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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: MurphysLaw on Friday 13 May 11 14:22 BST (UK)
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Hello all!
I have been doing my research for about 6 moths now and although i had inclings of things i had never been able to confirm what I had suspected for a while until now... this is the story tell me what you think....
My grandfathers father died in prison when my grandfather was only 4 months old.
Upon his death his wife gathered up the children - she dumped two on my grandfathers grandparents (the dead mans folks) and she took one with her and fled.....
no one ever knew why she did that - however my grandfather grew up relatively happy in the care of his grandparents so allw as ok - however I know that he had a real hatred for his mum for soing what she did and never coming back to explain herself....
He had no contact with his older brother until one of my grandads aunts insitgated a meeting as she somehow had links all over the familymy grandads aunt was of course one of his grandparents children but she was more like a sister to him than an aunt!!! (Sorry if this is confusing!)
- my grandad and his bro sort of became friends yet they looked nothing alike. My grandfather and his sister were like peas in a pod, tall slim and had straight hair but the older brother was short, cobby and had lots of curly hair. My mum met the older brother when she was a child and clearly remembers him looking nothing like the other two...she always suspected he had not been a 'full' brother.
Years pass and I am researching the tree- I get intouch with a family member of the woman who abandoned her babies and we get chatting. It turned out that the older brother infact did not share a father with the other two -so mum was right all along.....we were elated to get this confirmation and to know that she took him with her because he was not a child of the dead man.
I get further into my research and discover that my grandfathers mother went on to have 4 more children with another man..... one child being born in December 1927.....
My grandfather was born in April of 1927.
This means she literally fell pregnant by another man just after the birth of my grandad when my great grandad was imprisoned....
so she had 2 kids in one year by two different men......she must have been sleeping with the other guy right after giving birth to my gramps or, i hate to say, was sleeping with him while pregnant with my gramps as it was seen as 'safe'.
I feel horrid about this - the circumstances in which my great grandfather died were awful and he would have needed her support at this time but since finding out about the other man and the baby - i feel quite hurt by it all.
I know that sounds silly because its not 'me' or about me but i feel let down that this woman could do such a thing at a time when her hubby needed her and she had literally just given birth to a baby..... i just cant comprehend it...
has any one else experienced this feeling of disappointment with a family member they never ever knew?? i feel like she hurt the family therefore she hurt me...
It goes deeper but just on the surface please tell me im not alone here!!! :-[
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i do not think you are alone in this
as we search for family they become part of us good bad or :( :( :(
sylvia
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Tis a cliche to say this, but there are two sides to every story.
It is difficult for us to pass judgement on her without knowing her circumstances or the kind of man your gr grandfather was. Many of us probably wouldn't like many of our ancestors if we'd known them. I personally think it doesn't matter - they don't all have to be good and kind and true.
Unfortunately when we go digging around in the past, we often unearth things we don't like.
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MurphysLaw.
Its amazing that you found all that out,
for many of use researching are kiss and kin, We would never know anything about their sordid pasts,
We would find it very hard to turn up information like incense but I'm sure it went on,
family members having affairs, child neglect ,mental cruelty, wife or husband battering, the list is endless,
the same as it is hard to find what kind of person they were, loud, quite, slightly mad, liked to sing all day, said their prays at night, wore glasses, had a beard, ( I mean the males :) )
had their own teeth and if so how many and were they straight or crooked,
If we study are selves and tried to put on paper a picture of are selves would we gloss over certain quirks or would we be honest and mention really bad characteristics.
I often wonder what a certain ancestor must have been like, but We can not even be certain they are truly are rellie's , only have the mothers word for that, :)
Eilleen, a bit bored on her day off ;D ;D will I be remembered in the future for this habit 8)
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Hi MurphysLaw
Often there is no way to discover the exact situation at that time so it is often best to keep an open mind.
The parents of your great-grandfather may have felt shame for their son going into prison and may have disassociated themselves from him and his wife and children leaving her destitute.
She may have looked on her husband’s imprisonment as a kind of desertion especially as she was pregnant at the time.
Doubtless she would have a hard decision to make, either to put her children into care or find a way to support herself or find some one to support her and the children.
Rightly or wrongly she made a decision she felt was best as so many have done in earlier times.
We really do not know what we will discover once we start to search but for many of our ancestors, times were hard and they did what they had to do just to survive.
Linda
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I am sorry that your discovery upset you.
But many of us have opened the closet of our family tree and the skeletons have fallen out!
