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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: nudge67 on Sunday 18 September 22 22:40 BST (UK)
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Hi all
My family history has taken a very unexpected turn, and I'm not sure how to deal with it.
When I began, my family were proudly descended from 19th century South Australian free settlers. I unearthed two convicts on my mother's side and faced some resistance in reconciling my family to that. However, the fact that both convicts were not murderers or rapists but had merely stolen from their employers to feed their families, and had committed no further crimes, helped with that, as had the general Australian attitude since the bicentenary in 1988 to be proud rather than ashamed of convict heritage.
But this week I have now stumbled on the fact that on my father's side we go back to the plantation owning Codrington family of the Leeward Islands and Barbados, who owned and traded in hundreds of slaves. Never would I have expected my family history to take me down this path.
I feel very conflicted about this, as it is totally at odds with my Quaker upbringing. I am literally losing sleep over this.
How do I reconcile this history with myself, and then present it to my family?
Any advice appreciated.
Nudge
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1. You have done nothing wrong.
2. The past is a different country. They do things differently there.
3. You cannot change what has happened.
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The past is exactly that - the past. You have no control over what your ancestors did or didn't do. You have to accept the way things were back then and not dwell on it.
We never know what our research into our FH is going to turn up so why lose sleep over something thats so far in the past? I think we are looking at 16th century - is that right?
If your family were so concerned with your other findings you may want to consider how they will react to this news. If they are interested in your research & it is documented - they are going to find out sooner or later
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We all have some sketchy ancestors. I haven't found any slave owners but I have found some sleazy, small-time crooks and, of course, there were a lot who benefited from the displacement of Native Americans from their land.
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1. You have done nothing wrong.
2. The past is a different country. They do things differently there.
3. You cannot change what has happened.
And above all, don't feel ashamed (or proud) about anything you find; it's just interesting !
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You are not responsible for the actions of your ancestors or relatives. In my case I knew I had German relatives, when I found them on my tree, I stopped there. I did not want to know if there were any descendants of this family and what they may have done in WW2. And so this branch of my family remained blank for many years. However my German relatives filled in the blanks for me on a Genealogical site. Three of them died fighting for Nazi Germany. They were not poorly educated, naive conscripts, all were officers. The worst of them was an officer in the Waffen-SS. The only good thing I can say about him is he got killed relatively early in the war in July 1941. His mother was English and that's how I ended up related to him, his slightly older English cousin was killed fighting for the English in WW1. It has taken me awhile to come to terms with this, and it's not easy. But I am not responsible for what my German relatives did. And you are not responsible for what your ancestors did. I am however responsible for my own actions and words, so I try my best to treat all people I meet equally, regardless of race, nationality, color, creed, sex, religion etc.
And that is the best I can do.
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There’s probably not one person alive in the world today who doesn’t have ancestors who raped, murdered, pillaged or worse at some time in the dim and distant past.
As long as you’re not continuing on that path, just let it go.
If your family are interested in their history and you are keeping them informed of your findings, just tell them what you’ve found. Alternatively, you can lie and/or leave out the bits you find unacceptable.
Added: Have you checked the accuracy of your findings about the slave owning families?
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I would look at at it differently - your family discoveries are a microcosm of what is happening in wider society. Institutions like universities, cities,, churches, charities are waking up to the fact that their present status and wealth is absolutely linked to the former slave trade and publicly recognising and acknowledging the fact. It's not a matter of feeling guilty about things we didn't do and can't change, but is a recognition of how we got to where we are now.
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Eck 18
The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
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Believe in and follow your Book’s teachings.
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1. You have done nothing wrong.
2. The past is a different country. They do things differently there.
3. You cannot change what has happened.
And above all, don't feel ashamed (or proud) about anything you find; it's just interesting !
Completely agree with Andrew. I set out to record my family history as accurately as possible. I am not to blame for my ancestor's wrongs in the same way I am not entitled to credit for their accomplishments. I think it is highly unlikely that anyone could compile a decent sized tree and not find at least one ancestor whose actions they don't completely approve of.
