I'm a gypsyologist AMA

[Devlesko]

Just this really, anyone interested I'll answer if I can.

There are many who feel that way still tabulahrasa You really do have to make a conscious effort to go against the grain.
The cousin I spoke about above who is paying for a tutor for Maths and English, she put her foot down for this, no way would her dh agree to them attending secondary school. I really don't blame them though, it's not good for our kids in school.
Mine were fortunate as obviously our youngest is surrounded by kids from all over the world, rich and poor.
Our others never told anyone they were travellers, but they saw what happened to others.
Bullying is rife still, and even though it's 16 years since that child was murdered by his school friends, those having children now aren't forgetting and some are really scared to send children to school.

I've done a lot of reading up on the Dorset white family!! It's absolutely fascinating!
I'm trying to find a copy of our family tree which does date back very early!

It makes sense that one of my relatives moved to near London and became a nurse as did her daughter after 1900. As it seems the white family owned shops and post offices etc later on. So I'm assuming they must have sent their children to school etc and maybe moved to houses. As they may have married out of Romany... if I find the family tree I'll send it to you!
There are white family all over Dorset
It's absolutely fascinating thank you for posting

I don't know why but when I read the title I thought you were a gynaecology for gypsies and that just made no sense

Famous Gypsies

Elvis Presley (1935-1977)
Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977)
Yul Brynner (1920-1985)
Django Reinhardt – (1910-1953)
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Rita Hayworth (1918-1987)
Michael Caine (1933)
Bob Hoskins (1942-2014)
Tracey Ullman (1959)
Tyson Fury
Bill Clinton
Mother Teresa
Adam Ant
Cher Lloyd

To name a few and give an indication of the variety.

Tangled

To confuse you even more, you need to look at "Cooper" too. My Coopers became White and Whyte at different times. As far as I know they were all Cooper foremost.
Talk about cat among pigeons. I've yet to verify officially this is the case, but family and others researching Cooper say the same, including some of the leading authorities on the subject.
If so, it's one of, the oldest Romany families in the UK and has many in America, too.
They are part of a project along with Boswells that is looking at them being sent to America far sooner than believed. A record came up that linked them around the time of the first settlers, which you can imagine didn't go down to well.
I'm not privy to any research though, but it will be so interesting when they come to a conclusion.

My great grandmother was a Romany. From and around Yorkshire.

Not much got passed down in terms of knowledge about family or the life.

But sometimes it stares us in the face. When I was pregnant the midwife asked my ethnicity and when I said 'white' she said 'are you sure' and stared at me, and insisted on doing tests that were then only done for black or Asian Mums - Sickle Cell and Thassolaeemia. (?). Then my Mum did a DNA / Ancestry test and we had loads of Moorish background. My grandmother looked like a dark skinned Spanish woman with black hair and olive skin. My siblings and cousins all have the same skin.

My grandmother could soothe and calm any horse, in any state.

So can I.

My cousins and I were sitting out cooking over a fire, as we always do when we socialise, just because we enjoy it. never thought anything of it. Then my cousin suddenly said 'do you think this is genetic?' and we all said 'yes' in unison. We all travel and camp out whenever we can.

But that all seems like stereotyped romanticism so I don't talk about it much.

I wish you the best of success in your endeavours, Devlesko.

In living memory there are people who ate rabbits

What? Of course! It was pretty normal and still isn't outlandish. My Mum cooked rabbit quite often.

I don't now I am grown up because I don't like the smell and it is now very expensive to buy, whereas it used to be very cheap. You could buy it in the Co-op at the end of our road.

Are there any issues with Covid 19 that you think have affected Romany people in a different way to the wider community?

@Devlesko

Tangled

To confuse you even more, you need to look at "Cooper" too. My Coopers became White and Whyte at different times. As far as I know they were all Cooper foremost.
Talk about cat among pigeons. I've yet to verify officially this is the case, but family and others researching Cooper say the same, including some of the leading authorities on the subject.
If so, it's one of, the oldest Romany families in the UK and has many in America, too.
They are part of a project along with Boswells that is looking at them being sent to America far sooner than believed. A record came up that linked them around the time of the first settlers, which you can imagine didn't go down to well.
I'm not privy to any research though, but it will be so interesting when they come to a conclusion.

Ahh yes I read a white married a Cooper in Piddlehinton in Dorset, so maybe the whites married out or into cooper

The whites were based at the encampment heavenly bottom 😂 but they may not have been Romany?

