Have you opened a Pandora's box?

[Erato]

No known criminals except a pair repeatedly charged with blasphemy, drunkenness and general disorderly conduct  in the 1600s.  One very scandalous divorce and one probable case of extremely scandalous adultery and illegitimate birth.  A few premature births.

[coombs]

I have a case of adultery and to add insult to injury the woman who was being cheated on was dying. Family members have said this and it has been verified in my research.

[dannibaggaley]

I also have a bent police man, If you call being drunk on duty being bent. He was first demoted and disciplined 3 times and then asked to resign to avoid being fired!! I even have his police records, they are really funny!!

[Annie65115]

Well - there was someone in the family household in the 20th century who was a mystery - were they adopted? illegitimate? I spent a bit of time and money trying to find out more - the only person who could have told me more wouldn't talk.

I stopped digging when someone else let slip, on the family grapevine, that said person may have been imprisoned for a serious offence.

It is possible to put the lid back onto Pandora's box.

[coombs]

People did often go to lengths to cover up an illegitimate birth.

[Sloe Gin]

My late mother had a bit of a Hyacinth Bucket side to her, and she would have been Utterly Mortified at some of the things we've uncovered about her forebears   poor Mum, she would have been so busy trying to twist it all round.  I can hear her now:

"It can't have been them, it must have been somebody else.  It's not an unusual name, after all."

"Well, I expect he was going to pay the man for the horse."

"Of course it couldn't have been syphilis - those doctors wouldn't have known much back then."

"They weren't tinkers!  They had their Own Business."

And so on.  Her brother, on the other hand, would have relished every last squalid discovery.  It's such a shame they are both gone, it would have been so hilarious seeing him winding her up.  I do think though that Mum would have thoroughly enjoyed other aspects of the hunt, and she would particularly have appreciated the "respectable" branch, especially the ones that were in the workhouse .... as Masters and Matrons!  

[eadaoin]

mainly the usual premature births! I know that some of the generation which has just died out would be horrified, but I don't think any of us still alive are too upset. (We've had several recent very premature births, whom we love very dearly!)

A few things told to me in confidence, which I haven't written up, as they're fairly recent. Maybe my kids, in 30 years time will say ..."well, I bet Mam would have been interested to know THAT!" (she did!)

eadaoin

[aghadowey]

As my grandmother used to say "the first child [in a marriage] comes anytime but the others take nine months." 

[coombs]

That is just a saying as in reality it probably did take 9 months. They estimate a 3rd of all brides in Victorian times were pregnant when they married although how accurate that is I do not know.