family, I had never found any connection to that until I began looking into her unknown father (with the help of DNA) and did find a family line that was supposedly Roma (Beaney) so perhaps she knew something about him or someone let something slip.
Years ago my father mentioned there was supposed to be French and German in our tree. Unless it was a real stretch back to the Normans and Anglo-Saxons, I have no evidence of that either.
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There was always a story in my father's family that we had "French blood".
Closest I can find is my 2nd Great Grandfather, Ascott James Vanstone, who was born in Jersey!
The family were in Jersey for just about 5 years.
There are births and deaths of siblings in Jersey from 1841 until 1846.
Other births and deaths in 1840 in North Devon and from 1847 in Bath.
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There was always a story in my father's family that we had "French blood".
Closest I can find is my 2nd Great Grandfather, Ascott James Vanstone, who was born in Jersey!
The family were in Jersey for just about 5 years.
There are births and deaths of siblings in Jersey from 1841 until 1846.
Other births and deaths in 1840 in North Devon and from 1847 in Bath.
Vanstone sounds Dutch!
I was born in Quebec but I can see generations from now someone thinking we must have been French Canadian, especially since our surname had a French equivalent. The fact that we were all baptized Anglican might give them a clue. The perils of family history!😁
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There was always a story in my father's family that we had "French blood".
Closest I can find is my 2nd Great Grandfather, Ascott James Vanstone, who was born in Jersey!
The family were in Jersey for just about 5 years.
There are births and deaths of siblings in Jersey from 1841 until 1846.
Other births and deaths in 1840 in North Devon and from 1847 in Bath.
Vanstone sounds Dutch!
I was born in Quebec but I can see generations from now someone thinking we must have been French Canadian, especially since our surname had a French equivalent. The fact that we were all baptized Anglican might give them a clue. The perils of family history!😁
The Canadian side of the Vanstone family have made the same mistake over the years!
The Vanstone surname originally comes from the village of Faunstone in Cornwall.
No Dutch blood at all
And I speak as someone who lived in The Netherlands for 16 years!
Nothing on Dutch genealogy websites at all.
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"thinking we must have been French"
And they'll think I must have African roots since my father was born in Angola.
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"thinking we must have been French"
And they'll think I must have African roots since my father was born in Angola.
People make assumptions before looking deeper into the family background.
But my DNA ethnic background on Ancestry gives my mother a lot of Scottish, and as far as I can tell almost all her lines go back in rural East Sussex to the 1700's and earlier (maybe west Kent too). By that point the amount of Scottish indicated (I know, it's a broad range) would at least show up a Scots ancestor (most of these lines have DNA matches) in the 3rd of 4th generation back. I kind of understand my father having some Scots ancestry, mixed in with his northern lot going back to who-knows-when, but the Sussex connection makes little sense.
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I was invited to a job interview at the "One Love Centre" in London, because I put my birthplace on the application as Bombay, India.
When I got there, mine was the only white face for miles around. I did not get the job.
Regards
Chas
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There was always a story in my father's family that we had "French blood".
Closest I can find is my 2nd Great Grandfather, Ascott James Vanstone, who was born in Jersey!
The family were in Jersey for just about 5 years.
There are births and deaths of siblings in Jersey from 1841 until 1846.
Other births and deaths in 1840 in North Devon and from 1847 in Bath.
Vanstone sounds Dutch!
I was born in Quebec but I can see generations from now someone thinking we must have been French Canadian, especially since our surname had a French equivalent. The fact that we were all baptized Anglican might give them a clue. The perils of family history!😁
The Canadian side of the Vanstone family have made the same mistake over the years!
The Vanstone surname originally comes from the village of Faunstone in Cornwall.
No Dutch blood at all
And I speak as someone who lived in The Netherlands for 16 years!
Nothing on Dutch genealogy websites at all.
That's interesting - always fascinating how names and places change over the years.
My kids have an ancestor named Francis Nathaniel Jersey (sometimes de Jersey) who came to Quebec sometime after the 1841 census when he is living in Crosby Garret, Westmoreland. He and his wife moved around a lot, as he was a Methodist minister (he also got jailed in Lancaster for protesting something), and he turned to the Baptist church in Canada. He was born in the heart of London, and most likely his family had left Jersey generations before.
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One possible myth is my Nan said her mother was of Irish blood. Well she lived in a Catholic Hackney convent for a while so may have assumed she was of Irish blood. However one ancestor was James Smith of Oxford, a tin plate worker, who died in 1849 and said "not born in county" in 1841, and one of the witnesses to his 1819 wedding was an Andrew Carney, and Carney is an Irish name. Andrew was originally from London. Andrew may have just been a friend who worked in a similar trade as opposed to a relative.
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I can't think of any myths in my family, but I am developing a theory that the Pay family originated in France. Apart from a couple of outposts in the North of the country, they have always been along the South coast, and I discovered a while ago that the name exists in France, mainly in the North-west. Some of the family like to think there is a connection to a rogue called Harry Pay in the Middle Ages. He was based in Poole, so the South coast/France link is there as well.
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I don't think I'll ever be able to prove or disprove my family myth, as this is how it goes :
A lass of unknown name was either secretly married to, or was the mistress of, a Lord, possibly of Raby Castle Vane family. He fell off his horse, died, and she was done out of her inheritance.There were no offspring of the alledged union.
Well, one of the Lords Barnard did die after a riding accident,
but also the Tempest family of Wynyard, lost their only son
John Wharton Tempest (1772–1793) (the subject of a painting by George Romney), as a result of a riding accident. I am favouring this second one as perhaps the more likely, as the story seems to have originated with the Richardsons from the Rainton /Lamesley area.
Although a coal miner's daughter meeting a Lord is a bit unlikely :)
There's also Crosier Surtees as an outside chance. Lieutenant Crosier Surtees (1740-1803) inherited Redworth Hall near Heighington DUR. Crosier was a drunkard and womaniser, according to Wikipedia! In about 1800 his wife Jane left him. He moved into the house of his mistress in Pennington Rake and had several more children. Suddenly in 1803 he died when he was returning on his horse, in a drunken state from a banquet with Lord Barnard in Raby Castle. On the moors he tumbled from the saddle, fell into the water, and froze to death.
Anyway, there are just too many aristocrats with Raby connections falling off their horses to choose from!
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When I was co-writing a book to mark the Anniversary of the death of the famous Aviator, Amy Johnson who was born in Hull, my uncle had previously told me that we were related to her. When I asked him for details, it turned out that she wasn't a relative, but she lived next door to my Grandparents and my eldest Aunt went to the same school.
Carol
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There were two family stories that my mum was told.
First was that her grandfather was a "seventh son of a seventh son". He was actually one of 5, with only a sister older than him. His father was son number 4. He still managed to charm the warts away. ;D
Second was that the Marsh family were descended from George Marsh, who was burned at the stake under Bloody Mary and became St. George the Martyr. Supposedly there was a George in every generation in his honour. Tudor records are very thin on the ground so there is no paper trail, and so far I've found only three people called George - and one has the middle names of "Frederick Handel".