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Believe in and follow your Book’s teachings.
What - every single one of them ? :)
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Believe in and follow your Book’s teachings.
What - every single one of them ? :)
There's some very dodgy stuff in that book.
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So sorry that this is bothering you .
I just wondered have you done the DNA trail as well as the paper trail
There may have been a break in the lines and these people NOT. Blood relatives .
If you have done DNA and not yet come across any matches with any African ethnicity
You can at least be assured that your relatives didn't have relationships with their slaves .
Also they may have owned slaves thru inheritance not personal choice and could still have been taking part in the underground slave liberation train .
Just because someone was recorded as slave may not mean that was actual relationship as mixed race marriage was illegal sometimes a loving couple was recorded as slave owner and slave .
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Very, very sorry that you have taken this stance as we cannot be held responsible for our ancestors' misdoings.
A lot of things happened in the past which were horrendous, all over the world and in all centuries. All we can hope is that SOME lessons have been learned, and that these horrors never happen again, although I very much doubt it. After all we are hearing of dreadful happening currently in lots of different areas of the world. Man, unfortunately, is not the nicest/kindest species of animal on earth. :-\
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Bumble, by us researching and telling the stories we are helping give others the opportunity to learn from the past. You're right many won't but at least we are doing our part.
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Absolutely, pharmaT. I've been researching my families for some years now. Up to now I have not found any real "black sheep", but I did find, and trace his journeys, a Missionary who went to South Africa in 1819, just a few months after marrying in Leeds. He later left the ministry and became Mayor of PMB and was known to a lot of people as "old shixty" as that was the interest rate he charged :o
In 1832 he helped Chief Moroka and his tribe on their trek from Maquassie to Thaba Nchu.
I've just found this item (a few minutes ago)-
"In 1848 Archbell resigned from the ministry. In his subsequent career as a journalist and politician in Natal, he was a leader in the cause of white supremacy, repeatedly expressing distaste for African people and bitter opposition to all so-called negrophile missionaries like John Philip."
:o :o
On the other hand I had families living in Yorkshire whose children worked in the mills from an early age.
We have to take the rough with the smooth and REMEMBER that their lives were THEN, and ours are now. We can't change history :-X
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Hi all
My family history has taken a very unexpected turn, and I'm not sure how to deal with it.
When I began, my family were proudly descended from 19th century South Australian free settlers. I unearthed two convicts on my mother's side and faced some resistance in reconciling my family to that. However, the fact that both convicts were not murderers or rapists but had merely stolen from their employers to feed their families, and had committed no further crimes, helped with that, as had the general Australian attitude since the bicentenary in 1988 to be proud rather than ashamed of convict heritage.
But this week I have now stumbled on the fact that on my father's side we go back to the plantation owning Codrington family of the Leeward Islands and Barbados, who owned and traded in hundreds of slaves. Never would I have expected my family history to take me down this path.
I feel very conflicted about this, as it is totally at odds with my Quaker upbringing. I am literally losing sleep over this.
How do I reconcile this history with myself, and then present it to my family?
Any advice appreciated.
Nudge
You don’t, if you want to do family history the first thing you have to accept is, nothing you do today will change the past, record accurately what you have learnt and do not repeat what they have done if is against your beliefs.
What can you do, trace the descendants of every slave they owned and give each a thousand pounds, would that change any second of the past, NO!
Will it make amends to the people who were wronged no, the only thing it might do is make you feel better, so don’t try to slave your conscious, instead live a true life.
I as a none Quaker thought one of the Quaker values was that the truth is continually revealed. Are you at odds with the revelation or that your Quaker values have proved to be true in this respect?
If the latter do you believe that each individual is unique, if that is also true then show your uniqueness by not repeating the past mistakes.
Bring out your inner strength and respect your fellow man whether they have done right or wrong do not judge them, accept them as I believe your faith guides you to do.
Cheers
Guy
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I have a quite recent ancestor who cheated on his dying wife while she was ill with TB and got another woman pregnant. The woman was a single woman and they later married after his dying wife succumbed to her illness. They then moved to another part of the country.