And it is, I think, wrong to judge because, as others here have pointed out, we don't know the full story. Try to think of it as life's rich tapestry.
meles
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Thanks for the posts people....
to my understanding the man who died in prison was never disowned by his family.... they bought a family plot at cem with his name on after his death which would also contain them when they passed and his mother would write daily to him whilst he was in there - i have the letters and they are all affectionate.
linda- i think you got the wrong end of the stick.... she was only pregnant because of the other man, the guy who was in prison was not this childs father, he went to prison in Aug 1927- my grandfather being born Apr 27 - which means she was having the affair for 4 months...so i dont think his imprisonment would have been viewed by her as 'dissertion' - it would appear she was doing just fine lol.....
i think many men today whos partners have affairs and fall pregnant as a result are not always supportive of it and will leave - however my great grandfather had no choice as he was banged up. I know i shouldnt judge as i am not a saint myself, but since finding this out i do feel a bit awkward knowing that there is an extension of the family that came from an odd situation....especially as us ladies in the immediate family of today can be naughty but not that naughty....it seems almost alien
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I'm not sure if I'm reading wrong or if things don't add up quite...
Grandfather born Apr 1927 - so pregancy from abt beginning of Aug 1926 if birth at end of Apr 1927.
Quite possible/probable that she was already pregnant when he went to prison.
Next child born in Dec 1927 - so pregnancy from abt beginning of Apr 1927 if birth at end of Dec 1927.
So first child must have been born early Apr 1927 - making it even more likely that she was pregnant before her husband went to prison.
Then it would have to be a very quick turnaround getting pregnant again just after giving birth which although far from impossible isn't over likely.
Most births are spaced 2-3 years apart naturally - if getting pregnant right after giving birth was "the norm" we'd see a lot of families with closer together children on the census returns.
I'm not sure where you are finding that she must have been having an affair for 4 months?
If she did indeed get pregnant again right away then no-one can judge and say she was "sleeping around" - for she may have been raped for all we know. There certainly wouldn't have been many options for her if that was the case.
Other possibilities are that the nexxt child wasn't hers, but one that she took in or that it is hers but you may have found the wrong birth registration.
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Genealogy can be a bit distressing. We can sometimes find things about ancestors that at first glance do not always seem nice. But we are not Judges Or Jurors - who are we to sit in judgement?. Who knows why people do cerain things. I agree with justkia about looking at facts again. and do not be too disheartened
whatever. A number of us have skeletons in our cupboards - but that is family history. Some fgood, some indifferent - and some not so good.
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Hi MurphysLaw
You haven't been doing your family history for very long, but if revelations like this upset you, I suggest you stop now.
There is no way of knowing what you will uncover, but there will almost certainly be more tragic stories and you need to be able to stand back a bit or you will make your own life miserable.
Perhaps a change of hobby is recommended here? :)
Linda
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If your grandfather was born in April 27 and his father went to prison in Aug 27 -- it is very likely that the child born in dec 27 was his too
what evidence have you got that the child wasn't his?
or have i got something wrong?
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Do you actually have the birth certs of both babies? Does it say who the father is each time.......and mother ! 8)
Are you certain that they were both born to the same lady and that she didn't adopt one?
Carol
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I agree with a lot of the comments above - doing family research you will find out things that will shock you, but who are we to judge our ancestors?
Not only are we all imperfect ourselves, but our ancestors did what they did often because of circumstances at the time. They were people of their day. And you really cannot know what your g grandmother was going through or what her domestic circumstances were. As said above, there are two sides to every story.
However it does seem surprising that she managed to get pregnant so quickly. I have known a couple of women who have got pregnant three months after the birth of a baby, but it seems strange that a woman would get pregnant instantly because she is unlikely to be ovulating so soon.
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Mmm, I wondered about the timings,too. Although not impossible to conceive so quickly after a birth, it's unusual, and even more so if the child was breastfed (and I imagine he was as choices would have been limited).
Skeletons in the closet? We all have them. I have been surprised and saddened by some of the life stories I've pieced together, but I would never judge my ancestors for their actions. They were living in a different world, with very different opportunities and expectations from those we enjoy now. Women especially had to do whatever was necessary to put food in their childrens' mouth, especially when they had little legal standing and were so very dependent on having a man look after them. Ever read Moll Flanders?!
You need to keep an open mind if you're going to poke around and unsettle the dust that lies over past actions. Firstly, you need to be open to suggestions and lines of enquiry to confirm or refute information that you think may be relevant to your research. Secondly, you need to allow your ancestors their lives, their mistakes and their sorrows, and not judge them against a different age. And thirdly, you need to bear in mind that many things that we'd like to pretend couldn't possible have happened in our families, may well have -- that includes adultery, desertion, madness, illness, and lots and lots of illegitimate children or those born considerably less than 9 months after marraige - and finally, never forget that not every pregnancy is the result of freely consensual sex between adults :(
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Some things do not make sense at all, so I would suggest you stand back and put your feelings aside for a while (if you can), and take another look at your facts without the influence of family stories.
