Am I the only person that does this?

[Rishile]

I have a few (quite a lot, actually) people on my tree that do disappearing acts.  You know - they are born, show up in a couple of census records then - whoosh - gone. 

I have now started to try to think what might have happened to these and find myself concocting stories for them.  There is a vague possibility that one dumped all her kids in the workhouse and run off to America with her lover.  Another who's first child wasn't born until they were 40 years old was in prison for a ghastly murder.

This then starts me trying to prove (or more likely, disprove) my theory.  For some reason this makes me start thinking 'out of the box' which, as we all know, is a great help.  Invariably I then find the real story which is nothing like my original theory but it's a result 

Am I finally cracking up or do others do this too?

Rishile

[Seoras]

Just got you this Rishile

[Seoras]

Know what you mean though and in some cases where on earth did they come from?

[Rishile]

Thanks - I think I may need it.   

 
Rishile

[hugatree]

Sometimes the truth is even more weird

One rellie dumped her family and fled to the USA where she married again and had a baby, then ran off taking the baby to the west coast with her 'husbands' gold pocket watch and cash and married for a third time, then produced two more children!

Then there's the one who just sat on my tree for a long time with no death date or other information until I stumbled across a newspaper article stating he had died from suffocation by a rubber bedsheet in his hotel room, having been depressed since his wife died 

sort of makes me want to stick with the kinder fantasies...

[mofid42]

No you are not the only one....I have invented all sorts of theories about the  disappearance of my 2x Gt Grandmother Louisa Crocker after the 1871 census.

I've been through the trail of died out of County and Country (got too many wrong death certs to prove it)  re-married bigamously, emigrated, living in sin (looked at every and researched many of the Louisa's on the 1881 census just in case)

Now my latest is she must have died in a ditch and was buried as unknown, although I haven't quite worked out how she might have got in that state in the first place.

[hugatree]

I prefer to imagine them creeping off into the night to to a happier life, although there were too many burials of unknowns found in ditches and canals.  I do hope you trace Louisa Crocker and that she wasn't one of them 

[Shropshire Lass]

Weren't they all abducted by aliens? 

[meles]

My great uncle Charles was abducted. Twice RC's have looked for him, twice they have been flummoxed.

So it's the only reasonable solution. 

meles