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?

An ancestor of mine was very wealthy and lived in a huge house but his brother, SIL and nephews fell on hard times and went into the workhouse. What a horrible person!

Where do you even start with all this?

Start with yourself and work backwards. Draw what you know of your family tree (there is computer software you can use to make it easier).
Speak to older relatives and add in what they remember. They may have photos or documents to help with this. Is anyone else, e.g. a cousin, also working or has previously done some work on your tree?

It's like solving a never-ending puzzle, using the information in the birth, marriage and death records and in the census records. Use the record for one person to find out the names of the previous generation, then find their records and work your way backwards.

Concentrate on one branch and when you reach a dead end, set it aside and work on another. You might find records or family trees online, especially if you are tracing unusual surnames. These can give you a framework to work from, but always check for yourself as they may not be correct. If you are researching relatives from a particular town or village, they may have an online Family History forum. It may be interesting to visit and walk around the graveyard or see if the house your relatives lived in is still standing.

Verify everything you find out from anyone else by checking the birth, marriage and death records. The originals are kept in county record offices, but may not be complete, e.g. if they had been destroyed by fire or the town was in a neighbouring county historically. Cross-match with certificates, census records, newspaper reports and Kelly's directory (lists of tradespeople).

Be aware that what you find may not be true. People lied about their ages and parentage, and also made genuine mistakes. They may not have been able to read and write, and those who scribed for them may have misheard or mis-spelled what they were told. They may have adopted a new name for some reason.

Those who have transcribed entries more recently may make mistakes, assumptions or copying errors. Baptism dates may have been taken as dates of birth but actually happened a few years later. Some census records took the age to the nearest 5 years, and people might have told the census officer, registrar or vicar the wrong age, e.g. to disguise the age-gap between parent and child or husband and wife.

Going back to the issue of re-using of first names, the surviving child with the same name may have used their older sibling's details when it suited them or their parents to prove to the authorities that they were a few years older than they were.

I want to look more into my dad's family as they all Didn't Talk about so many things. Dad changed his surname when a relative left him money in a will, but he claims he has no idea why. He had an aunt we mustn't mention but no idea why - suspect she had a child out of wedlock. Another aunt ditto, but she may be the first one because the whole family would be given one name but use another - my granddad and great-uncles have different names in their military records and wedding certs than on their birth certs.

But what I really want to know is why my granny went into service at 14, and always gave out that she was proper poor, but then let on that her brothers were sent to public schools to board and her parents would sell land when they hit hard times!

An interesting contrast - perhaps a situation like for @floraloctopus?

I have a Bona Fide Saint in mine

@Ihaventgottimeforthis something similar in my family tree. A child born to a girl at the end of World War 2. Child was spirited off by the Irish Church within a matter of hours and was never spoken of again. Child ended up in two notorious Irish children's homes before being adopted. Neither mother or child knew anything about each other. Mother went on to live a 'normal' life but her demons never left her. Child finally found her cousins who had also been searching for her. Please don't assume your dad's mum had any say in what happened.

One of mine discovered something very famous whilst mucking about in a river - it's now one of the treasures of the British museum, was found in the 1700's but is much older.

Another had to do hard labour in the 1850's for being 'naked and intoxicated'

I did point out that none of what she had him doing could possibly be correct, but she insists that it must be the same person because they have the same name.

saskiarembrandt Yes - sometimes I think people do the search and just take the first name that comes up!

one of my ancestors turned up in somebodies tree dying at 128 years old. I asked for proof

prokup Maybe check the Guinness Book of Records?

One of my ancestors was transported to Van Damien's Island to serve 7 years hard labour in chains...... I don't feel ready yet to find out what his crime was......

chottie It might not have been much! I've found people transported for robbery, or even just receiving stolen goods. If he was tried at the Old Bailey, this site is amazing www.oldbaileyonline.org/index.jsp

And if he was transported it gives a follow up link to a site in Tasmania where all the convict records are available.

Recently in A House Through Time, two young boys were transported for stealing an umbrella so it really could have been anything.

So interesting!
We've a few skeletons in our family closet for sure, and some interesting names Brightey I loved! And Octavus (assume Octavius but misspelled?) but makes me think of an octopus. I had a snow day off work ten years ago and did tonnes of research in one day, this is sparking that interest again.

I have a lot of early American colonial ancestors with first names like ‘Submit’ and ‘Thankful’.

I’ve occasionally wondered what the MN baby names board would make of them.

Someone was saying earlier that there are Irish records on ancestry - is there anything similar to Scotland’s People? I’ve Irish and a tiny bit of English ancestry but can’t find a decent way of accessing actual records ... not in the way I can pop £20 on SP and view marriage details etc ?