You say your Granddad's father went to prison when he was 4 months old, which also coincides with GGranddad's death ???
You also say that the odd one out, from the 3 children, was your Granddad's 'older' brother. Was he also the eldest child? Perhaps the mother took him because he was old enough to earn money at a time when the whole Country was heading into a deep depression and things were very tough.
Regards,
Colin
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I see from another one of your threads http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,531826.msg3862446.html#msg3862446
that Suzard found a possible 5 children born to your great grandparents. As I suggested before you really do need to get the birth certs to prove who each of the children belonged to.
Every one of us who has been doing research for years will have found that the facts often don't tie up with what info has been passed down through the family.
Carol
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You also must remember before feeling that it was your ggrandfather who was wronged, that it was he who was in prison, presumably because he did committed a crime. Do you know what that was?
You never know, this other chap may have been the love of your ggrandmother's life and perhaps she was trapped in an unhappy or abusive marriage with your ggrandfather and had to get out. Circumstances would have been very tough for her, even though you think she was "doing just fine".
I think you are not being fair on her.
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Whatever the truth, I agree it can be upsetting. Ive just started and although happy to have convicts, and bride ship ancestors, when you start reading about their lives it can be sad. Ive been lucky mine built good lives but others have uncovered, prostitutes, lunatics, and worse. But all in all I am very proud to be who I am and thankful to those who put me here, regardless of what it took. My job now to make sure I teach my children where they came from and what it took to get here.
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I think you need to check what you have as you seem very confused.
The dates you give suggest your grandfather died as soon as he went to prison
Went to prison August 1927
Died when grandfather was 4 months (April 1927 + 4 months = August 1927).
The dates also show that the man who went to prison could certainly be the father of the child born in December 1927 (Dec 1927 - August 1927 = 4 months).
I think there is a high possibility that some dates have been muddled along the way.
Cheers
Guy
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Hi guys -
I think some of you have mis understood me- i am in NO WAY judging my Ggrandmother so I am sorry if you all feel that way but that was not my intention - I am merely asking if people have experienced this feeling when searching for ancestors who are dead and we have no real feel of who they were. I just feel odd that i am feeling so close to her yet i do not know her.....im not saying she was bad or an angel - im just trying to see both sides and work out what seems more plausible-
For those of you who think I am confused this is what I have got
I have found that this lady had one child with another man and this child was raised as my great grandads 'son' although he wasnt. The man is on the childs birth cert that i gained through purchase at local BMD registry offices -as is the childs mothers maiden name.
I do not know what happened to the man.
She then had 2 children by my great grand father. One being my grandfather- born in April 1927. Both his and his sisters certs show the fathers name- who was the man in prison.
This man died in prison (yes i do know why - but i dont want to enter into because its very personal to the family) in Aug of '27.
So my grandad being born in April of 1927 would mean that my grandad was 4 months old when his dad died -
after my Ggrandfathers death the records i have show that his wife went on to have a baby in Dec of 1927 - which suggests that she would have had to have fallen pregnant virtully as soon as my grandad was born.....
I know a lot of you are poo-pooing this idea and believe me I have found this odd too - and yes there is a possibility of my ggrandfather being the childs father however these are the docs that i have and I can only say what is infront of my eyes.... the cert shows a different mans name on this babies cert.
after this child is born she has another 3 with the same man - the same father is listed on all 4 of the childrens certs....
she dosest marry this man until some 35 years later -
he had a wife you see ( i have the marriage docs for that marriage - he also had children in this marriage) rather than divorce her he waited till she died I also have the docs for his first wifes death)
I recently was given a family tree doc that has been in the family for some years - I have gained most of my work from this and each piece has so far fitted with docs i have already got. This tree was written out by a family member in their 80s and from what I have been told has been in a box for some years doing nothing until i mentioned i was doing this.....It has now been given to me and i am working with/from it. I have also had contact with a member of the family that my ggreat nan had after my ggradfathers death - so this is the 'extended' family - this man also has the same detailing as me on his tree...
All i was saying is that i feel odd about it, I dont know what to make of it and i was hoping some of you would be able to understand where i was coming from in trying to convey a feeling about something that is so close to the family yet is so far... its just odd that it can make you feel like that and get your mind racing....
I do not think I need a change of hobby as some people may think- now that some of the members of the board have also said that they have felt the same on discovering a huge skeleton within their families, i now know as a newbie who has never done this before, its normal to feel so connected to a distant link and to experience the emotion that goes with it.
