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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: forestchild on Tuesday 13 August 13 17:57 BST (UK)
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Has anyone else found out things that they wish they hadn't about their family history?
I was happily going through the newspaper archive at Find My Past a few days ago when I was delighted to find articles which included the names of some of my husband's ancestors. When I looked closer, however, I discovered that his grandfather was an army deserter in the late 18oos and his great grandfather was taken to court for assulting his wife. I have now found more things about other members of the family.
I haven't told my husband yet. I'm wondering if I should. This isn't some distant ancestor it's his grandfather and great grandfather and, of course, they are our children's ancestors too.
I don't want to judge but they do sound a bit like the Victorian equivalent of those problem families you read about in The Sun!
The ironic thing is that my husband's father was very proud of his service in the army as a reservist and in World War 2.
Am I taking this too seriously? It wouldn't be so bad if it was just one person but so far there are at least 4 members of the family who have been in court for everything from embezzling their employer to petty larceny and being drunk and disorderly. :(
Sylvia
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I wouldn't worry too much. It seems as though your husband and his father were/are good members of the community and army desertion and being drunk and disorderly aren't genetic after all. If anything, you should be proud that the recent generations have come through from a disadvantaged background to be law abiding citizens.
One of my great grandfathers was done for assaulting a policeman yet his own father, (my great great grandfather) was a policeman! As far as I know, none of the descendants has subsequently assaulted anyone! Tis a bit of a shock when you discover things like that though! :o :o
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Please don't worry about it. You aren't responsible for your ancestors ;D
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With enough searching, anyone will find some black sheep among the ancestors. There's nothing to worry about; these things are not hereditary.
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Adds a bit of spice and fleshes people out as "real" characters! I've found out stuff about some of my lot who were watermen that makes me think they wouldn't have been the sort you wanted to meet on a dark night - I've turned out ok though and haven't yet fallen drunk into any docks!!
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Adds a bit of spice and fleshes people out as "real" characters!
Certainly does. As yet I haven't found any scandal or crimes in my family, I wish I had as it would make things a bit more interesting. I know people in Australia are delighted when they find that they have ancestors who were transported from the UK as convicts.
Please don't worry about it, Sylvia - your husband isn't responsible for the actions of his ancestors and who knows why they acted as they did. I think we have to accept that if we start digging into the past we may find out some things that make us a bit uncomfortable.
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Here's one - my in laws really enjoyed it as I was able to provide newspaper reports.
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=301732.msg1837097#msg1837097
Gadget
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I always thought my lot were all rather boring and law abiding until I started searching the newspapers and discovered several who were done for being drunk and disorderly....and that's just the woman!
I've now got a string of black sheep. Mostly for things like poaching, although I did find one that was arrested for stealing cabbages from a neighbours garden.
However I do have a couple of more serious cases. One was a woman who murdered her own child but reading through the report in the newspapers, her story was very sad.
But by far the worst was a man who employed children to work on his farm and was notorious for treating them very badly. He's the only one I would gladly disown, the rest I see it as a small peep into their personalities and/or maybe the way they dealt with the conditions they lived through at the time.
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I had been researching my ancestors and just couldn't get my kids or my neices and nephews interested in family history. All I got was the eye rolls and yawns and mutterings along the line of "all you care about is dead rellies".
Then I asked them "What would it take to get you interested in your family history?
They replied "find us a criminal"
So I spent hours on the black sheep ancestors site, the Old Bailey site, the list of people hanged in Uk, the Australian convict lists, the list of Chartists who were punished, etc etc. No ancestors there.
Finally, when the British Newspapers site came online I found an 1848 article about my ggg grandparents being charged with receiving stolen goods(to wit one roll of damask) at the local police courts.
I proudly announced this to my kids and neices and nephews who were quite delighted.
Then I found the case had been heard at the subsequent quarter session and they were acquitted
My kids and neices and nephews were actually disappointed and lost all further interest in their family history.
There's got to be a lesson in there: I'm just not quite sure what it is!
lilyj
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My relatives start to glaze over as well. BUT! they can remember the brother of an ancestor who went into a private asylum for the criminally insane. All the other men who were tried were acquitted so, he probably would have been as well. He was also involved in the scandal of an apparent adultery & bastardy bond. Or the gggrandfather who was a multiple bankrupt and confidence trickster (that is being polite). He got his mother-in-law to stand surety for him and she ended up in the debtors prison as well. You just have to introduce them to the right ancestors!
