Do we idealise our ancestors?

[Rabbit B]

Hi China,

I have been fascinated by what my ancestors did for a living, as well as all the other things that you find out as you go along.

I contacted one chap who was researching the name of my G.G.Father and got loads of lovely photos and my family line going back years. 

He is a Scientist as are my children, then I found that a Cousin on the other side of my family had a Scientist Daughter.  I have found Policemen as well on both sides of the family and this is what makes it all so interesting to me! He is also a Cousin I had not heard about!  What a bonus!

Of course life changes with the generations, but I wonder if the GGGFather who was a Farm Bailiff and all the Ag labs on one side also helped to make my Son a Farmer as well.  It must be in his Genes, they would have been so proud of him I am sure.

I have all the portraits of my Ancestors [three generations]hanging on the wall up the stairwell, this may not be a stately home but they are the people who made me the person I am Like it or not!

Rabbit B   

[KathMc]

What a wonderful topic. Yes, I think some of them I absolutely idealize. My gg grandmother Sarah Scott Hayes (who I have written about before) I definitely have rosey pictures of her, but she grew up illegitimate with some family that apparently had a very loose connection to her, possibly their SIL's bastard daughter. She crossed an ocean and married by the time she was 19. She died at 24, with two daughters, and possibly 2 more children who I can't trace. I like to think her husband (my gg granddad) loved her beyond limits. He lived until 1943 (she died in 1888) and he never remarried. But who really knows. I never will.

The opposite of iealising someone is a great-grandmother of mine. My mom didn't know her too well because her dad left when she was about 2. Her grandmother tried to have a relationship with her, as much as my bitter grandmother would let her. but my great-granny was very much into appearances, buying expensive, nonsensical presents for her grandchildren, pushing my mom to be a debutante (I kid you not) and all those grandiose things. I have, in my research, found cousins who remember her and say she was quite a ... hard character, preachy Catholic in a Lutheran world, hard, very much above her "station" and bitter.

But I read a "fiction" short story she wrote in the 50s and let me tell you, I think life was really hard for her on an emotional lvel and to make a long story intriguing, my uncle wasn't her biological grandchild, she knew it and tried to love him anyway, so maybe she tried her best.

And maybe that is the message of then and NOW: we aren't perfect, but we do our best.

Kath

[Keithchr]

Hello...It's hard to idealize someone you have never met...to most of us I suppose our ancestors are only names on certificates etc......what you really need is a newspaper report...! This is about my great grandad and his 1st wife....to me he was just a fluffy old man in a photograph....tends to rather eradicate the rose tinted specs syndrome that I had of him    and goes some way to explain some later disfunctionality in his children   
Keith

[Rabbit B]

Hi Keithchr,

What a very sad story for the children, I was taught never to believe anything of what you read, nothing of what you hear, no one knows what this family had to go through in terms of deprivation.

I don't think that any of us should judge what we did not know.  Either way it is a  very sad story.

Rabbit B   

[LoneyBones]

Yes Keith, I have one of those too.
It's from a New Zealand newspaper, all about how my G-G-Grandmother was accused of disobeying the orders of the ship's captain. Her name was Elizabeth Davis, she in return accused the captain of assaulting her. There were several court cases over a couple of weeks, ending with the newspaper's prime reporter or editor denigrating Sidney Herbert's Female Emigration Fund and the "Ladies" of the 'Stately' were described as "the sweepings of the streets of London". 
The incident was over a cup of water, asked for and refused, while the ship was becalmed for 17 days in tropical waters. (1851) Elizabeth had defended the young girl who was thirsty.
I was reading this on the internet and was very angry. OH was reading over my shoulder and said, "That's where you get it from then."
I rounded on him, "What!?!" I snapped.
"Your heroism." he replied, and he meant it. 
I don't idealize Elizabeth Davis but I do see her as a real person. She went on to raise 5 children in NZ. She left her husband and ran away to Australia, was reunited with her husband and had 2 more children. She was a dressmaker and milliner who lived in the town of Hill End during the gold rush days. She couldn't have been a faithful wife as my G-G-Grandfather divorced her in 1880.
In other words, she was human.
Leonie.

[drodgers34]

its a bit like the 'big hearted yorkshire folk' myth.

Sure there are lots of them but there are also plenty of bigoted, old fashioned, unfriendly, untrusting types.

internal family feuds must have been commonplace. Howards comprised 10% of the village of holme WRY in the 1800s but I wonder how many of them were 'on speaking terms' with each other - not a lot if my two aunties - who managed to maintain a feud until one died in her seventies recently - are anything to go by.

Even relatives who are lifelong friends tend to fall out whan wills start favouring one over another (in their eyes)

And the local slang is full of words which are judgements on otthers - some of the slang terms seem to be rooted in the early 20th century so you have a link right there.

Even now residents of holme call it "hown" ore "holn" which is thought to be of the viking era.

"leet geen" means "lightly given" which is not a compliment - therse plenty of other examples