Family history research surprises...

[wheresmymojo]

I'm researching the family history on both my side and DH's.

I've come across quite a few surprises/interesting things and wondered if anyone else had anything they've found in their family trees that took them by surprise?

The ones off the top of my head in my tree are:

• I have a 4th Great Uncle who was a civil war hero in the US (he even has a Wikipedia page); I had no idea we had any ties to the US at all

• DH's family can be traced back to the 1000's because one of them was mates with William the Conqueror

• DH's family is full of Barons, Sirs, Lords and Sherriffs of Nottingham. Some of them have marble tombs and oil paintings

• Mine were poor as fuck, many died in the Irish famine, some lived in Liverpool slums, some died in workhouses. The ones that had a 'good' life still worked down the pits and raised lots of children in just two or three rooms

• In one branch mine eventually trace back to Scottish crofters near Aberdeen (also poor) trying to make ends meet for 10 kids off 7 acres of land

• One very sad suicide with that I think now would've been PND

• Lots of deportations to Australia and time in prison for petty crimes like stealing a chicken (probably to eat) on my poor side

Anyone else?

My great grandma was a famous sufragette (not in the UK). A woman claiming to be her granddaughter has set up various FB pages in her honour, and is even speaking at a series of short conferences about her.
None of this is true. She's not even a distant relative. My mother is convinced it's a girl she went to school with, 85 years later.

@wheresmymojo I have found out some details from a report in a local paper about the inquest into the death. I don't know if they ever caught whoever did her in though.

Not my family but DH’s cousin is tracing their family and discovered that Walter Tull was a relation. FIL is not impressed with this news because he’s a racist bigot.

I want to research my family but haven’t got the head space or time right now.

Dowser - similar here. One not so distant ancestor was from Scotland - not a surprise given that the family came from the far north of England. But then found his parents were Irish. I had no idea

Also that my mother's family on both sides were servants and labourers. Mother was a total snob and would not have been happy to have an Irish coal miner in her family tree!!

I found my GGGF by searching his name on Google. He was born to Spanish Jewish refugees and took a more English sounding name. He was part of a very musical family, he also patented a change to the banjo which has been used on banjos ever since. His siblings were real characters, they were minstrels and clowns etc.
It's really fascinating.

My GG Grandfather went to prison in 1874 for attempting to bugger a cow. He and his wife had another 4 children after he was released. They later separated and he was killed under the wheels of a light engine in 1903, pronounced by the coroner as suicide. The newspaper reports were very gruesome.
He was a pretty criminal all his adult life, described by the magistrates as ' the most aggravating man in the whole of Eastbourne.'
He was also indicted, 5 years before he died, on a charge of buggery with a donkey but I don't think it ever came to trial.

On my DF's side, his DM's cousin was a very distinguished fighter pilot during WW1.

Where do you even start with all this?

Is it possible to do the ancestry dna yet remain anonymous? )expecting an unconfirmed skeleton or two...)

Yes, see my name.
i started with just one name and ended up with every gypsy name in my tree.
DNA is amazing too

I already knew that I had an Oscar winner in my family tree (Barry Fitzgerald, an Irish character actor), but it was a big surprise to find that his brother played an important role in the Easter Rising in 1916. There's a fascinating detailed account of it online, which describes how he avoided being shot because he wore glasses and didn't sound like anyone important .

I found out that we were border reivers on my mums side of family

That there was another uncle on my dads side who no one seemed to know about.

That there was a street named after my great grandad in Nottingham.

That my grandad stayed a few streets away from where we live now (250 miles away from their home) in 1911.

I discovered that my English gg-grandfather committed a $5m fraud in the US in the 1890s, had to go into hiding in the Amazon Basin with his wife and 11 children (not all of whom survived), assembled a small private army of mercenaries to guard him and the family from the authorities, and eventually became a minister in the Bolivian government. That was a research challenge!

Yes, can someone please say how you start researching all this?

Do you send your swab off to ancestry.com? And then what? Enter your names into the website?

