Family rumours have they turned out to be true?

[sleepybarb]

My mother used to say that my Dad who died when I was small had a relative who worked at Dartmoor prison.Today I was doing some searching for my Great grandmother's brother George Newey.I found him on the 1871 census in Dartmoor prison,I now want to find out what he did to end up there.
                                         Barb

[Nick29]

My brother-in-law's parents are both in Broadmoor on the 1911 census..... they were prison warders 

[skyblueFF]

We were told that my Great Grand Father went to sea. Yes he did backwards and forwards between his two families. One in Ireland and the other in Liverpool.

[cocksie]

Some have grain of truth, some fanciful.
One Branch rumour placed origins in Cornwall/Devon in mining - is true and recently knocked out a brick wall by using tiny snippet of info within the family "story"
Another branch was "best not to look into" - found the hidden convict!
Branch 3 had a story about a Spanish connection to explain "one off" dark olive complexions ... Can't find any truth in this story. Same branch had another story for the reason my ancestor came to Oz.... To hook up electricity to the cities! Can't find any link here either, although he did have a patented invention for letter boxes with lights, sirens and whistles. Didn't seem to take off though ....
Branch 4 family story all pretty much true - dirt poor, enormous family in uk who came to oz, worked hard and covered the country with offspring
Cocksie

[carrie-bob]

My Dad always said that his Dad had paid to have the family tree drawn up professionally about 20 years ago. When he received the tree he read it and ripped it up, my Dad claimed it was because someone on the tree had been hanged for stealing a pig!!!!
Of course this caused much amusement and annoyance for many years. But I think I have found the real reason, or reasons for the ripping up.........Illegitimate children and a CONVICT!
One Peter Appleyard, my 4x gt grandfather, was sent to Tasmania in 1835 after being convicted with poaching four ducks, he had previously been jailed for 1 month for stealing fowls and then again fined 2 pounds for poaching.
On my Mum's side the rumours of a Saggar Makers Bottom Knocker has been substantiated, along with many other pottery related jobs. 

Trying to find out if this Peter Appleyard also appears on my family tree. My 4x great grandmother was an Abiah Appleyard who married a Joseph Robinson Ellis. Were Peter's parents Samuel Appleyard and Elizabeth Wood or have I got the wrong Peter. I do hope not as I could do with some excitement on my tree.
Thanks in advance, Carrie xx 

[Lionrhod]

I haven't found out yet, but at one of our daughters wedding about 15 yrs, ago, an old friend of my mother asked me if i'd ever been in touch with my step brother in Denmark, this was news to me, but shouldn't have been, my old man was married at least four times plus a few friends on the side, apparently whilst in the RAF at the end of the war he was stationed in Denmark, met another "friend",  so hence my new relation, . Any suggestions on how one would check the story ?. Bodger

I've got quite a similar story. (It was actually surprising enough that I wrote about it on hubpages.)

On my 17th birthday, my Mom told me that I was old enough to know my dad had once told her that he was illegitimate. (Till then the family story was that our surname was a common one and Babcia "just happened" to marry a guy with the same last name. She had disagreed with Dad's desire to keep it secret.) On the back of the photo she showed me was the very wacky spelling of his name. Drzewuszewski. (Thank the gods I didn't have to carry THAT surname around as a child!)

Years later I mentioned this to my brother. One day while researching our family history, my brother posted on Ancestry.com with (our only) photo of our grandfather (the spitting image of Dad) and his last name. Then he got a response from our half uncle, all the heck the way in Poland. Also a genealogy enthusiast. He had a copy of the exact same photo.

80 years from my father's birth, our family is reunited, at least online.

You might also try the notices section in the newspaper from town your family comes from, or local social media. Who knows? You might get a hit!

Much luck!
 

[Lionrhod]

I also thought we were descended from Robert Burns. No luck yet!!!

I'm a distant cousin of Willa Cather.

The story since my childhood was that there was some huge splinter that drove one half of the family to drop the "s" on the end of our name. Our family is NOTORIOUS for big family splits. (Not sure what's with that other than we tend toward flaming Irish/Scots/Viking/Gypsy tempers!) This is at least one of 3 I've documented THUS FAR.
 
Okay one split was over a divorce. Another was because my grandparents became Communists in the 20s/30s. But we still haven't figured out the Cather/s spit.

At some point my Mom contacted one of Willa's branch and confirmed they had the same rumor. Far as I know they didn't stay in touch.

Couldn't hurt to contact known Burns descendants and see if they have any info to help.

[Lionrhod]

When I started looking, it was to find my Russian great-grandfather Karl Wiliski. He was apparently a carpenter who came over to England, changed his name to Charles Willis and settled here.

Or so the story as told by my nan went......

However, after a short bit of research, I found:

• No Russians in any line.
• Charles was born in Brighton, so was his dad, his grandfather, his great-grandfather, and his g-g-grandfather was a Londoner!
• He wasn't a carpenter, but his dad was.
• The Russian connection was simply down to my nan having red hair and being called Russian Red

So, the story was accurate in every detail apart from the facts!

Glen

And sometimes family members just pure lie, for reasons of their weird own.

As a kid I was told my grandparents "just happened" to have the same last name before they married. When confronted with my grandpa's REAL last name, my father insisted he was a family friend.  (He was actually a bastard of an illicit romance.) Grandma also denied Gypsy ancestry, even though it's VERY obvious, both from her looks and the little research on her we've dug up. (Shame how many records got destroyed in WW2!)

How any of this info might have been an issue in the "modern" world I grew up in is beyond me, but Babcia and Dad always wanted to "keep up appearances" even to their own spawn.

Silly and wasteful of energy in my mind.

And so stupid secretive that I didn't receive a letter to me from my godmother/great aunt in Poland until TEN years after she'd sent it, when I went through my Dad's belongings after his death and a few years after hers.


(ETA:)
Damn...this post makes me blink. When my sister was dying, and even before, I'd started writing her life story. AFTER her death the story suddenly changed, with accusations from her former husbands and her kids possibly putting the whole story into a new twist where my sister was the culprit and not the victim. (But considering all my nieces are heroin addicts...)  I'll have to figurre a way to tell the story, and perhaps get past the doubts they planted.