Author Topic: Stories to interest non genealogists  (Read 5791 times)

Offline brigidmac

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Stories to interest non genealogists
« on: Thursday 17 November 16 07:18 GMT (UK) »
In my family relatives are more interested in the social personal histories than all the research .Also I think one way to get children interested in their family history is to tell the story of line character leaving out the research process.

I have become a story teller and as a thanks to rootschaters I will dedicate lottie.s story to you

once upon a december 1899 in Birkenhead England
a young drapers assistant called Lottie Roberts gave birth to a baby girl and called her Maisie Fellman Roberts.

The baby.s father lived nearby he was a travelling salesman but his religion wouldn't let him marry Lottie

Instead he paid her 4 shillings a week   to look after the baby
But lottie needed to work so she paid the Hallis family to look after her baby .Edith Hallis aged 30 was a shirt maker in poor health  she lived with her parents .her father  Sam the tailor didn't want this baby to be sent to the workhouse because he.d been brought up in a workhouse himself and they were terrible places .

Edith died when maisie was 6 years old but Sam and his wife Mary lived a long life and their other daughter lived next door with her little girls who were Maisie's playmates .

Maisie grew up and learned where her birth mother was ...she wrote to her
Lottie was  ashamed of her life and didn't want her  son(the brother Maisie never knew)  to know about her past.

So where had Lottie been and what had she done ...??

....well believe it or not Rootschaters may have found the answers

She was probably an actress with aliases and stage names for 6 years all over England

and she was even in prison for 6 months with..her picture in a newspaper !

But we don't know if she returned to her dressmaking trade or who she eventually " married " or the name of her son !

To be confirmed and continued...
Roberts,Fellman.Macdermid smith jones,Bloch,Irvine,Hallis Stevenson

Offline brigidmac

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Re: Stories to interest non genealogists
« Reply #1 on: Thursday 17 November 16 10:57 GMT (UK) »
i'll try and copy the URL link to the research that went into this story

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=702286.msg6081688#msg6081688

It did start with Genes Reunited and 3 years ago this month Family Tree Magazine published the cautionary tale of 100 year search for Charlotte ...a what not to do in Genealogy  ...of my mother following the wrong Charlotte Roberts and me not keeping track of ones we'd dismissed and having no idea what became of her after she boarded her baby out in 1900 nand received affiliation money froom George Jacob Fellman
Roberts,Fellman.Macdermid smith jones,Bloch,Irvine,Hallis Stevenson

Offline lanercost

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Re: Stories to interest non genealogists
« Reply #2 on: Thursday 17 November 16 12:26 GMT (UK) »
Nice story brigidmac. Writing up their stories is a great way to get all those non interested family members semi into it and the best way to present your research.

Offline Andrew Tarr

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Re: Stories to interest non genealogists
« Reply #3 on: Thursday 17 November 16 12:29 GMT (UK) »
A much shorter story, so far without any evidence to the contrary.  My 'motto' says I am interested in knowing more about Charles Percy Liversidge, one of my maternal great-uncles, born in 1873 in north Wales.

His father was a freemason in the Mold lodge, and the boy was enrolled as a junior member.  He appears in the censuses from 1881 to 1901, when he has become an insurance manager, unmarried and living with his long-widowed mother.  The last sighting I have of him is with the Lancs & Yorks Assurance Company in the Liverpool trade directory of 1904.  After various mergers that company is now part of Aviva, whose archivist has confirmed that he was an Inspector of Agents, a respectable middle-management position, but has no further record.  A cousin of mine, sadly now dead, stated that 'he put his head in a gas oven'.  So far I have found no death record for him; he seems unlikely to have emigrated, but the family had Irish connections, so he may have gone there.

