Did our ancestors know their ancestry?

[medpat]

If you lived in a small place I'd say yes but most of my family came from the industrial Midlands and lived in a big town.

I know from the 1939 register my maternal grandparents were surrounded with relatives, the nearest only a few doors away. They were from at least 2 generations away from them. I also found when my parents married after WW2 and went to live in a totally different area of the same town they were again surrounded by relatives as wills from 1950s and 60s show.

I even had a friend, Ann, living next door to my mother's 3rd cousin. They/we knew nothing of them.

[Top-of-the-hill]

    I was brought up in the same small village that my Pay ancestors had lived in for 4/5 generations, but my grandfather said there was no connection with the Pays in the next village. In fact his grandfather was one of them. I went to the village primary school with a girl who was a 4th cousin, with a different surname, but her family had also been around for several generations and no-one seemed to be aware of any relationship.
    It had always felt to me as if anything beyond 2nd cousin was too far away to be remembered.
   In the 60s my mother asked the rector to investigate the family in the parish registers - he was a bit horrified to find them all still in the church! I still have the notes he made.

[IgorStrav]

My Pay great-grandfather (a policeman) took great pride in recording his ancestry, and I have a book in which he very helpfully noted down places and dates of birth of his relatives and those of his wife.

This pride was passed down to my paternal uncle, who told me that he was the oldest son of an oldest son of an oldest son of an oldest son.

He was distressed to be told, after I'd done some research, that the most remote ancestor (my greatx3 grandfather) was illegitimate, and our branch of the family was descended from this man's third son.

However, I think my Pay ancestors (many of whom are shared with Top-of-the-hill) did keep in touch with each other, as there are several family cousin marriages.  And I theorise that the large number of policemen in the family may be because the occupation was recommended by relatives (it provided a pension!!! )

[Marmalady]

My 3xGreat Uncle must have had an interest in genealogy because for his children's names he used the surnames of his mother & maternal grandmother -- which is fairly common. Much less common is that he also used his paternal great-grandmother's name as well.

I also have copies from the Yorkshire archives of some papers he drew up on the family  -- detailing the births of his children including the exact time of birth and details of where some earlier family graves are located

Some of the names he used have carried on down to present generations -- i was contacted by a member of the Canadian branch of the family who were delighted to be told where their unusual names came from.

[Palladium]

My paternal g'father was well known as having fallen out with his family about the time his father died and when he married my g'mother in 1910 or so. My father and his siblings were discouraged from getting to know their relatives, even though they knew of g'mother/uncles/aunts and cousins.
What a shame!

[Rosinish]

I wish my Highlanders had handed down some snippets other than their given names 

Rena,

I don't know what era/area you're researching but the further back we go, records are very hard to trace possibly due to the 'Gaelic' language?

I live in hope there are records out there, still to be deciphered to English & made available 

Annie

[Rena]

I wish my Highlanders had handed down some snippets other than their given names 

Rena,

I don't know what era/area you're researching but the further back we go, records are very hard to trace possibly due to the 'Gaelic' language?

I live in hope there are records out there, still to be deciphered to English & made available 

Annie

Thanks for your thoughts Annie.

Excepting for an estimated birth year calculated from the 1841 Lanarkshire census, I haven't actually got back to the Highlands with my two branches of Mackenzie families (= Donald Mckenzie, blacksmith, born c1775 Urray R&C,  and his father-in-law Donald Mckenzie, clerk, born ?).  The reason I know I have two Mckenzie branches is because they were both listed on one cemetery headstone.

Inverness archivist informed me that there are no marriage records for Urray because the vicar at the time took umbrage, left his post and took the marriage records with him. They've never been located.  The baptism book was located but there's a note with it that; "well meaning" people have made educated guesses and inserted additions of their own.

I've found a couple of "suitable" Donald McK marriages, one in Argyll and another of a sergeant in Edinburgh, but as I know from the 1841 census that "my" Donald's family were raised in Lanarksire I was disappointed to see from records that the other families were not.

I've been exceedingly lucky in that I've found various bits of information on the web from Edinburgh Gazette and written by village historians which means I managed to link McK brother with McK brother.  Where the information is flimsiest is tracing father & son from Apprenticeship lists.  This is probably due to the fact that legally no tax dues needed paying, thus no entry needed to be made where a family member gave an apprenticeship to a younger member of the family.  Thus as each Clan thought of themselves as one big family, where a McKenzie trained a Mckenzie or a Cameron trained a Cameron no records are to be found - at least I've not seen any..

I'll join you in wishing us both - and everyone else - a lot of luck that old records are discovered and published.

[LizzieW]

I'm not sure you could say my mother was interested in family history, but she certainly knew all her aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, g.grandparents etc.  She was next to the youngest in a family of 10 children, so she learned a lot from her eldest siblings.  Her g.grandparents had 11 children and most of those children also had large families, although her gran only had 6.  Mum was always talking about (not the real names) Annie Brown, Lizzie Jones, Ada Smith, etc. etc. and when I researched her ancestors I found these were the women's maiden names.  It seems because there were so many of them, quite often with the same first name,  they always added the surname when talking about them so they would know which cousin(2nd/3rd etc) they were talking about.  Some of the people she spoke about were spouses of cousins but unless male, still known by their maiden names.  In fact when my mum mentioned my cousins she always added their surnames, even though I knew everyone of my 20 cousins and none had the same first name as another.