RootsChat.Com

All I know is Chichester, but that may be just Job's place of residence. If I find out more I'll let you know.
Paul

Thanks Sally. All that information is very interesting. These names are still common in the family, including my own children and right down to my nephew's children, without knowing they were ancestral names.

My father had tight black curly hair and a very swarthy appearance, so I'm wondering if my ancestors might have been from the low-caste 'black-faced' gypsies. When my wife first knew me, she imagined for the first year of our relationship that I was from India, or at the very least from the southern Mediterranean, as I had long wavy dark hair and a very brown skin. However, probably the latter was simply because I was always very brown from the Sun, as I worked casually outside on farms a lot.

Wow! That's amazing sallyyorks, that this info was there on this site all along. George is a common name in my more immediate ancestry too, as my father and grandfather both bore this as their first name.

I've also heard that James Deacon married Elizabeth Mayo. I wonder what nelwild's interest was? Does her family link into the Mayo's as well, do you know?

Redroger and cathayb, the reason I did not respond to your request to report some of the Romani words used by my family, as a test to see if my family had Romani roots, is that the whole of the Romani language has been in the public domain for 200 years, at least since George Borrow began to report his conversations with the Petulengros and other Roms.

As I have read all his books (such as 'Romany Rye') and also other Romani autobiographies that had many phrases and words in them, how am I supposed to remember what was genuinely from my hearing them in childhood and what I've merely read in these books?

In addition, many Rom words can be found on the internet, so I don't think that asking someone to say these words would be a very useful test of ancestry. So I'm sticking to plain English.

I'm three-quarters gaujo and one quarter gypsy of some kind - whether from genuinely Romani stock or just hawkers of some other kind remains to be seen - once cathayb has got my names and dates info and is able to do her research as she kindly offered.

I came onto this site in response to an out-of-the-blue private message from a Romani gentleman who hoped I could help him trace the links between his family and the Mayo's. However, he already knew more about that than I did. It seems the Mayo ancestors intermarried with a number of attested Romani families including his, also at least one fairground family.

I came onto the 'Are they gypsies?' blog to find out the facts, if possible. I have some full-blood Romani friends, so it would be interesting if it turned out we are distantly related, however far back.

cathayb, I did not mean to infer that all Romanis are fortune tellers nor anything of the sort. Could you perhaps be a little over-sensitive about that?

In fact I think that side of me came not through my male-line Romani ancestors so much; more through my mother's side of the family, who were descended from French Hugenots according to my late maternal grandmother Connie, bless her soul. Certainly there were Hugenots in Mitcham and had been for centuries. She lived in Lavender Grove, built on the site of the former lavender farm there.

By the way, I am not a fortune-teller. I merely help people to understand themselves better, with a few guidelines and dates for the future and insights into past events. To save the obvious response, this is not an advert for my services, as I have always had more clients than I can cope with and am determinedly winding down after a long career.

My mother was very psychic but deeply scared of that ability and repressed it as best she could. I was not scared and developed it, which has enabled me to help thousands of people to understand themselves better. I also was a schoolteacher for a few years as a younger man, teaching physics. I am autistic, but not stupid. I see things most others apparently don't. Generally I have to keep very quiet about that in polite company; maybe it applies to this site too?

You ask about my paternal grandfather, the full-blood gypsy (Romani as far as the family can tell). My grandfather (George Henry Mayo) was the first on the male side of the family to be born in a house, in Mitcham. His father in turn had been born 'by the side of the road' to quote his birth certificate, as were all his forebears. I think the direct ancestor who lived in the White Hart Yard was called James Mayo, but I'd have to check that with my brother or sister, who are the natural archivists of the family.

I am the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son, going back and back.

I can see what Redroger meant by his suspicions now, as it is also radiating from your reply too cathayb, and I can understand. Please do not think that I meant any disrespect to the Romani community; I did not. I'm a third generation outsider now, looking into your private forum where you have rightly earned considerable ascendancy and respect. So I can just bugger off, and I will, with full apology.

Please appreciate that my posts on the site today were merely in the hope of drawing out more information about my ancestry than my family already knows.

My wife and I have been surrounded by a circle of Romanis occasionally visiting us from the etheric realms for several years now, helping us to stay safe from the many threats that people like us face - and healing us when we fall victim to the negativity of certain ignorant people's over-powerful Ego-driven minds. These kind and protective 'visitors' did tell us their family name, but I have forgotten it. It might have been Lee; I'll check to see if my wife remembers.

This 'camp-fire group' is the private reason I posted up. Perhaps my curiosity was idle; some things are not to be mentioned - yet here am I laying it out for anyone to see. In my opinion, the world is in such a parlous state that we human people are past the point where keeping secrets is the answer. 'Lay it out and let people choose for themselves' is my simple philosophy now. If that results in me being disrespected, wounded or shot out of the skies, too bad. I'm old and ready to join the ancestors any time. Meanwhile our circle of helpers is keeping us going.

I'll leave you in peace now. May you and your family be much loved and respected.
My regards and good wishes to all who read this,
Paul Mayo