My scurrilous scenario is that he was found to be gay, or somehow fiddled the books.  Probably the truth is more mundane.
Tarr, Tydeman, Liversidge, Bartlett, Young


Offline brigidmac

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Re: Stories to interest non genealogists
« Reply #4 on: Thursday 17 November 16 16:40 GMT (UK) »
interesting Andrew ..you say theres no evidence to the contrary but is there any evidence for any of the facts

my story is factual and confirmed up to the affiliation payment for baby Maisie  March 1900
  her as a baby  boarder  out 1n 1901 census

 and the known  facts and records   about  Maisie's life, she was the nana i knew .

we have newsreports, registration documents ,hospital records+ death of her  Russian birth father    1906 .1916 1920 and 1924 including 2 photos from registartion as an alien 1916 and hospital admission 1920 so my mother  nnow knows what her grandfather looked like

C The birth mother, Charlotte (lottie) Roberts , is still a mystery because if she did become an actress she also used stage names .

and the woman who was accused of baby -trafficking in 1906 is reported as younger than my great grandmother would have been   
  but she  looks older in the newspaper mug shots
 and has a certain family resemblance
.the story and location and fact that we cant find any other likely candidates in 1901 and 1911 does make it more and more likely that she is our woman

 there are more thingsto look for ..including prison records and1939 register

thanks for your interest and comments too.bird

Roberts,Fellman.Macdermid smith jones,Bloch,Irvine,Hallis Stevenson

Offline Andrew Tarr

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Re: Stories to interest non genealogists
« Reply #5 on: Thursday 17 November 16 17:17 GMT (UK) »
interesting Andrew ..you say there's no evidence to the contrary but is there any evidence for any of the facts 

It's all 'fact' except the gas-oven bit which is family folklore, quoted with a good deal of assurance.  CPL must have died somewhere, but I've seen no record of it so far.  The rest of the family weren't globetrotters, except his sister (my grandmother) who married before spending 25 years wedded to the British Education Service in India.
Tarr, Tydeman, Liversidge, Bartlett, Young

Offline JAKnighton

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Re: Stories to interest non genealogists
« Reply #6 on: Friday 18 November 16 09:17 GMT (UK) »
Things that interest non-genealogists from my experience:

1. Having photos of an ancestor immediately makes them more interesting.

2. Revealing that your ancestors came from a "different place", whether that be a county or a country.

3. Revealing that your ancestors were originally from the same place you live now, but moved away and recent generations only just came back.

4. Traits of ancestors that match the traits of living descendants. "This is who we get our big noses from".

5. Tales of sadness and hardship.

6. How far back the family has been traced.

Also it helps to stick with surnames they are familiar with. Even if the info you have on your mutual 5x great grandfather is really interesting, it means nothing to non-genealogists if it's a surname they have no immediate connection to.
Knighton in Huntingdonshire and Northamptonshire
Tweedie in Lanarkshire and Co. Down
Rodgers in Durham and Co. Monaghan
McMillan in Lanarkshire and Argyllshire

Offline brigidmac

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Re: Stories to interest non genealogists
« Reply #7 on: Friday 18 November 16 09:35 GMT (UK) »
Great advice Jak thanks

ps i apologise for my bad punctuation and occasional odd sentences I have had some visual problems and was typing this alone on my tablet ..sometimes predictive text takes over and i miss it in the reread

we are so lucky to have found photos of great grandfather and now a potential photo of great grandmother and it is causing interest amongst cousins who are artistic or interested in photography they are happily comparing family features.

and those who are politically minded may be roped in by her situation  did she "sell"  babies including her own ? or were she and her boyfriend helping unfortunate women and childless couples and covering their expenses
and was the prison sentence exceptionally harsh because or despit the publicity .

Roberts,Fellman.Macdermid smith jones,Bloch,Irvine,Hallis Stevenson

Offline Andrew Tarr

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Re: Stories to interest non genealogists
« Reply #8 on: Friday 18 November 16 11:23 GMT (UK) »
We are so lucky to have found photos of great grandfather and now a potential photo of great grandmother and it is causing interest amongst cousins who are artistic or interested in photography they are happily comparing family features.

My maternal grandmother's family lived in Liverpool during most of the 1800s, and we are lucky to have inherited several photos of identified people - we also have lots of total unknowns (so the message is to always write on the back!).  This one must have been taken in 1865 - the baby is my grandmother's eldest sister, and in the last year or two I have worked out who the old bird at the back is: Sarah Walton, born ±1782, died 1869 in Liverpool, death registered by my gt-gt-grandfather.
Tarr, Tydeman, Liversidge, Bartlett, Young