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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: handywithashovel on Thursday 04 February 21 17:39 GMT (UK)
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My research falls short when it comes to "well my mom said her grandma said-".
I love hearing that stuff, it's great! But how can I find it from more than one source, even if it's multiple family histories passing it down?
Even better, is there ever a way to prove nefarious plots, lovelorn glances, dramatic escapes?
I've got some wacky characters in my tree, and I'd like to be able to at least say "this is a common family story-"/"all of Texas has heard this one!" or "He wasn't even in the state when he claimed to-". A little fleshing out, if you will. ;D
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In some cases, you might find newspaper reports which support the family lore [not that everything printed in a newspaper is necessarily true, of course].
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My research falls short when it comes to "well my mom said her grandma said-".
I love hearing that stuff, it's great! But how can I find it from more than one source, even if it's multiple family histories passing it down?
Even better, is there ever a way to prove nefarious plots, lovelorn glances, dramatic escapes?
I've got some wacky characters in my tree, and I'd like to be able to at least say "this is a common family story-"/"all of Texas has heard this one!" or "He wasn't even in the state when he claimed to-". A little fleshing out, if you will. ;D
When I was young, my granddad told me a story, he had a sister who'd been living on the East Coast, outside of Norwich, during WW1. One evening, she'd been watching a zeppelin over the town and bombs being lobbed overboard. My reaction... Yes granddad, of course she did!
Quite a few years later, I inherited a lot of family ephemera, among the stuff was a little card with a photo of bomb damaged building, 1915 and an attached page with brief notes on it to my great grandparents from my great aunt Edith. Sure enough, she'd witnessed it.
I wish I'd asked her on the many visits to her house, and I wish I'd listened to more of granddads stories.
Griff
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It has worked in the opposite direction for me. I've found something re. the family tree, mentioned it to an aunt or uncle, and they've replied, oh, yes, there was a family story about... or, I remember hearing the older folks talking and saying that surname, but I never knew why. And so on.
Regards,
Josephine
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It has worked in the opposite direction for me. I've found something re. the family tree, mentioned it to an aunt or uncle, and they've replied, oh, yes, there was a family story about... or, I remember hearing the older folks talking and saying that surname, but I never knew why. And so on.
Regards,
Josephine
Oh I've definitely had that happen too! Or they say they can't remember, I present newspaper articles, a court ruling, what have you, and they shake their heads. "No, no... this can't be right... I'm sure it was a different uncle..." Ah well, makes for fun anecdotes for the descendants who will be looking us up someday ; )
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In some cases, you might find newspaper reports which support the family lore [not that everything printed in a newspaper is necessarily true, of course].
Ah, smart! Thank you for the suggestion!
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When I was young, my granddad told me a story, he had a sister who'd been living on the East Coast, outside of Norwich, during WW1. One evening, she'd been watching a zeppelin over the town and bombs being lobbed overboard. My reaction... Yes granddad, of course she did!
Quite a few years later, I inherited a lot of family ephemera, among the stuff was a little card with a photo of bomb damaged building, 1915 and an attached page with brief notes on it to my great grandparents from my great aunt Edith. Sure enough, she'd witnessed it.
I wish I'd asked her on the many visits to her house, and I wish I'd listened to more of granddads stories.
Griff
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Wow! You just never know. It's too bad to have missed some opportunities, but it's a lovely thing that you have items now, and the story that goes with them!
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When I was young, my granddad told me a story, he had a sister who'd been living on the East Coast, outside of Norwich, during WW1. One evening, she'd been watching a zeppelin over the town and bombs being lobbed overboard. My reaction... Yes granddad, of course she did!
Quite a few years later, I inherited a lot of family ephemera, among the stuff was a little card with a photo of bomb damaged building, 1915 and an attached page with brief notes on it to my great grandparents from my great aunt Edith. Sure enough, she'd witnessed it.
I wish I'd asked her on the many visits to her house, and I wish I'd listened to more of granddads stories.
Griff
Wow! You just never know. It's too bad to have missed some opportunities, but it's a lovely thing that you have items now, and the story that goes with them!
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On the other hand, my gran used to tell people her brother died when he fell in the hold of a ship and broke his back.
My mum had grown up with that explanation.
When I took up family history and sent off for his death cert, he died of TB. Some things were hidden because of the stigma attached to it in those days.