We always will find an ancestor who was illegitimate, a criminal who was sent to Australia, or a shotgun wedding, but the huge amount of pregnant brides in the 1700s and 1800s, and earlier and later, shows bridal pregnancy was actually very, very common.
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You cannot rewind the reel and start again. What has been done has been done. I think that you have to be a bit careful in how you deal with such information so as not to upset the sensibilities of some folk. But such discoveries can provide "bragging rights" under some circumstances.
My particular "bad egg" was my g grandfather's brother in law who finished up killing his lover ( a married lady) and then turning the gun on himself. But it was over one hundred years ago so it is unlikely to create much of a stir today.
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Probably the best thing you can do is to make public records of the Codrington plantation if any still exist. They may not reflect well on the Codringtons of that era but they could help the descendants of the plantation's enslaved people find their ancestors.
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Quite interesting!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codrington_Plantations
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20 years ago I found out my great great grandfather committed suicide in 1894 in rural Suffolk. I was in touch with one of his grandsons born 1914. He wondered whatever happened to his grandfather but I already knew but never told him as he was 88 at the time. I suggested he may have emigrated or moved away but knew the truth. My dad said he would have told him as he is not a baby. Tactful, not.
Mark Herber's fantastic Ancestral Trails book said if you were to find an elderly relatives father was illegitimate then would it be necessary to tell them, and best to perhaps keep quiet.
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Facts are facts. You can either ignore them, or accept them. Once you know the fact, you know it. No amount of ignoring will change that. So all that is left is acceptance.
Accept what you have found and move on. And then tell your relatives the same thing.
Regards
Chas
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Convicted > Sentenced to Death > Commuted
Convicted again > Sentenced to Death again > Commuted > put on a Hulk on the Thames > shipped to Australia > served sentence > pardoned on condition he never returns to the UK or any British Territory.
This was one of my xGreat Uncles and you think you have problems with your Ancestors.
Think about my Wife’s line, one hung drawn and quartered made worst in that the person sentencing him was also a relative but on a different line.
Then there are all the relatives we all had who fought in various wars and killed the enemy, how can we each resolve that?
Life happens, forgive, accept and move on, if you cannot then there is imo something wrong with the Quaker teachings.
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2 of my 3xgreat uncles were sent to Australia. One for stealing a horse in 1827 and the other for maiming a man in a pub in 1836. The 1827 one made it to Australia just in time for the NSW 1828 census.
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Thank you all for your input on this. Now that the initial shock has worn off, I'm viewing this as objectively as I would any other history
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We always will find .... a shotgun wedding, but the huge amount of pregnant brides in the 1700s and 1800s, and earlier and later, shows bridal pregnancy was actually very, very common.
Well, these days pregnancy is also pretty common (though perhaps less common than back then :) ) but the bridal part is often postponed until years later. We've all got used to it.
But as far as the 1800s are concerned, I think that when a young couple got engaged or plighted their troth, intimacy began, perhaps to find out whether the union would be fertile. If that was proved, a wedding was promptly arranged, with the result you describe. There are a few examples in my tree.
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Throughout history human beings have enslaved each other, people of the same race and people of different races. The Vikings did it, North American Indigenous peoples did it, Africans enslaved each other, the British/Spanish/Portuguese/French enslaved Africans. Who built the pyramids? Slaves.
I am in no way condoning slavery, but it has existed for many thousands of years. My children have slave owners amongst their New England ancestors, but I don’t feel they are tainted.
Several of my family members were the victims of nasty crimes, and I am sure somewhere there are a few nasty characters directly related to me. When I find the, I will have to come to terms.
My mother was born to a young single mother. She did nothing wrong, but suffered due to societal attitudes when she was a child. The descendants are innocent.
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We always will find .... a shotgun wedding, but the huge amount of pregnant brides in the 1700s and 1800s, and earlier and later, shows bridal pregnancy was actually very, very common.
