Family legends that turn out to be nonsense

[Rosinish]

Oh, and my OH's mother's family escaped Russia in 1917. Apparently before they left they buried pots of gold in the ground on their farming estate for safe keeping. Well, whether the pots of gold or the estate actually existed - I don't think I'll ever know, but makes a good story!

I have a similar story.......

Published here about my gg g/father....

http://www.rootschat.com/links/01eog/

Metal detector at the ready for my next holiday in that vacinity 

Annie

[Ruskie]

People are still burying "treasure" - drug money etc. 

One example:
https://linkbeef.com/colombian-farmer-finds-600000000-drug-money-buried-in-his-farm/

 

[Janelle]

When we were little our Grandma said her uncle John went off to fight in WW1 and "never came home".   

We thought this was very sad, and as little girls would sigh over it - that her mum lost her brother in this way.

But this isn't what happened.

Our Grandma and their parents came from Somerset to Australia just before WW1, to join her Uncle John. No sooner had they settled in but war broke out and John enlisted. He was there in France and was gassed, and went to England to convalesce. In 1919 the Aus Army had a berth for him on a troop ship for home - to Aus - but he actually did go home, back to mother, haha, back to his parents in Somerset.   

[shellyesq]

There were a lot of things my mother told me that didn't quite add up with the records.

She said her mother dropped out of school in 8th grade, but a census record said she went to 10th grade.  She said her mother's family lived in a home owned by the coal mining company, but one census says he owned it.  She said repeatedly that her grandfather died of black lung disease, but his death certificate says tuberculosis.  She said my grandfather on the other side remembered sailing into Ellis Island as a child.  However, his ship sailed into Boston.

[aghadowey]

Not my relatives (thank goodness!) but I know of one family that insists ancestor built the church they attended. Can't be true since 1) family lived in another county at the time and 2) he was 3 years old at the time.

[jaybelnz]

There were a lot of things my mother told me that didn't quite add up with the records.

She said her mother dropped out of school in 8th grade, but a census record said she went to 10th grade.  She said her mother's family lived in a home owned by the coal mining company, but one census says he owned it.  She said repeatedly that her grandfather died of black lung disease, but his death certificate says tuberculosis.  She said my grandfather on the other side remembered sailing into Ellis Island as a child.  However, his ship sailed into Boston.

Shelley, in terms of your Mother's grandfather dying of black lung disease, and the death cert saying Tuberculosis, he could have had both TB and Black Lung Disease.   Tuberculosis is more common in victims of Black Lung. 

Here's an interesting article. -  https://www.britannica.com/science/black-lung

[shellyesq]

That's interesting.  I have heard that tuberculosis was considered low class or embarrassing back then (1940's era), so it's possible that the wrong information was deliberately given. 

[Chilternbirder]

People are still burying "treasure"

Drifting off topic, when I worked as a bank clerk in the 70s a change of bank note would always bring in a stream of people "upgrading" hoards kept in cash. One did come in with a tin box that, from the smell, had clearly been burried in the garden.

[McGroger]

My McGregor family has a tradition of descent from the legendary Rob Roy’s family, but there is also a strongly held yet fallacious family prejudice that goes with the claim. All “true” MacGregors are supposedly spelt that way and, the story goes, those families spelt McGregor (or any other variants) are not related to our family and are definitely not related to Rob Roy.

In fact, my father’s generation was the very first of our family to be christened MacGregor; Dad’s father and his siblings had their names “corrected” when they started school - late 19th century. In a curious twist, as a boy I had always thought that my own name was spelt Macgregor, but when I had to provide a birth certificate in connection with starting work I found that the registrar had inadvertently spelt it McGregor - the “correction” was thus “corrected”. So, rather than MacGregor being the only “right” way to spell our name, Dad was the only one ever in our direct line to have it spelt that way.

Oh, and Rob Roy himself was christened McGregor!

Cheers, Peter