RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: pharmaT on Monday 18 May 20 10:01 BST (UK)
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Inspired by my telling off on my Time Machine Thread and by a book I read last year that led to my daughter and I having a what if question I thought I'd start this thread. What events, if they hadn't happened could have lead to you not being here? I'll start with a couple of examples.
I wouldn't be here if the Battle of Culloden hadn't happened because it led to the building of Fort George which allowed my 3x Grt Grandpa to be stationed there where he met my 3x grt grandmother from the local village. They wouldn't have met otherwise as he was from 300miles away.
disclaimer: despite what people may think I 100% understand that people could have met other ways. This is intended to be a bit of fun using what we've researched about our families and history in general. Yes it sometimes involves a bit of tying yourself in knots but when my daughter and I did it that was part of the fun and we had a laugh. It has also helper her remember some historical facts
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My naughty Grandfather --- hadn't left his poor wife behind and met my Gran -
The story I was brought up with -- was that this poor lady was 'mad' and so he left her behind.. when he was gassed in the war..
The Truth I discovered -- No sign of 'madness' on her part -- poor woman, he just had wandering genes.. it seems... and so left her up there in Scotland - hoping I think she wouldn't find him.. BUT she did.. Sadly she still claimed to be his Wife/widow... when she died... which was after he did.
Anyhow me and many more are the result of that relationship --- and my actual Gran was a lovely gentle lady from all accounts...
xin
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I have another one:
I wouldn't be here if the railways hadn't come to the Scottish Borders, the coming of the Railways triggered a big increase in the weaving industry in the area which created the job opportunity that one of my 3x grt grandfathers took advantage off where he met and married a local girl.
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I wouldn’t be here if my great grandfather had not landed on the planet from nowhere in his mid-40s.
He would probably be horrified to know that I am gradually narrowing down who he was in his previous life by using DNA.
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I wouldn't be here if
my greatx2 grandparents, Ann Thorpe and Thomas Wade, and their family, which included my great grandfather William Thomas Wade, had succumbed to the cholera.
The disease carried off Ann's brother in law, William Buckle, who lived next door to them, with his own family, in St Peter Newington (South London) in the 1840's.
At the time nobody knew where the 'drinking' water was supplied from.
Some was supplied by companies which sourced it directly from the Thames, which was where all the sewage was also directed; or it might be obtained from wells/pumps which could be contaminated from neighbouring drains.
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If my mother hadn't hated being a nanny and joined the ATS to escape, posted to Chillwell, Nottinghamshire and met my father at a dance where he was playing clarinet.
Further back: if my Great Great grandmother hadn't been shipped from London (possibly Lambeth) to Farlow, Shropshire as an 8yr old female servant (I kid you not) in 1841 census and met her future husband whilst working on adjacent farms a few years later.
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I would not be here if........
My paternal great grandfather had not allowed his 2 eldest children, both female, to remain in Scotland when he, his wife and their other 8 children emigrated to Australia between 1910 and 1920. My grandmother was the second eldest child.
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The Old Bailey had carried out the hanging of my Maternal GGGgrandfather Richard Blackstone in 1813
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I would not be here if William had not beaten Harold at a skirmish on Senlac Hill. ;)
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If my mother had not met a charming but unreliable, and married, man on an Air Force station during WW2. They obviously kept in touch, as I was born somewhat later.
I will have to think about any earlier chance meetings.
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I would not be here if.....
My father had not taken my mother to a social event in Cairo in WWII rather than his wife who had two children under 18 months old ..... my mother was my fathers wife’s best friend!
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Seems like the world is full of 'happy accidents' :)
xin
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I would probably not be here if my mother's first love had not died during the war.
Although, as he was engaged to someone else when they met, I cannot be absolutely certain what would have happened at the end of the war if he had survived.
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My Lancashire grandparents had not emigrated to Canada with their children in 1926. My father joined the Canadian army when WWII broke out and met my Sussex mother while patrolling Beachy Head in 1941. It is unlikely they would have met otherwise. Apparently I told my mother when I was a kid that it was all because of Hitler that I was born!