Well, these days pregnancy is also pretty common (though perhaps less common than back then :) ) but the bridal part is often postponed until years later. We've all got used to it.
But as far as the 1800s are concerned, I think that when a young couple got engaged or plighted their troth, intimacy began, perhaps to find out whether the union would be fertile. If that was proved, a wedding was promptly arranged, with the result you describe. There are a few examples in my tree.
Yes, and mine.
I have a case of my 3xreat gran whose recorded mother was 51 at the time of the birth, but had the middle name of an older sister who went on to have several more illegitimate children. I think the "older sister" was her birth mother, as the recorded 51 year old mother's previous child was born 8 years earlier. Goes to show that you do not always know who the mother is, you can get NME's as well as NPE's. Grandmother passed off as mother for instance.
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I think the "older sister" was her birth mother, as the recorded 51 year old mother's previous child was born 8 years earlier. Goes to show that you do not always know who the mother is, you can get NME's as well as NPE's. Grandmother passed off as mother for instance.
A well-known explanation for a possibly awkward (but not unusual) family situation.
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An update.
Further research on the Codrington tree (i think it's a species of lantana; very entangled and thorny) reveals that I am descended from a junior branch of that family that stayed in Gloucestershire, not the slave owning sugar barons of Barbados.
nudge.
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The following probable fact is applicable to everyone researching Genealogy
“mis-treatment, enslavement, death, murder, family against family, persecution, manipulation of others, intrigue, treachery is in everyones Family Line, it is there for sure and if you think otherwise it is just because you have yet to find it”.
I have traced lines back over a 1000 years and found everything in the above statement to be true.
Remember the probable fact that 98% of western European people are descended one way or another to King Edward III, and that certainly leads to everything in the statement.
Live with it or take up another interest.
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The very boring, little of interest ancestors that I have all over my tree at least mean that I'm spared such guilt as Nudge67 has felt. The worst I can muster is a workhouse master who it appears lost his place, for being too kind!
TY
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The very boring, little of interest ancestors that I have all over my tree at least mean that I'm spared such guilt as Nudge67 has felt. The worst I can muster is a workhouse master who it appears lost his place, for being too kind!
The worst I can offer is a bit of bankruptcy, alleged embezzlement, and a suggested suicide which I have been unable to confirm. My wife's tree shows some bigamy and a divorce. Never any transportation or imprisonment as far as I know. Perhaps I just don't look hard enough.
Of course one must remember that even when correctly transcribed, the original info may be littered with falsehoods and obfuscation .... 8)
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Well last July I found a direct ancestor was sent to Australia in May 1791. He died just months after landing in Sydney. Landed there in Feb 1792 and died in April.
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In times gone by, except in the most extreme cases, domestic violence wasn't even considered a crime and, unless there was a death, it generally didn't get reported in the newspapers.
I have found only one case in my tree - my gg-grandfather. He was successfully sued for divorce by my gg-grandmother, and evidence of his violent behavior was presented in court. Even so, he was never held to account for the physical and mental abuse he inflicted on his wife and children. I doubt that he was the only abuser in my tree.
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Makes me wonder how many of my male ancestors were domestic abusers. I do have an ancestor's sister in rural Suffolk who appeared in the newspapers after being abused by her husband. Also my ancestor Richard Richardson (1848-1930) once got tried for assaulting his sister in law in 1870.
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Makes me wonder how many of my male ancestors were domestic abusers.
I have at least one, as he went to court for it. He was described by the authorities as being particularly bad, which considering how low the bar was in his day is pretty depressing. He was also involved in other criminal activity and was a bigamist.
I feel very impressed by his sons, who seem not to have followed in his footsteps. They all seem to have established themselves in respectable jobs and have no criminal convictions.
But as you say, there is so much that we'll never see, because it's not on paper.
