RootsChat.Com

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.

Does any Rootschatter have a tree for this family that you'd be prepared to share with me?
I don't need generations more recent than Joseph, who I think was High Sheriff of Westmeath in 1767 and married Frances Fetherston or Feterstonhaugh.

On second thoughts, it would be nice to know what daughters they had -- as well as earlier generations, of course.

It was a different NHS in 1953, too.  My father told the story of how the clock in the hall struck midnight, my brother was born, and the doctor looked at his watch and insisted it was still a minute to 12.  Or perhaps I've got the order wrong, but anyway there was an argument about which date to register the birth with.

I doubt you'd get a GP to attend a home birth in the middle of the night now.
And 18 months later he came to the house to give us all our jabs, as we were about to travel to Egypt to join Dad who was in the army and stationed there.  I remember running to hide at the other end of the garden (coward!).

I think this should have been posted under Handwriting Deciphering & Recognition.