My mum never believed the death cert explanation
Griff
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When I started researching my ancestry it was just after my dad had died and I had no one to ask about him or his FH and my mother didn't want to help me just telling me 'let sleeping dogs lie' so would not allow me to see any records she had at home...... so I was on my own, not knowing how to research.....so stories or oral history I had heard, listened to, been told when a child became very important to me and I decided to write down all the stories I remembered who told me and when,
speaking to my nana one day I asked her about story she told me several years ago and it got her talking until we both noticed my mothers 'look' a look that said 'shut up'...and she did.
I spoke to great aunts/uncles and wrote everything down even if I heard the same story from the same person or a different person, it was amazing how they changed but also some gave me more details or a new detail I could use.
Once I learned how to research properly then it is exactly the same, you follow the real records and I did lots of research about what records were available for the years I was researching, so I then went out ( no internet then) to find each and every one of the real records available during their lifetime so I could cross reference each one......... the person my mother and all the family wanted to hide was my great grandfather born in 1860 died in 1933 so my mother wasn't even alive to see/know him but I eventually found 'a' record for every single year he was alive apart from one year so I knew lots about him....... 20 years after I started to research I was in contact with someone the opposite side of the world who was researching the same line and they sent me a photo of my great grandparents and most of their children ( including my grandfather aged 8 yrs old) which I had a copy made, framed it and gave it to my mother as a present..........only then did she realise I had continued to research and found out without her help.
My advice is look at the years they lived, research what records existed so civil, parish, census, tax, land, wills, newspapers and such things as trade directories, unions... (my great grandfather was a farmer so there are lots of farm records) and attempt to find each one. The oral hstory about him are all wrong, but it tells me lots about my family, that they want to hide information and in some of their case also are prepared to lie to 'keep a secret' my nana told me his name( wrong name) , she had met/known him so knew him and lied about his name just to 'keep the family secret/shame'
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"On the other hand, my gran used to tell people her brother died when he fell in the hold of a ship and broke his back."
An uncle of my husband died in just this way as a young man, but the family apparently believed he was murdered.
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"On the other hand, my gran used to tell people her brother died when he fell in the hold of a ship and broke his back."
An uncle of my husband died in just this way as a young man, but the family apparently believed he was murdered.
I've come across a few family stories which have been embellished, and a few that were hidden, thought to have been taken to the grave. Some of them have been extremely sad and I can understand why they weren't spoken of, but others are fascinating. That's a part of family history I really enjoy, solving mysteries.
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"The oral history about him are all wrong"
In my experience, there is at least a grain of truth to the stories. For example, my father told me that my gg-grandfather did not serve in the Civil War because he had been badly crippled in a farming accident. The truth is that gg-grandpa managed to squeak by to his 45th birthday without being drafted. He was crippled in a farming accident but that was many years after the war. Another example: My grandmother said that her great uncle married a widow named Curtis who had a daughter named Stella. I wrestled with this for ages before I finally figured out that she was a widow but Curtis was her maiden name and Stella was a niece who she adopted much, much later.
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"The oral history about him are all wrong"
In my experience, there is at least a grain of truth to the stories.
I would normally agree however in my great grandfathers case "The oral history about him are all wrong" they lied about who he was, the person they named was his uncle and any 'story' was about that person......... so clearly it was all wrong... the interesting thing is when I found out his name and realised there was a grave in the village grave yard scribed with his name... only later to find out he is not even buried there but 3 miles away in the next village in an unmarked grave...... so all wrong even the grave !
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Reminds me of when I was a child. My father would often say "when we lived at the castle" to which my mother always responded "you mean when they lived on their boat". My mum was right - boatmen were part of his family - no evidence at all of hierarchy. ;D ;D
Added: Unfortunately both had passed away before I even started on Family History.
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My advice is look at the years they lived, research what records existed so civil, parish, census, tax, land, wills, newspapers and such things as trade directories, unions... (my great grandfather was a farmer so there are lots of farm records) and attempt to find each one. The oral hstory about him are all wrong, but it tells me lots about my family, that they want to hide information and in some of their case also are prepared to lie to 'keep a secret' my nana told me his name( wrong name) , she had met/known him so knew him and lied about his name just to 'keep the family secret/shame'
Wow... it's too bad people feel they have to hide things. I feel for them that they have that worry or shame, and I feel for others who are missing out on the real stories because of it. Sounds like you found a lot all the same! Wills and unions, those are good ideas, thank you!
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"On the other hand, my gran used to tell people her brother died when he fell in the hold of a ship and broke his back."
An uncle of my husband died in just this way as a young man, but the family apparently believed he was murdered.
Oh my gosh! The research I find always seems happy enough to stir up the dramatics. So and so was killed!! Was it because of his uncle's posse, or was the killing party led by a man after his wife?
