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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: kat2004 on Monday 12 September 05 18:01 BST (UK)
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I just wondered how many of you can share in my experiece. My lovely nanna (god bless her!) insisted that her grandfathers name was Herbert Fisher. After months of frustrationg searches and postings on Rootschat as well as other various mailing lists i finanlly found my G grandmothers birth cert which confirms he is Thomas William Fisher, as does the marriage cert. Now I know this may seem a little trivial but you'd think it wouldnt be hard to remember your grandfathers christian name! It then occured to me how much I have taken for gospel when bombarding my rellies with family history questions.
How many others have been led up the garden path with info from relations? Its quite funny when I look back on it, and I didnt stray too far, but I guess some of you must have had similar experiences which may have led to loads of false research?
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Of course he may have been known as Herbert. My mother in law is going to cause chaos in the future she is Ruth Mary known all her life as Betty ??? ;D
Jan ;)
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It then occurred to me how much I have taken for gospel when bombarding my rellies with family history questions.
I never really thought of it as being lead up the garden path, more like cementing the things that I found, as there was an element of truth in everything they said, they just didn't know/remember all of it
Wendi
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They all tell lies >:( ;D
I've just found my Uncle Harry, he was actually called John Henry.
and
my husband's grandfather and gt grandfather was called George, oh no he wasn't, grandfather called George and gt grandfather called Thomas Henry.
I just take everything with a pinch of salt nowadays til I can prove it one way or another.
Bee
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My Gt.Uncle - a John Henry was always known as Uncle Jum to me. I learnt later that this was short for Jumbo but where this originated I don't know. He wasn't large !
It was years later when I learnt his true name. My father was named for him and sometimes known as Jack !
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In Wales Henry is an other form of Harry. I have also found it almost used as a nick name for all kinds of real names ??? but only from 1900 onwards
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My rellies are all in cahoots ;D
They all say "no, sorry can't remember names, dates or details".
Then when presented with that information obtained through months of blood, sweat and tears they respond with "well now, didn't I tell you the story about......."
Bless them all but grrrrrrr too ;D ;D ;D
Tabitha
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Im so glad Im not the only one! It made me realise just how Ive naive Ive been really, and dont you just love it when a great uncle tells you one version of a family story and then a cousin will give you a very different version, neither of them will be right but I still write everything down! And my family get soooo righteous and competitive with what they say, one great aunt wanted to know everything my great uncle had said and then she completely turned it all around and said "he always was a billy liar"! I really dont want to start a family divide so I just nod my head politely and agree hoping that neither find out what a traitor I am!
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::) aww shucks i'm not the only one then !!
makes me feel a darn sight better i thought i was the only one who ever got confronted with the "you didnt say you needed to know that" line! ::)
donna
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How about this my fathers youngest brother was always Uncle Wool when I was growing up. It's only recently I found out his real name is Francis. The reason behind the nickname, he was premature and was wrapped in cotton wool, before humidicribs of course. Jabawak
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My Grandfather Tony, who called his first son Tony, was in fact called Thomas.
A great grandfather was known as George Bernard but was really Jeremiah.
A great grandmother was known as Annie but was really Elizabeth
::)
Sharon
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Mis-Information OR which side of the fence
I spent years looking for a Great Aunt Alice...
My Grandmother Sister
My Mother had heard of her but could not place her.
I then spoke to my Auntie Pat (Great Aunt).
Who is Auntie Alice?
Oh its me.... half of the family call me Alice the
other half Pat?
But why?
Dunno I think it was something to do with when
I was training to be a nurse and there was other
Alice and it kind of stuck! ::)
The best is when you get a story from one side
of the family and then a half contradictary story
from the other. (You just have to except that
they are coming from two different view points)
Jinks
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I have a case of mis-information that is not really so much a problem for me as the genealogist, but must have been a bit annoying for the person in question! My g-grandfather Walter came home from school one day and asked his mother what his middle name was. A bunch of his buddies had been talking about their middle names and he was starting to feel left out because he didn't know his. His mother told him it was Welrose. So, years later when he went to get married he registered himself as Walter Welrose. When his mother saw the marriage certificate she burst out laughing! "That isn't your name" she said. "You don't have a middle name - I just told you that so you would stop pestering me about it!" (I'd be thinking, er.... thanks mom.... couldn't you have made up a better name?)
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I laughed out load reading that, just think of the amount of things we tell our children that they take as gospel, it's shocking really!!