Anyway I'll do some more reading up and finding out some bits about our tree

Here

www.piddlevalley.info/history/piddlehinton/sop/piddlehinton_chap12.php

Covid has made things more complicated, but it has for society in general.
The one that stands out though are the extra problems faced by racism.
Shops were closed and as we weren't mixing there were fewer reports of incidents in shops. Except for the gentleman traveller with a stick who was refused entry into Morrisons, because they'd had problems before, with travellers" I kid you not. The poor girl was not to blame though, she looked scared to death when the man said he was informing the Police of her racism. There was no doubt a manager telling her to refuse entry, she was very young. When I saw the footage I felt sorry for her as she looked no older than my own dd.
Then of course there was Gove, the idiot.
A vulnerable family did as requested and contacted their council who delivered the portaloos and water as law had defined, we don't usually get this treatment before they'd finished Gove had whipped up the locals and within an hour they were moved on.
Little did he know that one of the admins who works for travellerstimes lives in the village and saw the lot.
They were a vulnerable family with nowhere to go, plus how hard is it to remove those who are making a mess and not law abiding, it can take weeks, yet he did it in the hour, how horrible.

RomanyBlood

You sound like a Smith descendant, horse breeders on some lines. They also had a strong link to Yorkshire. I've a suspicion you could be from these people, honestly.

Wow Devlesko you are good at this looking at the bride in that film is like looking into my grandmother’s eyes! The top 3/4 of her face is her exactly!

She died a long time ago. I am an older MNer and she died before I realised the importance of getting so many details. She did not live a Romany life beyond childhood, I think. There were hints of some kind of trouble. However she always told us about her ‘friendship’ with the artist Augustus John. She had letters from him which we still have. When I read about him I found that he had an obsession with Gypsy women.

How can we encourage them to stop racing their horses down motorways?

Motorways?
Where?

@Devlesko have you heard of Glazier/Glasier as a Romany family name?DD's partner had a Romany grandmother but she talked very little about her life although she was born on the road we think. Thank you

Another content warning

Yes, but I don't know them. Someone joined one of the groups and asked for info.
I remember because I had a huge crush on Paul Michael Glazier Sorry, I didn't read the outcome, but I definitely remember the name.

Sorry, no idea where the content warning came from.
Night all, will check in with your answers tomorrow
I'm honestly enjoying this, you are all so lovely.

Thank you Devesklo. Another name from that area is Sutherland. It's very kind of you to start this thread and I'm finding it fascinating reading all the different stories both from you and from PPs.

Devlesko, even.

Hello, my grandmother was Alice Lee who married Isaac Francis and gave birth to 12 children. They settled in Stockton on Tees eventually where they are both buried. I knew all of my aunts and uncles but none are alive now. You can imagine how many cousins I have though! I'm very proud of my background and I'm enjoying reading these threads. I would like to start researching my family tree now! Thank you.

Yeah! Starshine, I'm so glad you've decided to join us, in the family tree research.
You'll probably find the same as many that there isn't a Romany name not associated with your family

RomanyBlood

Not sure if you are still about, but this side were all short, well the women.
There's the exception of course but most of them were under 5ft 3
I'm 4ft 11. My first cousins are tiny and unfortunately the smallest ones around 4ft 8/9 had an awful hereditary disease and died young.

Minty
I haven't come across Sutherland yet, but I'll keep coming back to the thread and answering questions or posting interesting stuff.

Devlesko: My grandmother was not at all tall - and I was told that her mother, my great grandmother, was tiny.

We are all tall - my grandmother married a tall lean man and that has endured. But we all have dark skin, and very little body hair. Thick head hair, though.

I don't have any gypsy/Romany/traveller blood that I know of but this is all so fascinating.

To what extent can physical appearance like colouring indicate if someone is a gypsy? I know people who live in a part of England that boasts mainly white, blue-eyed-mousy-fair-haired, very 'deep England' physical types. They have darker brown skin tone, black/dark brown eyes and dark hair, and I think they stand out quite strikingly.

The local dialect in that area also has the word 'bobbo' for a horse (when you're talking to a child about horses e.g. 'look at the bobbos!'), which when I was a kid my dad was fond of saying sounded like a Romany word. Was he talking rubbish?

Hello my lovely, everyone welcome on here Romany blood or not.

Now there's a question.
There are families that are known for certain traits. i.e some Smith lines have very tiny women, going back many generations.
They aren't always dark haired and olive skin, but it's another trait that can distinguish from other Romany families.
There are certainly many blond blue eyed Romany, my eldest son and 1st granddaughter have fair hair and skin.
My dd has mid brown/dark brown hair and deep brown eyes, which you'd assume came from me but come from her gauja (non Romany) father.
So you can't ever say for sure, and I'm often surprised when I click on another who has Indian and Persian DNA to find they are really fair.

I'm not sure about bobbos, but have heard similar sounding words for the same thing. I find the origins of words fascinating, I'm sure this is very old though, bobbo horses. We called them bobbin, I believe this came from fairground. Not that fairground/ circus are necessarily travellers, most aren't.