Thanks for all your help.
Any further comments please PM me and i can give you more detail if i have confused any one :)
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ahh, the fact that she names another man as father to the child born in dec 1927 does make things clearer (you had omitted this info in your earlier posts)
There is always the liklihood of surprising events turning up - in my own family (at around the same time as yours) i have abandonment, bigamous marriage, more abandonment and finally a marriage legalising his third family after the death of the first wife.
There is no reason to feel hurt by these relevations - they are history - just keep an open mind about the reasons for peoples actions
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I think the reason MurphysLaw is shocked and confused - I would stay stunned - is that this is all fairly recent history and his grandfather's family history at that.
I'm less surprised/upset when I find things out about my grandparent's history as they were born in the late 1800s, so it all seems so much further away, even to an oldie like me.
Lizzie
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I think the reason MurphysLaw is shocked and confused - I would stay stunned - is that this is all fairly recent history and his grandfather's family history at that.
I'm less surprised/upset when I find things out about my grandparent's history as they were born in the late 1800s, so it all seems so much further away, even to an oldie like me.
Lizzie
Thanks Lizze -
You hit the nail on the head.... its recent and so is more of a shock
Thanks for the help on conveying the feeling :)
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Hi
You have some information, but you've interpreted it - and your interpretation may or may not be correct. She may not have "dumped" her children, maybe the grandparents offered to help her as she had just lost her husband (and presumably any means of support) and had a new baby to look after. You say she must have got pregnant straight away but the 2nd baby might have been a bit premature. We don't have all the facts - we probably never will.
Family history records are often sad/bad - prison records, asylum records etc. The "good" records, like Valentines' cards, love letters etc often don't survive.
For all you know her husband might have been vile to her. We don't know. We like to think that marriages are all love matches, but I think many of them were pragmatic, men marrying to have someone to cook/have babies and the women marrying to gain respectability and a roof over their heads.
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Regardless of what happened in your family's past, the emotions are completely understandable. When I first started doing my family research I was blown away by poverty, young parents dying and leaving young children, young men killed in action, deaths in the workhouse. And then when a friend mentioned her g uncle who had died in WWI, and that his last letter home was him saying that he was really looking forward to eating the chocolate cake his sister was sending him, I spent a whole afternoon bawling my eyes out. I was just so overwhelmed at all these lives that had gone before, and how much suffering there had been.
Now I don't bawl my eyes out at what I find, but each person I research comes alive for me - as I think it does for most people. So yes, it's perfectly normal to feel so emotional for somebody who lived so long ago.
:)
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So far there's only been one or two things that have made me a tad emotional, the main one being my great great grandfather and his womanising...
His first wife, who he had 3 children with, was left disfigured after a house fire so he then started to have an affair with my great great grandmother, who was unaware he was already married and divorced wife no.1....
After spending about 7 years with my great great grandmother and having 3 more children, he moved another woman into the house and had an affair with her, having 5 more children with her. They had the two top floors of the house, and my family had the basement :-\
My great gran always said her mother died of a broken heart, on her gravestone is his surname which for some reason just saddens me as to add insult to her, my great great grandfather moved his new family into the farmhouse that had been in her family over 200 years :-\
Luckily, my great gran lived long enough to tell me these sort of family stories, there's only so much you can learn from a record :)
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Hope you are feeling a bit less shocked by all this. It is sometimes hard to accept that close members of ones family could behave in a way that you would perhaps not expect them to.
Just a thought about the baby born in December. Is it possible that this could have been a premature birth? If so, it would give a little bit more of an interval between the two births.
Cuthie
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he was already married and divorced wife no.1....
That's terribly sad, Rachey. Did he actually divorce wife no.1? It was pretty had to get a divorce back then unless you had money.. my ancestors just left their wives and ran off with someone else!
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They did indeed, infact she divorced him ( Good on her! )
All in all I think it cost him £12,000 plus more because he wouldn't pay anything towards his first family ::)
"my ancestors just left their wives and ran off with someone else" :D :D :D
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Thinking about it, I had a great-gran who ran off as well! Seems to me they were all at it! (At least they were in my family!) ;D ;D ;D
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Both my grandfathers who I knew have made me sad for different reasons but happenings i have uncovered over a hundred years back cease to shock or sadden even though some of them are equally emotive. It is hard to forgive a man who fathered 15 children with one wife and a further 7 by a second wife 2 before wife ne died(no divorce) and more shocking to find wife 2 was born after he had already had 10 children! the second one is sad because he was the lodger's son great gran had a young family when she was widowed took in a widower with young children in the hope that together they could make a happy family to bring both lots of children up but no ring was exchanged gt gran had a second child by him and fell ill he scarpered with his first children left gt Gran to die in the workhouse infirmary and their little children to be taken into care.
