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

[shehen23]

Sandra, this website has one of the clearest and accurate descriptions of the path of the Romany gypsies from India that I've seen - http://danny.oz.au/anthropology/notes/gypsy-history.html - although bear in mind that there will always be some disagreement between experts of some of the finer points . ps. further to my previous comment, unlike in gorja communities illegitimate children were not looked down on but brought into the family group and raised by all the members and often stayed with the group when the mother eventually married so it wasn't uncommon for additional children to be informally adopted by aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc

[realdizzy]

My 95 year old dad (he's in great health, mentally and physically!) told me recently about how the Gypsies would take kids.  In fact, he said was walking to school one morning, around 7 years old or so, he spotted a caravan of gypsies coming down the road.  He said he got down as low as he could in some tall grass and thankfully they didn't see him as they passed by.  He was pretty scared!

:  My advice to you would be to contact the police and ask them if there have been any cases of children being taken by gypsies. If this myth had any basis in reality the authorities would have some information on it - after all they're quick enough to blame travelers for everything else. I think you'll find it's utter garbage. Sadly children were told these stories so often they grew up believing it. The reason your grandfather hid was because of the false perception not because he was in actual danger. The truth is that gypsies traveled in family groups, and children were brought up by the whole community. When parents died or travelled away for work other family members would take care of the children, especially if they had none of their own. There's really no mystery

You could be completely right!  I was just passing along the story. 

[Cfdm]

My 95 year old dad (he's in great health, mentally and physically!) told me recently about how the Gypsies would take kids.  In fact, he said was walking to school one morning, around 7 years old or so, he spotted a caravan of gypsies coming down the road.  He said he got down as low as he could in some tall grass and thankfully they didn't see him as they passed by.  He was pretty scared!

I  don't know where you're located,  buy my mother used to tell a  story  about her grandmother.
Suposedly,  when her grandmother was a  child,  she  was  kidnapped, by gypsies, from her Pennsylvania farm.
They found her, a few hours later, basically  unharmed,  but with all  of her hair  cut off. Apparently,  she had  very long  hair,  at the time. This  was  during the mid-1880's.
I  always wondered if this story was true,  although my mother swore it was.

[realdizzy]

My 95 year old dad (he's in great health, mentally and physically!) told me recently about how the Gypsies would take kids.  In fact, he said was walking to school one morning, around 7 years old or so, he spotted a caravan of gypsies coming down the road.  He said he got down as low as he could in some tall grass and thankfully they didn't see him as they passed by.  He was pretty scared!

I  don't know where you're located,  buy my mother used to tell a  story  about her grandmother.
Suposedly,  when her grandmother was a  child,  she  was  kidnapped, by gypsies, from her Pennsylvania farm.
They found her, a few hours later, basically  unharmed,  but with all  of her hair  cut off. Apparently,  she had  very long  hair,  at the time. This  was  during the mid-1880's.
I  always wondered if this story was true,  although my mother swore it was.

He lived in Indiana.. I think it was Miami County, not really sure at the moment.

[iluleah]

As a child the travellers used to 'arrive' on my Grandfathers farm just before harvest time, they parked in the bottom field and I would get up one morning and their vans would all be set up, clothes being dried on lines strung between trees, a fire lit and you could smell 'breakfast' cooking. I was told to 'leave them alone because they are private people'  meaning I couldn't go and see them unless invited.
Harvest time was always done very quickly I only met them when we took food/drink down to the workers, apart from once going to see them with my Grandfather and was loaded up with a basket full of home made jams, syrups, preserves, eggs, bread, potatoes and swede my Nan had sent, the basket returned equally full of scones, biscuits and rabbit.......... waking up one morning and no sight of them at all except one caravan, which clearly the adults knew all about( but not me).... that evening being woken by bangs and watching from my bedroom window the men had returned and the caravan was burning it was a beautiful one too with cut glass windows...... That is the first time I saw burning of a van and years later mentioned it to my Nan who said the owner had died.

Many years later I worked for 'An Munia Tobar' teaching gypsy/traveller children within their community and during that time had many conversations about 'caravan burning' on the death of the owner not knowing if it was myth or truth, I was told it was true and they liked to keep their culture as best they could and it was a male only 'event' like much of their culture is very separate gender specific the trouble was/is that cultures clash and the last thing they want is the fire brigade to arrive and put the fire out, apprarently that defeats the purpose of doing it and just like many traveller families they only tell you what they want to, so I never really got a definative answer of what exactly is the purpose, although I suspect it is a culture passed for centuries as traditional 'deaths' were by open air cremations along with worldly goods and that is not something the law allows for in the UK/Ireland
The local council were trying to clear one of the unofficial sites which had been used for years and it took several years for them to do it

[Redroger]

Where were the vans burned? Many years ago when a County Councillor I had a conversation with my county engineer about this. He was very sceptical about the practice as in his experience of very many road widening and straightening schemes etc he had never come across ashes in land to be used by the schemes. The story is by the road side; yet that is the problem according to my former colleague.

[iluleah]

The one that I saw as a child was in my Grandfathers field, which was about 20 foot from the road, the one I saw burnt in Belfast was just at the top of the Springfield Road as the side of the road where it stood and where they had lived in it ( like an outer road which by passes Belfast City centre) so a very busy rush hour road.

[Redroger]

Thanks, I could understand the lack of evidence in road widening schemes if it was the usual practice for the vans to be burned 20 feet from the roadside; but your case from Belfast appears to contradict that.

[iluleah]

It is very different in NI than the rest of the UK, not unusual to see here