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Second was that the Marsh family were descended from George Marsh, who was burned at the stake under Bloody Mary and became St. George the Martyr. Supposedly there was a George in every generation in his honour. Tudor records are very thin on the ground so there is no paper trail, and so far I've found only three people called George - and one has the middle names of "Frederick Handel".
St George the Martyr was a Roman soldier of Greek origin.
Martyred for refusing to recant his Christian faith.
Died 23rd April 303 - just a bit too early to have met Bloody Mary?!
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And George was not a frequent forename in England until we had kings of that name in the 18th cent.
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Another myth is that the ages on census records and birthplaces should be accurate. Not so I am afraid, as we well know, people may not have known exactly how old they were or where they were born, often giving where a younger sibling was born, or where they grew up. I found out my 2xgreat gran was born in Sussex but her parents moved to London in 1864 and she always gave that first part of London they lived in as her birthplace in 1871-1921 census. I wonder if she ever found out the truth, the way I myself, her 2xgreat grandson did in 2004. She was still a Londoner though as she lived there from early infancy to her 1943 death and lived in Stoke Newington, Bow, Lambeth, Walworth, Holborn and Islington and Camden.
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Most of the popular names of the Middle Ages show up in English surnames (patronymics), and George does, although not that common (the only one I can think of is simply as the surname George), so it really got a boost with the kings.
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Another myth is that the ages on census records and birthplaces should be accurate. Not so I am afraid, as we well know, people may not have known exactly how old they were or where they were born, often giving where a younger sibling was born, or where they grew up. I found out my 2xgreat gran was born in Sussex but her parents moved to London in 1864 and she always gave that first part of London they lived in as her birthplace in 1871-1921 census. I wonder if she ever found out the truth, the way I myself, her 2xgreat grandson did in 2004. She was still a Londoner though as she lived there from early infancy to her 1943 death and lived in Stoke Newington, Bow, Lambeth, Walworth, Holborn and Islington and Camden.
Precisely! However, in my current line of research it was giving the PoB of an elder sister. The sister was born in Tidenham, just 11 months before the brother was born in Chepstow. In 1921 he gave his PoB as Tidenham (Tidenham Parish and Chepstow are adjacent settlements, separated by the River Wye, which forms the Wales-England border).
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My maternal grandfather (born in Canada to English parents) was fond of saying, "I'm not English, I'm Irish!" As a result, my mother and her sisters grew up believing they were part Irish.
I know now (through my research) that I'm part Irish through my father's side of the family, but I've really struggled to find the Irish connection on my mother's side.
After a lot of determined digging, I discovered that one of my maternal grandfather's g-g-grandfathers was Jewish, but that can't be what he meant. Jewish/Irish... po-tay-to/po-tah-to... naaaaah.
Since then, I've found potential g-g-grandparents for him that might have an Irish connection or descent but I've been unable to prove it. The relevant church records (for England) weren't online the last time I checked, and I've purchased documentation on siblings, etc., looking for witnesses to events, all to no avail. (None of them had money or status, they moved around, they don't seem to have run afoul of the law, they died young, they left no wills.)
The potential g-g-grandfather was born in Oxfordshire but went to Dublin to enlist in 1802. Was there a familial reason why? His surname might have been Irish at some point. His wife had an Irish surname but I can't figure out where she was born (because of course I can't find them in the 1841 census and she died before the 1851 census was taken). They were married in England.
Anyway. Even if one of his g-g-grandmothers was Irish, or if both g-g-grandparents were of Irish descent, my grandfather was still mostly English, but I'll never be able to convince my aunts of that, LOL. (Not that I'd actually try, given that they are so firm in their belief.)
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I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the stories on this thread, nodding and smiling in agreement!
Have been a family history buff for 40 years and my experience is similar as I help others sort out the fact from fiction.
My father had conniptions when he was sure an ancestor was illegitimate (wrong family) and my mother in law was adamant our Hume family was descended from Hamilton Hume the famous Australian explorer (same surname so why not!)
My favourites are "they must have been married" (not necessarily), they lived in a castle ??, definitely descended from convicts (very desirable) and on it goes.
Stephanie Hume australia
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My grandmother's were from the Isle of Skye so they were Scottish, right? Well, yes and no! I noticed that in census records some of the McLeods said they were Scottish and some said they were Irish which seemed strange since it was well-known they were from the Isle of Skye in Scotland. A very old family Bible finally cleared up the confusion. My branch left Scotland and lived in Ulster for several generations before coming to Nova Scotia. Not sure my grandmother ever knew that her ancestors actually lived only about twelve miles from where her husband's family lived since the 1600s!
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One myth I've seen so many times is "So-and-so had a ticket to sail on the Titanic, but they didn't go because of x reason".
I've seen it so many times, it's a wonder anyone actually made it on board. ;D
I don't think I had many myths handed down in my own family, as there wasn't much knowledge about the family really at all. The big 'myths' have been the illegitimacies, which were usually open knowledge although hidden in at least one case. That required some debunking.
Speaking of the Titanic, my favourite family myth (or is it?) is of a small doll that my mother swore was handed to her (or her mother) by someone (or a family member of) a local girl who survived the sinking (along with the doll). I'm 99.999% sure it was nonsense, but the doll is certainly of age. I still have it, but the chances of proving it one way or the other are of course zero.
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Owing to an old family letter, there are members of my family convinced that we are "castle breed" and can be traced to William the Conqueror. So far...all unproven.
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I have a tenuous connection to the Titanic event - two lots of my cousins were related to Philip Pont who married Annie Jessie Harper. She survived the sinking as a baby, although her father died. Philip was Sussex born and bred but ended up in Scotland as a clergyman. His wife was Scottish.
Philip's mother was the sister of my great-great aunt's husband. The other connection is even more removed. No blood relation to me (that I know of, but you never know with these small rural communities).
I won't tell anyone in my family or I can see four or five generations down someone claiming they are related to a Titanic survivor!
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My mother insisted that my paternal grandfather told her that he remembered seeing the Statue of Liberty when he came to the US. He must have had very good vision, because his family sailed into Boston twice (once for the original arrival when my grandfather was a year old and once when he was 4 after a return visit to the homeland, which must have been the sailing he actually remembered.)
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I was told that my gt grandfather on my father's side had died after falling out of a train somewhere close to the Pennines in England. He was considered a hero because he had saved a child when the carriage door opened, but fell out himself.
Er, no
He did fall out of a train carriage, but at a station in the town where he was working when he opened the window of the door on the side away from the platform, then leant out to see where he was. The door had not been securely locked, and he fell out and hit his head on the rails. He was taken on a trolley to the station in the centre of the town, where he died. There was an inquest, and the Coroner determined that it was accidental but there could well be a case for suing the company. I've never found any record of any such case, I doubt they had any money to sue.
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My mother thought both sides of her family were from Wales. Not really. Some that stayed in England on one side moved to Wales after my great grandparents came out to Australia.