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THought of another one. I would not be here if my Gran's best friend did not have a March birthday. On the night Clydebank was hit hard my Mum and her family were all at my Gran's friends house for a birthday tea and were about to return home when the sirens sounded. My gran decided it was too much to run home (just 2 streets away) and the sheltered under the friends stairs instead. That night a stray bomber that still had a pay load jettisoned his bombs on the way home. One scored a direct hit on the school, the other on the shelter. The secondary shelter under the stairs (for use when main shelter full) was filled with giant shards of glass from all the windows being blown in so their odds weren't good whichever shelter they'd used.
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Ooh, I like this topic!
I wouldn't be here if it wasn’t for bigamy.
My paternal great grandfather’s first wife committed bigamy, as did my maternal GG grandmother’s husband (not with each other, I hasten to add!).
In both cases they ran off to America to start a new life and the spouses they left behind went on to have further children, who I descend from.
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I wouldn't be here if my maternal grandparents had gone through with their plans to emigrate to Canada in the 1930s. They would have taken my then young teenage mother with them, meaning she wouldn't had met and married my Dad. Fortunately something or someone made them change their minds, they stayed in England and the rest is my history.
Emeltom
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I wouldn't be here if my grandfather had died from being shot while in the army.
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.... if my gg-grandmother had not had an affair with her brother-in-law.
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I wouldn't be here if my grandfather and his friend hadn't gone to have a bath/shower behind the lines during the first world war.
When they got back most of their company had been killed in an attack.
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..if my maternal grandfather's first wife hadn't died in the Flu pandemic of 1918 and if my maternal grandmother's fiance hadn't been killed in WW1.
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.... if great aunt Emma hadn't married an Elmer Gantry clone and decided to set up a private Christian academy in Merritt's Landing, Wisconsin.
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I wouldn't be here if ironstone hadn't been found in the Cleveland hills. My 3xgreat grandfather brought his family to Stockton on Tees from Shropshire in the 1860s to work in the iron industry as they had in Shropshire.
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....if my paternal grandparents had NOT gone to join other family members in Canada, from Lancashire, after WWI, had NOT produced my father, and then HAD NOT returned to England prior to WWII, with him .... and if he had not been with his cousin in a cinema queue when a bolder, braver friend of my mother fancied him, and spoke to him, and if they had not all got to be friends, then if they had not all gone around in a small group until my parents got to be closer, and the girl who first fancied him went off for another .... and then WWII happened. (Eventually he came home on leave, later married her, and .... quite a bit after the War ended, I got here!)
Phew!
What a close escape from not being me.
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I wouldn't be here if my great-grandfather James Ayres not been "dismembered" from the Baptist congregation at Lode Cambs in 1867for "fornication and drunkenness".
They obviously stitched him together fairly well as he was thrown out again a few years later this time just for drunkenness as he had married and become a father in the meantime.
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If my several times great grandfather had been killed when serving out in America in the 63rd Foot in the 1770s.
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I wouldn't be here If the Irish Potato famine hadn't happened causing my ancestors to flee Ireland and come to England.
Carol
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If my Dad had not been taken Prisoner of War in May 1917,he would have been at Passendaele,where his chances would have been slim.
If my paternal great grandmother had not fled her second husband,and settled in Manchester from Nottingham bringing her son and daughter with her,and my grandmother had not left Shropshire to work in Manchester as a servant she and grandad would have not met and married and my Dad would not have been born.
Viktoria.
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I would not be here if -
My father's co-worker and friend had not been knocked down by a hit and run driver in a market square in Bombay. My father commandeered another car to rush him to hospital (leaving behind 2 briefcases, 2 large gentlemen's parasols and 2 canvas lunch bags.
And if -
My mother had not witnessed the accident and recognised both the driver and the car; and had not gathered up the bags, briefcases and parasols; and had not commandeered another car and followed the first; and had not waited for three hours to give the goods back to my father personally.
And I suppose if -
My father had not taken my mother to the Taj restaurant by way of thank you.