Or old age and fevers. Either way. :P
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"The oral history about him are all wrong"
In my experience, there is at least a grain of truth to the stories. For example, my father told me that my gg-grandfather did not serve in the Civil War because he had been badly crippled in a farming accident. The truth is that gg-grandpa managed to squeak by to his 45th birthday without being drafted. He was crippled in a farming accident but that was many years after the war. Another example: My grandmother said that her great uncle married a widow named Curtis who had a daughter named Stella. I wrestled with this for ages before I finally figured out that she was a widow but Curtis was her maiden name and Stella was a niece who she adopted much, much later.
People trying to piece together what they've heard, I think. I've definitely had to deal with that, people being married to their own parents, being their own siblings, being their parent's siblings...
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"The oral history about him are all wrong"
In my experience, there is at least a grain of truth to the stories.
I would normally agree however in my great grandfathers case "The oral history about him are all wrong" they lied about who he was, the person they named was his uncle and any 'story' was about that person......... so clearly it was all wrong... the interesting thing is when I found out his name and realised there was a grave in the village grave yard scribed with his name... only later to find out he is not even buried there but 3 miles away in the next village in an unmarked grave...... so all wrong even the grave !
:o :o :o
That's a whole lot of wild! Did you ever find out why all this trouble? If you can't trust graves, what can you trust??
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Reminds me of when I was a child. My father would often say "when we lived at the castle" to which my mother always responded "you mean when they lived on their boat". My mum was right - boatmen were part of his family - no evidence at all of hierarchy. ;D ;D
Added: Unfortunately both had passed away before I even started on Family History.
That's really cute! Maybe it was a really fancy boat ;)
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I don't somehow think so - middle of Yorkshire and the canal system for transporting goods :-\ :-\
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Wow... it's too bad people feel they have to hide things. I feel for them that they have that worry or shame, and I feel for others who are missing out on the real stories because of it. Sounds like you found a lot all the same! Wills and unions, those are good ideas, thank you!
Yes it is sad, however life and minds change about what was 'shameful' ...more open minded maybe and less bound by religion or 'what the neighbours' would say as well as less Victorian upbringing of children being seen and not heard so couldn't ask ::)
My mother was keeping her own secret ( which I found out about within 6 months of starting) and yes I followed the records and found out all the other 'secrets' she refused to tell ...30 yrs on my mother still doesn't know I know. I see no point in upsetting or embarrassing her ( and it would)
I remember asking my gran about her parents and 'saw that look' but as we were alone she whispered "I think my mum was married before but no one talked to children about that".... turned out it was her dad who was previously married ( and her mother lied about her age on marriage and in each and every census) and gran died before I researched about the 5 half older half siblings she had ( 4 of which died before they were even a month old) and grans older 'sister' was actually her half sibling
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Reminds me of when I was a child. My father would often say "when we lived at the castle" to which my mother always responded "you mean when they lived on their boat". My mum was right - boatmen were part of his family - no evidence at all of hierarchy. ;D ;D
Added: Unfortunately both had passed away before I even started on Family History.
That's really cute! Maybe it was a really fancy boat ;)
That piqued my interest too, but I translated "the Castle" as being an old pub's name and wondered where the boat was and on which canal/river.
Then, of course, he may have been taking coal from Newcastle
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Years ago someone trying to trace their family came to us looking for help. They'd already done quite a bit of research and were fortunate enough to have copies of old family letters. She thought elderly female relative who lived not far from us must have been very religious as one of the letters mentioned her going to 'The Temple' every day. As this took place in rural Ireland and the nearby churches were Church of Ireland, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic it should have been a clue. Had a good laugh when we explained that "The Temple" was the name of a pub a short distance from the old woman's home ;D
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"The Temple" was the name of a pub"
That reminds me of an article [in the Guardian, of all places!] about Vargas Llosa when he won the Nobel Prize for literature. The author obviously had not read the novels because he was unaware that the title of 'Conversación en la Catedral' did not refer to a church but rather to a bar/lunch joint called 'The Cathedral.'
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"Reminds me of when I was a child. My father would often say "when we lived at the castle" to which my mother always responded "you mean when they lived on their boat". My mum was right - boatmen were part of his family - no evidence at all of hierarchy. ;D ;D"
I wonder if this referred to a canalboat? Apparently roses and castles were a common decoration of narrowboats in Victorian times. http://narrowboatinfo.co.uk/roses-and-castles/
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Yes, the census entries all refer to "Waterman", although to be honest her father rarely appeared - Mirfield, West Riding!