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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Latchfordian on Friday 09 April 10 11:41 BST (UK)
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There is an article in today's Telegraph with the heading "Why a study of your family tree could bear bitter fruit". It says that sociologists have warned that people who take up genealogy might uncover more than they bargained for!
"Delving into one's ancestors can open a Pandora's box of secrets that could lead to serious rows, reopen old wounds and shatter illusions about a family's respectable history".
Actually I've been quite disappointed with my respectable ancestors because I'd love to find just a hint of scandal, but no such luck so far. Am I unusual in this respect or do others enjoy finding some spicy tit-bits in their family history? :o
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I think many of us will uncover dark secrets in family trees and even end up disowning an ancestor who committed a horrible thing.
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There were more than a few women having babies 'out of wedlock' in my family, but that's not a scandal in my family, both sets of my grandparents only just made it to the altar before producing my parents ;) My family seem to have been, every last one of them, more or less at the bottom of the social pile and I suppose an unexpected child wouldn't be much more drama than the struggle of daily life anyway.
I know of a few who went to prison, for fighting/stealing, but I've yet to discover anything more shocking....
I always think the closer in time it is to you, the more scandalous a thing would be anyway - in living memory something might still be bothering your relatives. If that makes sense...
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I have lots of ancestors who just made it up the altar before popping out their first child.
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I seem to have a history of premature births in my family! ;)
meles
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I have 2 ancestors who went to gaol.
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I think it's wise to expected the unexpected when you start to look into your family history. Although I've been researching for years I've found lots of surprises recently as more and more information is available on the interest.
My great-grandfather has a mystery 'son' in 1930 census that no one who was living in the household at the time can remember seeing or even remember hearing about ???
A relative seems to have been married 3 times (not the once the rest of the family know about) and the marriages seem to overlap which points to bigamy :-[
On a happier note Facebook has led to contact with a close relative who has not had contact with his relatives since he was four years old :)
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I have lots of ancestors who just made it up the altar before popping out their first child.
I'm the 8 month sized bulge in my parents wedding photo's ;D
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I have a suicide in my family, which is all hush hush!
The lady in question had a daughter out of wedlock (who is still alive) then married, had 2 more children and then killed herself in London
Its a bit of a no go area as her daughter refuses to talk about it or even acknowledge I'm researching that family line
D
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No known criminals except a pair repeatedly charged with blasphemy, drunkenness and general disorderly conduct in the 1600s. One very scandalous divorce and one probable case of extremely scandalous adultery and illegitimate birth. A few premature births.
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I have a case of adultery and to add insult to injury the woman who was being cheated on was dying. Family members have said this and it has been verified in my research.
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I also have a bent police man, If you call being drunk on duty being bent. He was first demoted and disciplined 3 times and then asked to resign to avoid being fired!! I even have his police records, they are really funny!!
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Well - there was someone in the family household in the 20th century who was a mystery - were they adopted? illegitimate? I spent a bit of time and money trying to find out more - the only person who could have told me more wouldn't talk.
I stopped digging when someone else let slip, on the family grapevine, that said person may have been imprisoned for a serious offence.
It is possible to put the lid back onto Pandora's box.
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People did often go to lengths to cover up an illegitimate birth.
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My late mother had a bit of a Hyacinth Bucket side to her, and she would have been Utterly Mortified at some of the things we've uncovered about her forebears :D poor Mum, she would have been so busy trying to twist it all round. I can hear her now:
"It can't have been them, it must have been somebody else. It's not an unusual name, after all."
"Well, I expect he was going to pay the man for the horse."
"Of course it couldn't have been syphilis - those doctors wouldn't have known much back then."
"They weren't tinkers! They had their Own Business."
And so on. Her brother, on the other hand, would have relished every last squalid discovery. It's such a shame they are both gone, it would have been so hilarious seeing him winding her up. I do think though that Mum would have thoroughly enjoyed other aspects of the hunt, and she would particularly have appreciated the "respectable" branch, especially the ones that were in the workhouse .... as Masters and Matrons! ;D
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mainly the usual premature births! I know that some of the generation which has just died out would be horrified, but I don't think any of us still alive are too upset. (We've had several recent very premature births, whom we love very dearly!)
A few things told to me in confidence, which I haven't written up, as they're fairly recent. Maybe my kids, in 30 years time will say ..."well, I bet Mam would have been interested to know THAT!" (she did!)
eadaoin
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As my grandmother used to say "the first child [in a marriage] comes anytime but the others take nine months." ;D
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That is just a saying as in reality it probably did take 9 months. They estimate a 3rd of all brides in Victorian times were pregnant when they married although how accurate that is I do not know.