The friend had bumps and bruises and mild abrasions and mild concussion - 2 Aspirins and a night's sleep.The driver received a heavy fine - not for his driving, but for public drunkenness.
The friend became my father's Best Man
And I was named after the friend.
Regards
Chas
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..... if Coombs's ancestor in the 63rd Regiment of Foot had shot my ggggg-grandfather, Amos Davis of the Massachusetts 8th Regiment, at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775. Fortunately, he didn't; Amos survived the war and went on to become one of the first settlers of Lewiston, Maine and it's first surveyor.
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TV's had been invented 200 years earlier :o :o :o
Malky
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I wouldn't be here but for a really good midwife in 1909. My mother was born very premature - weight 2lbs. The Midwife washed the new baby's skin with neat whisky to stimulate circulation & placed in a chest drawer for a bed, with a stone hot-water bottle each side, saying 'she is unlikely to survive the night'.
Obviously my mother did last the night, & grew up to have me.
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I wouldn't be here but for a really good midwife in 1909. My mother was born very premature - weight 2lbs. The Midwife washed the new baby's skin with neat whisky to stimulate circulation & placed in a chest drawer for a bed, with a stone hot-water bottle each side, saying 'she is unlikely to survive the night'.
Obviously my mother did last the night, & grew up to have me.
A miracle not asphyxiated by the whisky fumes :o ;)
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..... if Coombs's ancestor in the 63rd Regiment of Foot had shot my ggggg-grandfather, Amos Davis of the Massachusetts 8th Regiment, at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775. Fortunately, he didn't; Amos survived the war and went on to become one of the first settlers of Lewiston, Maine and it's first surveyor.
Very true.
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If my Father hadn't volunteered for the RNR in W.W.2 in Nfld. in Canada and come to the UK, he wouldn't have met and married my Mother and stayed.
Carol
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I would not be here if my maternal Grandfather had not been shot in the ass in WW1
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Further to the antics of my maternal great grandfather had my father not been orphaned in 1903, sent to live with an aunt at the age of 4, joined the Cambridgeshire in 1915,been invited to a reunion in 1937, and met the sister of his hosts wife I would not be here. All a lottery isn't it?
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A bit different reason for not being here—-if I ever again tackle a leak in the shower after ( as I thought ) turning off the electricity at the mains, but then feeling a “ tingle” and remembering the shower was on its own circuit,
I won’t be here!
I leapt out of the bath( over the bath shower) and probably broke a few Olympic records as I did so!
Still I am here ,but would not have been had my Mother not been incredibly patient when my Dad was so ill after his return from being a P.O.W,they waited from 1919 until 1933 to marry.
They did not see their Silver Wedding.
I think other people’s stories are fabulous,so far back ,and just chance that A met B.
Viktoria.
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If great grandfather hadn't stopped off in London before heading to New Zealand. There he met and married the daughter of an Irish woman and a man from who knows where. I have only just found out about the Irish woman with lots of help from IgorStrav! :D
Otherwise all my ancestors seem to have married the girl or boy from 3 villages away.
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If great grandfather hadn't stopped off in London before heading to New Zealand. There he met and married the daughter of an Irish woman and a man from who knows where. I have only just found out about the Irish woman with lots of help from IgorStrav! :D
Otherwise all my ancestors seem to have married the girl or boy from 3 villages away.
Or in a lot of cases in my tree reproduced first, then possibly married. It was an old farm working tradition, children were essential, no children no marriage.
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In August 1857 my great great grandmother Mary Ann Bills sued William Matthew Dennison for breach of contract when he broke off their engagement and married another. He was the Captain of a Merchant vessel and the son of a wealthy ship owner from Aberdeen. He wrote to Mary Ann with a story that his father had forbidden him to ever marry, but in actual fact he'd set off on a voyage, fallen in love with a passenger and married her. Love letters from him to Mary Ann were produced in court. She was awarded £250 and 18 months later went on to marry my great great grandfather.
Only just thought to look and found his marriage!