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Most of us have some "black sheep" somewhere, its all in the past and you are what you are today so don't worry, enjoy the present, it's all part of family history. I've got ancestors who committed crimes, and some that committed suicide but I can't change them they are my past and part of me and I am what I am today because of them.
Good luck with your research
Patty.
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I have found that having a few black sheep in the family has been a big help as I was able to find out more about them rather than just a name on the census or BMD.
You must also remember that life in the 19th century was a lot different and a lot harder than today. So I would say that unless you find something that has continued right through to the 21st century don't worry just be glad you can put 'meat on the bones' from the various records they have left behind. I even got a description including the fact he had a speech impediment to one ancestor from a jail record.
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Us family historians are all inquisitive (nosey) types ..... we cannot help it and when we find something 'choice' it spurs us on because we love and cannot resist doing it.
I have found one or two 'odd sods' in my pommy ancestors but since coming to OZ and marrying an OZ and finding out her family background with links to about seven transportees my searching here has been most enjoyable ......... trouble was that my wife's family were in complete denial of any family association with convicts and were not too pleased with my interest which started about 1960 when I first started taking 'hard copy' from the local LDS church .......... I have retained that hard copy to this day but it is all now on computer.
Groom says in #5
I know people in Australia are delighted when they find that they have ancestors who were transported from the UK as convicts.
This was not always the case .......... it was only when us 'nosey' types started to ventilate their background that they relented and eventually started to enjoy their heritage.
Your husband will most probably be pleased to know that 'some' of his ancestors did not necessarily live a quiet (pious) life.
Hang in there and enjoy!!
Joe
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And anyway, just because there's nothing recorded about them, doesn't mean all the others are pure as the driven snow! ;)
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And anyway it could be a lot worse, you could be related to the aristocrac!!!!
Dave
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I do hesitate to broadcast unsavoury details that I have found in research. There is a sense of betrayal of a secret well hidden from their contemporaries and a person's descendants. Such things were kept private for a good reason. Perhaps when another generation has passed over, it will be less sensitive a matter. I feel it is pandering to the curiosity of present family to highlight the nasty bits which will not be placed in the context of the times. These matters are mostly there to be found in the records for all to do their own research but some might be word of mouth or informed deductions.
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"a secret well hidden from their contemporaries"
Oh gosh, not necessarily. Nothing much went on in small towns that was not a matter of enjoyable gossip. It certainly wasn't any secret when my gg-grandparents' divorce trial had to be moved to another county because the local scandal was so great that even school children were mocking gg-grandpa in the streets of the village and a headline in large type declared, "Raving Maniac! C.H. Ware Loses His Mental Grip!" And there were several other articles of a similar nature.
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"a secret well hidden from their contemporaries"
Oh gosh, not necessarily. Nothing much went on in small towns that was not a matter of enjoyable gossip. It certainly wasn't any secret when my gg-grandparents' divorce trial had to be moved to another county because the local scandal was so great that even school children were mocking gg-grandpa in the streets of the village and a headline in large type declared, "Raving Maniac! C.H. Ware Loses His Mental Grip!" And there were several other articles of a similar nature.
I could not agree more ..... one has only to look at 'Trove' at;
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/33172332?searchTerm=dalkeith%20murder%20fox&searchLimits=
to see the juicy bits of news items about a distant member of my tree who was murdered by an axe.
The newspapers in those days spelt out all the gory details ..... even in the late 1930's in London our local newsagent always had copies of 'The Police Gazette' stuck in his window which showed the most hideous drawings of mutilated bodies and us kids (as kids do) used to relish looking at them.
Joe
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If you have concerns perhaps you should draw the line at those in living memory, not unlike being unable to go beyond the 1911 census here in the UK? I have found out so much over the past year both from my own research and some splendid help from chat members here. One discovery was to find out that my own paternal surname actually came from a 4th great grandmother who had a child out of wedlock. Interesting? your bet, a secret to be kept? Well no not really, unlike the discovery that a close and still living family member bashed his lady on the head with a hammer and got more than a few years inside for manslaughter - no wonder we'd not heard from him for a while! ;)
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I discovered that one of my lines, who were agricultural workers, got themselves into quite a few scrapes with the law. On a number of occasions they were involved in problems with drink, and for stealing chickens. It culminated in one member of the family stealing a loaf of bread, which ended with him being sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to 14 years transportation to Australia. After a number of months waiting on the hulks at Woolwich, he departed for Australia onboard the Letitia. En-route to the new land, the sailors onboard the ship were involved in a mutiny. Once he arrives in his new land, he seems to have led quite a full life. He entered and won ploughing competitions, although was still brought before the Courts for drunken behaviour. One night when returning home from a drink in the local town, he had to cross the river Hunter in a boat. Sadly he fell out and drowned.
