Your favourite family history story?

[Conor Oldroyd]

Hi everyone.

For me personally, my favourite part of genealogy is finding some real characters in your ancestry. My favourite Ancestors are my 3x Great Grandfather Charles Henry Oldroyd b.1853 d.1896 (He died in a lunatic asylum). and Gregor McGregor Summers. (1861 - 1932) They quickly became my favourites when i located these newspaper articles on the two of them, regarding their rather interesting methods of stealing! (Which isn't neccesarily something to proud of!)

The first is of Charles stealing 2 watches from a burning house. He was caught red handed, and it turned out that slipped one of the watches into the pocket of the officer who arrested him on the way to the station, and tried to frame him of secreting one of the watches!)

The second is of Gregor (who is quite surprisingly described as an "amateur ni**er") stealing a curtain and a window blind, "With the view of having them transformed into a pair of fancy dancing trousers". Why he thought this would do him any favours in court, I do not know.

These 2 stories certainly gave me a big insight of what these ancestors were like. What's your favourite story about one of your ancestors?

(copyrighted images removed)

[Jaxyfone]

Has to be three of my great uncles, the 'Brothers Mackness' and their varied and contrasting experiences during WW1.

Ernest was shot as a deserter in 1917.

Older brother Arthur went AWOL for 24 hours in March 1917 and was confined to barracks for 2 days. In November that year he was disciplined for insolence towards an NCO and for making a false accusation against an NCO. He deserted again in September 1918, and the court martial was dispensed with the following May in favour of forfeiture from pay.

The honourable one in the family was Harold. He enlisted with the Scottish Rifles 1914, failed his medical due to a congenital heart problem and was subsequently discharged. He tried again in 1915, this time joining the Leicestershire Regiment, with a similar outcome and went into civilian employment. Six months later he tried for a third time and was once more declared unfit for military service. Can't say he didn't try, bless him and I doubt anyone would have sent him a white feather. He lived to the ripe old age of 85, though, so the heart condition couldn't have been too serious.

I think this trio sums up the family in a nutshell - some of them were decent, upright, honest people. Some were out and out rogues and others were victims of circumstance. It seems to have been like that all the way through the generations from 1460.

[Annette7]

Have lots but this one is my favourite.

My paternal grandparents lived in a big house, had 9 children plus they had 2/3 lodgers.  My grandmother was a formidable lady, granddad (died before I was born) was bit of a rogue.   He ran a 'Christmas Club' which necessitated going to local pubs in the area on a Friday night (pay day) and no doubt he had a drink at each one!   Thus, Friday evenings were my grandmothers 'me' time!

She suffered from 'fallen arches' and would give her feet a nice long soak and then roll them over a rolling pin.  Granddad always returned home with fish and chips to 'appease' her and complete her evening.

However, this took place in the basement of their house.   One particular Friday granddad returned home a little the worse for wear and didn't see the rolling pin which was on the floor at the bottom of the stairs.   He ended up flying across the room, with fish and chips scattered to all 4 corners of said room.   The air was 'blue' as you can no doubt imagine and he never let her forget it.

I can always picture this in my mind and never fails to raise a smile.   Bless them!

Annette

[iluleah]

I have lots of stories about ancestors found while researching which I didn't expect.
My family were very secretive and never 'told' anything avoiding as much as possible and when backed into a corner ( I have since found) lied, in reality and after researching and finding out the truth I am not sure why they did.

Only one great aunt would tell me stories and that was when I was small, she had died by the time I began researching, she herself is a mystery the stories she told me were far fetched and I thought that as a child, such as her nephew who was blown up by a rocket, was a spy and a submariner, yet he was  alive,  living in a landlocked county, a very wealthy and successful antique dealer with a passion for vintage cars collecting hundreds all parked in barns and in the fields around his home as I remember, one very strange guy.

Over the years I have found he was blown up by a rocket, he was a submariner, the spy bit I don't know but all his records I have found have been sealed for another 100 years so I will never know, but all her other weird and wonderful stories checked out so I have no reason not to believe what she told me and so much more too, but finding out about some of her own history was amazing she failed to tell me any of that, but one of her diaries did tell snippets, her home/grounds was taken over by the ministry in WW2 it became a POW camp, she would march the POWs to the farms and go and collect them in the evenings it is hard to image this a tiny lady doing that on her own, when asking my grandmother about this (POWs worked on my grandfathers farm)  again she was very secretive, just saying "Oh yes that's true morning they arrived on time, evening she would be there to collect them, she was a strong character"

[IgorStrav]

I always liked the entry in my great great grandfather's notebook, which he wrote about his own father on his death in 1932 at the grand old age of 93

"My father was a great worker all his days and started work at the age of 6 years [1845] on a farm near Canterbury, Kent, his first job being to thin turnips out and keeping birds off the corn and he has told me the tale of his having rode a large pig with him to the fields, where the pig would feed at the sides of the fields all day and then he would ride it back to the farm at night and the men employed on the farm would line up to see him pass on his mount."

My greatx3 grandfather does appear to have been a wonderful man.  Three wives, 13 children (that I know of), moved from agricultural work in Kent to join the police, leaving with the rank of sergeant.

But I love the story about the pig particularly