I have a pretty good knowledge of my forebears going back several generations, with one big exception... Let me tell you my family tale in the hope that it might ring a bell for someone who can help fill in the blanks...
My grandfather was Thomas Graham, died 1961 (when I was 2, though I do remember some details about him such as the smell of his tobacco!) and born, we now think, around 1897. He was married to my granny Elizabeth Stirling (1895-1991) in 1920.
A few years after my granny died, my mother pulled me aside and told me this story, saying that she wasn't able to tell me while my gran was alive as she would have been mortified by embarrassment. How times change. What she told me was this: my grandfather had been the illegitimate son of his mother who was a seamstress in service to a noble family, and his father who was one of the family - whether an older adult or a young son, I never heard. The name I heard from my mother was Colin Campbell - possibly Sir Colin Campbell, though I can't identify an appropriate Colin Campbell of the right age. My mother said he was the clan chief but with a second-hand story that was probably only spoken of to her one time as it was to me, there's a lot of scope for errors and mis-remembering.
Anyway, as told to me, the illegitimate child was sent to an orphanage in London, and my mother said that the Graham surname came from the owner of the orphan's home, though I haven't been able to find a Graham orphanage in the UK at the turn of the century, never mind one in London. This was one of those places for the offspring of the rich where they would be taken care of to an acceptable standard - not one of those Victorian squalls for the poor that you might read of in old novels. It's possible it wasn't an orphanage as such but more a sort of placement service to find acceptable adopted homes for these children.
My grandmother did meet grandad's mother, but I never found out her name at the time, though subsequent research might suggest a Louisa Ann Harris from Wales. There's a birth certificate that might be for my grandfather that has her as the mother and another Thomas Graham as the father, but that may be covering up an adoption. Or it may be a birth certificate for a completely different Thomas Graham. This lady was a seamstress when my grandmother met her, she may not have been, when she was in service to the Campbells.
(There's one piece of indirect evidence that may back this up... Ancestry DNA's geographical inference system says my mother's side of the family appear to be 60% Scottish and 36% Welsh. However all the known ancestors from my mother's side are extremely Scots, but one of my mother's 4 grandparents being 100% Welsh would go a long way towards explaining that result.)
My grandmother told my mum that she once went to the Campbell family seat to ask the family to acknowledge the parentage. Apparently this was really important to her, but she relates that they denied it and unceremoniously turned her away at the door.
I can't vouch for the details of any of this but clearly the overall gist has to have some truth to it, because it was so embarrassing to my grandmother that she'd have no incentive to invent any of it. Being born on the wrong side of the blanket - even to a noble family - was not something to brag on in those days.
My gran and grandad both worked in domestic service in their early married years - he was a "Gentleman's Gentleman" but also served in the Royal Artillery during WWI. I'm not sure what my gran did. She had run away from her family in her teenage years - her mother was a Victorian tyrant by all accounts (especially hers) - her father slipped her some money to help get away. She worked in a bakery that first month and slept on the floor of the bakery, and since they didn't pay in advance she subsisted on baps from the bakery. The tale she told me one time sounded truly awful.
Anyway, if anyone knows of an orphanage or similar in London around 1897, connected to the surname Graham, I'ld love to get confirmation of this family lore.
Ironically, on looking into my own ancestry (mainly to humour my American wife, who is fascinated by this stuff), it turns out that my grandmother and I are actually directly descended from a whole line of Sir Colin Campbells from the 1300's through the 1500's - all on the proper side of the blanket! Totally by coincidence, and my parents and grandparents were entirely unaware of the connection!
Sir Colin Campbell, "The Grey Laird" 6th Laird Glenorchy, Campbell 1512-1583 - My 15th great-grandfather
Lady Margaret (Margaretha) Campbell Baroness Duart 1552-1610
William Cunningham 8th Earl of Glencairn 1575-1631
William Cunningham, 9th Earl of Glencairn 1610-1664
Alexander Cunningham 10th Earl of Glencairn, 10th Earl of Kilmaurs 1636-1670
Countess Margaret Cunningham
Charles Maitland, 6th Earl of Lauderdale 1688-1778
James Maitland, 7th Earl of Lauderdale
Jean Maitland Lady of Lauderdale 1703-1766
William Fergusson 1734-1778
Margaret Fergusson 1755-
Robert Mochrie 1778-1848
Helen Mochrie 1810-1898
Alexander Stirling 1842
John F Stirling 1864-1937
Elizabeth Smith Stirling 1895-1991
Elizabeth Doris Stirling Graham 1927-2020
sincerely,
Graham Toal - the son of Elizabeth Doris Stirling Graham, and grandson of Thomas Graham and Elizabeth Stirling.