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As my grandmother used to say "the first child [in a marriage] comes anytime but the others take nine months." ;D
(http://bestsmileys.com/lol/1.gif)
Marvellous! I've never heard that one before.
Of course before Victorian prudery came along, that was the way things were done. We have come full circle.
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I think everyone will have an illegitimacy in their tree.
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I've got several illegitimacies, and a bigamy, and a couple who lived together for very very many years and had a very large family without marrying.
But I was also doing some research for someone else, and I haven't told him yet that one of his great uncles was discharged very quickly from the army in WWI on medical grounds and when I read the papers with more attention I discovered it was because of syphilitic dermatitis. :o
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The stuff in my tree that flew out of Pandora's box is all the interesting stuff !
Incest ... an uncle with a neice; a convict (with a wife in UK and another in VDL !); homosexuality at a time when it was illegal; a good sprinkling of illegitimacy; and very sadly ... shell-shock :'(
The hard-working, honest, upright ag.lab's are all very worthy ... but a bit .... boring ??
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There is an article in today's Telegraph with the heading "Why a study of your family tree could bear bitter fruit". It says that sociologists have warned that people who take up genealogy might uncover more than they bargained for!
"Delving into one's ancestors can open a Pandora's box of secrets that could lead to serious rows, reopen old wounds and shatter illusions about a family's respectable history".
I'd agree with the first part of the quote...delving into my family history, - & discovering new relatives, has led to a serious rift in my immediate family; which I don't think will ever be resolved.
Romilly ::) ::)
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I don't think anyone could have less skeletons in the closet.
The vast majority on my direct lines all married - had children - lived as a family - died - in that order lather, rinse, repeat! The nearest to scandal is the odd one here and there that had a child out of wedlock.
Except for my maternal grandfather - even then there was no secrecy about his adoption within the adopted family and descendants - however, everything was hush hushed on his birth parents side.
And one, as yet, unsolved mystery - my paternal grandmother's father, who did a disappearing act c1925/30.
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One set of my ancestors had their first child christened the day they married. Another couple married 5 years after their first child. I am quite happy about that, but what is getting to me is the fact I can't trace lots of ancestors. They seemed to be undercover.
Bring on the scandals, just let me find any trace of them.
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In Australia it's almost a badge of honour to find a convict in your family, unfortunately none to be found on my wife's Aussie side of the family. She almost had one but he decided to emmigrate before he was caught and transported (for poaching so the family story goes).
He did have the decency however to come to Victoria during the gold rush and get caught up the famous Eureka Stockade incident. Slippery character, he never got caught there either.
These colourful characters add all the spice I think.
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I found a great-grandfather who slit his own throat, a great aunt who drowned herself and a great uncle who drowned on his honeymoon having married his wife on her 15th birthday. Happy times!
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Nugget is right, having a convict is a badge of honour in Australia. I have two, who both made good here and of whom I am very proud. The most ultra-respectable part of my family buried them for a long time, but a cousin dug them up! ;D (figuratively, of course! ;D)
I have a murderer, not a direct ancestor, who scarpered and as far as I know was never caught and charged. ::)
My ancestors were very boring re their sexual morals - no premature births that I have discovered.
I did have a great-aunt who drowned herself - very sad incident.
It doesn't worry me what I find out - all part of the rich tapestry of my ancestry! I would try to be a bit sensitive to the reactions of other family members, though.
MarieC
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My mother showed me her grandfather's birth certificate and I've now traced his family back a bit. However it looks like his parents had two sets of marriage licences issued....
On one set the bride is known by the maiden name she's known as on her son's birth certificate. And on the other by a completely different name. Is that a mistake by the vicar? By the transcriber? Or something else...because it turns out that her mother kept on popping out kiddies for twenty one years despite being unmarried and no sign of any man about the cottage, only her old widowed mam. These weren't the usual family "fore nooners" (as my Grandad used to call his cousins ;)) and it's given me a new juicy story to find out.
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I have an extremely boring set of ancestors, unless you count one who went down for four years in 1910 for forging, of all things, two bob pieces.
My wife's family, however, has caused great amusement. Her kids grew up believeing that their mother was one of three sisters, all of whom had this one particular friend. Only when we started delving into the family's history, thankfully after all of them had gone, did we discover that this 'friend' was, in fact, a fourth sister. We still can't get to the bottom of it.
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Luckily I have no murderers in my family. tree. Well that I know of.
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All the time my mother was alive she didnt want me delving in to her fathers family. I found out after she died that her dad had been married before and had 3 children the 4th child bore his name but had a different father on the certificate. He divorced and re married with in the year and had nothing to do with his 1st family at all even though they all lived in the same area. My aunt and uncle had no Idea about it but I suspect my mum did.
