rellies and their misinformation

[kat2004]

I just wondered how many of you can share in my experiece. My lovely nanna (god bless her!) insisted that her grandfathers name was Herbert Fisher. After months of frustrationg searches and postings on Rootschat as well as other various mailing lists i finanlly found my G grandmothers birth cert which confirms he is Thomas William Fisher, as does the marriage cert. Now I know this may seem a little trivial but you'd think it wouldnt be hard to remember your grandfathers christian name!  It then occured to me how much I have taken for gospel when bombarding my rellies with family history questions.

How many others have been led up the garden path with info from relations? Its quite funny when I look back on it, and I didnt stray too far, but I guess some of you must have had similar experiences which may have led to loads of false research?

[janan]

Of course he may have been known as Herbert. My mother in law is going to cause chaos in the future she is Ruth Mary known all her life as Betty 
Jan

[Wendi]

It then occurred to me how much I have taken for gospel when bombarding my rellies with family history questions.

I never really thought of it as being lead up the garden path, more like cementing the things that I found, as there was an element of truth in everything they said, they just didn't know/remember all of it
Wendi

[Bee]

They all tell lies
I've just found my Uncle Harry, he was actually called John Henry.
and
my husband's grandfather and gt grandfather was called George, oh no he wasn't, grandfather called George and gt grandfather called Thomas Henry.

I just take everything with a pinch of salt nowadays til I can prove it one way or another.

Bee

[Emmeline]

My Gt.Uncle - a John Henry was always known as Uncle Jum to me.  I learnt later that this was short for Jumbo but where this originated I don't know. He wasn't large !
It was years later when I learnt his true name. My father was named for him and sometimes known as Jack !

[Wendi]

In Wales Henry is an other form of Harry.  I have also found it almost used as a nick name for all kinds of real names   but only from 1900 onwards

[tabitha]

My rellies are all in cahoots

They all say "no, sorry can't remember names, dates or details".

Then when presented with that information obtained through months of blood, sweat and tears they respond with "well now, didn't I tell you the story about......."

Bless them all but grrrrrrr too 

Tabitha

[kat2004]

Im so glad Im not the only one! It made me realise just how Ive naive Ive been really, and dont you just love it when a great uncle tells you one version of a family story and then a cousin will give you a very different version, neither of them will be right but I still write everything down! And my family get soooo righteous and competitive with what they say, one great aunt wanted to know everything my great uncle had said and then she completely turned it all around and said "he always was a billy liar"! I really dont want to start a family divide so I just nod my head politely and agree hoping that neither find out what a traitor I am!

[donna-paul]

  aww shucks i'm not the only one then !!

makes me feel a darn sight better i thought i was the only one who ever got confronted with the "you didnt say you needed to know that" line! 

donna