the gypsy family- the myth of taking children - Whitehouse/Bentley; Taylor/Smith

[daganwells]

Dear Honey-roma88,
I've been facinated to read some of your posts concerning the Romany origins of the Morgans of Corsley. I am related to them through Charlotte Ann Morgan (b. 1852 in Kensington) the daughter of William Morgan (b. 1819 in Corsley). Could you let me know how you know for certain that they were travellers? Thanks very much!
Best wishes

[shaneooo]

I think this will run and run, interesting that there are pictures of burning caravans. The point I would make is that were they burned by the roadside, or off road, in a field say? There was a fire in a caravan many years ago on an unofficial site at Marshgate Doncaster,I think causing the death of (2?) children, but whether it was connected with a previous death I don't know.

Burning the caravan is a tradition that still gets carried out today. It is burnt with all the deceased possessions in it. Then family and friend would normaly provide the widowed with a new trailer. originally they would be burned in the trailer at the end of a morning period. the deceased would be brought home and a wake of at least 24 hours with open coffin would take place. This all arks back to the time romanies left india/pakistan.
Kushti bok, shane.

[Redroger]

Shaneooo, Perhaps you can answer my question? Are the caravans burnt off road or by the roadside? If off road, then this would account for the statement by Highways professionals that the remains of a caravan has never been found when road widening schemes have been progressed.

[shaneooo]

hi, i know that they are pulled away  to a safe distance from other trailers before burning, i know of no reasons not to burn alongside the road  but  i can't say ive seen it done. i reckon its a case of putting them where it will cause no damage.
shane.

[shehen23]

I would like to add a little about the custom of burning homes & possessions.  My great grandmother's caravan & belongings were burnt after her death in 1988 even though it was sited in my grandparents back garden!  My gran did this because she remembered it being done all through her life and was a familiar custom to her although my Mum was upset by it as she was of a different generation.  So I can confirm that it is no myth.

Also, on the subject of children, to Romanies their children are their life and they feel great love & compassion to all children.  Many times I heard my parents say that if they found an abandoned child they would keep it.  So I can imagine Romany women opening their meagre homes to any unloved or uncared for child.  But to take a child from their parents- I can't imagine it for a minute unless there was concern that a child was being cruelly treated.

[Redroger]

I think the last 2 posts illustrate the point I made, caravans are burned , but off the road.

[Steve G]

Returning the theme of 'odd' children; This has really struck a chord with me, today.

For one thing, my Gt. Aunt (Gypsy) had a child by extra marital affair whilst her husband was away in the Great War. The Father was a Gypsy. It seems she disappeared for the period of the obvious (this being the way it was done back then. No one spoke of such things. It was just 'not noticed') and returned childless. Then, after a period of time? She popped up with a little girl! 

 I've no idea what excuse was 'formally' given for fetching an infant home, out of seemingly no where. What interests me though it that this girl (Nellie) was given a well known Gypsy surname. But one with no known connection to our line and certainly not that of the childs true Father.

 I can't disclose names here, I'm  afraid. Only, direct descendants  are still very much alive. I'd love to know what Nellie's own daughter now knows of her own ascendancy.


 And now the thing that actually sparked me off about this whole subject:  I've just been actively working a branch of my family which has left me completely confused. These people are and always have been completely 'normal', settled people. They are Butchers, almost by family inheritance and have absolutely no Gypsy connections. Except one .....

 I've come to recognise the strangest phenomena; The vast majority ~ virtually all ~ of the men I've studied 'just happen to' marry girls with well known Gypsy surnames! At first I never noticed. Then I did notice, but dismissed it. But, finally, it became such a pattern it started doing my head in!

 Then I was given a photo of one of the latest. Ann Newbury. It's a family group shot and so I have others of the moment to compare. And Ann is obviously either 100% Romani Gypsy, or she's off another planet entirely. Her skin's almost as black as her hair and her facial structure is in a class of its own.

 What to make of all that? God knows. But, here's the point that brought me here: In buying up Certification on this lot, I've hit a complete pile up. Back in 1800 and something, there's a married couple sat there surrounded by children they list on the Census as 'Sons' and 'Daughters'. Yet virtually all of them, on their own BC's, demonstrate disconnected parantage! It's like these two have gathered in kids from friends, family, neighbours and called them their own.

 I'm actively trying to unravel more of this even today. But, does this lend us a clue? Could the 'Informal Adoption' mentioned above, have been more common place than we now realise? In both Travelling and Settled communities, that is. Or might there be something more to all these Gypsy named women? Might a 'tendency' have come across through a possible link there?

 More questions than answers, as usual, that's for sure! 

[Redroger]

Steve, Your recent posting raises some very deep and significant questions, which I shall have to think about before I make a detailed reply. For now; my grandfather seems to have had no surviving children (if any at all) with his first wife, only a string of nurse children, and at least one informal adoption of his illegitimate nephew. It seems that she had the fertility problem as which his second wife he had two children in four years, notwithstanding an age gap of over 30 years, and he being over 70 when my father was born On my mother's side, maiden name Ayres, in at least three of the last 4 generations there has always been at least one child very dark skinned, and with very dark hair and dark brown eyes, my mother was partially like this as she had dark hair blue eyes, but with a brown segment in her right pupil. One of her sisters was very dark, the other very fair. I believe too that Ayres is a gypsy surname, though the family was to my knowledge always settled.

[chafox]

Dear Steve,

your post relates exactly to the kind of situation that I have been finding in my family since I fist "twigged" the travelling connection.It's why I posted the first post in the series. Nice as all the talk of gypsy caravans, etc, is, it really was straying from what I was searching for.

I had hunted high and low for my 3x gt grandmother's beginning, and I find her in the type of family that you mention. With children of unknown or dubious parentage, appearing in the same caravan, staying with  relatives, and family surnames becoming mixed together, and marriages with all the daughters of one family seeming to marry the sons of another cousin family.

I have been thinking through this a lot.

What I have witnessed in certificates and other records is:

(a)  the children are often illegitimate, as we understand them. But there may be family connections between the respective fathers. My 3x gran's alleged father was of the same surname as the man her mother eventually married.
In one census mother and children  were living with a separate family member, with that same surname. I suspect brothers, and uncles had her living with them as she "passed through" the family  ( and could a traveller have had two women in his caravan at the same time?) - hence the adopted children.

(b) later  a son of my 3x gran's  sister  married one of my 3x gran's daughters, and three other daughters married three brothers, who were also  his first cousins. First cousin marriages appear to be the norm.

(c) because of illegitimacy the girls, when they married, invented "false fathers" or lied about the surnames of their fathers, in order to cover up the fact, and also  that - in one case-  her husband's mother was going to  marry her dad, or even lied about their own surnames to disguise their "gypsy" origins.

(d) It may even be that the usual practice of the woman adopting the partner's surname was not the same as it usually works. But it is certainly possible  that the woman, and the men,  might not have been really sure of their  surnames.

Terry