William Matthew Dennison
Marriage Date: 13 Apr 1857
Marriage Place: Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape, South Africa
Spouse: Ann Munday
Occupation: Captain of Golden Fleece
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If great grandfather hadn't stopped off in London before heading to New Zealand. There he met and married the daughter of an Irish woman and a man from who knows where. I have only just found out about the Irish woman with lots of help from IgorStrav! :D
Otherwise all my ancestors seem to have married the girl or boy from 3 villages away.
Happy to help - I wonder whether your greatx2 grandfather met your Irish greatx2 grandmother in the same way my grandfather met my grandmother? He was the bobby on the beat, and she was the cook...... I bet there were a few surreptitious cups of tea, there.
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If Hilda Cobley had lived.
Sadly, she died of TB in the summer of 1939, clearing the way for my mother to make a play for my Dad.
They were married on 11 May 1940.
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Yes Redroger, that indeed was not seen as anything shameful but good common sense!
There is a lot of it about today! ::)
Viktoria.
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If my 3x great grandfather had not been run over by a farm wagon (while lying drunk on the road), thus leaving a widow who had another child by a mystery man. ;D
That child stole some lead and was sent to jail for 14 days. While there he came under the influence of Quakers and embarked upon his education, instilling in his son it’s importance.
As a result that son encouraged education for all his 8 children, including the girls. So that my grandmother and her sisters all went to institutions that later became universities at the beginning of the 20th century
So my mother (from Nottinghamshire) then was accepted at Bristol, where she met my father (first generation at university) who was from Sussex.
He would not have been there at the same time if he had not swapped a posting to Germany post WW2 with another bloke. Because the bloke could actually speak German, and had been posted to a scientific establishment, and Dad was the one who was interested in the scientific stuff. They put their case and it was accepted. This meant Dad was on hand for the University interviews.
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Great topic!
I wouldn't be here if my 2g grandfather hadn't signed on as surgeon on the "Argyle" to Port Phillip in 1841, leaving his wife and family behind in Dublin. He met my 2g grandmother on board and had 4 children with her in Australia, until his Irish wife tracked him down and joined him there.
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I bet there were some fireworks when she arrived!
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What interesting stories, and mine are all so boring, the Baptist \ Methodist
influence was obviously so strong they all stayed on the straight and narrow!
Mind you it was harder for women wasn’t it ,if they strayed any children they had could be taken from them, so the poor things stayed in loveless violent msrriages.
No help from anyone ,not even The Police ,who never interfered in “ a domestic”.
I love reading them.
Viktoria.
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What interesting stories, and mine are all so boring, the Baptist \ Methodist
influence was obviously so strong they all stayed on the straight and narrow!
Mind you it was harder for women wasn’t it ,if they strayed any children they had could be taken from them, so the poor things stayed in loveless violent msrriages.
No help from anyone ,not even The Police ,who never interfered in “ a domestic”.
I love reading them.
Viktoria.
Remember my "dismembered" great grandfather was part of a Baptist congregation, so anyone who had an interesting life they slung out!! And, ofcourse, there was no television to fill the gap!
Interestimgly enough I just wonder what effects Covid19 will have on the birthrate, we shall see in about 5 months onwards, 7 months here in UK.
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What interesting stories, and mine are all so boring, the Baptist \ Methodist
influence was obviously so strong they all stayed on the straight and narrow!
Mind you it was harder for women wasn’t it ,if they strayed any children they had could be taken from them, so the poor things stayed in loveless violent msrriages.
No help from anyone ,not even The Police ,who never interfered in “ a domestic”.
I love reading them.
Viktoria.
Remember my "dismembered" great grandfather was part of a Baptist congregation, so anyone who had an interesting life they slung out!! And, ofcourse, there was no television to fill the gap!
Interestimgly enough I just wonder what effects Covid19 will have on the birthrate, we shall see in about 5 months onwards, 7 months here in UK.
I think there will be an increase in the birth rate after October into early 2021. So if this thread is repeated in say 30 years time there may be people saying they wouldn't be here if it wasn't for a global pandemic.