Now those stories make me sad but I am so proud of my gram for the dignified way she dealt with here wayward husband and so proud of my grandfather who forged a lovely life from his poor beginnings
Hold your head high and think of the legacy the ancestors have left
Trees
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This makes me think about a shipping list a member sent me a few days ago in 1890 with a list of passengers.
Under one lady it lists a person as Mrs so and so and then "and her native servant".
At least we get to know something most of the time. This poor guys descendents will never know anything good or bad, not even an ititial or sex.
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Unles of course s/he is with the family on a census return or even if the passenger list at the other end lists his/her name - remember there are outgoing passenger lists and incoming passenger lists.
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I was doing my motherside and found her dads mothers father was a murderer in incidence with a gang of poachers with his brother, being my gt.x 3 granddad played a lesser part his conviction was reduced to two's years from the plea of guilty of murder. We found he was having an affair with another woman! who he beat up, killed and some how the jury found him not guilty of murder. A few years later he had another affair, did the same thing and beat her to death in a horrible way then topped himself. My Gt grandmother. (His daughter was buried in another parish by my Gt granddad because of the stigma.)
Best bit was he even ratted on his brother in the poaching murder hence his lesser sentence.
Years before he was a gamekeeper! caught a poacher informed the police then nicked the rabbits himself! he got six month for that!
Never rains but pours
Bit of scandal makes a boring tree have a bit of interest! Do I feel hurt ? Never!! It wasn't me. ;D
More present day! I know of a young lady who's mother is in the nick for fraud! for quite a few years, after her mothers conviction! the lady joined the police force, still works for them and is doing well!
So why feel hurt by history! ??? Good or bad.
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So why feel hurt by history! ??? Good or bad.
Im not hurt by the history- perhaps hurt was the wrong word to use, but it was such an over whelming feeling that its all i could describe it as at the time....
Its a feeling that others have said they have experienced and when delaing with family who we are learning about everyday I suppose these feelings come thick and fast if you have a story such as mine... i am feeling better now though and I have understood more about the feeling thanks to replies from those who have responded ;)
Looking forward to the next part - I know now that I will probably harden more to my discoveries as I become more advanced.
However its still pretty odd to know that such things go on in a family...they get you when you least expect it!! :o
I know that the research i have collected is probably as much as I will ever get- I dont think there is anyway of telling if a baby was premature or not... it just says on birth cert the DOB and usual bits - not 'date expected'....even so the birth cert does say that this baby has a different father to the others and the kid before that so I am more swayed to say that he wasnt prem.... ???
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So why feel hurt by history! ??? Good or bad.
Im not hurt by the history- perhaps hurt was the wrong word to use, but it was such an over whelming feeling that its all i could describe it as at the time....
Its a feeling that others have said they have experienced and when delaing with family who we are learning about everyday I suppose these feelings come thick and fast if you have a story such as mine... i am feeling better now though and I have understood more about the feeling thanks to replies from those who have responded ;)
Looking forward to the next part - I know now that I will probably harden more to my discoveries as I become more advanced.
However its still pretty odd to know that such things go on in a family...they get you when you least expect it!! :o
I know that the research i have collected is probably as much as I will ever get- I dont think there is anyway of telling if a baby was premature or not... it just says on birth cert the DOB and usual bits - not 'date expected'....even so the birth cert does say that this baby has a different father to the others and the kid before that so I am more swayed to say that he wasnt prem.... ???
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You may find something good with some other ancestors that will balance things out. :D
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It is possible to get pregnant again very soon after giving birth, some women become more fertile than normal and it's common enough to give rise to the derogatory phrase 'Irish Twins' (which was used as a terrible racial insult in the past, I mean no offence here), meaning siblings born from different pregnancies in the same year or with less than 12 months in age between them. However, it's also quite risky to have another child so soon and the second one is more likely to be premature. Sounds like that's what happened in this case. I remember after having my son that the midwife told me to be very careful and not complacent about 'protections', though sleepless nights kind of put paid to that whole malarkey anyway ;)
Wouldn't worry too much about shocking things happening to ancestors, we all pull up stuff that's less than rosy - there are plenty of illegitimate fruits in my family tree, plus a tramp, mental illness, tragic early deaths etc. If anything, it makes me put modern 'moral outrage' into perspective and be more sanguine about newspaper stories trying to be lurid about 'loose women' and poverty and the like.
