RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: JAKnighton on Sunday 19 August 18 12:59 BST (UK)
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I've been pondering over certain instances in my tree where distant cousins who share the same surname are living in close proximity to each other, and their families always have done since they originally branched off.
It made me wonder if these individuals knew their family connections, or just vaguely understood that they must be related.
Perhaps there were oral histories passed down about who their mutual ancestors were?
It would be interesting to know if my 4x great grandfather who was born in 1820, if I were to meet him via time travel, would be able to tell me the names of his great-great grandparents born in the late 1600s.
Is there any historical literature on this?
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No doubt some people were interested in their forebears and some weren't, just like today. To take a historical figure [not an ancestor of mine], Benjamin Franklin [b. 1706] wrote quite a bit about his ancestors and, when he went to England, he went to the ancestral village [Ecton, Northamptonshire] to research his paternal family and made contact with relatives still living there.
My own grandmother [b. 1881] was interested and I have found her information to be accurate.
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I have - or rather, have NOT evidence that some families simply are not interested in their ancestry!
My OH simply didn't know anything about his ancestry, despite most of them being in the town he was brought up in. Until I started digging, he knew his mother's maiden name, and her father's name, the name of his grandmother on the paternal side, and that that side of the family had come from another town.... and that was it! None of them seemed to have been close, or to meet up at family events.
I set off armed with only the casual comment from my mother in Law, some years ago, that her mother was called Tabitha, and had the same birthday as I had! No certificates, photos or family documents survived after said M in L had a good clear-out a few years before she died, not even pics of my OH as a child or youngster. The only one we had was one I'd borrowed from her, years before, and forgotten to return.
I found the marriage of his maternal grandparents from that, and set off. On the other side I did pretty much the same, but it was harder because that'd been an R.C. marriage
From that, amazingly, I managed to dig most of them up, so it's not impossible!
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I had plenty of handed down family stories and when I eventually started tracing my ancestors I knew one set of grandparents were Scottish but thought I'd find the stories relating to earlier generations of my maternal grandmother would be living in the same Yorkshire town that I was born and bred in. How wrong can one be?
I would phone my mother's sister for clues and also to tell her my latest findings. I phoned her one day to inform her I'd found one of her ancestors in the 1851 Norfolk census and he made shoes. To which she excitedly responded by saying "We knew there was a shoemaker somewhere in the family".
As her parents weren't affluent I thought they never travelled afar, but my Aunt was able to describe the Norfolk family because her parents had taken them to visit their grandparents and other members of the family when they were young. I wish I'd asked how they travelled such a long distance - road, rail, boat?
My OH was born in Yorkshire, his mother was a fervent Methodist and his father was not a known churchgoer.. On OH's paternal side, he had a Scottish grandmother and a Welsh g/father living up in Newcastle that he never knew because they had died before he was born. One of OH's stories was that one ancestor had been a preacher and when his twin daughters died he turned away from the church. I couldn't find a qualified preacher but I did find a Scottish Catholic ancestor whose twin daughters died. I can only think that OH's ancestor had had a "proper" week day job and was a Lay Preacher on Sundays and any other time he felt the need.
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From that, amazingly, I managed to dig most of them up, so it's not impossible!
I hope that's not in the literal sense... ;D
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Fortunately no! Don't think I'd have liked doing that at all.
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My gt grandfather told my mother that his family had lived in the same village for 200 years ( he was right ). My mother also said there was a family bible at his house, but she thought that my great aunt took it when my gt grandmother died, I would have loved to have seen it.
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In both my family & my OH's, people fell out with each other - my OH was amazed when I was able to very easily find his father's origins as his grandmother had looked down on the paternal side & Father grew up knowing nothing about uncles, cousins etc. So sad as they lived very close by.
OH's uncle always thought his grandfather was 'the black sheep' & again knew nothing of the huge network of family who all lived in the same small country parish for generations till we traced them - even gravestones.
