Author Topic: Does family history get to you sometimes?  (Read 5352 times)

Offline rayard

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Re: Does family history get to you sometimes?
« Reply #27 on: Friday 16 April 21 15:19 BST (UK) »
I wonder sometimes if we are prepared for all the sadness when we delve into the past. I cried when I discovered that 3x gt grandfather had died in the workhouse infirmary but felt better when I found it was used like a hospital. I know now why my Nan had a fear of the workhouse.
 A young lady of 21 died in childbirth after many hours and convulsions, there was a scene in "Downton Abbey" of the same situation, so sad.

Offline iluleah

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Re: Does family history get to you sometimes?
« Reply #28 on: Friday 16 April 21 15:36 BST (UK) »
I wonder sometimes if we are prepared for all the sadness when we delve into the past. I cried when I discovered that 3x gt grandfather had died in the workhouse infirmary but felt better when I found it was used like a hospital. I know now why my Nan had a fear of the workhouse.
 A young lady of 21 died in childbirth after many hours and convulsions, there was a scene in "Downton Abbey" of the same situation, so sad.

I would completely agree with you and I don't think any of us when we start have any understanding of how real those names on records become and how we get to know the person we are researching  and invest in their life
Leicestershire:Chamberlain, Dakin, Wilkinson, Moss, Cook, Welland, Dobson, Roper,Palfreman, Squires, Hames, Goddard, Topliss, Twells,Bacon.
Northamps:Sykes, Harris, Rice,Knowles.
Rutland:Clements, Dalby, Osbourne, Durance, Smith,Christian, Royce, Richardson,Oakham, Dewey,Newbold,Cox,Chamberlaine,Brow, Cooper, Bloodworth,Clarke
Durham/Yorks:Woodend, Watson,Parker, Dowser
Suffolk/Norfolk:Groom, Coleman, Kemp, Barnard, Alden,Blomfield,Smith,Howes,Knight,Kett,Fryston
Lincolnshire:Clements, Woodend

Offline Annie65115

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Re: Does family history get to you sometimes?
« Reply #29 on: Thursday 22 April 21 20:46 BST (UK) »
I was correlating death registrations for my one-name study the other night and had to stop because it was all just too much.

First there was Ernest's suicide in 1931, as reported in the newspaper. The papers all mentioned that he'd fought in France, been injured twice and hadn't worked for a while. Then I looked harder at his family. When he died, he had a 2 year old child and his wife was heavily pregnant with their 2nd child. Both his parents were dead, his father having died 4 years earlier; Ernest was one of 8 children and aged 31 had already outlived at least 4 of his siblings.

Then there was a couple who married in 1858 and over the next 27 years had at least 13 children. 2 of these were buried without first names so I'm assuming may have been stillborn. Of the others, 4 survived to adulthood, but 3 of those were "crippled" and only 1 of the 13 lived to be a healthy (I presume) adult who married and had children. I suspect something genetic was going on here but GOK what -- not rhesus incompatibility, the pattern is wrong for that.

What finished the evening's work for me was E's story. I'd already thought about the terrible life her father had; he and his first wife had had 13 children of whom 7 had died as babies. 1905 was the  nadir when the 3 youngest children (the 2 youngest were twins) AND their mother died. Dad entered the asylum not long afterwards (the surviving children went to the workhouse) and wasn't discharged until about 10 years later when he promptly remarried, only for his new wife to die 2 years after that.
E was the youngest surviving daughter and seems to have had 8 children of her own (though she never married) before dying in her 40s. Of those 8, only 2 survived to adulthood. So far so bad. The final straw was the dawning realisation that at least some of these children may actually have been fathered by E's father, ie the product of incest. This suspicion has arisen through looking at some of the burial registrations.

That finished the evening for me   :( :( :(

Not really a "lighter side", huh?
Bradbury (Sedgeley, Bilston, Warrington)
Cooper (Sedgeley, Bilston)
Kilner/Kilmer (Leic, Notts)
Greenfield (Liverpool)
Holyland (Anywhere and everywhere, also Holiland Holliland Hollyland)
Pryce/Price (Welshpool, Liverpool)
Rawson (Leicester)
Upton (Desford, Leics)
Partrick (Vera and George, Leicester)
Marshall (Westmorland, Cheshire/Leicester)

Offline Ayashi

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Re: Does family history get to you sometimes?
« Reply #30 on: Thursday 22 April 21 20:56 BST (UK) »
The number of child deaths is absolutely unthinkable, isn't it?