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Hi - just to pitch in with another little fact that has emerged from my family tree. I think before the welfare state there was a lot of informal adoption, children being brought up by grandparents for all kinds of reasons - I have cases of this when the father was in the army and the mother in service, also in cases of bereavement opr overcrowding. i remember my own grandmother saying of one of her nephews, 'I brought him up - you had to watch his mother after she had a baby.' This would have been in the 20's or 30's. I asked her what she meant and she described her sister in law suffering, I think, from what we would now call postnatal depression. The woman was liable to neglect her newborn children, so family rallied around. I think the use of a word like 'dumping' doesn't describe the sort of extended family networks that were developed so that people could survive.
As to how we feel about it all - yes, it is complex. I always think it's good to chew over complicated feelings, and it's good that you did that here.
harlemswife
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Harmlamswife,
I understand you perfectly. I will not examine the facts except to say I thought as soon as I read your first post that the baby born Dec 27 must be a premmie.
I have felt like you on numerous occasions but there are two that still make me weep.
My hubby's 3rd G Grandfather committed suicide and he left his 2nd wife a letter that says "after what you said to me this morning I can't go on." He had 3 children to his first wife one of which hubby is related to, and 1 child with his 2nd wife. I know there are decendents from all 4 children still living but I have not attempted to conctact any from his 4th child as I know I will be cross with them because of what (not that we will ever know) their 2nd/3rd g grandmother said the morning of his death.
The other one is in my family. A couple lost 3 babies to water related preventable deseases and they lived in a hovel on a canal bank. They did move though and had another 7 children who all grew up to be adults. But I still do weep for those 3 little ones lost just because they were poor.
After a long time in this game I can assure you, some will make you laugh, some will make you cry, some will be just names on paper and some will become your best friends.
After a day of genealogy my OH always asks who he has to live with for the next week. Keep at it - its very rewarding ;) Ted
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Murphy, it's very strange, but I started tracing my family history almost twenty years ago, but stopped because I had a dream. My maternal Grandmother appeared to me, and said 'there are things in my family I don't want anybody to know'. Since I am 3/4 Irish, I felt very guilty and didn't do major research for years.
And what did I find out? That my Great great grandfather was sent to the Joint Counties Lunatic Asylum sometime after the 1881 Wales census, and my great great Grandmother's emigration to Brooklyn, NY.
A few days ago, I found a Sister of my great great grandmother, Sarah Hignell, did three months hard time in Usk Prison for stealing a pair of trousers. Further research at the British Library --I scrolled through the Cardiff paper, looking for the quarter sessions. I could not understand why Sarah got three months hard time, while most other pants thieves got two weeks.
The story was headlined " A Sad Case". It turned out that Sarah stole her Father's pants, and tried to pawn them. Her Father testified against her, saying she was a 'bad girl'. So, the judge threw the book at her. The writer seemed rather sympathetic to Sarah, saying she was a 'neat looking girl' who burst into tears when the sentence was pronounced. Sarah Hignell plead guilty, and offered no defense.
r r
I wonder if her Father knew she'd get such a harsh sentence, or he thought she'd get a few weeks of hard labor, and that would teach her a lesson. My heart aches for both of them.
(http://[img]http://)[/img]
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I can understand her fathers attitude, but any other male could only dream of such things!! especially boys of today! by a young ladies actions. ;D
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Cousin Sarah looks both frightened and defiant.
I recall many years ago a relative telling me not to research the family because I would find out things I would rather not know. I found that particular relative's skeleton in the closet. Now all those involved are long dead and I have ferreted around some more. I see the person involved now not as shameful, but as triumphing over extreme circumstances. I see them as strong, loving and loyal.
I might be wrong, of course, or the old fashioned interpretations might be wrong. We shall never know, but I know what I choose to believe.
Harlemswife
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I never cease to wonder at the hardships my grand mother faced today i have uncovered yet another sad episod.
While giving birth to her 12th child shthe rest were looked after by her widowed mother. Gt Gran carried a tray up to Gran's bedroom and put her foot to the door to open it sadly it didnot yeild and she fell backwards down the stairs and never recovered from the fall This story I knew from my mum today I looked up her death to see which baby was concerned and found it was the little one who died almost as soon as it was born so poor gran lost her child and mother at the same time. Now that has bought a lump to my throat but it wont stop me digging for more stories from the past and it adds to my admiration of my Gran
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Hi MurphysLaw,
It can be a bit embarrassing. I think my grandfather on my mother's side was an alcoholic, as my mother used to say "We had to put him in a home." I think this was a euphemism for "He was confined to an institution." I shall have to dig further on this.
