Doubting family stories

[mulberry-rose]

I was asking a family member what she remembered about her grandfather when she was little. I couldn’t find a matching death no matter what. Apparently “he was tall, a very quiet man.”

I don’t know who she was remembering, because turns out he died five years before she was born!  So now I always err on the side of caution with family stories.

[macwil]

Oh yeah.
I discovered my grandfather had an elder brother, I asked relatives about him. "Oh, that will be the pilot killed in the war." replied an aunt. Oh no he wasn't! He died the day before his 28th birthday in a mining accident. It took me several years to find him. I eventually found the pilot, killed in flying accident in 1947, several years later. There were 2 other flying relatives killed in WW2, all three were nephews of my grandmother.
So I take family recollections with a large pinch of salt.

[Biggles50]

My Wife has a family tale about her Great Grandfather coming to England from Roscommon in Ireland together with his two female children.

Wrong, the 1881 Census is the only one there is that has them all together and the place of birth for each of them, Manchester.  We obtained the Birth Certificates of the two girls, one of which would be my Wife’s Grandmother and yes both born in England.

My Wife’s DNA shows very little Irish DNA, and DNA matches link to a MRCA beyond her GG GF and yes they too were born in Manchester.

He GG GF married a widow whose husband was Irish and she had a child by her Irish Husband that her GG GF raised.

So both documents and DNA prove no Irish connection, yet my Wife’s Sister cannot accept it as true because that is what Granny said.

All we can put it down too is that they lived in predominately Irish Slums in one of the notorious Courts at the bottom of Deansgate and being surrounded by neighbours of Irish origin could have led to the family story.

[coombs]

My nan spoke of her 1895 Oxford born mother being of Irish blood. None found so far, all born in Oxford or surrounding areas, and one "not corn in county" in 1841 but died in 1849, 2 years before the 1851 census. He may have originated from London, as a witness to his 1819 Oxford marriage was a man who worked in a similar trade who was from London originally, and had an Irish surname - Carney. They were likely just friends who worked in the same metal making trade, but may have moved to Oxford together, maybe for work preparing cutlery for the unis and colleges.

However my nan's maternal grandfather in Oxford was buried in 1927 in Rose Hill Cemetery, Oxford, in a shared grave with an unrelated woman Ann Baugh, who was originally from Wicklow in Ireland.

[LizzieL]

My late mother in law once told OH that his paternal great grandfather had married his dead wife's sister. (although it wasn't her side of the family we assumed OH's father had told her before he passed away) We tried for ages to connect the two ladies, but they were completely unrelated. However, some time later when we researched the wider family we found that two of that great grandfather's sisters had married the same man (consecutively not concurrently). 

[Wellington66]

When I started researching my family history many moons ago a distant cousin told me her Uncle had been awarded the Victoria Cross.  It turned out to be the Military Medal !
Always a little grain of truth there somewhere.
Welly x

[Raybistre]

A little grain of truth in a few stories. I was told a tale nearly 50 years ago by my aunt when I was just starting family history research. The story was that some relatives had become mormons and had visited before leaving for America. I made a couple of assumptions; the first being that this was something she had experienced, she was born in 1904; the second was that these relatives were related to her father's ( my maternal grandfather) family. I was wrong on both counts. I think the story was told to her by her maternal grandfather  (1852-1927). The people who became mormons were his father's uncle and his family and they sailed for America in 1860. My great grandfather would have been about 8 years of age then and must have told his grand-daughter (my aunt) about this.
I have a few other tales told to me by various relatives but have no evidence to prove or disprove what was said. I am very doubtful about some of them.
Please excuse me if I have posted about this before.
Ray

[Gillg]

Not quite the same, but my parents and grandparents sometimes spoke about a black sheep in the family.  They never mentioned his/her name, as they considered that I was too young to know about it.  When I got interested in family history I racked my brains to think who it might be and found that my grandfather's father had served in the police for a few years and was dismissed "for stealing strawberries".  This titbit was supplied by the Met, to whom I had innocently written asking for his police service record!  Could this be the black sheep?  I found a couple of others who in the 19th century misbehaved a little, a few illegitimate children, but nothing else, so it remains a mystery.

My mother's parents and grandparents were strict teetotallers and the reason for this, as told by my mother, was that a relative was quite a drinker and had been arrested on charges of being drunk and disorderly, had fallen down the stairs at the police station and had died from the blow he received.  Many years later I encountered a closer relative of his who confirmed at least that her (and my) relative had indeed been a very heavy drinker, but that his death certificate had not given this as his cause of death, mentioning rather something less specific.  My mother was a a teetotaller, too, though we used to tease her that she was rather fond of sherry trifle! "I've signed the pledge!" she would say, and sure enough she had a signed certificate from the Blue Ribbon movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_ribbon_badge.  The family were Baptists, and at communion services the deacons would bring round trays of tiny individual glasses of Ribena instead of the shared cup of wine enjoyed by the C of E congregations.

[Top-of-the-hill]

  My father, a New Zealander, told me he had Scottish ancestry, which I suppose was quite possible, and mentioned MacGregor. Many years later, when I did some research, I found them - in the coastal area between Edinburgh and Berwick, so not your wild highlanders!