When you look at Ancestry’s interpretation of my DNA they include Keynsham, Somerset as part of Wales, hence I have a larger DNA sample attributed to Wales than is true.
Her other grandparents did come from Wales
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When you look at Ancestry’s interpretation of my DNA they include Keynsham, Somerset as part of Wales, hence I have a larger DNA sample attributed to Wales than is true.
Her other grandparents did come from Wales
I have recently researched a couple of families in South Wales who actually originate in Somerset, so there might be a link. It would be enough to confuse Ancestry, who have little knowledge of UK geography, and no incentive to improve.
Those of us in the UK "of a certain age" are unable to come across the place name Keynsham without thinking of Horace Batchelor, who advertised on Radio Luxembourg.
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Another myth debunked is "Until about 1900, 99.9% of people never travelled more than 10 miles or so from their birthplace". While many families in rural areas in the 1700s and 1800s stayed local, many of them did travel around the country for work, or move to cities, and even moved from various villages in the county to another.
I grew up in Rollesby, Norfolk, to Essex parents but both had some Norfolk blood, and one ancestor from Norwich, which, as the crow flies is only about 11 or 12 miles from Rollesby. So it may means several people whose family had mainly lived in Rollesby were likely distant relatives, as the 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881 etc Rollesby censuses lists some residents born nearer to Norwich such as Wroxham, Brundall, Blofield or Acle, living in Rollesby. And my Norwich ancestors had some ancestors from near Brundall, Wroxham, Ludham etc.
The most westerly Flegg area village is Thurne and Clippesby which, as the crow flies is just 8 miles from the Carrow Road football ground area of Norwich. So more or less the same area ATEOTD, especially when you know people travelled thousands of miles/were sent thousands of miles to live and work in Australia, US, Canada, NZ, India, South Africa, South America etc.
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My Great-grandfather born Braintree, Essex in 1843, and having lived in Essex and Suffolk until 1872 or so, upped sticks and moved to Dorset by 1876.
He worked on the Somerset & Dorset Railway!
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Looking at surnames that derived from place names, we can be fairly sure there was movement over the centuries, as some of them ended up quite a distance from the original place. Just working on a Newington family in Seaford, Sussex - quite possibly the name originated from the place that is now part of greater London. Not a huge distance by today's terms but it would have been quite a trip back in the day.
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There are at least 2 Newingtons in Kent, one of them near Folkestone, and probably others around the country.
I have just done a check and it is definitely a Kent and Sussex name!
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Am not sure of my distances but quite possibly they are fairly equal in terms of travel.
Another relative married a Newington, they were in Burwash, Sussex.
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My wife's family lived in Newington a few generations back, but this was in the south of Edinburgh. It must be quite a common place name.
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Not as common as I expected - my road atlas, which has a good index, only lists 4, but not including one near Edinburgh!
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There are lots of Newtons too - surnames and places, Newington might be a longer version. One of my Newington shows up as Newenton so an easy leap to Newton over the years.
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Most "locative" surnames arose originally because people had moved away from that place. "Tom from Newington" as opposed to "Tom the Baker" who has always lived here.
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Most "locative" surnames arose originally because people had moved away from that place. "Tom from Newington" as opposed to "Tom the Baker" who has always lived here.
Yes. No point being called John of Newington when there are dozens of other Johns there.
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Another myth debunked is "Until about 1900, 99.9% of people never travelled more than 10 miles or so from their birthplace".
Why anyone would have swallowed this myth is beyond me. There have been footloose people since the dawn of time. They walked out of Africa, across Asia, crossed the Bering land bridge to North America and then spread south as far as Patagonia. Meanwhile, others were sailing in rickety canoes to Australia and the Pacific islands. Walking from one English county to another was child's play and plenty of children did it when their families pulled up stakes and looked for greener pastures elsewhere or for job opportunities in the cities.
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My father's family originate in Buckinghamshire.
In the mid-1840s, the brother (and his family) of my direct ancestor emigrated to Australia on some kind of recruited passage.
About 10 years later, his nephew and niece both emigrated with their families under an Agricultural Recruitment Passage. The nephew later emigrated from Australia to California, taking passage on a Mormon ship. I think he and the family were expected to go on to Utah, but they settled in California, becoming well-known pioneers in a certain area of that state. There's no sign they ever converted, but they obviously got a cheap passage!
Sounds reminiscent of the 10 Pound scheme of the 1950s and '60s!
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Another myth debunked is "Until about 1900, 99.9% of people never travelled more than 10 miles or so from their birthplace".
Why anyone would have swallowed this myth is beyond me. There have been footloose people since the dawn of time. They walked out of Africa, across Asia, crossed the Bering land bridge to North America and then spread south as far as Patagonia. Meanwhile, others were sailing in rickety canoes to Australia and the Pacific islands. Walking from one English county to another was child's play and plenty of children did it when their families pulled up stakes and looked for greener pastures elsewhere or for job opportunities in the cities.
I have one direct ancestor who emigrated from England to the US in 1886 to join 2 married daughters out there. And one sent to Australia in 1791. Goes to show how a trek 40 miles on a wagon, or on foot from Ipswich to Chelmsford in 1800 easy in comparison.
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The mention of the year 1900 - could that be an error? I might find 1800 more believable, but with the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the building of the railways, people in the 19th century moved for work and later, travelled to the seaside or to visit friends and family. And walking or taking the horse and cart more than ten miles was likely fairly commonplace.
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People did walk. They had to. To mention just one example from my own family, in about 1849, gg-grandpa B.H. Chapman walked 40 miles (as the crow flies) from Moundville to Beaverdam, Wisconsin to buy a sack of flour, and then walked 40 miles back carrying the 50 lb. sack.
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I did mention 1800 in my previous post, not 1900. In 1800 it was very commonplace of course to travel miles and miles on horse and cart as well, such as 100 miles or more from Manchester to Oxford or Manchester to London. And to walk a 40 mile trip then walk the 40 miles back.
I guess a journey from Oxford to Bath in 1800 on horse and cart took about nearly 2 days if the cart had to stop overnight. If it was non stop, it would be about 10-12 hours.
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In the 1800s, many of my ancestors walked from Oldham to Prestwich, to get married or have babies baptized in the Parish Church there. That was the "mother" parish, and was preferred to a wedding in the Oldham Parish Church, which was "too new".
One pair walked alone on Christmas Day to Prestwich, used 2 "professional witnesses", then walked all the way back to Oldham.
Christmas because that was the only day they had off from work, and alone because none of their friends could also go.
It is about 10-12 miles each way.
Just incidentally ............. St Mary's, the Parish Church in Prestwich has often been used for weddings of Coronation Street cast members.