He father got kicked out the army too for drinking on duty.
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I think I just have!
My father has not seen his own father since about 1943/4 when my nan kicked him out leaving her with 2 grown children and 3 still at home under the age of 12. We knew roughly where he went and after several years of searching I found a death match, traced a marriage to this man and also a birth of a child to this man and new wife, now my problem is he never divorced my nan so this marriage would be illiegal now I'm only 99% certain that I have the right one but I can't check further without contacting the child from this marriage - my problem is I told my dad his father may have died in 1962 but do I tell him that he may have a half sister? Do I contact her to tell her that her father my have been my grandfather, do I tell her she my have 5 half sisters and brothers? I have spoken to my dad (haven't told him all I found) and he said if his mom had known he died in 1962 he thinks she would have said, he says that they never divorced he is sure of that, I lived with her for the last 4 years of her life and she never spoke about him, there was no papers in her belonging when she died only her marriage certificate.
So I might just leave it at that - but I'm not 100% sure so this is going to bug me every now and again.
I have a murderer, my great uncle served 7 years for manslaughter would have been hung but got the lesser charge on a technicality. I have the court transcripts and they are very interesting and looking at the evidence it was plainly an accident but they were trying to make it more and you can plainly see he was covering up for his 16 year old son who was with him at the time who I think maybe ahve been the one who done it.
I have a great aunt who was attacked and raped at 15 leaving her with a child at 16 (he was granny reared).
Numerous children passed off as sisters/brothers and no one knowing until I sent for birth certificates.
Great great grandmother having 3 yes 3 daughters with no marriage or fathers anywhere (don't even know if they had the same father or 3 different ones!)
My mom was cleaning an electric fire before she married my father and she got an electric shock - she thought that was why her periods had stopped! No it was because I was on the way!!! She says that 41 years ago she didn't think there was any other reason why they would stop didn't think about the sex!!!!!!!!!! 5 months gone before she realized they ought to get married!!!!!!
I haven't been right since!!!!!!!
But all this makes my family who they are and makes them and me unique and they are all mine!!!!
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That's some family you have there Sharmar!!! As the one who started this thread I think I must give you the prize for the most exciting Pandora's box. :o
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Not 'proper' skeletons, quite a few illegitimate births - which I carried on the tradition of ;) and then my Gran who married her adoptive father after having 4 illegitimate babies as a teenager ( including a set of twins in that number). We now think that her husband could also have been the father of these children as the resemblance of the elder four to the 2 that were born after the marriage was uncanny! ;D
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I wonder if any Pandora ancestor had a Pandora's Box?
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hmmmm well I have:
My dads cousins son who was adopted by an aunt as a baby after his mother died, and dad was away in WW2................ after the war he was brought up and adopted by his aunt, his birth father re-married and the children of the 2nd marriage do not know this son is their half brother not their cousin (so my tree is 'edited' slightly so I dont cause a family upset!)
I have a young child brought up as the child of a father who isnt his father, but he doesnt know this yet.
A police hero, with a brother who served time for the murder of his wife (which had it happened recently he would never have been convicted for)
lol and ........... well I can do maths with birth and marriage details - even if some of my family cant!
hehe my nana was SO anti 'children before marriage' it was untrue - I discovered her mum n dad married 6 weeks before her eldest borther was born - lol admittedly he DOES seem to be a genuine premie birth, i have 'crisom' baptism cert dated the day he was born.................... her father was illigitimate son of a woman whos entire family do not seem to have married until after the 1st child was born to the parents!
what else? well ................. it would seem that despite my nana believing her dad had no living family he had his mother, 4 half brothers and their families and a half sister all alive until well after nana was born ................ but as of yet I have no idea why he lied and said they were all dead!
(ohhh and his father wasnt the one he named on his marriage cert - but he had his name as a middle name - and HE was also alive and re-married with a whole load of children who would be gt-grandads half siblings!)
One day I WILL crack why gt-grandad lied so much about his past!
I am still trying to work out what nana would have made out of my findings about her dads family had she still been with us to hear it - i think I am actually glad I dont have to tell her tho!
Gaille
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Eveyone seems to have a few family secrets.
In 2005 i found out that a reletive of my mothers was illigitamate and i was certaint hat his parents didn't marry until he was about 4, she never believed me until i proved it in front of her in 2008 with a baptism certificate for him under his mothers maiden name, the alos married out of county as was the tradition in those days.
My husbands side...............well, that was a shocker.