I found his life and that of his family very interesting. It also made me take note how hard life was for our ancestors. The fear of being sentenced to death for stealing a loaf of bread in order to feed your family. He was obviously a hard worker as noted in the newspaper reports of the ploughing competitions. Like many of his day, he was simply very poor and trying to survive.
The one thing that can be said - He lived a very full and interesting life.
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It is amazing when you study the history of good people who were transported for insignificant crimes.
Transportation was an easy means of populating a colony.
There is one instance in my tree where a young newly married man with two young children in Norwich was caught with stolen copper and transported in 1834.
He was a whitesmith by trade and when he got his 'Ticket of Leave' he took on blacksmithing in Parramatta (which is where I am now) and was the first to be so in that area and was greatly respected there.
He took on a common law wife (1841 a daughter of a convict) and when he died (1863) he left all he had to her and his reference in his will was ' with whom I now cohabit' .......... and she died September 1912 aged 89.
They had a number of children without which I would not be here. :) :)
Joe
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I think every family has at lease one bad seed along the line some where whether they know about it or not.
I have found quite a few articles about my ancestors, when reading old newspapers I feel that local papers were just local gossip lol they reported everything, including names no privacy laws back then.
One of my ancestors was in the papers quite a bit cause she was seeking maintenance for a child, they posted the whole story about how she met the father of child, when and where and how the child was conceived. They weren't married, the guy promised her marriage and gave her some jewellery so she "gave in to him" but he never married her and didn't stay with her.
She was probably the talk of the town back then, and maybe bought some shame on her family.
I think it's helpful to have a few bad seeds because it brings up more documents and records about them.
I have found something from my partners family (direct line) about 7 generations ago, 1st cousins married. I haven't told my partner and I probably won't. I don't think it's something he needs to know. It doesn't affect him now but I know that if I told him he would worry about it.
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You or your husband are not responsible for what your respective ancestors did or didn't do. We are all human and we all make mistakes.
As family historians we are also nosey and dredge up things from the past about our ancesors lives that even they may have been ashamed of and would prefer to be left alone and forgotten.
No one would help me when I began, my mother said " let sleeping dogs lie" my grandmother confused me when I asked the same question a few weeks apart and gave me conflicting information, so I knew there was more to know...and there was.
30 Years of researching and it is only in the last couple of years my mother has shown any interest in my FH research, 30 years of my silence about what I might have found got the better of her and I caught secretly her looking at my FH folder, saying nothing I let her read it and she sighed and said " interesting" I smiled, she is satisfied I found nothing. However the file she looked at is my bare basic info, I found her secret within weeks of starting, sorted out the conflicting information from my grandmother and uncovered many things within the first two years of researching, I have known for 28 plus years but I see no point in upsetting them about things they wish to 'keep secret' and other things they don't even know about that would possibly make hair curl, I am the nosey one!
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You make some interesting points.
My own mother may she be resting in peace used to say something similar along the lines of not being able to put the clock back and to which my own reply was no, but we can at least put it right. What I have learned is that we have been told as children by our parents is not always correct and misleading at best having been told in my own case on more than one occasion that my maternal grandmother was "adopted" only to find out much later that this line came down from travelers and hawkers ending up in just about one of the worst areas of my home town as was.
I also keep two records of family history. One in the public domain as it were, and one kept private and for the eyes of my own immediate family. This is not so much as hiding away facts (that can be easily found these day) but matters of opinion, experiences and family stories I have been able to attach to various levels of my research.
No dirty washing in public? I suppose :-\
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I feel that all secrets eventually come out, well most of them. IMO if the person is no longer living then why is it such a big deal to keep the secret hidden away.
I know in some cases the secret might affect living people, but I think if there was a secret that might affect me I would want to know about it.
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Unfortunately true and also uncomfortable when such 'secrets' are divulged by somebody outside of the family. It leaves a sour taste to learn that somebody else has known for years what you should have been told first. I know, it happened to me when I was told I had other full siblings, and several half siblings from previous marriages of both my parents none of which I knew about. Should my parents have told me? I think they should have, especially as both families were within spitting distance and besides, just imagine the consequence of bringing home a sister or brother as your new partner!
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Yes I agree, things like that should always be told. Especially if the unknown siblings are all living close to each other and especially once they get to dating age.