I poked at a branch-in-law the other day. I knew the first two children were twins and one died aged 5, but the other one had a name that was reused later on. I had another look and found a death but the age was two years out. Then I realised the burial was one day before the twin I found. Upon looking at the burial register I found the entry I already had (Mary, dau of Richard ATTY) and one entry before was "Isabell and John, son and dau of Richard ATTY". Isabell was the one aged 7, not John. They had three children buried in two days  :-[

On the topic of Rhesus- my mother had a rhesus conflict with my older brother so I was tested at birth and came back O-. However as an adult I became a blood donor and tested O+. I asked about this and got a vague response, potentially that the amount of rhesus factor that I carry in my blood is so small that the test in the 1980s couldn't detect it but they can now. They are obliged to label my blood as positive but I might well be positive to donate and negative to receive. I'm a bit disappointed not to 'still' be O- given what a valuable blood type it is for donation.


Online Top-of-the-hill

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Re: Does family history get to you sometimes?
« Reply #31 on: Thursday 22 April 21 22:39 BST (UK) »
  Seeing the mention of twins, I remembered an ancestor of my husband. She had 15 children, including 3 sets of twins. Only one of the twins survived the first year, and he lived to adulthood. 3 other children died under 2 years, and 7 grew up and married. (Including husband's grandfather!)
  As far as I could tell, the mother of this family had 2 sets of twin siblings. Most of these twins in both generations lived for a year or so, but I suppose they were that bit weaker when it came to childhood illnesses.
Pay, Kent
Codham/Coltham, Kent
Kent, Felton, Essex
Staples, Wiltshire

Online Erato

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Re: Does family history get to you sometimes?
« Reply #32 on: Thursday 22 April 21 23:15 BST (UK) »
I don't have very many infant deaths, or at least I haven't found them.  Of my American gg-grandparents:  1) a family of ten; all survived to adulthood; two died as young adults [one in the Civil War]; 2) a family of nine; all survived to adulthood; one died at 35 of tuberculosis; 3) a family of seven; one died at age eight; the rest survived to adulthood; 4) a family of five; all survived to adulthood.  I wonder if life was generally healthier in rural North America?
Wiltshire:  Banks, Taylor
Somerset:  Duddridge, Richards, Barnard, Pillinger
Gloucestershire:  Barnard, Marsh, Crossman
Bristol:  Banks, Duddridge, Barnard
Down:  Ennis, McGee
Wicklow:  Chapman, Pepper
Wigtownshire:  Logan, Conning
Wisconsin:  Ennis, Chapman, Logan, Ware
Maine:  Ware, Mitchell, Tarr, Davis

Online Top-of-the-hill

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Re: Does family history get to you sometimes?
« Reply #33 on: Friday 23 April 21 09:57 BST (UK) »
   I think rural life in the 19th century was generally healthier - my family at that time seem to have raised most of their children. I have no illusions about rural poverty and living conditions, but they were probably safer that urban life.
   The life span may have been longer as well. I have a press cutting from 1868 about four generations of the family working in the harvest fields aged from 94 to 22, two of them women.
Pay, Kent
Codham/Coltham, Kent
Kent, Felton, Essex
Staples, Wiltshire

Offline Kiltpin

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Re: Does family history get to you sometimes?
« Reply #34 on: Friday 23 April 21 11:40 BST (UK) »
   I think rural life in the 19th century was generally healthier - my family at that time seem to have raised most of their children. I have no illusions about rural poverty and living conditions, but they were probably safer that urban life.
   The life span may have been longer as well. I have a press cutting from 1868 about four generations of the family working in the harvest fields aged from 94 to 22, two of them women.
 

I have often thought the same. My wife had a distant cousin, who was sent up from London 4 times a year. The instructions were - "During the hours of daylight, come rain or shine, he was to stand in the garden for 1 hour and breathe. The same again during the hours of darkness." 

It became a general threat in the family, by overworked mothers to their children - "If you two don't behave, I'll send you out to the garden to breathe!" 

Regards 

Chas
Whannell - Eaton - Jackson
India - Scotland - Australia

Offline Marmalady

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Re: Does family history get to you sometimes?
« Reply #35 on: Friday 23 April 21 12:11 BST (UK) »
   I think rural life in the 19th century was generally healthier - my family at that time seem to have raised most of their children. I have no illusions about rural poverty and living conditions, but they were probably safer that urban life.
   The life span may have been longer as well. I have a press cutting from 1868 about four generations of the family working in the harvest fields aged from 94 to 22, two of them women.

In the countryside they would have had clean air to breathe, clean water to drink and often a bit of garden to grow a few vegetables and keep some chickens or even a pig.
In contrast living in the city meant polluted air & water and overcrowded living conditions.
Wainwright - Yorkshire
Whitney - Herefordshire
Watson -  Northamptonshire
Trant - Yorkshire
Helps - all
Needham - Derbyshire
Waterhouse - Derbyshire
Northing - all