With his great grandmotherwe started out with 3 children and ended up with 12. On top of that his grandfathers was pronounced illigitamte on his birth certificate, and he left her, she then went on to have 7 more children to someone else, married him before number 7 arrived bigimus marriage at that. Got back togther with her husband and had another son. On top of all that when her actual husband died in the paper it said " Loved husband of" yeah right. My husbands grandfather was not illigitamate, we have since found out. He looks to much like his fathers family, and his son was the splitting imaged of his great uncle.
Another story that is actually in print is the husband who murdered his wife in a fit of artistic insanity and ended up in a mental institute for the rest of his life.
Nothing else right now....................still searching
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Have 3 convicts and still searching
They all married and had useful lives in Australia ... one ended up quite well off.
But the upheaval in my box of stories is my great grandfather.
Grimshaw PICKUP who married in Lancashire .
After 7 children his wife died and Grimshaw just left !! and began again with a marriage and fathered 5 more offspring in Melbourne, Australia.
A can of worms we have discovered. a shame as all the people who could have shared this are long since gone
The family name was changed around 1910 so perhaps they had a hint of a host of step brothers and sisters in that far off Lancashire town.
I wish I knew the story !
Turramurra
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Just think how BORING this hobby of ours would be if everyone in the past had children more than nine months after the wedding; fathered children with the woman they were married to; all children were registered with full and correct names, which later appeared correctly on censuses; they lived 'clean' lives, and ultimately died quietly in bed at the ripe old age of ??
Its the scandals, crimes, disappearances which make this all so interesting !
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You are spot on, Lydart!! ;D ;D
MarieC
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Oh goodness - I have today discovered that this one seems to be one of mine, so to speak!
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRtidd.htm
further internet trawling has brought up seom , ahem "lively" details of the execution :(
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And just think how boring our trees would be if we found all our ancestors at the flick of a button. Waiting and getting the triumph after the wait is part of the fun. And yes we need a Pandora's Box to fruit up our trees.
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Hi!
Am really only just starting on FH, so have not had a chance to open Pandors's box yet, but...................................!
Must be 35 years or so ago Pandora's box opened itself :) :) My father received a letter from someone who we had never heard of - let us call him 'David' for these purposes! He explained that he had been adopted by a couple, and after his adoptive parents had died, he was going through his adoptive mother's papers and found a letter with our address on it! It was addressed to the person who he had always known as his 'Auntie'.
That letter was from my father to his sister. She had obviously passed it on to 'David's adoptive mother for some reason - cannot remember why after all this time!
'David' asked if we would agree to meet him, which we did of course - on neutral territory! After that first meeting, we kept in regular contact with both him and his wife for a few years. They visited us at home and we visited them at their home, even after my father died - a year or two after that first meeting. Then, sadly, 'David' suddenly closed the lid on Pandora's box, and we never heard from them again! :'( :'( So sad, as we are his only family.
His 'Auntie', was of course, his birth mother, and of course my Auntie!
I would dearly love to see him again. I often think about him! :'( :'(
Snaptoo
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Speaking of Pandora's boxes this scene flashed through my head.....
"What do you mean Dad? Clark Kent isn't your real name??!"
Imagine trying to find the GRO for Krypton ;D
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Imagine trying to find the GRO for Krypton ;D
Or the DNA, even!! ;D ;D
Snaphappytoo, that's a lovely story. I do hope that "David" will be back in touch with you some time!
MarieC
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A very interesting story yes. My 3xgreat grandfather was in prison twice but I quite like that fact.
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I haven`t opened a pandora`s box but i have confirmed family stories. As my sister and I are the last of our family it has been nice to discover family stories are true even if some have been sad. I have also become very proud of my ancestors for instance my son aged 9 is reading a book on the first world war and I have been able to tell him about his ancestors` involvement. I am glad to be able to celebrate my family and make sure that they are not forgot by the next generation.
Sarah
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I have two relatives on different family branches in the same prison at the same time. One of them was a warder. I wonder what he would have thought of the two families combining ;D
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I've got the usual children born less than 9 months after marriage, the only one I didn't tell my mum about was her own mum who was 3 months pregnant when she married.
I've also had two ancestors in a mental hospital. One I already knew about, mum told me about him years ago, and it was when I eventually managed to get hold of his admission notes, that I found under family details "Uncle died here", so that set me off looking for the other one. ;D
I've got a couple of convicts, one was my 3 x g.grandmother who was sentenced to 6 months imprisonment with hard labour for receiving stolen goods (mainly food - lots of it, stolen from an employer) from her daughter (my 2 x g.aunt). The 2 x g.aunt was transported to Van Diemans Island.
