Family stories rooted in some truth.

[maddys52]

I've mentioned this before, on a similar thread some years ago. I was always told that a gg grandparent was Lord Mayor of Brisbane (Queensland). After a little research I discovered that he was actually elected to the Brisbane City Council, though there was some question about his eligibility so he never sat on Council but intended to run for re-election next time. He died before the next election. So some truth, though wildly exaggerated.

[IgorStrav]

One triumph from this great site was the finding of a remote Australian relative of my notorious (well, to me) Cork family, who managed to track us down via an address on a census which was the same address a relative of hers had been married from.  Thank you Rootschat and Google.

Once we started sharing information about our joint ancestors, we were astonished to find that her very strong family rule that 'you should NEVER smoke in bed' (well beyond advice simply based on common sense) was connected to an ancestor who died in 1893 at a ripe old age after staying in a farmer's loft whilst working away from home on a harvest.

Poor fellow had set himself alight with his pipe after a hard day's work.