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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Wiggy on Wednesday 30 March 11 23:19 BST (UK)
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Do you ever stop to think about who was alive during the time of you ancestors, and what great events were happening in the world?
I often think about what music could have been available to my Gx3 grandfather when I realise that his dates almost exactly match those of Ludwig van Beethoven and that Mozart died two years after Thomas was given 'free passage' to Australia. Napoleon was marching around Europe, Jane Austen was alive and well - etc.
What was going on in the world when your ancestors were around? (Stay back beyond your Great grandparents.)
Wiggy
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My GG uncle was in the army in Egypt at the same time as Kitchener of the Your Country Needs You posters.Does that count Wiggy.
George.
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I should think so!! ;D
I suddenly realised that some of the younger RCers are going to find Grandparents and rellies quite recently. I was so surprised to find I was researching people of my own generation recently - hadn't realised I'd come so far forward!
Should I have said before 1900 as a time limit?? ;)
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On the day my great great grandparents married,November 11th 1864, General Sherman was destroying the town of Rome in Georgia during the American Civil War.
Right I am going to let someone else have a go now ;D
George.
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And some of mine were with Sherman's army.
>>>>>>
1831-1836 - Darwin's voyage on the Beagle
1834 - Richard Henry Dana [Two Years Before the Mast] sailed from Boston, bound for California. That year, my gg grandfather sailed from Scotland to New York with his family, including my g grandfather, aged one year.
1859 - The Origin of Species published. My g grandparents were married that year in a small village on the Wisconsin frontier.
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Sorry Erato,I should have mentioned he didn't do it on his own.Wouldn't want to take the credit from your rellies ;D
George.
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My Gx7 grandfather was born the year The Great Plague of London started in 1665. Luckily for me he didn't catch it. ;D
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Too late at night to answer this, I'll have a look at the records of my older ancestors tomorrow.
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Great thread though,well done Wiggy.
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While the Duke of Wellington was giving Bonaparte his cumuppance at Waterloo, my G3grandfather was settling into a life in Hobart after arriving from Norfolk Island.
The great Lachlan Macquarie became Governor of Australia in 1810, and granted my G3 his full pardon!!
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My gt gt grandfather - a surgeon - shared his timeframe with Charles Darwin, and once actually owned a copy (can't remember whether it was a first edition!) of "On the Origin of Species".
I'm not at all happy with 2xgt grandad, though; - he either sold it or gave it away! ... and it's just recently been discovered in a library archive in Boston, Mass., ... where a journalist found 2xgt grandad's name on the bookplate, and contacted me when he was researching.
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I have ancestors who were b, m and d'd in Marton in Yorkshire, the same village where(Captain) James Cook was born. I often wonder if the families paths ever crossed in this then small village. :)
Great thread Wiggy - it's something I often consider ...
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I find it hard to think about a world without the wonderful music available today - Beethoven was just writing his Eroica Symphony, 1804, while many of our people were slogging it out creating a colony far from the delights of the European music salons.
Thomas arrived in Australia the year Mozart died - 1791. (I'm guessing that he didn't hear much/any of Mozart's in the poorer parts of London from which he came, though!)
I wonder what they had for music in the earliest days of white history here - I presume some of them brought their fortepianos - thought they would have been more likely spinnets or clavichords. Violins were easily portable and flutes/tin whistles, concertinas, etc. And they could always sing the folk tunes of the 'old country' and those they made up to describe their experiences - Bound for Botany Bay springs to mind - I don't know when the lyrics were written - though I think it was set to an old tune.
And of course the soldiers would have had drums and maybe trumpets/cornets etc of an early type.
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http://www.dglenn.org/defs/inst.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdy_gurdy
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http://www.concertina.com/history/index.htm
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Write something about your ancestors YT - go on I dare you!!! ;D ;D ;D ;D
Are you politely telling I've got my concertina dates all wrong? ;) What I meant was that they were being played when my great grandparents were having house parties/balls! Phew did I save myself from appalling ignorance? ;D ;D ;D ::)
I'm pretty sure of the others though- 'cos those composers wrote for them!! :D
And I could have mentioned mandolins as being common and portable! ;)
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I like the fact that my 4 x great grandfather was born in England in 1788, the year that Australia was settled by Europeans, and that he ended his life 81 years later as an Australian.