When I was about 8 I went to a new school & a girl came up to me one day & told me she was my cousin. I told my Mum who said 'she's not your cousin, we don't talk to them.' Since I've been doing my research I've found she was in fact a 2nd cousin from a whole branch of the family I grew up knowing nothing about.
Still it makes the research even more interesting ;D
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I'm sure my Mum didn't know about her forebears - she had a very real dislike of people from Yorkshire ( I think she worked once with a Yorkshireman and really didn't get on with him).
Well I married a Yorkshireman, my sister married a Yorkshireman and when I did the family ancestry discovered that her paternal grandfather had been born in Yorkshire and various members of the family had been given the Freedom of the City of Hull.
She was not happy.
Pheno
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I am sure my Pearle ancestors would have known all about their ancestors, since they all lived in the same Suffolk village from at least 1541, until some of them migrated to the bright lights of Ipswich in the 1930s!
My Shadforth ancestors might also have known something of their forebears, since they were the sextons/parish clerks of St Hilda's Church, Hartlepool, for many years.
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The Preston Guardian of Friday 24 December 1847 carried an advertisement from John Broadley for "A Family register for the insertion of Births Deaths Marriages and other Domestic events; a sheet which no family should be without and which like an heir-loom should descend from one generation to another."
If he filled one in himself it hasn't survived. He was my 2xggfather born 1816 who founded a printing firm.
Another John Broadley, born 1803 wrote a letter to a friend in the 1850s which listed his paternal ancestors back to his great grandfather Jonas Broadley born 1698.
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Roopat, your comment about your 2nd cousin reminded me about the fact that I went to the same school as my first cousin and I didn`t even know him. His mother made sure that he was estranged from my uncle`s family. When she left my uncle he went to Southern Rhodesia where he died without us knowing. When we were in our 60s we had a reunion with all the cousins present!! maybe that`s not the right word as it was the first time we had met him.
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I have been very lucky that on both my lines I have g grandparents & grandparents who have not only been interested in their ancestry but have taken the time to record their knowledge, either as handwritten trees or memoirs & notes. Lots of family legends etc. most of which have turned out to be true, or at least have a basis in truth. My dad worked for his uncle during the school holidays delivering coal. He says that this uncle spent most of the day pointing out folk & explaining the family connection, most of which went right over his head! On my mother's side there is even a family 'archive' of photos, family bibles, newspaper clippings etc.
My OH's side also took an interest on both lines, one because they lived in such a tiny, isolated village they were pretty much all related somehow. The other line was relatively wealthy & paid a genealogist to produce a family tree (mid 1800s) I have a letter written in 1856 from the gentleman concerned to his sister proclaiming that finally he had proof that the family was descended from royalty (this part appers to be true as far as I can ascertain) The pedigree is impressive and accurate on the whole but claims descendency from a Derbyshire family & used their coat of arms. My own research has found no connection at all (based on wills from three generations of the Derbyshire family) so an early case of genealogical fraud!
Having said all that, my Gran (whose passing started me on this journey) was exceptionally proud of her roots but hid the fact that their first daughter was adopted at birth! We didn't find out about my aunt until after my Gran's death.
I suppose historically there were some folk who were interested and some who weren't; just as today
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Some would and some wouldn't. Those who were born and lived in the same village as their ancestors would have known their line went back, they may have heard a villager say " I knew your great great grandmother" but how interested they were about them and how important it was to them is another thing.
Many family stories are told to hide information out of past shame of an incident or like my family lack of any information with the "let sleeping dogs lie" comments works well for most people...apart from the nosy ones like me who feel a need to know.
What I will say about my mother who said she "didn't know anything" so when I found out some details I told her and it was clearly new information to her but she pretended she already knew, so I stopped short of telling her more ( if she knew she didn't need telling ;D and she wouldn't lower herself to ask me) ....... yet I found her later going through my FH folder to find out more............ what she didn't know is she was looking through the wrong one all the info was in my other file. So she feels 'safe' thinking she knows more than I do.... she is wrong!
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The mother's maiden name of my ancestor William Coombs born in 1860 was Auber. Clara Emma Auber. I am sure Billy Coombs ;D would have known about his French roots.
