What makes a Black Sheep?

[LizzieW]

She appeared to have something against quite a few people

Milly - sounds like my mum, but your mum must be much younger - you are the age of my children -  I thought that sort of prejudice had died out - perhaps it's a Northern thing.

Liz

[millymcb]

Hi Lizzie

My Mums just turned 70 - and yes she is northern.  I think she got it from HER mother born 1902 the youngest of a large family of Ancoats cotton mill workers.

Fortunately she has now embraced my research and has been thrilled with all the information I have unearthed.  I'm still on the lookout for our elusive black sheep - her great grandfather - who had a long list of affairs, finally did a runner with another woman and apparently died falling down some stairs in Canada.

Milly
 

[LizzieW]

My mum's black sheep was her elder sister who ran away with a married man, which I didn't find out until a few years ago, but a few months before mum died, she decided out of the blue to tell me all she knew, including the man's real name.

Liz

[Aulus]

Shamelessly, following up my own post ...

Florence was someone whose existence my grandparents acknowledged, but if asked would just clam up and say "oh, we don't talk about her.  She went to London."  They were like a broken record on the subject!  But they obviously didn't feel sufficiently disgraced that they threw the photo away. 
They did at some stage - and quite bizarrely - scratch out the name of the photographer.  I suspect that might actually have nothing to do with Florence, but because the photographer was Henry van der Weyde (Regent St, London), which they might have presumed was German, and they didn't want German names in their family album. 

When I joined rootschat, I thought it was an ideal picture to put up, in the very faint hope that it might ring a bell for someone.  I've always thought that it's too glamorous for an ordinary photo of an ordinary person and I recently sent the photograph to the experts at the former Theatre Museum (now the V&A).  While they couldn't find a likely Florence in their indexed archives, they did suggest that it looked like an actress, rather than a regular portrait.  Unfortunately there's not that many of van der Weyde's portraits on the web, to see if it's a style he used for stage performers or whatever.

I came across this is in the Guardian archives on-line - issue dated 22 Feb 1894, page 6

At Bow Street Police Court on Tuesday, George E Bishop, theatrical agent was charged with obtaining ten guineas from Florence Stevenson by false pretences.  The complainant and her sister having given evidence as to their interviews with the defendant, his promises to them as to procuring engagements, and their payment of money for which they had in return no adequate consideration, the case was adjourned.  The defendant said he had come to the conclusion that pantomime girls were "so unprincipled."  (Laughter)

My great aunt Florence (she's actually my great great aunt, but as she's labelled in the family album as Great Aunt Florence, we just call her that!) should by her position in the album be a Stevenson, so this is intriguing.  However, I can't find any census record for a Florence Stevenson in London but born Lancashire or (less likely) Yorkshire, and I still can't find a birth for her.  So this report serves only to make Florence even more tantalising!

[catwomyn]

Black sheep in my partner's family history would have to be the story one who had an incestuous family with his daughter (eeeeewwww!) - allegedly the same branch of the family that produced a two-headed baby. There are two 'idiots' in one family, and it's the right branch in question, but much to my disappointment I haven't found any concrete proof of incest or two-headedness (yet!).

In mine there's a few illegitimates. Nothing more interesting than that - yet. Must admit I would love to find out some scandal.

Cat

[KarenM]

  I'm still on the lookout for our elusive black sheep - her great grandfather - who had a long list of affairs, finally did a runner with another woman and apparently died falling down some stairs in Canada.

Milly
 

Have you found him in Canada yet?

Karen

[pennine]

I am glad this topic has been resurrected if only for the entertainment value. I have recently discovered through an elderly aunt that her brother who was married with a child ran away with the next door neighbour who was obviously heavily pregnant at the time. Elderly aunt said that the baby wasn't her brother's. I asked how she knew that and she said because Ma said 'He was a fool.The one and only time I saw the child who was then about a month old before cutting him off completely, couldn't be his as it didn't have his nose!
Pennine

[Ninatoo]

One of my great grandmother's sisters was a bit of a black sheep.  She must have caused such a scandal to her family in those days, as her father was a businessman in Ayrshire.    Here is her itinery:

* At the age of 16 she gave birth to her first illegitimate child.  Same child died three months later of marasmus, or failure to thrive.

* Second illegitimate child born in 1896.  Again died three months later, also of marasmus.

* She married in August 1896, one month after her son had died.

*Who knows what happened to her husband, except there is some evidence he took off for America, but in 1899, while married, she gave birth to a third illegitimate child.  Yes, it wasn't hubby's, the birth registration says so.

* 1905 She married again, thereby committing bigamy.

* She eventually married again in 1927 but managed to outlive this husband and died in 1955.

Oh she was a bit of a girl! 

[Suttonrog]

My 3g grandmother was the 2nd of 13 children.

Her Mother occupied a church cottage. She finally got married after the 8th child to the Church Warden who granted her occupancy of the cottage.

All of the children carried his name even when they were not married.

Who is the black sheep - the woman for having so many illegitimate children or the Warden for getting the parish to support his mistress and children?

Rog