Don't always believe your relations!!

[cassandra123]

Most times, family stories or legends are simply that.  Just like Chinese whispers that you played at  school, it starts off with something and gets embroidered as it passes along and ends up with perhaps the very very smidgeon of truth and the majority was myth and legend  or downright fibs.

[Paul Caswell]

My dad had a very deep scar on his back, about 9 inches long just below his shoulder blade.

Whenever we asked about it we got various stories but the commonest one was that he was stabbed in the back with a bayonet in WW2.

When he died, the coroner noted that his scar was the result of a botched operation when he was quite young.

To be honest, I preferred the bayonet story, but the 'attacked by a tiger' one was good, and the 'this is what happens to children that ask too many questions' one I am sure you've all heard.

Paul

[jukebox]

Further to all the messages about ancestors "known" names being different to those on birth certificates - my husband was christened Arthur (after a relative that had died shortly before his birth) but, from pre-teens acquired the nickname Mick, which is the only name he goes by nowadays - except with older members of his/my family.  It is a nightmare when I write Christmas cards, trying to remember who calls him by which name!!  One aunt on my side of the family thought we had divorced when I sent her a  card from Mick & Carol - only found out her worry when she next visited my parents!!!

[pennine]

My husband believed his mother's husband to be his father despite the guy being paralysed and in a wheel chair. Husband always remembered this man in a wheel chair but thought that his disability happened after his birth. Not so the guy had Muscular Dystrophy and had been paralysed from the chest down for 10 years before my husbands birth. There was no way in the late 1940s that this man could have been my husband's natural father. We have since found out that neither my husband nor his sister were this man's offspring. In fact they both have different fathers.
The sad thing is that my husband worried for years that he might end up in a wheel chair too as an hereditary thing, especially when he developed a serious back complaint.
Having said all that he still regards this man as his father.

Pennine

[ridban]

My dad had a very deep scar on his back, about 9 inches long just below his shoulder blade.

Whenever we asked about it we got various stories but the commonest one was that he was stabbed in the back with a bayonet in WW2.

When he died, the coroner noted that his scar was the result of a botched operation when he was quite young.

To be honest, I preferred the bayonet story, but the 'attacked by a tiger' one was good, and the 'this is what happens to children that ask too many questions' one I am sure you've all heard.

Paul

My dad has a scar on his back too, which he told me he got from being attacked in the jungle by a "wild carbuncle". When I told my teacher that she said there was no such thing, but I insisted that my daddy knew better. Fathers! Who'd have 'em! 

His mother, my grandmother, insisted that she was related to the Duke of Newcastle, but in all my searching, I've never found anything to substantiate that - only fruiterers, bakers and cordwainers and the like.

Mind you, when my son was little, some of his friends were talking about who they were named after, so he wanted to know too. He wasn't named after anyone - we just liked the name. But he wanted to be named after someone, so I told him he was named after his great great grandfather. Turned out to be true, too, luckily for me, when I actually got round to researching his father's ancestry!

Linda

[behindthefrogs]

His mother, my grandmother, insisted that she was related to the Duke of Newcastle, but in all my searching, I've never found anything to substantiate that - only fruiterers, bakers and cordwainers and the like.

Linda

I had one of those.  A great grandfather related to the Duke of Bedford.  We eventually discovered it was the name of his local where it seems he spent far too much of his spare time.

[ridban]

A great grandfather related to the Duke of Bedford.  We eventually discovered it was the name of his local where it seems he spent far too much of his spare time.

  That's really funny!!

Grandmother would be mortified by the very thought that such a thing could be attributed to her!

I'd just love to know the basis for her belief though. She brought up all her children to believe this was true, and behaved like a duchess all her life.

Linda

[cazza59]

I had one of those.  A great grandfather related to the Duke of Bedford.  We eventually discovered it was the name of his local where it seems he spent far too much of his spare time.

Hilarious!! 

[Jillie42]

My dad was always known as George but his birth name was Harry William. On his headstone we had to have "George (Harry William) Davis" so that in future any decendants would be able to find him.

My husband's uncle is always called George but his name is actually Alan

Why do people do this?