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There's a big difference between 'secrets' about currently living people and those which concern long dead ancestors. This topic started off referring to people who died ages ago - "I discovered that his grandfather was an army deserter in the late 18oos and his great grandfather was taken to court for assulting his wife." I cannot imagine any reason that an adult descendant of an army deserter or wife beater over 100 years ago would need to be shielded from this information.
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Your are quite right of course and thanks for bringing us back in line ;)
I was just responding to the previous post rather than the original where as said, if you have concerns perhaps you should draw the line at those in living memory and not unlike being unable to go beyond the 1911 census here in the UK.
I find it hard to imagine what long dead 'secrets' I would not want to know about or pass on to my family. Some no doubt would be 'uncomfortable' with Jewish ancestors and others with those from a different ethnic background - fortunately, I have found both ;D
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... Some no doubt would be 'uncomfortable' with Jewish ancestors and others with those from a different ethnic background ...
All the more reason to tell them! ;D
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... Some no doubt would be 'uncomfortable' with Jewish ancestors and others with those from a different ethnic background ...
All the more reason to tell them! ;D
Exactly.
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It looks as though my great grandfather James Piper, who died (according to family tradition) of war wounds in 1920, may have been a bit of a "character".
He married in 1912 ... but I was unable to trace him with any degree of confidence in the 1911 census. This was bothersome. But £9.25 and one marriage certificate later, I had some interesting new leads. Husband's name: James Lewis Piper otherwise Murphy. Occupation: Ship's Goods Checker.
So I started searching for James Murphy in the 1911 census and I am fairly certain I found him ... in Wormwood Scrubs. I suspect he is also the same James Murphy who was convicted at the Old Bailey in 1907 of breaking into a shop on Fleet Street (now the Timpson heel bar next to the Punch Tavern) and sentenced to 20 months.
Does this trouble me?
Not at all. Indeed, it is probably my best hope of locating a photograph of him. The relevant volume of prisoners' mugshots is, I understand, in very poor condition and I shall need to seek the archivist's advice as to whether it can be consulted at all ... but I would dearly love to have a photograph of him, even if it is in prison uniform!!
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When I was searching for a person who died ......... 'after WW1 'of wounds it said in family lore' .......... I found that he had died of syphilis.
It was easy to 'fudge' things years ago ....... but it all comes out in the end no matter what one may care to do.
Was he a 'black sheep' because he was a normal man with normal urges?.
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I certainly would not worry about what happened 100 years ago.
Crumbs what I have found in both my husbands and my side is amazing. Convicts on both sides, men who had affairs and had more children to their lovers and so on.
If anything these people make the story of the family more interesting.
Suzy W
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I agree with those who have said 'you can't help who your ancestors are or what they have done'
I did feel a bit guilty researching my great gran who was a serial killer (killed 3 husbands and a lover) but she is part of my family history and I can't change that...
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Hence the personal text under your Avatar, "Bring out your dead" ;D
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I agree with those who have said 'you can't help who your ancestors are or what they have done'
I did feel a bit guilty researching my great gran who was a serial killer (killed 3 husbands and a lover) but she is part of my family history and I can't change that...
That all sounds fascinating - did she end up on the end of a rope?
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Yes I think it shows how human they were and adds mystery and intrigue...one of my Great Uncles was rejected from the army on first application because he had been in prison over unpaid debts...when I pointed this out to a cousin I was sharing info with... he said he wouldn't include it in
his tree in case it caused embarrassment ::) He re-enlisted successfully at a later date and proved himself to be worthy of the medals he was awarded.
I think the spicier side of Family History is fun and intriguing...if our ancestors could speak..maybe they wouldn't be too proud of some of their descendants.
Carol
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Some of your stories are fascinating..makes my family tree look a bit boring... :D
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Some of your stories are fascinating..makes my family tree look a bit boring... :D
I agree however that is why many of us research our branch lines........ that is often where you find the most interesting ones and it also often adds far more to your understanding of your own line as well as de-bunking those family stories we are all told. ::)
I have found ancestors siblings who I knew little to nothing about one who I only found because of a Will written leaving her money and it opened a whole can of worms and lots of interesting information, including why I had not found her in parish records, so the ancestor who was written as 'parish clerk' on his marriage record made me really think about why his aunts baptism, witness named on marriages etc was all covered in ink blots so they could not be read, yet the BT he had no access to once sent ( and sent before he was parish clerk) it clearly showed her name etc
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I agree with those who have said 'you can't help who your ancestors are or what they have done'
I did feel a bit guilty researching my great gran who was a serial killer (killed 3 husbands and a lover) but she is part of my family history and I can't change that...
