What is your most amazing (personal) family history discovery?

[Aulus]

That's a bit spooky!

I've always loved the Trough of Bowland (on the edges of the old or 'proper' Lancashire/Yorkshire counties).  Anyone who's visited the area and driven through the Trough will know it's a beautiful part of the country, but it's always - unconsciously - been a bit more than that.  If out for a drive, I've always wanted to try to work the Trough road into the trip, and I would never dream of taking the motorway or A6 down to Preston and then to go inland to the Ribble Valley when going from Lancaster to Clitheroe or elsewhere in the Ribble Valley.  And I've always liked Whitewell and the peacefulness of the little chapel and the churchyard.

It was, however, only when I re-started doing my family tree a couple of years ago and with easy access to censuses on the internet that I found that my great-great grandmother, Isabella Noble, was born in Sykes, slap bang in the middle of the Trough of Bowland.  A little later, going through the Whitewell registers, I found that the Nobles farmed just outside Whitewell at a farm called Fence Wood, and that my greatx4 grandparents are buried right outside the Whitewell chapel door.

[al b]

Hi  If anyone is still folowing this my grandfather was very fond of his two older brothers. They disapered and his father said they were killed in the Boar War. Come to find out One died of pnemonia in boar war and the other was in WW1 and died 1935 to bad grand pa was dead when i found this out. pretty sad.  al b

[Laini]

While trying to find more information on my 3x gt grandfather from Essex I was contacted by a chap researching the same name. It turns out that we are related and he lives about half a mile away from me in North Wales!! We e-mailed and swopped info for a while then my regular postman knocked on my door to satisfy his curiosity at my name on the letters and it turns out that he was the rellie that I was e-mailing and he had been delivering my snail mail for the past 3 years.

From 1811 Essex to 2009 North Wales

[Kevinshouse]

I have been  researching my family history for about ten years now, a couple of years ago I started on my husbands family as I want our daughters to have complete history of both sides of their family.  I was given a marriage certificate of my husbands paternal grandparents (I was lucky to get hold of the original) they were married on exactly the same day as my maternal grandparents! They did not know one another and were married in different parts of the country.
Susan

[Gaille]

hmmm ..........

finding the record of the baptism of the THIRD set of twins my gt-gt-grandma gave birth too was pretty amazing
I knew she had at least 1 set (the 1881 cencus listed the children as - David twin & Charlotte twin - lol biiiiiiiiiig clue ) .......... then I found a second set .......... and I had a realy strong  hunch that one of her 'singleton' births was in fact a twin - finding the record in the Parish records that proved the third twin birth (ALL male / female twins) to the same parents was an amazing moment for me.........
I have a heck of a lot of respect for her, only 1 set of twins was still complete into adulthood so she must have realy struggled .......... and she had 9 other children as well
 
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We live in Lancashire, most of the family lived in & around Manchester ............ I have traced my Dads Maternal line (lol Smith's nothing easy!) back through his Grandad who was born in a small village in Shropshire.........
I then set about his Paternal line (lol my Dads family are SO easy - this side is Evans!!!) ......... My gt-grandad married twice - normally I dont follow up to much on Step-Parents, but my Dad asked me to do his Grandads second Wifes tree as she brought his Grandad up after his Parents died & his dad  used to talk about her a lot................ so I followed her line back to her place of birth .........

They both came from the SAME small village in Shropshire - which had a population of about 50 from what I cam make out .................... they were 1 generation apart, so never met as part of my family - but I can only guess that their families would have known each other back in Shropshire.

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On my Mums side of the family I was tracing the Birth & death of her uncle on her Dads side who died as a small child (a few months old), I found him via the Manchester Online burials record, and a rootschat mamber very kindly went & took a picture of the grave, and found out the address his parents lived at when he died from the records at the cemetery.

The address was really niggling at me it seemed realy familiar but I couldnt think why ..............

A few weeks later I was entering some details into my family tree program  ............and I found the SAME address on a record ................. for another member of my mums family - on her Mothers side this time..............

2 families on my Mums family had lived in the same address in Manchester 50 Years apart.

[mum mum]

When I started reseaching my Dad's  family I believed tha tthe all came from Benalla in Victoria. When I got his Mum's birth certificate I couldn't read the place of birth, it was not until I got her mothers marriage certificate that I realised it was Bowna, about 5 Kilometers from where I now live.
mum mum

[Alan b]

I have made two discoveries about my family.

The first one is that my Grandad (who is no longer with us) had a half brother that nobody knew about until he found my family tree website on the internet and got in contact with me.

And the second concerns my other Grandad (who I never knew as he died a year before I was born). I often wondered why he was an only child and why his parents waited 9 years before having him. On checking the 1911 census where he lived it stated that his parents had 3 children and that 2 had died. On  looking through the BMD I found two children that were both born and then died in the same quarter although 7 months apart. I sent off for the certificates and I found out that they were twins and that they were both born with a birth defect and that they both died within 3 days of each other just 7 months into their lives. Not only must their parents been devastated at loosing them but they must have been concerned when they found out they were expecting again (my Grandad) but happily this time he was born fit and healthy.

I should mention that I have quite a few sets of twins in my family. My younger brothers are twins as was my nan and her twin sister had twins sons and so on so to find another set wasn't that surprising but the story of their short lives is quite sad.

[James1950]

Discovering that my Pendleside ancestors  the Bulcocks in the mid 1600s were amongst the first followers of George Fox, the founder of the Quaker movement. His famous vision came about as he climbed the summit of Pendle Hil in Lancashire. All my paternal Heyworth and Bulcock ancestors had resided in the Pendle area for at least 400 years. I have always felt an affinty for Pendle Hill. As children we followed the local tradition of climbing Pende Hill on Halloween. There was a  local tradition  as Pendle Hill was famous for its Witches
I then discovered that the same Bulcock family included  mother and son Jane and John Bulcock who were tried at Lancaster Castle in 1612 for Witchcraft. Some accounts say they they were convicted and hanged as witches but other accounts say they were acquitted.

[Flakdodger]

I have just discovered that I am descended from
"England's Laziest Man" True!
This comes from putting my family names into the recently digitised New York Times.
In a syndicated feature from London, 1909, Great Grandad Archibald Depau is noted as being in court for neglect of his children, it is almost amusing to read Great Grandma's descriptions. I had thought they had separated - now I know why.
Archibald was sentenced to six months hard labour.
A follow up lead to The Observer newspaper in 1910 shows him going from custody into the care of The Salvation Army (in whose care he died in 1915).
From the Observer article, he changes from a figure of fun to be a sufferer of deep depression.
Next discovery, please...
Dave