Mo
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Seems that one of my gtgtgtgrandfathers was a concertina manufacturer.
My gtgtgrandfather was born in 1855 when Australian colonies were granted self governing powers.
A gtgtgtgtgrandfather was born in 1797 when Horatio Nelson lost an arm at Santa Cruz.
Another gtgtgtgtgrandfather was born in 1759 when Josiah Wedgewood set up is Pottery company.
That do for now?
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Excellent!! and interesting!! ;D Knew you could do it! ;)
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In 1847 a 4x great uncle was living in Great Windmill Street in London where,in the Red Lion pub, the Second Congress of the Communist League took place. I wonder if he saw Marx & Engels?
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Pity they didn't keep diaries isn't it - though I suppose they may not have considered such a meeting worthy of note!!
I am learning something every day - I didn't realize the Communists had a party let alone a league before 1917 - :-[ :-[ :-[ :-[ Of course they'd have had to - had to build their revolution on something!! ::)
My Gx4 aunt was born in the year Jane Austen died. No chance of them meeting anyhow! ;) Think of all those stories my Gx3 grandmother couldn't have read - even if she'd had time for reading!
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I am learning something every day - I didn't realize the Communists had a party let alone a league before 1917 - :-[ :-[ :-[ :-[ Of course they'd have had to - had to build their revolution on something!! ::)
Until I Googled Great Windmill Street I had no idea either ;D 4x great uncle Henry was still there in 1851 and running a coffee house. It's intriguing to think they might've been there in 1847 muttering into their beards about the oppression of the proletariat while Henry served them with the Victorian equivalent of a cappuccino.
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Don't forget the didgeridoo Wiggy,though the Eroica could prove difficult on it ;D
George.
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I have a new way to remember when the first box of matches was sold - the same year as my GGGgrandfather died - 1829!! Well you never know - I might need that for a trivia question some time!! ;)
Wiggy :)
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Great thread! I hadn't even thought of this much beyond what was going on in their lives in the immediate viscinity. I'll have to keep my mind on that as I go now.
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I have a 5 times great grandfather who my have taken part in the Battle of Jersey. There is a painting depicting this and I wondered if he dressed like the soldiers did in 1700s. I imagine that our ancestors who came from small villages and never ventured far(though some did) werent too aware of what was happening inthe country and worldwide. I also think of of my Victorian ancestors in London--did they go the Great Exhibition.There really is a lot more to family history than a list of names.
Ringrose
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It must be a wonderful feeling to have discovered your ancestry… and youngtug has done a lot on mine… stuff I had no idea of… and I’m just beginning to get my head around it… but I wonder if many of you have any knowledge of this chap… how mind blowing would that be…
Cheddar Man is the name given to the remains of a human male found in Gough's Cave in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, England. The remains date to approximately 7150 BC, and it appears that he died a violent death. It is Britain’s oldest complete human skeleton.
In 1996, Bryan Sykes of Oxford University first sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of Cheddar Man, with DNA extracted from one of Cheddar Man's molars. Sykes got DNA from the 9,000 year old Cheddar Man's tooth, and from a 12,000 year old Cheddar tooth from the same cave.