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I have a distant relative who obtained a divorce against her ex-husband. He was accused of desertion, ill-treatment and beating. She obtained, with the help of her father, a divorce in 1873. Both parities re-married - she as a Divorced Woman, and he as a Widower - AND he was a Police Officer! :-X
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The worst crimes I have found in my family were committed against my relatives by a stepfather and a husband (The first what was considered rape by the courts and he went to prison, although in later years they lived together as a couple, and the second was infanticide by the father who had recently returned from WW1 and was suffering from what is now considered PTSD.). The newspaper reports were certainly crucial in providing information.
My 2x Gr grandmother tried to commit suicide after her father died, but failed. A great-great uncle succeeded by using a tool that was used to “humanely” kill livestock for food sales.
My one amusing crime case was a relative’s wife who was in court for telling fortunes in her flat. She was fined. Oh, and another one, a blood relative and former policeman who was selling beer without a license. He was a very interesting character who was involved in many things that got him in the papers. Still don’t know if the woman he arrested named Martha Carter was the same Martha Carter he later married!
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Obviously she wasn't very good at it! ;D
My one amusing crime case was a relative’s wife who was in court for telling fortunes in her flat. She was fined.
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Obviously she wasn't very good at it! ;D
My one amusing crime case was a relative’s wife who was in court for telling fortunes in her flat. She was fined.
Oh, good one! Didn’t even think of that!
The newspaper report included that she’d brought her baby to court - I’ve never been able to find him after he appeared in a census as a young adult.
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It's not surprising that some of our ancestors weren't as pure as the driven snow considering the circumstances they lived in.
It was far better to drink mead and ale/beer than pure water, water was often contaminated by animals defecating faeces in the streams and factories discharging chemicals into local waterways.
Old directories show that often there was more than one beer house in a street, thus If was very easy in that era to be an alcoholic.
Then there were hatters using mercury in their trade (hence the term "mad as a hatter")
Napoleon often accused the English of poisoning him, which was denied at the time.
Eventually it was discovered that the green paint in his house was the cause:-
During his exile on St. Helena, Napoleon resided in a house in which the rooms were painted bright green, his favorite color. The cause of his death is generally believed to have been stomach cancer, and arsenic exposure has been linked to an increased risk of gastric carcinoma. Analysis of samples of his hair revealed significant amounts of arsenic.[13] As St. Helena has a rather damp climate, it is likely that fungus grew on the walls. It has also been suggested that the presence of such abnormally high levels of arsenic might be due to attempts at preserving his body.[28] However, more recent research has proven this theory to be false, and Napoleon did indeed die of stomach cancer.
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Sorry about this BUT:
Are we really trying to say that past generations were worse than the current one? Not very sure that I would agree with that :-\ :o :-X
I'm basically very glad that I was born in the 1940's and grew up in the 1950's and 1960's. I would definitely not like to be young today!
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Nope.
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I too wouldn't want to be making my way into the world today.
My generation didn't reach our majority until our twenty-first birthday. I think eighteen years old is too young to be classed as a full adult, when we know that our bones do not even reach maturity until we're about twenty-five/twenty-six years old. The vehicle insurance companies also don't think their clients are fully grown adults until they reach their mid twenties, as can be seen by the exorbitant cost of vehicle insurances for eighteen year old drivers.
Alcohol affects people in different ways. Some people get the giggles, some people just want to go to sleep. I've seen males whose friends have had to stop a pal fighting everyone after he had drunk a pint of beer.
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Sorry about this BUT:
Are we really trying to say that past generations were worse than the current one? Not very sure that I would agree with that :-\ :o :-X
I'm basically very glad that I was born in the 1940's and grew up in the 1950's and 1960's. I would definitely not like to be young today!
You are so right BumbleB, we were extremely fortunate to be born then. Life was not easy for a lot of people in post war Britain, but generally, respect for others was much greater than it is today
I don’t understand why some people get so worked up about what our ancestors did or didn’t do in the past. The expectations of some that we should apologise for what our ancestors did, the past is history and we cannot change it. What we can do, is to Try our utmost to see that terrible things are not repeated.
