Author Topic: any records that might show persons ethnic background?.  (Read 5234 times)

Offline trixi button

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Re: any records that might show persons ethnic background?.
« Reply #9 on: Friday 07 February 14 13:30 GMT (UK) »
Thankyou for all the information very welcome. i know stories do get exaggerated but lilian is very african looking and her hsir has been passed down to the next three generations. She married my gt grandfather john william rands known as jack in lowestoft.she was a single mother of one at the time and he was a policeman i have a photo of him in uniform. however he was made to resign for some resign. he would never tslk about it to his son and grandson and brought hid family back to live in his home village of shotley suffolk. he and lilian had 3 boys sll of who were dark complexioned and had lilians hair.my grandad was the middle son reginald robert rands born 1911.

Offline Billyblue

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Re: any records that might show persons ethnic background?.
« Reply #10 on: Friday 07 February 14 13:54 GMT (UK) »
Hi Trixie
Is there any family story of them being in the Caribbean / West Indies?

Your Lilian's family may have come over / been brought over from there.
Many of the black people in the West Indies have African (negro) roots.

My Billy Blue who came to Australia from England (courtesy of HM Government   ;D  ;D ) was of West Indian descent, as far as we can tell, probably from Jamaica.  I have been told by hairdressers that I 'don't have European type hair' as it is (was!) very thick and strong and curly.  I also get keloid scars courtesy of this blood line.  These are thick raised scars peculiar to young girls and to people with negro blood.

And of course if any of the family lived in USA years ago, official documents usually stated whether the person was white or black or 'coloured'.  They may still do - I don't know.

Dawn M
Denys (France); Rossier/Rousseau (Switzerland); Montgomery (Antrim, IRL & North Sydney NSW);  Finn (Co.Carlow, IRL & NSW); Wilson (Leicestershire & NSW); Blue (Sydney NSW); Fisher & Barrago & Harrington(all Tipperary, IRL)

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Re: any records that might show persons ethnic background?.
« Reply #11 on: Friday 07 February 14 14:40 GMT (UK) »
Dear Dawn
thanks so much for your reply.
yes am starting to wonder if one of lilians ancestors wad a slave brought back to england from a plantation.there are a number of large houses in the area that used to be owned by the marquis of Bristol so she may have come into the area that way. all my resrarch is leading to mary ann green born approx 1799 as she is the only one who does not have aby family that i can find so far. how far back have you traced your billy blue. where did he come from in england.
Lilians genes are very strong.yes my father had terrible trouble getting his hair cut as the hsirdressers could not cut it because of the type of hair kept giving him bald patches.his motber in law ended up cutting it after a few tries she lesrnt how to do it. i aldo inherited the hair and i have olive skin wheras my sister is blonde with blue eyes from mothers side.my fathers hair did get straighter as he got older but still had kinks.i have a picture of myself aged about 3 with a wonderful afro.
thanks again for your reply.

Offline avm228

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Re: any records that might show persons ethnic background?.
« Reply #12 on: Friday 07 February 14 14:58 GMT (UK) »
Do you have any records of Lilian's siblings or parents (photos, army records etc) which might tell you whether they too had dark complexions?

In a place like Lowestoft (a port, with people arriving from all over the world) one possibility may be that Lilian's father Charles was not her natural father, and that a family story about a throwback to an exotic ancestor was concocted to save face.  However, if the other Tills children were dark-skinned that would be less likely.

Ayr: Barnes, Wylie
Caithness: MacGregor
Essex: Eldred (Pebmarsh)
Gloucs: Timbrell (Winchcomb)
Hants: Stares (Wickham)
Lincs: Maw, Jackson (Epworth, Belton)
London: Pierce
Suffolk: Markham (Framlingham)
Surrey: Gosling (Richmond)
Wilts: Matthews, Tarrant (Calne, Preshute)
Worcs: Milward (Redditch)
Yorks: Beaumont, Crook, Moore, Styring (Huddersfield); Middleton (Church Fenton); Exley, Gelder (High Hoyland); Barnes, Birchinall (Sheffield); Kenyon, Wood (Cumberworth/Denby Dale)


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Re: any records that might show persons ethnic background?.
« Reply #13 on: Friday 07 February 14 15:26 GMT (UK) »
Hi avm thanks had not thought of this possibility. i do know thst percy , lilians brother had the hair as did his daughter but something i will bear in mind. thanks again.

Offline youngtug

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Re: any records that might show persons ethnic background?.
« Reply #15 on: Friday 07 February 14 15:44 GMT (UK) »
Thanks youngtug will certainly look these up

Offline Billyblue

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Re: any records that might show persons ethnic background?.
« Reply #16 on: Friday 07 February 14 23:11 GMT (UK) »
Hi Trixie
My Billy Blue was tried at Kent Assizes for stealing sugar from a ship he was unloading.
we don't know where in Britain he was living, but interestingly he called his farm in Sydney "Northampton" - there is a Northampton in Jamaica (I've been there and the area looked very like the kind of scrubby bush his Sydney farm must have looked like!) and I know of at least one person by the surname Blue who is buried in Northampton, England.  So maybe he lived there.
He was maybe born around 1734/5. His burial certificate says he was 99 when he died in 1834. He claimed to have fought with Gen. Wolfe at Quebec in 1759, and to have been a Marine in King George III coronation.  We have been unable to prove or disprove this as there are no records existing of who 'in the ranks' was with Wolfe, or in George III's coronation guard of honour.

With regard to skin colour telling much - I'm fair with fair complexion.  Some of my cousins are dark and some are fair.   I used to know a family where the father was native Burmese and the mother English - they had 4 children, the first and last were quite dusky and the two in the middle had fair skin and red hair!  (I know Burmese isn't African, but just an example.)

Sometimes you can tell from a blood test.  One of my Blue cousins in Canada had his DNA tested a few years back and was told he had 'deep West African roots'.  So apparently there is even a difference depending on what part of Africa a person originates from.

Intriguing, isn't ir?

Dawn M
Denys (France); Rossier/Rousseau (Switzerland); Montgomery (Antrim, IRL & North Sydney NSW);  Finn (Co.Carlow, IRL & NSW); Wilson (Leicestershire & NSW); Blue (Sydney NSW); Fisher & Barrago & Harrington(all Tipperary, IRL)

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Re: any records that might show persons ethnic background?.
« Reply #17 on: Saturday 08 February 14 09:31 GMT (UK) »
Very! Billy  sounds like he had amazing eventful life.