RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: skyblueFF on Saturday 07 May 11 09:03 BST (UK)
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Does anyone have a favourite ancestor or one that they feel closer to than others?
Michael
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i always feel really close to the family i am working on at the time.
i am doing my husbands tree and for a good 2 years was getting nowhere. then i visited grandmother in law and she mentioned a name and place. all of a sudden it all came together. i even found a living cousin in america. i spent hour after hour every night researching them all and chatting with the new found cousin. i felt quite a strong connection to this side of my husbands family.
now i am researching my mums side and i have found so many stories that i cant help feeling really emotional at each tale. everyone of these people feels almost real now.
i am sure when i go back to grangmother in laws tree and start there again i will feel the same pull towrds them!
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I have become close to Thomas Musgrave my ancestor who moved to America in 1886. I always wished for a direct rellie who emigrated now I have one and to top that his grandad was in the US in the army as well. And my grandad born 1920 was in Canada. Tom Musgrave is my fave ancestor outside my London born ones.
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Yes mine is my irish greatgrandfather Owen Toner b 1860 I can't explain why its almost become an obession, I don't know anything of his early years and i only know his parents names from his death records.Its as if he just appeared by magic in scotland in 1885. I can't find a birth record for him but I have managed to find his parents marriage So all I can say Owen is " most likley" from Armagh ireland. Its so frustrating as there is only my mother left and she was only a month old when owen was born , my mother was never interested in her family history when she was growing up so she never asked. It was only when I decided to research that I found out that my mother's mother was born in America, wow why did my grandparents move to america only to come back to scotland a few years later ? All these unanswered questions ,with no one left to ask. Why did Owen leave Ireland at that time ? I may never find out but i will keep trying I may get lucky one day .
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Generally I would have to agree with Rachel. The line I am working on at the time is my favourite.
Having said that, I think I do have a favourite line. as opposed to a favourite ancestor. I have been lucky in that the Dowdeswell family that settled in London left a good paper trail of property documents, apprentice records, wills etc. as well as the standard parish records. Because of this, I think I feel an affinity to this line, and actually feel like I know them better than any other line that far back.
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I fall in love with the rhythm of the names, eg Isaac Oscar Garibaldi Thompson ( I kid you not). But my favourite is Elizabeth Gardner Mead - she sounds beautiful but I would have no idea what she looked like.
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Oh yes mine is a Victorian 'gentleman' who I can visualise twirling his moustaches, a real rogue.
Edwin Henry Athelstan Edelsten - his name alone is a wonder, he was an Actor/Comedian
married 3 times, although the 2nd which produced 2 sons I have never found a record of. He wrote letters to the times, appeared in court for fighting. Oh he is a treasure to me. A real cad.
Sadly his 2 sons, 1 dies under 1 year of age and the other dies in WW1, just weeks before the end of the war. But as he was estranged from this boys mother he probably never knew about his sons tragic death.
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My favourite is an aunt, I can't mention any names as there is still a living child in her 90's.
For some reason she was my favourite from day one, but I didn't expect to find that she was registered under one name but called something different all her life......she was trouble from there on.
She left home to marry age 16, but said she was 18, two children later she left her husband because she was pregnant by another man... not unusual in WW1 era.
She had five children by this man, all registered by him as if they were married, so I do have a name. He changes his job on every child's certificate.
Without and age and place of birth for this man it is impossible to be sure who he was....but I do think I know.
He was supposed to be married, but as far as I can see he lived between her and his real wife, whom he married after getting my aunt pregnant.
Reading between the lines she must have had a very hard life, but I do so like her and wonder how on earth she kept herself and the children out of the Workhouse.
Ambers
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I have a few favourites - One being my Gtx5 Grandmother, Catherine Morley. She was born in India then married my Gtx5 Grandfather and lived in Essex. She had fourteen children and her two eldest died before they reached five years old. Her husband died at age 47 and she was left with 12 children between the ages of 2 and 15. She also had two farms, one which was sold a couple of years after her husband died. To her credit most of the children did well for themselves. One was a Captain in the British Army in India, another a lawyer etc.
I also have a least favourite. I don't know why I don't like him but I keep thinking I will find some deep dark secret about him so resist researching him. Strange, I know.
Rishile
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I love my 4x great grandmother. An unmarried mother of 6 children. I would love to go back in time and ask her how she managed to bring them all up and how proud she must have been that they all prospered.
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And my favourite brickwall and confirmed convict 3gg Eleanor/Ellen Leonard/Lennard. Sacked by her boss in London so she stole some silk (and not just a handkerchief!) from him, convicted age 16 at the Old Bailery, put on a boat for transport 2 weeks later. Arrived in Sydney 1829, seems to hook up with an irish born british soldier, 2 children before getting around to marriage followed by 5 more. Living in rural NSW town(s), following her husband's postings with at least 6 living children and a husband appears to like a good time .... then dies suddenly when my 2gg was only 5. I know what she looks like from her convict records so she is quite real to me.
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I love my 4x great grandmother. An unmarried mother of 6 children. I would love to go back in time and ask her how she managed to bring them all up and how proud she must have been that they all prospered.
Hi,
If I was in your family,,,she would be my favourite too!!
How on earth did she cope????
Bored
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My great grandmother, she started this obsession.
Born illegitimatly in Scotland, passed on to her grandparents and they raised her.
one child born there, again passed onto her grandparents and they raised her as their own.
In Scotland in 1891
Married my gt grandfather in Nottinghamshire May 1892
gave birth to a son in Scotland July 1892- Her grandmother declares her husband is not the father.
Back in Nottinghamshire and giving birth in June 1893- hopefully this one was her husbands.
A further 6 children were born.
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My great gandmother Elizabeth and my GG grandmother Hannah.One widowed at 24 with 4 children and one deserted with 5 children,one of whom she gave birth to in a poorhouse.Both kept their families together and remarried and had more kids.
Also my GG uncle Henry,mainly as I know so much about him.His army records from 20 years in Afghanistan,Egypt and India,his marriage to a nurse and finally a family life on the Isle of Wight.
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George Coombs is another on of my faves.