Bryan Sykes' research into Cheddar Man was filmed as he performed it in 1997. As a means of connecting Cheddar Man to the living residents of Cheddar village, he compared DNA taken from twenty living residents of the village to that extracted from Cheddar Man’s molar. It produced two exact matches and one match with a single mutation. The two exact matches were schoolchildren, and their names were not released. The close match was a local history teacher named Adrian Targett.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheddar_Man
http://www.arcl.ed.ac.uk/a1/stoppress/stop12.htm
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I remember hearing about that bandick. Mindblowing isn't it? :o
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I’m surprised you would have heard anything at all of it in Australia…
I have a sister lives only a few miles away on the same range of hills and very interested in keeping me up to date with another amazing incident in much the same area… a small village called ‘Bleadon’… archaeologists dug, numerous, possibly hundreds of skeletons from beneath the local village school prior to some development… they decided to reconstruct the scull from one of the graves… and in an effort to keep the whole village community involved and informed held an open evening to display the finished bust. It was put out on a program called ‘Meet the ancestors’… by the BBC:
‘Bleadon Man’ is a skeleton of a 50 year-old man found during the building of new houses in Bleadon, Somerset, near Weston-super-Mare, in 1997. He had been 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 metres) tall and suffered from arthritis. The bones were carbon-dated to 100 BC, during the Iron Age, a finding supported by archaeological finds at the site. Testing of the mitochondrial DNA of local residents’ blood samples showed that five of them are descended from Bleadon man’s family. After viewing the facial reconstruction of Bleadon man, local people surmised that Guy Gibbs might be a relative even before the DNA results were released.
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a small village called ‘Bleadon’… archaeologists dug, numerous, possibly hundreds of skeletons from beneath the local village school prior to some development… they decided to reconstruct the scull from one of the Testing of the mitochondrial DNA of local residents’ blood samples showed that five of them are descended from Bleadon man’s family. After viewing the facial reconstruction of Bleadon man, local people surmised that Guy Gibbs might be a relative even before the DNA results were released.
I remember watching that, the resemblance between the man and the reconstrustion was uncanny.
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http://www.concertina.com/history/index.htm
Is this link for me YT? ;D ;D ;D
What a fascinating thread, Wiggy. I have often wondered about what my ancestors were doing in terms of politics, wars etc. I don't seem to have a military background but I'm sure some of my Scottish family must have been affected by the Highland Clearances, Culloden and more.
I'm now looking through all my ancestors to see what was happening when they were alive. Another great way of avoiding the dreaded housework!! ;D ;D
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Angelfish… I remember when they took the towel from the bust, the whole room gasped… they all recognised him immediately… it truly was a memorable moment…
And all that from a pile of crumbling bones…
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OK, sticking with the year my great grandparents were married:
1: 1913 - the year the zipper was invented
2: 1923 - the Walt Disney Company is established
3: 1890 - Vincent Van Gough dies
4: 1898 - Neon discovered
1565 is the furthest back I've got. That was the birth of my 13 x great grandfather, John Amor in Wiltshire. In that year, widowed Mary Queen of Scots was married. Also in that decade, Elizabeth 1 is queen, the great age of piracy in the Carribean begins and Shakespeare and Galileo are born!
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My grandfather was born in November 1936...during the short reign of Edward VIII.
Sadly nobody obtained an Edward VIII brass threepence to mark the occassion...worth about £20,000- £30,000 today. ;)
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http://www.concertina.com/history/index.htm
Is this link for me YT? ;D ;D ;D
;D ;D ;D ;D
But if you come across one made by my gtgtgtgrandfather could you let me know, heres one of his;http://www.concertinamuseum.com/CM00258.htm
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This is one for PrueM and me:-
My Gr Grandfather was born 9th Jan, 1839 ... the same day the Daguerrotype photo process announced at French Academy of Science.
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Whilst Bonnie Prince Charlie was marching further south into England in 1745, my Rae family moved across the border into England to settle for better wages in the farms of Coquetdale, Northumberland.
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;D ;D ;D ;D
But if you come across one made by my gtgtgtgrandfather could you let me know, heres one of his;http://www.concertinamuseum.com/CM00258.htm
Seriously! You are descended from a concertina maker. I know this won't mean a great deal to a lot of people but I think that is absolutely fantastic!!
And yes, I will look out for one for you - do you really want me to let you know if I find one? And have you any idea how much these beasties cost these days? Even if yer ggggrandfather made it!