In a small village, I think some villagers would probably be aware they were second cousins or third cousins. Even in a town or city there may have been families that lived in the same area for generations and were 2nd/3rd cousins.
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There are still folks in the Hebrides who can recite their patronymic back hundreds of years!
Skoosh.
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After a childless gap of 10 years after their 5 children, my ggg grandparents baptized a further 2 children in 1831 and 1833, she being 43ish at the last.
The little village of Burrington in Devon where the couple and their forebears had lived for generations, would surely have known if the babies were hers or in fact those of her elder daughters born 1810 and 1813. The infants were baptized by the rector at High Bickington who had performed marriages and baptisms for years so knew the local families.
My question,..... would the rector go along with a face-saving deception of that sort in recording the parents, or did my ggg grandmother just have a last late genuine flash of ;D :P
Any thoughts?
Sue
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Over the years my mum'd often say to me "we're related to him" when I mentioned names of people.... e.g. I had a temp job at the Hospital and said I'd gone to "XYZs shop" and she said "we're related to him"... whenever I asked "how?" she'd always say "dunno".
She also called everybody her "cousin".
There were also other snippets/stories without names. e.g. when somebody in her family died by just dropping dead as a kid while fishing alone at a riverbank, she said "funny that, my cousin did that years ago and died too"....
All these "dunno" "cousin" and nameless stories.... I've eventually managed to piece them all together and know who everybody was and how they were related.
She never mentioned the beauty queen though .... knowing my mum she'd have probably said "I didn't like her...." :) so wasn't worthy of a mention.
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There are still folks in the Hebrides who can recite their patronymic back hundreds of years!
Skoosh, I can confirm that, unbelievable although true!
I have mentioned on this site previously, Highlanders (in my case) don't relate to people by their surnames but by their forenames, where they lived, followed by their ancestry, forenames/places/occupations/hair colour although in what order I can't say ;D
I recall one time within 16 - 20 yrs ago (1998-2002), I was in the local Post Office & the assistant (obviously hearing my accent) had asked if I was on holiday & did I have connections with the island which would be the 'norm' as they all love the genealogical side of things & are so helpful with their knowledge (based on the above)
However, I told her I did have 'connections' & told her my g/mother's full name with surname (which was her 2nd marital surname as my g/father had left her a widow) & where she lived.
The woman looked a wee bit stumped although my g/mother had been deceased since 1979.
My g/mother had a double barrelled forename on her BC but was known by a different name i.e. a Gaelic version of the 2nd part of her forename & as soon as I mentioned her 'gaelic' forename (no surname needed nor was it known to her), the woman was able to identify my g/mother & her genealogy, knew the name of her father, his occ. & his father.
The 'Heilan' version of MI5 :D
Annie
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@ Rosinish, deoch slainte! tae that!
Skoosh.
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Donald Trump's mother was from the Hebrides.
I have Scottish ancestors but they came from the lowlands. Selkirk. John Stewart moved to Bishop Auckland in about 1760. He had children late in life by his 2nd wife and thanks to those Dade registers (I think they were) it gave his place of origin. Not sure if the Lowland Scots were as aware of their heritage as the Highlanders.
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Surnames were used in the Highlands relatively late, the folk used a patronymic which explained exactly who they were, even back to the dim & distant! Shetlanders used a form of patronymic which changed to fixed surnames in the 18th century, the rest of the country used surnames from early times.
Skoosh.
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Simple question, no easy answer. I would have thought that pre welfare state families were more aware of relations for mutual support.
My family was in Llandogo, Mon. at the end of the 17th Century. Unfortunately, parish registers only extant from 1695. A John born 1702 was ancestor from whom my grandfather and 8 siblings descended. The strange thing was he and his family lived in Mitcheltroy, Mon. but was buried in Llandogo 1749. He wasn't the only one, the last dying in Mitcheltroy but buried in Llandogo 1804! Even more strange was a Philip who died in Mitcheltroy within the family 1757, born 1660 and buried in Llantilio Crosseny.
