While tracing my maternal tree I remembered the stories my grandmother used to tell me about her family (Hardy/Haigh/Challand from Nottingham and Yorkshire). One was that her great grandfather ran with the highway men on the road south from Yorkshire and of course as a small child I found this fascinating and believed every word.
When I reached the appropriate generation I could find no evidence to support the story, although not sure what I would expect to find as no-one is likely to declare such an occupation on any census etc.
But one thing she failed to mention was that her grandmother was "famous". Mary Ann Challand (1838-1903) worked as a "clairvoyant" in Captain Hudson's mesmerist show. However, her claim to fame was to use her gift to find the body of a young girl who had fallen into a swollen river in Huddersfield
https://netherton.huddersfield.exposed/2015/05/24/miss-challand-the-local-clairvoyant/ She was also involved in the riddle of the Seed Hill Ghost. Many thanks to Dave Pattern for sending me the result of his research.
So the moral of the story as far as I have learnt is - never take anything at face value, listen to the memories you are told but still apply the same amount of rigorous research to verify them.
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