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Another myth debunked is that people only lied to registrars but rarely lied to the vicar in a church, such as for example if the baby's grandparents baptised the baby as their "final child, a late arrival" and that "it must be their last child as they would not lie to a man of the cloth". Or if a woman married during or after pregnancy to another man outside the genetic father and he said he was the father on the baptism. Some may say "He must have been the father as he would not lie to a vicar about the paternity". But people did, and I guess if he took another man's child on as his own then he was not really telling porkies to the vicar. Or if grandparents took their illegitimate grandchild on as their own "last child" they were not really lying to the vicar.
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I have 'hints' of people who seem to have definite ties to my larger spread of family but who, for one reason only, have allied us to the Kemble Siddons family, despite there being a very comprehensive and public family tree of that family. The 'connection' doesn't even have a surname that is present anywhere in that tree and certainly neither Kemble nor Siddons (supposedly my rellie is a daughter of that union).!
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My maternal grandmother was convinced that her ancestors, the Marshall-Rawson-Uptons, were "really worth something" -- rich and important in their day. It was only latterly that the money had disappeared. A triple- barrelled name must signify something, hey?!
My mother firmly disbelieved this and always said that my grandmother had airs above her station.
It actually turned out that there was truth on both sides of the coin. There were no triple- barrelled names; but Miss Rawson did marry Mr Marshall, and their daughter (obviously a Marshall) subsequently married an Upton. Both the Rawsons and Marshalls were wealthy families in Georgian times but it seems that a predisposition to mental illhealth and a predilection for alcohol ensured that subsequent generations were poverty stricken and moved between prison, asylum and the workhouse.
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A number of my ancestors were richer and of higher social standing the further back I have been able to trace. One Sussex ancestor was Sir Stephen Boord, who was a barrister and had land in Somerset and married my 11xgreat gran from Norfolk originally, whose father was a mayor of Kings Lynn and a merchant. Also I descend from the Raymond family of Eaton Socon, and Chadd Cockayne who is a gateway ancestor.
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98% of people with a UK or Eu background have direct family lines linking them to King Edward III.
Everyone has a Gateway Ancestor, it is a case of finding them which is often more by chance.
It is only a big deal initially then when you delve into them further you realise that you are descended from murderous, treasonous, bigoted, individuals who would impale those in opposition to them at the drop of a hat.
You find a relative was hung drawn and quartered then find that the person consigning them to their fate was also a direct relative.
The red hot poker, yes, my Mrs is directly related to both sides.
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Although not everyone can find the documentation to "prove" a gateway ancestor. And as we know the documentation is only as accurate as what was being told.
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I have 2 stories from OH's ancestry line that I cannot prove or disprove, but they have been passed down in the family and regularly repeated!
1. An ancestor took a cow to market in Kendal some time in the 17th-19th centuries (!!), sold it, then was murdered on his way home and the money stolen. I can find nothing about any such event!
2. OH's gt gt parents had 20 children who all lived to adulthood .............. but the family story is that they "had 20 children twice", meaning 1 child died and they had another to bring the number back up to 20.
I have got details on all 20 children born between 1832 and 1860, with 11 of them marrying and having children but there is absolutely no trace of one being born and then dying, and really no sufficient time between any of them for there to have been a full term baby that died. The usual spacing seems to have been 15-18 months. One possibility is a full term baby or still birth between #19 (February 1858) and #20 (May 1860), but this family was very religious and I can imagine that the midwife would have argued that the baby had given 2 breaths and had therefore been born alive, and that there would then be a church funeral and burial. I've seen all the church registers and there is no such burial. No birth or death certificates. No baptisms, in church or private. Was it an early miscarriage?? No proof.
But at least one other descendant from that family has published an article in a local journal about 30 or so years ago describing the "20 children twice".
Intriguingly the last child to be born was given a) a Latin name that can mean 21, and b) is the only child to have more than 1 forename, and she has 3!
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…2. OH's gt gt parents had 20 children who all lived to adulthood .............. but the family story is that they "had 20 children twice", meaning 1 child died and they had another to bring the number back up to 20…
Perhaps I misunderstood the story, but is it possible that the mother had twins, with one passing at birth? :-\
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That is another possibility, I hadn't actually thought of twins.
Also, the way the story is phrased ....... "20 children twice" .......... implies that there were 20 children born and #20 died to be replaced 9 months or so later by another baby
But again, this was such a religious family, and it was pretty common back then in England, and possibly elsewhere, for the midwife (who might have been one of the older daughters) to swear that a baby had taken 2 breaths before dying and that she had done an emergency baptism to ensure that the baby would be buried within the church, and not just discarded.
That is often shown in the Parish Register as Private Baptism, and could be done by any adult in an emergency. If the baby lived it would be baptised again in church by the Priest at a later date.
There is just nothing that I can find to explain the story .............. no certificates, no Parish Register entry, nothing on grave stones, and we have been to that churchyard and cleaned many of this family's grave stones.
It's a family story that niggles!
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…One possibility is a full term baby or still birth between #19 (February 1858) and #20 (May 1860)…
…Also, the way the story is phrased ....... "20 children twice" .......... implies that there were 20 children born and #20 died to be replaced 9 months or so later by another baby
Possibly the mother’s pregnancy ended (very) prematurely and there wasn’t a possibility that the baby could have breathed on its own? :-\
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Possibly the mother’s pregnancy ended (very) prematurely and there wasn’t a possibility that the baby could have breathed on its own? :-\
That is of course the only answer we can come up with now.
However, it is well known that many "non-breathing babies" in England back at that time were held by the nurse/midwife/family member who would swear that the child had taken 2 breaths before dying, and therefore had been born alive. In that case it was perfectly acceptable for any person present to baptise the child. That allowed the baby to be buried within the church cemetery, and gave the mother some peace.
This was apparently very common in rural areas and when the parents were very religious. In this case, every one of their children was baptised, most within 4 or 5 weeks of birth though there are some of the younger ones who were not taken to church until 2 or 3 months later. Those late baptisms seem to be connected to the birth of a child within 18 months of the previous one or with winter, which could be horrendous in that area.
I cannot think of any other explanation than a stillborn or miscarriage, but the lack of proof other than word of mouth niggles at me!
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My niggling family story is the alleged Irish blood on my paternal gran's side, the only likely ancestor is one who lived in Oxford, but he died in 1849 and was a Smith, and was not born in county in the 1841 census. He had connections to a London born Andrew Carney. As I said, my nan's mother spent time in a Hackney convent in the early 1910s so maybe nan thought she was Catholic and of Irish descent. The convent was a training place for young women to enter domestic service.
Although many of her stories have proven to be true such as the surname Wallaker on her husband (my grandfather's side), and her maternal gran was Thirza by forename. And I just found out that her story about a weightlifter ancestor is true, her 3xgreat grandfather was once said to be the strongest man in Essex and lifted weights all the time. He died in 1836 in Leigh On Sea.