The book I'd been reading (well listened to) that sparked the conversation my daughter and I had had a chapter claiming it was Scotland's fault. So we ended up having a lot of fun blaming people for us being here. At one point me managed to blame Prince Albert. So here was how it went: When the Hanovarians came to the throne having German staff became fashionable but became less of a thing as time went on. When Victoria married Albert there was an upsurge in interest in German and other continental staff. This led many London hotels to employ people from the Continent as wine and Head waiters. My daughter's 3x Grt Grandfather, from the Rhineland-palatinate area took a job in London. It was there he met a young Irish girl who was in domestic service and they married. They temporarily returned to Germany but he could make more money here at the time. This meant that when their son was an adult they were still living in London where he met a girl from an old English family (I've traced them back to 1500s).
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Well that's interesting Pharma, and has reminded me that I wouldn't be here if there hadn't been considerable industrial unrest in the cigar-making factories in Europe in the 1870's, when my great grandfather Victor Desire Van Steenhoven was working in the industry in Belgium.
Frederick Engels even wrote about Cigar making and the importance of workers' unions across country borders as Factory Owners were prone to secure replacement workers from other countries who'd work for less money and boost their profits. In my research I found that Cigar Makers were respected as generally better educated than other factory workers, as they customarily clubbed together to pay the wages of one of their colleagues who would read to them as they worked. They took it in turns to do this, apparently.
Anyhow, great industrial unrest in the industry in Brussels in the 1870's and my great grandparents came to the very worst bit of the East End of London to continue to work in the many cigar factories there were there at the time. My grandmother, born in London, also was a cigar maker, though I've no proof (and never asked her ;)) if she rolled them on her thigh - as Carmen was reputed to do ;)
She met and married my grandfather in 1902. He was of English extraction (so far as I've been able to establish - a nightmare line to research), a boot maker from very much the same area of London.
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In regards to the covid 19 pandemic maybe creating a new wave of births in 2021, well, "During the coronavirus" is an Albert Trotter style meme that has been doing the rounds in the past 2 months on social media.
I doubt I'd be here if my ancestor Francois Fradin had not been released from French prison (for crimes regarding religion) circa 1750-1751 and moved to London, one of the last Huguenots to move to England.
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Thanks for starting this thread! Many of the stories gave me a real good laugh...
I wouldn't be here if my mother had not been evacuated out of London in Sept 1939 (age 18) and up to her aunty in North Wales. Out for a stroll one day with the aunty, she passed a young man who was on a ladder doing some house painting...
I also would not be here had my Dad not survived having his anti-aircraft gun emplacement blown up in Palestine... he did a bit of basket weaving in a hospital on the Mount of Olives afterwards and returned home safely.
Ms_C
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Personally I think there is likely to be aelump in the birthrate worldwide starting in China around October, but time will tell.
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I wouldn't be here if my widowed gt-grandmother hadn't left her Huntingdonshire village home with her 8 children to live in Burnley, Lancs., where they all found employment (ag labs were going out of fashion). My grandfather became an apprentice draper. One day a milliner's apprentice was sent to the draper's shop to buy some hat trimmings. It was love at first sight and they married aged 19 & 20. Well, they had to - their first child was born 3 months after the wedding! :o
Not a dramatic story like some on this thread. Just a simple everyday tale.
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I probably wouldn't be here if my gt gt grandparents hadn't been first cousins. He lived in Liverpool and she lived in Bury and I doubt if they would ever had met each other if there hadn't been that family connection - her father and his mother were brother and sister.
Emeltom
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I wouldn't be here if my widowed gt-grandmother hadn't left her Huntingdonshire village home with her 8 children to live in Burnley, Lancs., where they all found employment (ag labs were going out of fashion). My grandfather became an apprentice draper. One day a milliner's apprentice was sent to the draper's shop to buy some hat trimmings. It was love at first sight and they married aged 19 & 20. Well, they had to - their first child was born 3 months after the wedding! :o
Not a dramatic story like some on this thread. Just a simple everyday tale.
I suppose when you think about it, most of us wouldn't have been here if it wasn't for things like that. My great x3 grandfather was born in Yarmouth, lived in London as a child but by the age of 20 was in Liverpool, where he married. His son then became a mariner, sailed backwards and forwards to London where he met and married my great x 2 grandmother.