Fast forward to now or the last 20 years or so. In the 1990's I had a working Tree and I hunted down then current addresses and phone numbers. I was able to contact some but most didn't want to know. One stem is where I live now and a couple of family get togethers were organised.
A couple of people brought along their biscuit tins of photographs. They didn't know who the people were and only I was able to pencil in some possible ID's on the backs in pencil with question marks. It was more of a social occasion than any talking about family connections.
My grandmothers family is quite another thing altogether. My mother once said to me that my father far preferred his mothers family to his fathers. Three of them are Rootschatters. The exchange of documents and photographs has been prodigious.
Added: So, if you have missing burial entries, perhaps it's because they were buried elsewhere in your family history.
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A few months ago out of thew blue I got a call from a 1st cousin twice removed, telling me that her grandfather had recommended she contact me as she had only just begun researching her family history while I had been doing so for many years and had a wealth of information on her maternal side. I directed her to my Ancestry tree and said she was welcome to take from it whatever she liked. She then asked if I would assist her in sorting out her paternal family. I agreed and before long we had a line back to 1622, where we got stuck over an illegitimate birth. About three months in we arranged to meet at her mother's house. Taking an interest in what we were doing, her mother suddenly produced a box of old family documents, in which we were really surprised to find a horizontal ribbon of A4 sheets detailing the paternal family right back to the point at which we had become stuck. It didn't contain a single entry after 1900 so we assumed it to have been produced somewhere around that time, entirely without the aid of the net or any of the modern genealogical societies. Unfotunately the box didn't contain any research notes or other material which might have helped us to work out how the tree had been compiled. If this doesn't prove that our ancestors were interested in their ancestors, nothing does.
Keith
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Surnames were used in the Highlands relatively late, the folk used a patronymic which explained exactly who they were, even back to the dim & distant! Shetlanders used a form of patronymic which changed to fixed surnames in the 18th century, the rest of the country used surnames early times.
Skoosh.
I wish my Highlanders had handed down some snippets other than their given names ???
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Missing burials could be that they died in the workhouse and were buried in the workhouse grounds. This could be the case with missing burials in some of my ancestors when I clearly have found their spouse and siblings/children burials.
I think many people in the 1800s knew who their grandparents were unless illegitimate, orphaned or foundlings etc.
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Missing burials could be that they died in the workhouse and were buried in the workhouse grounds. This could be the case with missing burials in some of my ancestors when I clearly have found their spouse and siblings/children burials.
I think many people in the 1800s knew who their grandparents were unless illegitimate, orphaned or foundlings etc.
Last, first. Of course, now and then most people know/knew their grandparents. In fact many families count the three generations as family no one else. That occurrs within my wider family.
My example is important and may help others, nothing to do with the Workhouse, purely family integrity with their roots.
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If you lived in a small place I'd say yes but most of my family came from the industrial Midlands and lived in a big town.
I know from the 1939 register my maternal grandparents were surrounded with relatives, the nearest only a few doors away. They were from at least 2 generations away from them. I also found when my parents married after WW2 and went to live in a totally different area of the same town they were again surrounded by relatives as wills from 1950s and 60s show.
I even had a friend, Ann, living next door to my mother's 3rd cousin. They/we knew nothing of them.
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I was brought up in the same small village that my Pay ancestors had lived in for 4/5 generations, but my grandfather said there was no connection with the Pays in the next village. In fact his grandfather was one of them. I went to the village primary school with a girl who was a 4th cousin, with a different surname, but her family had also been around for several generations and no-one seemed to be aware of any relationship.
It had always felt to me as if anything beyond 2nd cousin was too far away to be remembered.
In the 60s my mother asked the rector to investigate the family in the parish registers - he was a bit horrified to find them all still in the church! I still have the notes he made.
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My Pay great-grandfather (a policeman) took great pride in recording his ancestry, and I have a book in which he very helpfully noted down places and dates of birth of his relatives and those of his wife.