I identified my birth father this week through Ancestry 3rd and 4th cousin matches and building family trees. I learned his name and saw his photo for the first time in my life four days ago...

@managedmis The Ancestry DNA kit can be ordered on the website or even on Amazon and you spit into a tube then send it off. Can take about 6 weeks to process.

I come from a poor/peasant type background and I can trace my Mums family tree back to about 1600 in Suffolk. No one rich or noble, just inn keepers, cabinet makers etc. My husband too, bog standard working class, his family name can be traced back a few hundred years. Even poor people had birth, death, marriage, baptism records. My mind was blown by my mum's ancestors getting married in the grand church in Spitalfields, Christchurch, in the the 1700's, far grander than the small 1000 year parish church that I got married in.

Thanks elliollie

Crikey, elliollie, that must have been quite something re your father

Interesting thread - thank you

ProfessorofPerspective wtffff

LarkDescending wowzers, sounds like a plot from a movie!

Thankfully I've not found anyone who had to stay in a workhouse - I'd have been gutted, they truly were horrible places. Although I had an ancestor who was abandoned as a baby in one if those foundling wheels they used to have in churches - he was given the surname of the nun who found him.

Also noticed with large families (10+ dc) if one of the elder siblings died they'd use the same name again for a younger sibling born after - has anyone else noticed this in their family trees? Was this common practice?

A have print out if a news article where one of my traveller ancestors essentially had his funeral stolen for him. Ancestor died, his family and pals talked him up in the town they were currently in, so they’d give him credit on the funeral, on the back of the promise of some relative with loads of money arriving for the service, to pay it all off. It says they were all gone the next day never to be seen again.

Also noticed with large families (10+ dc) if one of the elder siblings died they'd use the same name again for a younger sibling born after - has anyone else noticed this in their family trees? Was this common practice?

It certainly happened in my tree. There were quite strict naming patterns until the early 29th century, so if they didn't use the same name for the new baby, a name could get “lost” and not handed down.

Boys in order of birth, (duplicates excepted) might be named after:

1. Paternal grandfather
2. Maternal grandfather
3. Father
4. Mother's brother

For girls, it might be:

1. Maternal grandmother
2. Paternal grandmother
3. Mother
4. Father's sister

If the mother's family were wealthier or more "important" then their surname might be incorporated into the babies names, perhaps as an additional middle name or as the first name of the eldest son.

There were a more limited number of names to choose from and, at least for your first few babies, the naming decision was pretty much out of the parents' hands.

Obviously, you would end up with cousins of similar age with the same first name and surname, living in the same area, which means you have to be sure you have the right ancestor.

In some families, middle names would be given and used day-to-day so the older relative was still "honoured" but the child was called by something more modern or unique. Similarly, with diminutives or even nicknames.

It was also not uncommon for children going into service to “renamed” by their employer, so the maid was always called e.g. Sarah and when she was replaced the new maid was also either called "Sarah" or it was prefixed onto her own name (Sarah-Jane, Sarah-Ann).

20th century...

@managedmis
There is a free online course on Futurelearn that gives an excellent introduction into all kinds of resources available to people looking in English speking countries, methods, traps to avoid, etc.

If you are serious - start with the living and work you way up the generations and don't believe family rumours.

I have my DNA tested and DNA of some family members. About 2 weeks ago I got a notification that I have a new 1st cousin, my mother being the aunt. This is a bit of a surprise to us. I have messaged briefly but haven’t heard back yet. This will probably make for a major can of worms. That or I won’t hear back from him at all. Not sure which is worse TBH.

Also noticed with large families (10+ dc) if one of the elder siblings died they'd use the same name again for a younger sibling born after - has anyone else noticed this in their family trees? Was this common practice?

Yes have come across this , or nephews having dead uncle's name . The maiden name of mother/gmother often gets incorporated too. This is where some of my confusion comes in as different generations and branches repeat same names. Also brothers marrying sisters from another local family.

Ooh I love futurelearn, will check out the course!