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Hi there,
I couldn't help laughing as I read these posts - I too have heard the old line "hadn't I already told you that family information" many times. It doesn't seem to matter how many times you ask, as soon as you find some exciting piece of information after weeks or months of searching, someone is bound to say "I could have told you that". ::)
But my favourite for mis-information has to be my 2x great grandmother. She spent her whole life telling "porkies" to anyone who would listen and unfortunately everyone seemed to take them as gospel. She lied about her name, her parents, her upbringing, her countries of residence, marriages that never happened, illegitimate children with made-up fathers who later disappeared, fake educational qualifications; basically anything you can think of. And this wasn't just in chats with friends - she put different information on every official document too. Imagine the fun we've had trying to trace this lady when she has a different story on every official document we look up! :o
Her obituary in the paper makes fantastic reading - if only more than 5% of it were real. It certainly makes tracing her movements from England to New Zealand a challenge. She was born illegitimately to a young mother and seems to have been given to a boarding house keeper to raise. So she spent the rest of her life creating a more exciting background and creating the type of life she probably wished she had.
She's certainly kept her descendants interested...
Debra
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My gt grandmother lied about her age for her entire life and even made things up to cover up the truth!!
When she got married she was actually only 18 whereas on the certificate she said she was 21 and she stuck to that story until she died in 1982 including memories about her older sister who had died 2 years before she was born!! Her parents had both died by the time she got married so there was no one to really say she was wrong.
My problem seems to be tapping the right information out of my "olds" though, you cant just ask a straight question it has to be eased out through stories, for example we never knew my granddad (my dad's father) had grown up in a sweetshop until one conversation lead my gran to mention how much he hated sweetshops. The thing is though when they start i cant write fast enough!!!
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My story is the other way round really.
When my mum and I began researching the family tree about 20 years ago we went to see all our elderly relatives. My nana told us all about her parents and their brothers and sisters, where they had moved to in the world, what kind of work they did. I recall her mentioning an uncle Frank with a limb missing and Uncle Ben who went to Wales. We wrote it all down very carefully.
Then we went away to act on the information we had gleaned, we ordered birth certificates for mum's four grandparents based on what we were told.
Nana's mother had an unusal name and we soon found her birth certificate reference, in one of the first volumes we looked in. The certificate when it came identified her parents and place of birth so we set off to trace down their line, discover census returns etc. The only trouble was that the family in the census we found had different names to the family that Nana had recalled.
We dismissed Nana's contribution as the mistaken stories of an old lady who had subsequently developed alzheimers.
We were not able to progress any further and the line petered out. However, we were very fortunate in that the internet came along in due course and we found some new relatives connected to one of the siblings on the census. Mum and Dad even went to stay with them for the weekend and spent a lovely time reminiscing and looking at old photographs.
One of Nana's aunts, who we had always known about and who was definitely a member of our family was not on any census we could find with the rest of her family and for years we searched and searched for her. One day quite recently Mum sent off for the sibling's birth certificate for clues and found that she had entirely different parents to the others.
A little bit of research very soon showed that 20 years ago we had sent off for the birth certificate of another woman, coincidentally with the same quite unusual name and born in the same town but registered in the following quarter. She was not Nana's mother!
Which meant the family on the census were not ours and the lovely couple Mum and Dad went to stay with were not related to us either!!!!
When we got the right birth certificate for Nana's mum and saw who her parents were and found them on the census, there was Uncle Frank with the missing limb and there was Uncle Ben in Wales and it had all been right all along!
Every word of this is true, what a total shambles - and what a difficult task my mum faced, having to tell the new rellies that we were in fact impostors.
Regards
Louise
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Hi Louise, what a story! Can you laugh about it now or do you feel a bit maddened by the coincidence of the same unusual name? I cant imagine how gutted I would feel but on the bright side I supppose you met some nice people, albeit not related!
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If they came from the same area, with the same
unusual name.
Go a generation further back and you will probably
find a match.
Are you going back to tell them your related? ;)
Jinks
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Mine is not so much misinformation as Ill just change my name.
I had a Christmas card a couple of years ago signed
Love Aunty Mary & Uncle Bill.
Thats nice I thought but who are they? I had a couple of Uncle Bills but who was Mary. So a phoned Mum.
Oh that Ginny and Bill she says but I thought her name was Virginia.No says Mum what gave you that idea!!!
My grandad was called Walter but everyone called him Ted.
Mum is no better she prefers to be called Dawn and not Beryl. If I dont do my tree now my boys wont stand a chance!!!!!
Tazzie
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lol tazzie ,
i had the same problem with my hiscox line
there was queenie and dottie
and on the davis line theres a girlie and a maarie
i'm lost with both!!
donna
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Hi Donna
I had a great aunt Queen. Her real name was Victoria Gwendoline . Lucky I knew her so had no problems tracing her . Maybe your Queenie is a Victoria or Elizabeth :D
Nashua
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lol i did find queenie ........................... she was a victoria alexandra
regards
donna
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I had another grand-mother who claimed that she was born in Scotland when she was really born in Durham, it took lots of expensive certs to find that one out, she also claimed to be descended from royalty, I haven't found a link but am keeping my fingers crossed for a little blue blood (but I won't hold my breath)
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I am researching my husband's side of the tree, not for him because he has no interest at all, but in the hope that my kids will be pleased for the info when they are older (and because I am nosey I suppose ;D).