This pride was passed down to my paternal uncle, who told me that he was the oldest son of an oldest son of an oldest son of an oldest son.
He was distressed to be told, after I'd done some research, that the most remote ancestor (my greatx3 grandfather) was illegitimate, and our branch of the family was descended from this man's third son.
However, I think my Pay ancestors (many of whom are shared with Top-of-the-hill) did keep in touch with each other, as there are several family cousin marriages. And I theorise that the large number of policemen in the family may be because the occupation was recommended by relatives (it provided a pension!!! ;D)
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My 3xGreat Uncle must have had an interest in genealogy because for his children's names he used the surnames of his mother & maternal grandmother -- which is fairly common. Much less common is that he also used his paternal great-grandmother's name as well.
I also have copies from the Yorkshire archives of some papers he drew up on the family -- detailing the births of his children including the exact time of birth and details of where some earlier family graves are located
Some of the names he used have carried on down to present generations -- i was contacted by a member of the Canadian branch of the family who were delighted to be told where their unusual names came from.
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My paternal g'father was well known as having fallen out with his family about the time his father died and when he married my g'mother in 1910 or so. My father and his siblings were discouraged from getting to know their relatives, even though they knew of g'mother/uncles/aunts and cousins.
What a shame!
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I wish my Highlanders had handed down some snippets other than their given names ???
Rena,
I don't know what era/area you're researching but the further back we go, records are very hard to trace possibly due to the 'Gaelic' language?
I live in hope there are records out there, still to be deciphered to English & made available :-\
Annie
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I wish my Highlanders had handed down some snippets other than their given names ???
Rena,
I don't know what era/area you're researching but the further back we go, records are very hard to trace possibly due to the 'Gaelic' language?
I live in hope there are records out there, still to be deciphered to English & made available :-\
Annie
Thanks for your thoughts Annie.
Excepting for an estimated birth year calculated from the 1841 Lanarkshire census, I haven't actually got back to the Highlands with my two branches of Mackenzie families (= Donald Mckenzie, blacksmith, born c1775 Urray R&C, and his father-in-law Donald Mckenzie, clerk, born ?). The reason I know I have two Mckenzie branches is because they were both listed on one cemetery headstone.
Inverness archivist informed me that there are no marriage records for Urray because the vicar at the time took umbrage, left his post and took the marriage records with him. They've never been located. The baptism book was located but there's a note with it that; "well meaning" people have made educated guesses and inserted additions of their own.
I've found a couple of "suitable" Donald McK marriages, one in Argyll and another of a sergeant in Edinburgh, but as I know from the 1841 census that "my" Donald's family were raised in Lanarksire I was disappointed to see from records that the other families were not.
I've been exceedingly lucky in that I've found various bits of information on the web from Edinburgh Gazette and written by village historians which means I managed to link McK brother with McK brother. Where the information is flimsiest is tracing father & son from Apprenticeship lists. This is probably due to the fact that legally no tax dues needed paying, thus no entry needed to be made where a family member gave an apprenticeship to a younger member of the family. Thus as each Clan thought of themselves as one big family, where a McKenzie trained a Mckenzie or a Cameron trained a Cameron no records are to be found - at least I've not seen any..
I'll join you in wishing us both - and everyone else - a lot of luck that old records are discovered and published.
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I'm not sure you could say my mother was interested in family history, but she certainly knew all her aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, g.grandparents etc. She was next to the youngest in a family of 10 children, so she learned a lot from her eldest siblings. Her g.grandparents had 11 children and most of those children also had large families, although her gran only had 6. Mum was always talking about (not the real names) Annie Brown, Lizzie Jones, Ada Smith, etc. etc. and when I researched her ancestors I found these were the women's maiden names. It seems because there were so many of them, quite often with the same first name, they always added the surname when talking about them so they would know which cousin(2nd/3rd etc) they were talking about. Some of the people she spoke about were spouses of cousins but unless male, still known by their maiden names. In fact when my mum mentioned my cousins she always added their surnames, even though I knew everyone of my 20 cousins and none had the same first name as another.