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You are so right BumbleB, we were extremely fortunate to be born then. Life was not easy for a lot of people in post war Britain, but generally, respect for others was much greater than it is today
The war had made everyone well disciplined. They had to be, lives depended upon it. Whether in the forces, in war production, in volunteer units or somehow making rations stretch to feed and clothe the family. They brought up their children in the same spirit.
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Hi,
I am late on this post but I have one relative whom I find hard to deal with objectively. What she did was probably because of circumstance and there was little alternative , in her mind, as to how her future would be.
I originally was totally flattened by the news but I have put my thoughts past her actions then,
However I still have issues as later there were other instances of odd behaviour.
Sadly I cannot respect her as I should. I have documented everything and some others know most of the story and are also saddened and shocked but we all have accepted the past.
The worst part is she is a quite close relative but one I never knew. :(
I have followed all about her as she became more an more interesting and important to my research and family.
There are still unanswered questions.
Essnell
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The expectations of some that we should apologise for what our ancestors did, the past is history and we cannot change it. What we can do, is to Try our utmost to see that terrible things are not repeated.
We can also recognise that many of the advantages that we have as a society are directly linked to the exploitation of other societies in the past, and that the opposite is true. Apologies for past behaviour are one thing, but it is more important to work fairly with those communities and those parts of the world that are still suffering the consequences of our enrichment at their expense.
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Apologising does not alter the past.
An apology should be at the time and recognising that they were wrong. As one or as a group. Acknowledge what they did, but don't judge them from your today standards. Document and move on.
As Mike says the past is past and you cannot change it. Live in the present, it's all we have. Act respectfully and thoughtfully.
Essnell
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Also if you was to find an NPE in your tree, then if the documented father who was not the blood father bought your ancestor up, shared their surname and was married to the mother, and there at the birth, then he was still an ancestor of yours in every way but biology.
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Also if you was to find an NPE in your tree, then if the documented father who was not the blood father bought your ancestor up, shared their surname and was married to the mother, and there at the birth, then he was still an ancestor of yours in every way but biology.
But ancestry is biology. The parental relationship that someone has with a stepchild, while it might be wonderful and loving, is not biological or ancestral.
My mother was partly brought up by her aunt, and while they were very close, I don’t regard my great-aunt as my ancestor.
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"But ancestry is biology."
This biologist disagrees.
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I simply meant to say our DNA was contributed by our ancestors. Step parents and other family members may have a profound influence on us in other ways, but they are not related to us in a biological way. Ancestors, to me, have a DNA, or biological connection.
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There's a lot more to biology, especially human biology, than DNA, and a lot more to family history than bloodlines.
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There's a lot more to biology, especially human biology, than DNA, and a lot more to family history than bloodlines.
Hear hear.
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Family history is different from ancestry, in my opinion, and we can agree to disagree. Simply the way I look at it is that ancestry is the biological contribution of parents, grandparents, and so on. Family history, of course, does include that but it also includes other relatives, migration, occupations, religions, etc.
it’s just in my way of thinking, my dog has a biological ancestry as all animals do, but we humans also have a much more complex family history.
Biological ancestry and family history are both interesting and we can’t have one without the other.
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"we can agree to disagree."
Yes, we can. For my part, I try to avoid the 'studbook' approach.
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"we can agree to disagree."
Yes, we can. For my part, I try to avoid the 'studbook' approach.
Well, so do I. Simply stating my opinion on what I think the difference is.
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"we can agree to disagree."
Yes, we can. For my part, I try to avoid the 'studbook' approach.
I always feel if a man, for example, married a pregnant woman knowing the baby was another man's (who fled or died), and took on that other man's child as his own and raised them as his own, gave them their surname, and their ethics and provided for them for years, that makes them part of your family tree and technically an ancestor. The late Guy Etchells would also concur.
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Hi nudge
I have only just joined and no clue how to get around this chat yet, however, my great grandmother was Ann Goffe Pike and I noticed that one of her siblings was your great grandparent as well. Wondering how much further you have gone tracking the ancestry done.
Im heading over to Oakbank SA next week and keen to see some of the old pike buildings.
Bright Blessings Amanda