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About 3-4 grand, maybe I will just look at it, might get a bit of strife if I bought it ::)
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About 3-4 grand, maybe I will just look at it, might get a bit of strife if I bought it ::)
That would buy you a very fine English concertina....mine for example! ;) ;)
The one on your link is a much simpler instrument and wouldn't be so much, so maybe you'd be ok to buy it! ;D
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This is turning into eBay ! ;D ;D
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;D ;D ;D ;D
Seriously! You are descended from a concertina maker. I know this won't mean a great deal to a lot of people but I think that is absolutely fantastic!!
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,360021.0.html
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Debtors' Prison..... You see, it just goes to show - even in 1851, it didn't pay to have anything to do with concertinas. ;)
But what a great ancestor to have. Makes a very real change from ag labs and iron workers!
One of mine was an Oyster Catcher, which only a bird watcher would find remarkable but which always makes me smile.
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Did he have orange legs, Jen?
meles
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Well, Jack London was a oyster pirate [in california]
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Did he have orange legs, Jen?
meles
And a long beak...yep! ;D
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All this talk of concertinas, does anyone have one… can anyone here play one.
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All this talk of concertinas, does anyone have one… can anyone here play one.
Yep! ;D
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thats great... me too.
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Really! We should talk about this - but maybe not on this thread!
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I know the topic has moved on but ...
I’m surprised you would have heard anything at all of it in Australia… I have a sister lives only a few miles away on the same range of hills and very interested in keeping me up to date with another amazing incident in much the same area… a small village called ‘Bleadon’… archaeologists dug, numerous, possibly hundreds of skeletons from beneath the local village school prior to some development… they decided to reconstruct the scull from one of the graves… and in an effort to keep the whole village community involved and informed held an open evening to display the finished bust. It was put out on a program called ‘Meet the ancestors’… by the BBC:
‘Bleadon Man’ is a skeleton of a 50 year-old man found during the building of new houses in Bleadon, Somerset, near Weston-super-Mare, in 1997. He had been 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 metres) tall and suffered from arthritis. The bones were carbon-dated to 100 BC, during the Iron Age, a finding supported by archaeological finds at the site. Testing of the mitochondrial DNA of local residents’ blood samples showed that five of them are descended from Bleadon man’s family. After viewing the facial reconstruction of Bleadon man, local people surmised that Guy Gibbs might be a relative even before the DNA results were released.
oooh yes, I seek out these things wherever possible. ;D
And I saw that "Meet the Ancestors" but I can't recall the resulting bust. :-\ I am usually not impressed by those reconstructions and find that they usually look very similar - whether they be male, female or whatever. Maybe that's what people looked like back in the day ... :)
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I love those show too Ruskie and bandick - and Time Team - though I do sometimes wonder just how accurate their reconstructions are!
The Jen and bandick show - you'll have to be good Bandick - Jen does it for a living!! ;)
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I think its voluntary ... she plays for Crook Morris ! You know, men in flowery hats and bells on their legs !
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I think its voluntary ...
No, no....I was press-ganged into morris service. ;D ;D
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And loving every moment of it ! I found a photo of you on the 'net ... but I wont let on as I know you are shy !
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My great grandad was in Colney Hatch lunatic asylum at the same time as David Cohen who was suspected of being Jack the Ripper.
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I wonder if they became friends!! Was 'Jack the Ripper' ever convicted?
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No, they still don't know who he was although there were several strong suspects.
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I had a little panic session, a while back, when I realised my gt grandfather was in London around "Ripper" time ... and that he was the son (and grandson) of a surgeon, - so familiar with the "tools of the trade" - ... and that the family were living in Poplar ...
Then, I found out that the Ripper murders were still going on after gt Grandad had arrived in Australia. Whew!
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It does put thing into perspective though doesn't it when you start thinking about what was going on around our rellies!
Sir John Franklin was Governor of Tasmania for a few years 1836 . . . - then he went back to UK and set out on his polar exploration. Some months after he disappeared, the folks in Tassie heard the news and started raising funds to assist in the search for him. And some of my Grandee was there helping to raise funds. (Better late than never!)