Very stuck indeed on top ancestors as they’re all from highlands of Scotland or very poor Glaswegian ... I’m guessing by names - Callaghan (Carrigan, Calligan) McCafferty - that the Glasgow folk were from Ireland , but I’m lost with them ... no decent details to begin with I suppose !! Anything before 1855 - other than closest family as they attended only two catholic churches so know where to go for records - I’m a bit lost , no idea where to start looking!

One of my favourites that I've found in dhs tree is a gentleman called Alphonse who was a chocolatier in the 1800s and died aged 100 in 1974! Best bit is he was the fourth son of a farmer from a tiny town in the West Midlands, the family of which is still farming in the area today! It baffles me how a farmers son ends up as a chocolatier!! And why on earth he was called Alphonse?

@blameitonmyjuice Scottish records, and the ease of access, spoil us for all the other records. There just isn't the came centralisation of English records (GRO don't have online searching) and the Irish records can be hit and miss because of the fire in the records office that destroyed a lot of records (though not all) and it depends on when churches have sent records or when they've been transcribed. It's getting much easier though.

I recently found out that my paternal grandfather committed suicide by overdose in 1974. This had been kept secret. In the 90s (when I was a teenager) my father made me watch him take an overdose, and he used suicide threats to coercively control me for twenty years after that.

I feel a bit like I’ve had the trauma of two men resting on my shoulders for my whole life without realising it.

There’s a podcast called ‘Family Secrets’ which is brilliant for anyone into this kind of thing.

I had a go at doing some research a couple of years or so ago, but didn't get very far. On my mother's side, it's all a bit messy. She was adopted but had some info on her birth family. My father did some research on her possible father (an unusual last name helped with that) and she subsequently met her putative siblings. But I wasn't invited to those meetings and was told very little about them.

But around that time, things were such that I cut contact with my mother, and hence the rest of the family, so I know little more about that side of the family, except that her birth mother married her putative birth father about three months after the birth, but never reclaimed her daughter/my mother, and went on to have four further children in as many years, but apparently left the family when they were still quite young. I haven't been able to find any trace of her.

But, prompted by this thread, I've restarted the little research I had done on my father's family. There is a similar kind of problem there, in that we lived in my mother's home town, hundreds of miles from his family, and there wasn't much contact - this was back in the 1950s, so home telephones weren't particularly common.

I have so far found who his sisters were married to and the names of their possible children (my cousins), some of which I vaguely recognise.

I have ordered my paternal grandparents' marriage certificate, though I had to choose which spelling of his last name to use - hopefully the GRO will be able to find the entry because I had included the volume and page number for both. I have found the birth date of their first child as October on one site, but on another it's listed in December, which is also when his parents' marriage is listed, same year.

One other thing I've thought of doing is getting my father's WW2 army record. I'm not sure whether to try now, putting myself down as his next of kin, even though that's technically my older brother (if he is still alive - no contact with him for years and frankly wouldn't want to), or wait until next year when my father will have been deceased for 25 years which is the point where the restrictions are lifted.

One thing I have learned, however, is that I must make meticulous notes! A couple of times today I've thought I'd found some new information on one site, only to see that I had previously found it on a different site a couple of years ago.

I have found the birth date of their first child as October on one site, but on another it's listed in December, which is also when his parents' marriage is listed, same year.

That can sometimes happen if something is transcribed from registration quarters. October, November and December births/marriages are recorded as December quarter. I've had a few incidences of when a birth in October or November was accidentally transcribed as December when going from quarters to actual date.

I have tried the sites listed. I either can't work them.priperlt or I don't have enough info or there.is nothing there as I have hit a complete dead end with my father.
If I pm someone, anyone want to try??

I'm happy to have a go if you PM me. Won't be able to look until tomorrow (Sunday) evening though.

I have some early American colonial names too, like Mehetable. Also Tamesin and lots of Temperances and Patiences. Also Elkanah for a boy. Also Moses, Hannah, Judah, Jacob, Mercy, and many Lucy's. The early colonists took many names from the Old Testament.

I wonder also how they would go over on Mumsnet!

I have learned a lot about the early settlers in New England, and discovered that many of my ancestors were Loyalists, who moved north into Canada during and after the US war of independence. They wished to remain loyal to the Crown. I am in awe of the adventurous spirit and dedication to their faith and country they showed.

I discovered my ancestors came out of Africa about 2,000,000 years ago! And I have the family photograph album going back around 100 years.

That’s enough for me. I don’t have the time at the moment to fill in the middle bits.

@ItsAFuckingPotato I love a challenge so happy to see what I can find if you want to PM me what information you have and what you'd want to know

My family were poor, in and out of the workhouse, lots of illegitimate children etc.

DHs great grandma was Italian though and I have traced her family back to two brothers who came over here with an ice cream business. They are the first people to have that surname in the UK. As I say to my DC, you are related to everyone who has that surname today!

I find it is the ordinary stories that make our ancestors extraordinary IYSWIM.