Family legends that turn out to be nonsense

[jbml]

Well, I had to disappoint my Canadian relatives who are convinced that there is a close family connection to Rudyard Kipling.

My geat great grandfather was George Kipling Burrows, son of John and Sarah Burrows. The Canadian relatives also trace back to John and Sarah Burrows. John Burrows and his son George Kipling Burrows were both East End boot makers. The Kipling connection comes via Sarah Burrows ... her maiden name was Kipling.

However ... after much research and a DNA test on somebody still living in 2014, the conclusions we drew about Sarah Kipling (born 1839) was that she was a Kipling by adoption, not by birth. (She was not baptised until the 1850s, when she names George Kipling as her father; but her widowed mother had not married George Kipling until 1844 ... however, young Sarah Kiplin gIS shown at the same address as George Kipling in the 1841 census (with no sign of her mother) so it was not actually 100% cut and dried until the DNA result came in.

Even if the DNA result had shown a Kipling match, however, George Kipling was from the Nottinghamshire branch of the family, which has no known link to Joseph Rudyard Kipling.

Oh well! (And I have to say, the story which came down to my Canadian relatives that "the rest of the family looked down on him because he didn't have a proper job - he just wrote books" does have a feel of truth about it!)

The family tradition (which I am hearing from more than one source ... although I do not know if they are independent or not) that we are of Huguenot descent remains to be investigated.

[JAKnighton]

My great-grandmother grew up thinking her father, who died shortly before she was born, was a frenchman. But he was born in Norfolk and no link to France in his ancestry has been found, although the surname is of French origin.

Makes me wonder how she came to think this because her mother was around and could've easily told her all about him? I have a theory that her stepfather forbade all discussion and references to him.

[Meelystar]

JA Knighton that's strange my Great Grandmother told us her father was French, he too was Norfolk born and bred! However as he died when she was 12 or 13 I think she was trying to pull the wool over our eyes

[pharmaT]

So far none of my family legends have turned out to be complete nonsense.  All have had an element of truth in them albeit becoming a little muddled over the years.  including "we'd be rich if we hadn't originated from the wrong side of the bed sheets" (grt grt grandfather's half siblings did very well for themselves.  "we had family at Edward's coronation" (was actually George VI's).

There are a few I haven't proven but neither have I disproven them. The obituary of one claimed he was the second cousin of Thomas Carlyle, another claimed to have been with Robert Burns when overturned the mouse nest and is quoted in a book from early 1800s and a rumour that somewhere in my Mum's tree there were sheep rustlers.  No idea where to start on the third one as the story doesn't tell me which branch of that tree.

[hurworth]

1)  One branch of the family is French.  The version of the surname as it is used currently by family members can be French, but they changed the spelling only 3 or 4 generations ago.... It's most definitely English.

2) A gtgt-grandfather was a surveyor and also Mayor.  He used his connections to make sure the Main Trunk Line went through his property and was generously reimbursed for this land.  His granddaughter remembered going in his car when he was Mayor.

Actual facts - he was never a surveyor (usually worked as a labourer and other enterprises) and possibly never owned property.  He went bankrupt twice.  He was a councillor in a small town for one term.  The local paper made fun of him and his wife while he was a councillor and how they spoke and borrowed clothes to wear to functions - he perhaps wasn't as educated as other councillors and not as well spoken. 

His granddaughter was under a year old when he died, so could not possibly have remembered riding in his car (if he ever had one, which I doubt).

3) A distant aunt married a man who inherited a title.   SURE she did (with eye roll)

This is the story which I was the most sceptical about.  The aunt's daughter actually did.  After she married her father-in-law's second cousin died in England.  There were no other male heirs descended from this man's grandfather, so the title passed to descendants of the grandfather's younger brother.   Her father-in-law inherited to title and then it passed to her husband.

[JACK GEE]

Hello troops,
 i am enjoying the thread and giving my versions of "family Legend" and other interesting bits.

While rounding up the "facts" for our family history book you are given stories by well meaning folk and hushed reference " we don't [want to  ]know about that?

My Gr Aunty Mary Ann Gilbert married a chap by the name of Jack Aiton where was said to be one of the richest men in Victoria about the turn of the century. He was known to shout the bar in several hotels in Alexandra. Aiton was Scotsman who had a great singing voice and was quite willing to entertain on any given occassion.
When we got the book to final draft form i was able to pass it onto a chap by the name of Bryan Lloyd - a well known author/publisher of the area around Alexandra for inspection. He said it was good job but that there were a couple of inaccuracies
Lloyd's father and uncle just happened to have worked in company with Aiton and that he was not all that wealthy. Aiton was a steam man and looked after the boilers/engines that operated the pumps and crushers in their gold mining enterprises.

Bryan Lloyd  launched our book in 2002 with a couple of minor alterations.

cheers
Jack Gee

[Chilternbirder]

Sadly we don't have many family legends.

Legend claimed that my gg grandfather was German and changed his name from Lindenberg (?) to Lintern. From the letters of his that I have which are all in good English and the place of birth given in his marriage lines as "London" I always thought that that was rubbish. Come the internet however I obtained all the available censuses and in two the place of birth is given as Hanover. That line is a total dead end and, with the advent of Ancestry and Find My Past is gone from being the longest line on my tree to the shortest.

[pharmaT]

Sadly we don't have many family legends.

Legend claimed that my gg grandfather was German and changed his name from Lindenberg (?) to Lintern. From the letters of his that I have which are all in good English and the place of birth given in his marriage lines as "London" I always thought that that was rubbish. Come the internet however I obtained all the available censuses and in two the place of birth is given as Hanover. That line is a total dead end and, with the advent of Ancestry and Find My Past is gone from being the longest line on my tree to the shortest.

One of the guys in my tree was supposed to have been born in Germany and I got confused when I found his birth in London.  Turned out his father was born in German so not completely random legend.

[andrewalston]

As a child, my mum was told all sorts of stories about her family.

I turns out that her granddad was NOT the claimed 7th son of a 7th son, though his wart charming still worked. Her other granddad was not born at Lancaster Castle, but in a slum at the other side of town.

The big story, which first prompted us to look into our history, claimed that she was a descendant of St. George the Martyr, and that each generation had a George in his honour. Well, the parish is right for a link, but there's no paper trail to be found. I have found two children named George, but one of those has a middle name of Handel, which fits better with his brother Joseph Haydn than the family story.