My mother in law has totally misguided me on numerous occasions causing me to spend hours of time and sometimes buying certificates or pay per views. When I present her with my amazing find about someone in her family she always seems to know. I have been given middle names as surnames, nick names instead of real names and the wrong counties, there have even been some seemingly made up relatives that no one knows about including a supposed illegitimate link to a local lord :o
Luckily I have now got past the relatives that she would have known about and can base everything on fact. The irritating thing is that as we go further back her ancestors actually weren't labourers and we had some doctors, surgeons and other interesting professions. I think I will stick with my ag labourers at least I know where I am with them!
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This has been an interesting thread!
More than 20 years ago, I wrote letters to my father's 5 sisters, 4 of whome were older than he, about their recollections of family stories and so on. They all grew up in a small coal-mining/railroad town, Pittsburg, Kansas, which was largely settled bu Welsh immigrants, my paternal grandfather & HIS parents included.
I had been to Wales several times by then, but had not a clue toward which area to focus my research. The coal-miners predominately came from the South, but I knew my WILLIAMSes had sailed from Liverpool—NOT Bristol or London. So, were they from small coalfields in Flint/Denbigh?
The eldest of the aunts was the only one to reply with any information. She was also the bossiest and was absolutely ADAMANT that her father and grandparents had come from County Kerry, Wales. Well, I knew THAT had to be wrong, but didn't know what was right. COUNTY Kerry is Ireland, and I am sure she'd heard the words connected together when spoken by Irish Americans.
In 1983, I happened to be searching 1881 census films in London looking for the WILLIAMS family that would have contained my 4-yr old grandfather. By then, I must have learned that they'd removed to Egremont, Cumberland where my ggrandfather was an iron miner. I did ultimately find the family I sought, Edward 30, Mary 30, Arthur 4.
But the payoff was Edward's birthplace: Kerry (Ceri), Montgomery, WALES. So Aunt Lilly DID have the KERRY right.
I then went to the wallmap to locate Kerry, and discovered it to be a couple miles from Newtown. Chills went down my spine, as I'd been in Newtown several days prior, stranded, when the bus I was travelling on to Cardiff left without me. I had several hours to wait in the Newtown train station, and recalled thinking that the town was just ordinary enough to be where my folk would have originated.
SianiPowys
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Mine was being told my GUncle Mark died in WW1 (my brother was named after him) and actually finding out his name was Samuel
Willow x
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I may take that with a pinch of salt too
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My Nan always thought her husbands name was Sidney, as did he, until he had to apply for his birth certificate during the 2nd WW and found out that his name was really Alfred. He is listed as Sidney on their marriage certificate so this could cause problems in future years for someone trying to trace him!
Sue B
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My grandad was William Herbert, so we thought. He married, twice, as William Herbert. Everything he did was in the name of William Herbert. After he died, his widow found his birth cert. He was just plain 'Willie'. she never knew!
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;D Just call it the "Facts, Fantasy & the Fiction in the Family Tree"
Makes our job a little more fun in the search. :o
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Well I was named after two uncles, Thomas and Middleton who were christened as Albert Thomas and Harry Middleton but both called by their middle names.
However, Albert Thomas had a brother, well six actually, but this one, who I can remember as plain as day, uncle Richard.
I could not find any reference to his birth any where. His six brothers were all born in Deal, Kent. I know he had a wife Joyce whose death I have very recently found in 1984.
Now I have discovered from a relative that his name was actually Herbert, but and this is the frustrating part, I still cannot find any trace of his birth.
I have just this week been sent a photo of him in his Army uniform taken during WW11. On the back it says, "To Mum, Love Dick"
Confusing or what? ???
All I can say is, he must have been born sometime prior to 1925 ish, or he would not have been able to join up.
So, if any one comes across a Herbert or Richard WHITMAN birth in the Deal area of Kent, or any where for that matter, please let me know. :(
Tom
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My mother was telling me who her grandfather was and
her grandmother and her mothers siblings I was writing
info as she was telling me
anyway six months on and a lot of time and money later
she ask how I was getting on with my search so Isay
no donald watson b1858-1869 in glasgow with a wife
marion,she come running from the kitchen saying whos
donald watson we never had a donald in our family my
granda was called james and his wifes name was laing
I was gobsmacked now when she tells me anything I ring
her the fallowing day and confirm what shes said well she is eighty Izzy