Then to turn things round, a couple of distant ancestors were Lord Mayors of London and another one founded St Pauls Cathedral School in London.
Lizzie
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I think a woman who was courting a man found out she was pregnant told her lover and they then thought "We have to marry in that case" if she was pregnant.
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I think a woman who was courting a man found out she was pregnant told her lover and they then thought "We have to marry in that case" if she was pregnant.
Really?
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Yes. I think that was the norm. ;) ;)
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Well, I haven't been doing this all that long, so I think there's still a lot of Stuff waiting for me. Nothing tremendously earth shattering....people in prison in the nineteenth century for petty crime & someone I think was a brother of my ggg grandfather (though still have to prove the link) transported to Australia. I have found out that my father's family was German/Jewish.....better hasten to add that there's nothing wrong with that....I just wonder if he knew.....I had wondered about it because of surnames of distant relatives, so I imagine he must have at least suspected....sad for, that some reason, he didn't feel he could tell us.
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Oh not forgetting my 2xgreat grandfather who took his own life in 1894. And my uncle also committed suicide.
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A few years ago I was searching through the calendars of wills at First Avenue House for a will for one of my ancestors when by chance I came across a reference to a will for one of my other ancestors. Intrigued, I ordered the will and grant of probate and was very surprised to read that he died in 1935 at an east London railway station. Now very intrigued, I rushed up to the Family Records Centre (those were the days!) to order his death certificate.
A few days later the death certificate arrived. I was totally shocked when I read it. It indicated that he had died of multiple injuries from being run over by a train with there being an open verdict at Northern District County of London Inquest. What had happened?
A few weeks later I visited the newspaper library in Colindale and after some searching found two articles in a local paper concerning the event and Coroner's inquest (which sat with a jury). I was shocked at how graphic a story was given, describing a decapitated body being found on the railway line and a few theories behind the death. I was also surprised that the report on the inquest seemed to consider only whether it was or was not suicide. Why was murder or manslaughter not considered? The jury returned an open verdict.
If only I could find out what really happened. I guess I shall never know. :-[
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My great grandmother died in 1945 just months after the war ended. She died of cirrhosis of the liver and a urinary problem in the local hospital on her 50th birthday as well. My nan had said this 10 years ago before I began researching my ancestors. Her husband died in April 1942 of a stroke. I think she must have been distraught and started drinking as cirrhosis of the liver is often caused by drinking or could there be other causes?
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hepatitis
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hepatitis
The cert says "no PM" and I think she had suppression of urine.
So hepatitis can cause cirrhosis of the liver? My dad, who hates any skeletons in his tree said "she must have drunk a lot" but she may not have.
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There are several possible causes. See for example:
http://www.medicinenet.com/cirrhosis/page3.htm
Nigel
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Anything that causes inflammation of the liver can ultimately lead to hepatitis. So she may have been a drinker but she may well not have been.
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I just re checked her death cert and she had an urinary infection not suppression of urine. So hepatitis is one the the causes of liver cirrhosis.
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I think it is 50/50 as to whether she was a drinker or not as my nan is now dead and the other people that knew my great grandmother are also dead now so that is probably a question that I cannot answer.
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I have:
Great grandfather - ran away to Adelaide leaving wife & 9 children - various gaol times there
Grandparents - he was married (not to my grandmother), she wasn't married - they ran away from Melb to Sydney
Gg-grandfather was a convict (along with his brother) - sned to Aus for receiving a stolen pig
That's about all just now.....who knows?
Cheers
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One of my g grandmothers was illegitimate. On her birth and marriage certificates there was a father's name, but we suspected that it was fictitious (especially since the father was deceased on the marriage certificate.)
The father was a fishmonger, which made me think: If I were inventing a father for my child, I would have chosen something a bit more upscale. I started searching, and discovered that the father did exist--but he was married to another woman at the time my g grandmother and her sister were born! And he was still married to the other woman when he died at the age of 70. He and his wife had a number of children, and two of them--born 10 years after the births of my g grandmother and her sister--were given the same names as my g grandmother and her sister! (They were quite unusual names.)
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I have at least 6 direct relations who were at least 8 months pregnant at time of marriage in the 1800's.
But the most famous one is my great grandfather who had more than just a affair with his wifes sister, he had 8 children to her and 9 to his legal wife. (I guess he was a happy man)
He moved the family to New Zealand to get away from the scandal, but upon his death he left all his money to his wifes sister back in England.
This was not spoken about by my grandfather or his siblings, but the door is wide open now, and no one in the family seems to be upset by it, in the end we are family and we all have a good story to talk about what happened 90 years ago.
Plus we have new great Uncles and Aunts back in the U.K.
Suzy W