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My parents sometimes talked about the Black Sheep of the family in hushed tones, but never told me who that person was, though I concluded that he/she was from my father's side of the family. From the research that I have done I have only found one slightly shady person who might merit that title, my father's grandfather, who was dismissed from the police force for stealing strawberries and returned from London to his native village in shame. Not quite so closely related was a sweet little boy who was arrested for stealing some nuts and fruit just before Christmas. You can read about him here http://vcp.e2bn.org/prisoners/2043-1811-dennis-fairey.html
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My gran's (who said her mother was of likely Irish descent) maternal grandfather was buried in Rose Hill Cemetery Oxford in 1927, and was buried in the exact same grave as an Ann Bough who died in 1912 aged 79, who is on the 1911 Oxford census in the workhouse, and is said to be born in Wexford, Ireland, c 1832.
It was quite common for an unrelated person to be buried in the same grave as someone, but perhaps that is where the rumour of Irish blood came from, maybe my gran knew her grandfather was buried in a grave with an Irish lady. Although it is still possible Anne was a distant relative but I doubt it.
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That "we are all related to each other after about 6 generations back", for instance if someone from Essex met someone in Scotland, you "Will find you are distantly related no further than 6 generations away". That is another myth that has been debunked.
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I can't think of any myths in my family, but I am developing a theory that the Pay family originated in France. Apart from a couple of outposts in the North of the country, they have always been along the South coast, and I discovered a while ago that the name exists in France, mainly in the North-west. Some of the family like to think there is a connection to a rogue called Harry Pay in the Middle Ages. He was based in Poole, so the South coast/France link is there as well.
My bit of the Pay family (my cousin Ian) always claimed 'we came over with the Conqueror' but then he also claimed to be the first son of the first son of the first son of the first son of the first son of the family, and was offended as well as disappointed when my research conclusively demonstrated he was the first son of the first son of the first son of the first son of the third son of an illegitimate son, and so you could actually say we weren't Pays at all.
To be very fair to him, I think the primogeniture theory had come from his own father, passing on some theory or other from our grandfather, who had been a Metropolitan Policeman evidently not very familiar with the truth of the situation.
I had to do a bit of counting on my fingers for that story ;) ;D
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The story handed down in our family was that the first Abbott ancestor in Ireland was a brother of Archbishop George Abbot, sent to Dublin as Master of the Rolls. A cousin of my father was a professional genealogist in the days before the internet, so was familiar with archives and record offices. She looked into it and found that nobody named Abbot or Abbott has ever held that office. What she did find was John Abbott, brewer and steward to the Inns of Court (a master at rolling the barrels, perhaps). I imagine his grandchildren were told “Grandpapa had something to do with the law courts”; John rose rapidly through the ranks with every retelling of the tale, until he held the highest legal office in the land! Such is the stuff as trees are made on.
Rather more recently, and quite by chance, I came across an obituary of someone who had spent all his working life with the George Abbott brewery in Canterbury. I don’t know when that was founded, but if it has been going for a couple of centuries it seems likely that John was a member of the same family and carried on the trade in Dublin. From “brewer, of Canterbury” to “Archbishop of Canterbury” is but a small step for a determined myth-maker.
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My grandmother told me that she'd met granddad at a wedding and that they were some kind of cousins
I've been looking for connections for ages .
Finally found his elder sister marrying her cousin ...so they were related by marriage .!
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My Mrs family lore tells of her 2xGGF and his two daughters travelling over from Ireland.
Totally in error, family came from the same City as long as we can trace records.
Plus there is Zero Irish Ethnicity in her line.
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My Mrs family lore tells of her 2xGGF and his two daughters travelling over from Ireland.
Totally in error, family came from the same City as long as we can trace records.
Plus there is Zero Irish Ethnicity in her line.
My gran always said there was Irish in the blood on her mother's father's side. No known Irish blood in the paper trail. However her grandfather in Oxford was buried in 1927 in a shared grave with an unrelated woman who was born in Wexford Ireland and died in 1912 in Oxford. So a kind of Irish connection, as they will be buried together for hopefully eternity, even though unrelated.
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This one is the opposite of Irish going to England.
Decades ago, before the internet, my late mother-in-law was working on her Irish ancestry, and somehow struck up a correspondence with a distant cousin in Ireland. We went to visit him, believe it was in Leitrim. He told us the Brydges family (m-in-law's grandmother was a Jane Brydges born in that area) were descendants of John Brydges, who was made a Lord, at one time the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, and he had custody of Lady Jane Grey and briefly, Elizabeth I (as princess). Apparently a Brydges was given land in Ireland. So far, still a myth. The family was C of E and spelled it the same way.
One of my relative's widow married for the second time, a Michael Faraday (actually her first husband's cousin on the other side) who was born in Clapham, Yorks. ca 1862. When he died in 1934, he was proclaimed to be the last living descendant of Michael Faraday, the esteemed scientist, whose father had moved the family to London from Westmorland, and the fact that Michael the scientist had no children, pretty well puts this family myth to rest. (I only found out about the spurious claim when I read his obit).
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... Ain't families wonderful?
TY
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I had to follow up Diana's tale about Brydges, as it is a fairly well known name round here. The man who was Lieutenant of the Tower was later Baron Chandos, and when the title became extinct in the late 18th century, a rather eccentric man called Egerton Brydges tried to claim the title. After much litigation the claim was rejected as groundless, although he never seems to have accepted the result.
The Brydges were a large and rather complicated part of the local gentry of East Kent.
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Another myth debunked is when people say "the census will give which cottage our ancestors lived in then". Maybe more likely in later census records but not so much in earlier records, and even for later records you still have to do a bit of digging to find where in the village or hamlet the cottage/house/farm was. In cities it was easier as houses were numbered more often and streets named.
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Another myth debunked is when people say "the census will give which cottage our ancestors lived in then". Maybe more likely in later census records but not so much in earlier records, and even for later records you still have to do a bit of digging to find where in the village or hamlet the cottage/house/farm was. In cities it was easier as houses were numbered more often and streets named.
You’re right - but then the street numbering of houses/dwellings in cities also changed over time as new buildings erected.
Could never find the correct entry for my house in Oxford in the 1939 Register though it was built before that date - it was built on a road which eventually joined two parallel roads and the numbering changed on both.
“Walking” with the Register round the locale was very discombobulating even though I knew it well
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I have to agree with coombs about tracking houses in censuses in rural areas. I can know a village like the back of my hand, but right up to 1921 many people just used the village name as their address, or maybe "The Street". (Which in this village is not what is now "The Street!)
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I was helping an Austalian family with their Family History; they were visiting IoM.
The cottage we were looking for was, at some point, merged with another cottage to become a house!
Fortunately, the building(s) were on a main road, very close to a well known TT corner!.
And the grandfather used to work at a farm & house across the road.
Not easy to find, but obvious once I knew.
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Going off topic slightly (it's not about a myth), for anyone trying to locate a house or cottage based a census entry, don't forget to use all the collateral sources such as tithe maps (for rural locations) and city directories for the towns. Dave Annal explains this technique in his excellent Setting the Record Straight series of videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clTdeptZqPg (for tithe maps) and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSTnayiyVaA (for an urban search).