I suppose we just have to take the rough with the smooth. that's the essence of life isn't it?
Best wishes,
Dave the Walrus
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I just about chucked everything in the bin when I read a sentence from Workhouse records describing my great grandmother as a 'a woman of vile and vicious habits' .
We knew that her two children had spent their childhood in homes and that her son was one of the many children sent to Canada, he was 11 at the time and never saw his sister or mother again.
I was so upset and imagined all kinds of horrors so I put my family history aside for some time and concentrated on my husbands family.
After a while I thought I'd have another look at g grandma, what was her crime?
She had been abandoned by her husband and left with the two children.
For a few years she had managed alone but had become pregnant with a third child, late into the pregnancy was obviously unable to work, her only recourse was to the Workhouse where they decided with their Victorian values that she was as they had described her...
Now I am only saddened that we don't know what happened to her or to the third baby.
Suey
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I just about chucked everything in the bin when I read a sentence from Workhouse records describing my great grandmother as a 'a woman of vile and vicious habits' .
We knew that her two children had spent their childhood in homes and that her son was one of the many children sent to Canada, he was 11 at the time and never saw his sister or mother again.
I was so upset and imagined all kinds of horrors so I put my family history aside for some time and concentrated on my husbands family.
After a while I thought I'd have another look at g grandma, what was her crime?
She had been abandoned by her husband and left with the two children.
For a few years she had managed alone but had become pregnant with a third child, late into the pregnancy was obviously unable to work, her only recourse was to the Workhouse where they decided with their Victorian values that she was as they had described her...
Now I am only saddened that we don't know what happened to her or to the third baby.
Suey
Agree - only one person's opinion of her in a different era with a different set of values.
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I think many of us are very quick to make excuses for or paint our ancestors as squeaky clean as though it's a reflection of us if they're anything but upstanding pillars of the community, and insisting that they are people we would like if we met them today.
Of course many of them had indescribably difficult and sad lives, and sometimes this led to desperate measures, but some of them might just have been plain bad. Of course we need to look at the times they were living in and in many cases make allowances for their circumstances and take into consideration the morals etc of the time.
If you look at society today there are many who commit dreadful crimes and, many who are just not very nice human beings. I wonder what excuses their ancestors might make for them in 100 years time if they learn about their crimes?
I just don't see why we feel the need to see our ancestors through rose coloured glasses. I think many of us probably have some pretty nasty characters in our trees ... ;)
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Don't forget what has recently been uncovered "allegedly" in California to a certain ex governor... the maid put down her husband as father of the child but shortly afterwards the divorce papers said they had no minors.... all this gleamed from official papers but no mention of DNA tests.
Could have happened in reverse in your situation. Your ggrandmother could have been pregnant and widowed before taking up with the second man. Gallantly he went with her to register the baby and allowed the baby his name rather than have a blank there. I'm assuming (I know, bad thing to do) that at that point they were living as man and wife anyway and had every intention of staying together.
The dates are still worring me a little though!!! I know plenty of 10/11 month gaps but any smaller are well... ouch! Most midwives recommend a six week wait anyway to allow the body to recover from the birth and reduce the risk of infection.
As the others have said, try not to pre-judge people and keep an open mind. Be prepared for errors along the way, we all make them when we get blinkers on! I agree that because this is a relatively recent occurance which is why its hitting home. Put this particular incident on the back burner and go further back, when you have got a wider picture of the family and come back, I'm sure you will look at it in a different light.
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I was horrified to find that my 3xgreatgrandmother, Jane Cheeseman, had been convicted of the manslaughter of her 15-year old niece, by her mistreatment and neglect of the child who was suffering from TB. Basically, Jane had been running a sweatshop producing stays and using her motherless nieces as labour (her own daughter, my 2xgreatgrandmother had preferred to leave home and was an acknowledged prostitute for at least three months in her early 20s, as well as a convicted thief at this time). The surviving 12-year old sister of the dead girl reported at the inquest "We had to earn 10d a day each, which used to take us about twelve or thirteen hours, and if the work was not done, we had to sit up, if all night, till finished. My sister has not been able to finish her work sometimes, and my aunt has beat her, but afterwards been sorry for it. I have not been beat these five months past, because I finished my work in time. We do not work on Sundays. We had a holiday on Trinity Monday. My sister used to work from six o’clock in the morning till twelve o’clock at night, and always sat in a room by herself. My aunt sometimes flogged her with a rod, sometimes a cane, and one time hit her on the back with her shoe, which she took off her foot." This far removed, there is no way to discover why Jane behaved this way, what drove her or what her own background was like and tho' I'm disgusted by her actions she remains part of my family history. Who knows what influence her parenting had on her own children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren?