And I have one who was the victim of a serial murderess. I've always hoped that some day I would come across one of her descendants so that we could compare notes on how our ancestors' lives intersected.
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All families will have good and bad in them, that's what makes us human. In my family I have
a gt gt gt uncle who ended up in Broadmoor after killing his pregnant fiancee; :o
the first man to be hanged in Cambridge gaol - he killed a 15-year-old prostitute :o;
a gt gt gt uncle who was fined for maliciously injuring a dog :o
and many more. But the one that upset me most was my gt grandmother's half-brother, who was imprisoned for neglecting his children. His wife would have been imprisoned too, but that she died before she could be tried. There were 6 children and they were split up, the boy to the workhouse and the girls to 2 different establishments. It made me very sad that none of their many aunts/uncles were able to take them in.
On the plus side, I also have several policemen in the family tree ;D
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I agree with those who have said 'you can't help who your ancestors are or what they have done'
I did feel a bit guilty researching my great gran who was a serial killer (killed 3 husbands and a lover) but she is part of my family history and I can't change that...
That all sounds fascinating - did she end up on the end of a rope?
She was the last woman to be sentenced to hang in Durham, but was given a reprieve due to her age.
You can google 'The merry widow of Windy Nook' for the basic story, most are a bit brief, but Paul Heslop has written a well researched chapter about her in his latest book, Murder and Crime, County Durham.
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Blimey O'Reilly that's quite a story!
We had just the one murder in our family but to close for comfort to relate in detail here - seems he bashed his second lady on the head with a hammer and until very recently at least, was a guest of HM.
Families eh? As if bigamy and thievery were not enough. One thing for sure is that human nature does not change, and neither to the shenanigans we used to get up to.
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I'd agree it fleshes out these people that we all come from - I've gone one family with 13 siblings that all had 'something' happen to them that might be seen as a bit unsavoury and it makes them real people.
I've debunked some stories and found things often ten times worse ;D
One of mine murdered a policeman and his Broadmoor records have been such a fountain of information about him (writing letters to Queen Victoria!) and also his children as they came and visited and all of their visits are recorded. Another stabbed his wife to death, one had 2 families running at the same time in different parts of the country and one I am relatively sure was running a brothel......
Thing is, they were real people with real faults that had brushes with the law and if Jeremy Kyle had been around then I can say some of mine would have been on it! ;D
I've not found a single family member who has been embarrassed by what our ancestors got up to - nothing but fascination and a few giggles in fact.
I too have the odd policeman and solicitor interspersed with the lot of them too... :)
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My 4xgt Mark Brady got into an argument with a fellow shipmate and ended up smashing his skull with a handspike, which was a very hefty piece of wood. Miraculously the victim survived but Mark spent 19 weeks in Newgate Prison before being tried at the Old Bailey. I found this to be extremely interesting! I can understand how more recent generations might be awkward though, ones that living people knew personally.
Like the person whose ancestor was murdered, I did want to know what happened to the victim and how his life changed after the incident but I've found no trace of him.
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My distant relations don't come under the category of criminal (much) or violent but under "dirty rotters!"
Bankrupt, left UK and previously prosperous wife and nine children in poverty, debunked to USA(?), never heard of again.
Son advertised for Dad in USA newspapers, then left HIS wife for USA, married another woman there bigamously and sometimes swopped identities with a cousin who was also running from the same UK city who had ended up in Canada..... First (legal) wife died in Vancouver many years after he left her, had she followed his trail hoping to reunite, it was a long time before she gave in and called herself a widow!
At one time I thought it was the same person with two families as they both worked for the railways but no...they were two dirty rotters. There are probably at least two very respectable families in Canada and USA who are descended from this lot.
It's taken me years to unscramble these DR's so maybe the descendants will never get to the bottom of the mysteries.
Gen in NBL England
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I do not know, I would keep an eye out if I were you, there is a saying about bad blood
you never know where and when it can surface in a family.............speaking from experience, I mean see the thread on themes.
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I wouldn't worry to much about what happend in the past, the future counts more than that. Just make sure sure your children and their chidren don't make the same mistakes in their lives.
I have 4 brothers and 3 sisters, 5 of them have spent time in prison :( I however have never been arerested, simply because I saw the pain it caused my parents.
Even now some of my nephews have been in trouble with the police.
Eough said Lol
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If there is one consistency it's human nature, and I doubt that our ancestors shenanigans were no different to many of our own or those that will follow as we fade into the past. It just is.