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Going off topic slightly (it's not about a myth), for anyone trying to locate a house or cottage based a census entry, don't forget to use all the collateral sources such as tithe maps (for rural locations) and city directories for the towns. Dave Annal explains this technique in his excellent Setting the Record Straight series of videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clTdeptZqPg (for tithe maps) and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSTnayiyVaA (for an urban search).
Beat me to it, as I was just about to mention the fab Dave Annal and his YT videos where he also debunks many myths. I have watched a few of his videos such as his Setting the record straight video about the civil registration 1874 act, and his video on how it was very usually the householder who filled out the census records, and the image of the enumerator stood at the doorstep writing down the answers should be replaced with him collecting the filled out census form from the householder.
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There is also the myth about women marrying at a young age, i.e. under 20. I find most brides in my family range from 20-24. I think this myth might have originated in the USA where brides might have skewed a bit younger.
Puberty happened later in the past, so young mothers of 15-16 are rare, most of the births without marriage seem to be hovering around 20 and even older.
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There is also the myth about women marrying at a young age, i.e. under 20. I find most brides in my family range from 20-24. I think this myth might have originated in the USA where brides might have skewed a bit younger.
Puberty happened later in the past, so young mothers of 15-16 are rare, most of the births without marriage seem to be hovering around 20 and even older.
Also it is wrong to assume in the pre census and BMD era that a woman was around 20 when she married, if there is no other record of her age, a woman in say 1750 who had children after marrying could have been up to the age of 35. If she had just 2 or 3 children, it could be she married later in life.
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There is also the myth about women marrying at a young age, i.e. under 20. I find most brides in my family range from 20-24. I think this myth might have originated in the USA where brides might have skewed a bit younger.
Puberty happened later in the past, so young mothers of 15-16 are rare, most of the births without marriage seem to be hovering around 20 and even older.
Also it is wrong to assume in the pre census and BMD era that a woman was around 20 when she married, if there is no other record of her age, a woman in say 1750 who had children after marrying could have been up to the age of 35. If she had just 2 or 3 children, it could be she married later in life.
Yes, just looking at one of mine who married in 1781 and had children until 1804. One can make a good guess of the range of her birth year by this. Poor woman had 11 children, 7 died young, and I can't trace three of the others.
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I have one who wed in Norwich in 1725 and she only had 2 known children, maybe she was about 35 when she married. I found a likely burial in 1768 aged 80, so born c1688. Then again we should never wholly rely on ages given in records, especially ones that have a "landmark" figure age at burial like 70 or 80, maybe the informant estimated their age.
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US median age at first marriage, 1890 to present:
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01t4p/
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I have one who wed in Norwich in 1725 and she only had 2 known children, maybe she was about 35 when she married. I found a likely burial in 1768 aged 80, so born c1688. Then again we should never wholly rely on ages given in records, especially ones that have a "landmark" figure age at burial like 70 or 80, maybe the informant estimated their age.
Even now, you cannot trust ages, or many other "facts", on death certificates, as they are only what is known to the informant.
My grandfather died in 1963, he had always told us his birthday was on Christmas Day, and he was a certain age. That is what his son declared to the Registrar.
Nope, he was born on January 9 and his age was about 2 years out! But that was only found out later.
I believe that all you can expect to be true on any death certificate, up to the present day, is .....
Date of Death
Place of Death
Cause of Death
Doctor's Name
Coroner's Name (if there)
Name and Address of Informant (hopefully)
All else is only what is known to the informant, and must be checked out very carefully, if possible.
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I have one who wed in Norwich in 1725 and she only had 2 known children, maybe she was about 35 when she married. I found a likely burial in 1768 aged 80, so born c1688. Then again we should never wholly rely on ages given in records, especially ones that have a "landmark" figure age at burial like 70 or 80, maybe the informant estimated their age.
Even now, you cannot trust ages, or many other "facts", on death certificates, as they are only what is known to the informant.
My grandfather died in 1963, he had always told us his birthday was on Christmas Day, and he was a certain age. That is what his son declared to the Registrar.
Nope, he was born on January 9 and his age was about 2 years out! But that was only found out later.
I believe that all you can expect to be true on any death certificate, up to the present day, is .....
Date of Death
Place of Death
Cause of Death
Doctor's Name
Coroner's Name (if there)
Name and Address of Informant (hopefully)
All else is only what is known to the informant, and must be checked out very carefully, if possible.
Very much so. I have one ancestor's cousin who died in 1985 and the DOB was given as 30 January 1915, but the birth cert says 27 December 1914.
I even have a step uncle born 8 November 1964 whose funeral service card says born 1 September 1964. However he said his birthday was in November and his birth was registered in the last quarter of 1964. He was of Jamaican parentage and the first of the children of the couple born in England, and his mother born 1 June 1929 and older sister 1 Feb (about 1959 or 1960), so bit of a coincidence they all had birthdays on the first of the month. I would go with the 8 Nov date, and more reliable than a funeral service leaflet, especially as he said his birthday was 8 November.
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My Scottish grandmother, whose surname was Cairns, claimed to be descended from Rob Roy McGregor. Unfortunately, I found both her parents were of Irish descent.
There were a couple of stories associated with my wife's second great grandfather, John Anthony. He was Irish, and fought in the Crimean war. He was said to have had a baby's bonnet which had been knitted by Queen Victoria or one of her ladies in waiting, and this was supposedly still in the family. We haven't been able to find who has it, though...
John was also supposed to have been "a guard for Queen Victoria". He was in the army, in two infantry regiments, but not a guard. Interestingly, On his death registration, in Victoria, Australia, his occupation is given as warder.
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US median age at first marriage, 1890 to present:
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01t4p/
Similar figures and trend for England and Wales (mean, rather than median this time though)
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"Mean average": what means that?
Also of interest, perhaps, is the average age of the menarche (first menstruation):
figures from Germany give 16.1 in 1900, falling to 13.1 in 1960, with the steepest fall in the post-war years. I don't know whether that average is the mean, mode, or median, but I rather dread to think how low it must be now if the trend has continued.
The average age of the menopause changed less, from 47 or 48 until the war, rising to somewhat over 49 by 1960. I couldn't find later figures, or for earlier centuries.
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"Mean average": what means that?
Also of interest, perhaps, is the average age of the menarche (first menstruation):
figures from Germany give 16.1 in 1900, falling to 13.1 in 1960, with the steepest fall in the post-war years. I don't know whether that average is the mean, mode, or median, but I rather dread to think how low it must be now if the trend has continued.
The average age of the menopause changed less, from 47 or 48 until the war, rising to somewhat over 49 by 1960. I couldn't find later figures, or for earlier centuries.
Average age of menarche is thought to be tied in to general good health and nutrition (a certain proportion of body fat is need for healthy reproduction cycles) so it is not surprising the age fell after WW2. Probably still higher in areas of the world where nutrition is a problem.
I don’t see it falling a lot lower, but I suppose it’s possible. Girls generally not far off their adult height when they begin menstruating. Can’t imagine a baby reaching adult height within five years, for instance!