Ermy
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I started this geneological lark in the single hope of identifying my gt-grandfather, who my grandmother had tried to write out of the family history.
Having found what I've found, I understand why this was so. I'm glad I waited until my granny was dead because I don't think she'd forgive me for dusting off this particular family skeleton.
But you know what? I don't feel it personally at all. I'm not going to call him names; there must have been some good points to him (his CO on his army discharge papers seemed to think so!)
What's gone is gone, we poke around in the past but maybe shouldn't spend too much time looking back?
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Hi Annie,
I don't think we should be put off by what we find, after all, I expect that very few of us would be judgemental about what we find.
It is possibly the "thrill of the chase" that we like and mankinds basic curiosity and desire to discover something new, that makes us do this.
Best wishes,
Dave the Walrus
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I found this little poem a number of years ago, and always loved it:-
If You Could See Your Ancestors
By Nellie Winslow Simmons Randall
If you could see your ancestors
All standing in a row,
Would you be proud of them or not?
Or don't you really know?
Some strange discoveries are made
In climbing family trees.
And some of them, you know,
Do not particularly please.
If you could see your ancestors
All standing in a row,
There might be some of them perhaps
You shouldn't care to know.
But here's another question
Which requires a different view -
If you could meet your ancestors
Would they be proud of you?
Jeanne :)
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If you could meet your ancestors
Would they be proud of you?
That is the thought that had frequently crossed my mind as I've been doing my research. Some of them had such hard lives and went through so much, it is just amazing that they survived! Wonderful poem. Thank you!
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Pleased you enjoyed it - I think it's super! And I'm quite sure some of my ancestors wouldn't be too pleased with some of the choices I have made either!! ;D Especially my parents and grandparents if they had known half the things I got up to when I was a wild teenager!!
i.e. Went to a dance when I was supposed to be at the movies, and went to a Youth Club on a Sunday (sinful no less)!! ;D Of course, that's only the tip of the iceberg! ::)
Jeanne
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Yes, good poem.
I had a family reunion last week, which 25 people attended, and there were
13 direct descendants of 1 ancestor (my great great grandfather), and 1 direct descendant of that ancestor's great uncle.
We had a group photo of all of us plus our spouses on the lawn, and we did think that the man in question would have been amazed - and I think he would have been proud. :)
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What a brilliant little poem!
And a very good point!
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This is part of doing your tree.
My grandads da, wasn't the father of the rest of the kids in his family, the other kids dad died 7years before he was born, and his dad was the lodger, who, changed his name to the families to save confusion. they never married, well not that I can find yet.
My other nan, the great uncle I thought was my great uncle, wasn't. He was raised by my great grandmother as her own, and he always thought she was his mom, until he found out his mom, was actually my great aunty. she got pregnant while her husband was away at sea, and he told her to get rid of him on the train track, but great grandma took him in as her own.
My other grandad, left home at 13, lied and got in the army, when his mom died, his dad married her sister, who he had already fathered a child by before his wife died.
So be prepared to find things like that, I just find it intriguing.
Love the poem too.
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Of course one has to keep an open mind and not jump to conclusions about the motives of our ancestors, etc.
With my lot, it's been the other way round - stories of scandalous infidelities that seem more than likely, in the light of my own research, to be half-remembered, recycled gossip from the time and... untrue. Which makes a change.
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I've found more skeletons than you can shake a stick at. I try to take the philosophical view that what's done is done, I wasn't there so I don't know the facts behind what really happened. I have to say I get more upset when I find ancestors who perhaps had three girls all with the same name only to find that one died at birth another was born then died within a few months and third perhaps also died very young. I also have a couple of families where the majority of the family was in the workhouse and others where young men went off to war and never came back. I believe that by my doing this, those people haven't been forgotten and I can record at least a small portion of their lives to pass on to those who come after me. Another thought, my mum always said jokingly that my dad was a b*****d and, unfortunately, I later discovered she was right. Sadly, he died a few years ago but, such is life.
I'm afraid you will have to grow a thicker skin or maybe give this up.
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I am amazed, and humbled by the challenges my ancestors faced. Some of the information I've found made me depressed--my great great great grandfather, who was sent to the Joint Counties Lunatic Asylum, in Abergavenny. Some of my research showed the institution was run by a progressive doctor, Richard Glendenning, MD. He banned alcohol rations, encouraged gardening, exercise, and a healthy diet for patients. He published a treatise on the role of brain tumors in triggering mental illness.
Don't you wonder what the ancestors would think of you? Mine would say 'you have it easy' and to some extent, I do.