On my maternal side my 2x great grandmother was born in London but in her 20s was working as a servant in a rectory in a small Suffolk village, where she met her future husband. After his death she returned to London with their 4 children..
It does make you stop and think sometimes, that if anyone along the line had made a different decision, life would have been very different.
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Both my sets of grandparents met because of WW2. Both grandfathers were in the RAF and this led to them meeting their future wives.
A generation before that, I strongly suspect that one of my sets of great-grandparents met because of WW1, but I have no proof.
I also exist because of the railway. In the 1880s my g-g-grandfather moved to Surrey to work on the railways, and it was there that he met and married my g-g-grandmother. Another set of g-g-grandparents moved from a rural area to a town that was becoming a popular resort due to the arrival of the railway.
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For me, this thread confirms yet again - and often I need it confirming - that far from it being a significant event that I am here in this world, it's just pure chance.
A few small changes, and it wouldn't be me at all.
Thank you to all of my ancestors who acted as they did, suffered and carried on as they did, refused to be put down, for producing this result.
I'll try and make myself just a little bit worthy of you.
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Further back had Napoleon not threatened invasion my 2x great grandfather would not have joined the Somerset Militia and moved from Somerset to Alford Lincs where he met and marriedy 2great grandmotger
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Slightly off topic, but I would love to know how my grandfather's cousin, a petty officer coming to the end of his 20 years in the navy, and with most of his relatives in Kent, came to meet and marry a woman born and brought up in Camberwell, London. My only thought is that she was in service somewhere.
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Slightly off topic, but I would love to know how my grandfather's cousin, a petty officer coming to the end of his 20 years in the navy, and with most of his relatives in Kent, came to meet and marry a woman born and brought up in Camberwell, London. My only thought is that she was in service somewhere.
I have that situation of working in a large London house too = a Yorkshire lass married in London but who came back home to have her first child and the vicar kindly noted that father was a servant in London.
Having said that, I can offer an alternative; If you look at genuki it states that:-
""HERNE HILL, a hamlet and suburban district in the parish of Camberwell, county Surrey, 3 miles S. of St. Paul's, London. It is a station on the London, Chatham, and Dover railway.
The groom's ship might have had a refit in Chatham Docks and his intended bride just happened to work nearby or usually travelled to Chatham for a regular market or a social event.
Currently it's an approx 28 miles train ride taking approx one hour - and that's after the Beeching cuts.
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… my Swiss great grandfather hadn't emigrated to Australia, returned home, then emigrated again to the goldfields at Castlemaine, where he met my great grandmother. They married there in 1863 - interestingly the minister was Patrick Smythe, of Eureka Stockade fame.
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I would not be here if my ggggrandfather's clients had been so slack in paying their bills. My ggggrandfather was a french polisher and cabinet maker in Camberwell, Surrey. He was married with a toddler son and another child on the way. He must have been short of cash as he pawned several items such as picture frames, mirrors and a writing desk, the property of a Mr Hunter and his daughter. He was sentenced to transportation for 7years for pawning illegally, and arrived in Sydney, NSW in 1837. Not long after arrival, he was assigned to Moreton Bay (Brisbane) to help in the repair of public buildings as the Moreton Bay convict settlement was closed and the area to be opened up for free settlement.
In 1846, his toddler son by now aged 11, sailed alone in steerage to join his father in Moreton Bay. What a meeting that would be on the shipping dock! The son, at the age of 21, married Mary, who was one of 96 single Irish girls who had sailed into Brisbane in 1853. Some girls were orphans from the workhouses, but Mary had her parents and brother still living in Co Clare. Mary and James went on to have 10 kids (8 girls and 2 boys) all surviving to adulthood.
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Rena - thanks for your thoughts on my problem - it could be some sort of scenario like that, who knows? No Beeching cuts on the London, Chatham and Dover - I have travelled it all my life! Also very familiar with Herne hill station, as I changed there many times when visiting my daughter in South London.