Menopause is also likely affected by nutrition. What I have read is that the average age is now 51.
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Another myth debunked is that "Everyone should be on the censuses, and if you cannot find them at first, they will be there somewhere". Missing pieces in census records, or the enumerator missed a house or two etc.
I have a story of my Quilter family Nathan Quilter born 1808 and Elizabeth born c1813 in Leigh On Sea Essex, who had their twin children Jabez and William Quilter baptised on 30th March 1851 at St Clement, Leigh, Essex, and that day was also the day of the night of the 1851 census. Yet they are nowhere to be found on the 1851 census at all.
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I have commented elsewhere that I had found two instances of a person missing from his family at censuses, 1851 and 1901. A long while later they were each found staying in hotels with surnames mis-spelled, presumably because the proprietors were not taking care filling in the form.
One was discovered in London on business. The other was at the seaside, while wife and daughters (found previously) were staying with the mother-in-law.
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My grandfather and his siblings were not with their parents in Wiltshire in 1911.
I eventually found them in Bedminster, Bristol all using their middle names as first names!
In every other census, BMD records etc., they used their "normal" first names.
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It seems to have been common practice in many families to call children by their middle names.
Happens quite a lot among my ancestors and their siblings, which doesn't make the searches any easier, especially as middle names were often suppressed in the census records.
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"Mean average": what means that?
It just specifies what the measure of average is being used (mean, mode or median). I agree though - they could just have used "mean".
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I have commented elsewhere that I had found two instances of a person missing from his family at censuses, 1851 and 1901. A long while later they were each found staying in hotels with surnames mis-spelled, presumably because the proprietors were not taking care filling in the form.
One was discovered in London on business. The other was at the seaside, while wife and daughters (found previously) were staying with the mother-in-law.
That could be the case with my Quilter lot, they were in the local parish church on 30 March 1851 having 2 children baptised, but may have gone for an Easter break somewhere that day and missed the census. The father was a fisherman by trade. I will probably never know how they missed the census, if they missed it that is.
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I have this idea that our ancestors had a sneaky plan ..................
confuse descendants as much as we can! ::) ;D
My maternal grandfather did it in real life ....... he never talked about any member of his family. Nor was there any mention that the spelling of his surname had been changed somewhere between 1850 and 1890, or that he had the new version while half of his cousins had either retained or returned to the original one. ??? I've had to find it all out myself over the last 20 or so years.
At least I did know that his wife had 2 sisters because one lived next door to us when I was a child and the second was my mother's godmother and we used to get letters from New York. Mind you, no other member of her family was ever mentioned! The changes in her surname were due solely to mis-spellings!
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Another myth is that you should be able to always find a record of a death of someone. It is easier from civil registration onwards but even then not always. Workhouse burials where the registers do not survive, non conformist burials, lost at sea, went missing and never identified etc, and so on.
Lots of overseers ratebooks and disbursement books for Essex are on FamilySearch for a number of parishes. I was able to pinpoint an ancestor's death year by this, as it said "William Ingram Snr" for September 1794 ratebooks but for Dec 1794 it said "Widow Ingram" for what seems to be the same property as the neighbours names are the same. No burial can be found in Leigh On Sea for him in 1794 but he may have been buried elsewhere or in a workhouse cemetery or NC grounds. Also the family were mariners so worked in a dangerous job, and he may have been lost at sea.
Handy to use such books if a burial cannot be found.
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Another myth is that you should be able to always find a record of a death of someone. It is easier from civil registration onwards but even then not always. Workhouse burials where the registers do not survive, non conformist burials, lost at sea, went missing and never identified etc, and so on.
Lots of overseers ratebooks and disbursement books for Essex are on FamilySearch for a number of parishes. I was able to pinpoint an ancestor's death year by this, as it said "William Ingram Snr" for September 1794 ratebooks but for Dec 1794 it said "Widow Ingram" for what seems to be the same property as the neighbours names are the same. No burial can be found in Leigh On Sea for him in 1794 but he may have been buried elsewhere or in a workhouse cemetery or NC grounds. Also the family were mariners so worked in a dangerous job, and he may have been lost at sea.
Handy to use such books if a burial cannot be found.
.............. and don't mention that you can find baptisms, especially before registration began! For one thing, not all vicars added the birth date to the Church Register, and not all did it all the time.
I've found some baptised when they were in their teens or even later, just before they married. Then there are the ones when siblings were baptised at the same time, sometimes because the family lived in an area where there was not a priest available (eg out on the moors), and they had to wait until one came on his rounds or they went to a village.
Many children were baptised late because they were just about to start work, and employers insisted on it. If the child did not know, then s/he'd be baptised again "just in case",
My maternal grandfather was baptised at the same time as his younger sister, which helped with his lying about his birthday!
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... Sometimes we almost wonder if we exist, or are we figments of someone's imagination!
"I research, therefore I am" or were we dropped down by aliens???
(Bad day, so far - need to stop taking things seriously"
TY
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... Sometimes we almost wonder if we exist, or are we figments of someone's imagination!
"I research, therefore I am" or were we dropped down by aliens???
(Bad day, so far - need to stop taking things seriously"
TY
Oh TY, I was definitely dropped down by aliens. More fun that way I’m sure. If it wasn’t me then some of my ancestors.
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Another myth is that you should be able to always find a record of a death of someone. It is easier from civil registration onwards but even then not always. Workhouse burials where the registers do not survive, non conformist burials, lost at sea, went missing and never identified etc, and so on.
Lots of overseers ratebooks and disbursement books for Essex are on FamilySearch for a number of parishes. I was able to pinpoint an ancestor's death year by this, as it said "William Ingram Snr" for September 1794 ratebooks but for Dec 1794 it said "Widow Ingram" for what seems to be the same property as the neighbours names are the same. No burial can be found in Leigh On Sea for him in 1794 but he may have been buried elsewhere or in a workhouse cemetery or NC grounds. Also the family were mariners so worked in a dangerous job, and he may have been lost at sea.
Handy to use such books if a burial cannot be found.
Many children were baptised late because they were just about to start work, and employers insisted on it. If the child did not know, then s/he'd be baptised again "just in case",
My maternal grandfather was baptised at the same time as his younger sister, which helped with his lying about his birthday!
My great gran was baptised as a baby in Oxford in 1895, then baptised again in March 1910 in Hackney, London. She was staying at a Hackney convent at the time and by 1911 census she was a servant at Bexhill in Sussex. The 1911 census says the convent had people "training for domestic service".
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My Quaker ancestor was baptized the day she got married. She married C of E. I am not sure where she was born - I did find her birthdate recorded in Quaker records along with some of her siblings, but no mention of her birthplace. Very likely in the area of Barnoldswick, Yorks., or just over the border in Lancashire. She married in Hornby, Lancs.
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My wife was baptized one week before we got married 56 years ago.
I cant remember why this took place but it was done in private. There was my wife, myself and the Anglican minister.
I have always said I am her husband and godfather and godmother....
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... Sometimes we almost wonder if we exist, or are we figments of someone's imagination!
"I research, therefore I am" or were we dropped down by aliens???
(Bad day, so far - need to stop taking things seriously"
TY
I fear my Dad's Cadd family certainly were aliens!
It doesn't seem that any of the numerous searchers, including myself, have ever found out where and when John Cadd was born or lived before he married Catherine Mas(s)on on December 14 1741 in Edgcot)t), Buckinghamshire. There have been guesses that he was born in Edgecot(t) in 1720, or even in 1729 ( ??? ), but I have never seen the proof of that. He died on February 22 1800 in Hillesden, Buckinghamshire.
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It's hard to see how some of these things can be considered "myths" or even commonly held, but erroneous, beliefs.
"the census will give which cottage our ancestors lived in"
"Everyone should be on the censuses ..."
"you should be able to always find a record of a death"
These may be misapprehensions held by some, but they're not myths. A myth is a traditional story handed down from generation to generation. They are the things you heard at your mother's knee or simplified historical 'facts' you learned in elementary school. Myths put spin on historical reality; they teach us the accepted party line. But who among us grew up beleving anything at all, whether true or false, about censuses or death records? Censuses and BMDs are not the subjects of mythology.
There are genealogical myths, though. For example, that North America was largely settled by people who were fleeing religious persecution. Some settlers were, but not the majority. That is a myth.
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It's hard to see how some of these things can be considered "myths" or even commonly held, but erroneous, beliefs.
"the census will give which cottage our ancestors lived in"
"Everyone should be on the censuses ..."
"you should be able to always find a record of a death"
These may be misapprehensions held by some, but they're not myths. A myth is a traditional story handed down from generation to generation. They are the things you heard at your mother's knee or simplified historical 'facts' you learned in elementary school. Myths put spin on historical reality; they teach us the accepted party line. But who among us grew up beleving anything at all, whether true or false, about censuses or death records? Censuses and BMDs are not the subjects of mythology.
There are genealogical myths, though. For example, that North America was largely settled by people who were fleeing religious persecution. Some settlers were, but not the majority. That is a myth.
Only in your part of North America. There is no Canadian myth about the first Europea settlers fleeing religious persecution; they were French men and women who continued to practice Catholicism in New France.
Many of the early settlers here of English and German backgrounds were fleeing the American Revolution.
The large number of early Scots who came here worked in the fur trade. No fleeing religious persecution that I have ever heard.
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It's hard to see how some of these things can be considered "myths" or even commonly held, but erroneous, beliefs.
"the census will give which cottage our ancestors lived in"
"Everyone should be on the censuses ..."
"you should be able to always find a record of a death"
These may be misapprehensions held by some, but they're not myths. A myth is a traditional story handed down from generation to generation. They are the things you heard at your mother's knee or simplified historical 'facts' you learned in elementary school. Myths put spin on historical reality; they teach us the accepted party line. But who among us grew up beleving anything at all, whether true or false, about censuses or death records? Censuses and BMDs are not the subjects of mythology.
There are genealogical myths, though. For example, that North America was largely settled by people who were fleeing religious persecution. Some settlers were, but not the majority. That is a myth.
Only in your part of North America. There is no Canadian myth about the first Europea settlers fleeing religious persecution; they were French men and women who continued to practice Catholicism in New France.
Many of the early settlers here of English and German backgrounds were fleeing the American Revolution.
The large number of early Scots who came here worked in the fur trade. No fleeing religious persecution that I have ever heard.
I agree, religious persecution did not enter into the reason for the early settlers coming to Canada. They were here to make fortunes in the fur trade. We also must never forget the Blacks fleeing slavery via the Underground Railway, large numbers ended up in Nova Scotia and in BC.
Religious persecution did enter into immigration into Canada but not until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially from certain areas of Europe .... Doukhobor, Mennonite, Amish, etc ........ but that is well-documented!
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"I agree, religious persecution did not enter into the reason for the early settlers coming to Canada"
And the same applies to the early settlers of the thirteen colonies that later became the United States - most of them were not religious refugees. It is estimated that some one-half to two-thirds of the early European colonists were indentured servants who supplied labor. They were not seeking religious relief. They were economic migrants merely hoping to survive long enough to gain their freedom and their own economic agency. That they had the possibility to do so is what distinguished them from the fully enslaved people who were shipped in from Africa. There were also some 100,000 English convicts transported to the colonies. Nevertheless, it is a fundamental right-wing belief that a burning desire for religious liberty was the motivating principle that brought settlers to the New World. It is a bedrock myth that provides a source of righteous justification to their claims that the United States was intentionally founded as a Christian nation.
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Exactly, Erato.
Not wanting to stir up controversy, but I converse with a great number of Americans and find that most are woefully ignorant about their own history. And presenting them with referenced facts to the contrary makes no difference at all. And the Christianity that was practised in 1776 is EXACTLY like the Christianity that they practice today ...
Sorry for any offence.
Regards
Chas
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My children’s direct paternal ancestor left Yorkshire in 1640 and arrived in Massachusetts as a servant, although I am not sure he was indentured. He later set up the first grist mill in the area.
Just my opinion, but I do believe the original Puritan settlers did set a “tone” in New England of hard work, sobriety, and a conservative approach to life, if not politics, as it does tend to be a liberal area in that regard.
I highly recommend the book Albion’s Seed about how the British settlement of the original colonies influenced four major regions of what is now the US. It is by David Hackett Fischer. He also wrote Champlain’s Dream, about New France.
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The same author also wrote "Paul Revere's Ride" which is an excellent account of the events leading up to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. And especially interesting to me since I grew up in the town where the first shots were fired.
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"Just my opinion, but I do believe the original Puritan settlers did set a “tone” in New England of hard work, sobriety, and a conservative approach to life, if not politics, as it does tend to be a liberal area in that regard."
There I tend to agree with you. The actual modern religious descendants of the New England Puritans are the Congregationalists and the Unitarians, not the fundamentalist nut jobs of the bible belt. Those Puritan settlers did set a "tone" that is still dimly perceptible today even though New England is no longer numerically dominated by pure blooded Yankees. Certainly Yankee culture was a major theme in my paternal family.
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I suppose the "99% of people never moved 10 miles or so from their birthplace prior to the invention of cars" could be a misapprehension of facts as opposed to a myth.
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My mum's mum used to say that we descended from Sir William Pitt, mum would always mutter under her breath, 'Sir William Pitt, the one that didn't get married'. Dad would always say that he descended from people who were hung for steeling sheep. Well it turns out we descend from William Pitt who made beds in Bordesley Green and on dad;s side from someone who was acquitted for steeling a deer. Reality is more interesting, in the end. I have now been to my great great grandad's grave, an impressive Victorian granite obelisk erected by those who employed him, and worked with him out of respect for all his innovative contributions to the industry, I've chatted with cousins Ive never heard of and I have seen photos of real people that look like family, because they are or were family.