Friend lied about being descended from the aristocracy?

[jezzarbar]

Hi all,

I have a close friend who has consistently lied to me and others about being part of the aristocracy. Both his parents have regular jobs, a nurse and a doctor, but he claims to be a direct descendant of some very very posh families. He goes around telling people and they are often like 'wow' or impressed etc

He even gave names of individuals. I never really thought about it as he is posh and would make sense.

But recently he told me one name and I googled it. I found out the person died without any children so it was impossible for it to be his x times grandfather. I once worked freelance as a genealogy researcher whilst between jobs, so I know my way around records and research.

I decided to be very nosy and look into him. He has absolutely no aristocratic family. In fact, most of his family seems to be working class south londoners.

Why would someone do this?

And to top it off, it isn't as if he could claim it was just family lore. I found a very well researched family tree made by his sister on ancestry. I know they are close so would assume she would share her findings with him.

I really couldn't be arsed to prove someone was lying about their great great great grandparents etc. Why are you bothered?

hes a liar or you havent done your research properly.

why do you care so much? just cut him off and stop worrying about pointless things

Just don’t let him ‘wire you the money’

Honest answer who knows maybe they wanted to be more interesting and got caught in a loop of lies or they are a fantasist.

Only shallow people would be influenced by him be related to aristocratic people so I couldn't worked up about this.

The people who are "impressed" about something that (if it were true) would be no more than an accident of birth are just as bad as the guy who lied about that accident of birth IMO.

Why the fuck does anyone place such store in something so ridiculous.

The headline is:

'Liar tells lies in order to impress shallow forelock tuggers. No-one with any sense gives a shit who his ancestors are.'

why do you care so much?

It sounds like OP was just curious and then fell down a bit of a rabbithole when the lies started to unravel! Nothing wrong with that. But other than a smug smile giving away "I know, and now you know I know" to him, I'm not sure what you can do. No good will come of "confronting" him. Id just file him away in my head as an egotistical liar and be done with it.

Cumpulsive liar?
Insecurity?
He got bored?
He believes it?

What do you think?

Well, if I go back far enough my forebears were Adam and Eve, and they are actually mentioning in the bible!!! Beat that!

Maybe not a close friend for much longer.

He's possibly a liar.

You possibly did your research wrong.

He possibly knows something about his family (e.g. birth out of wedlock) that's not in the official records.

He possibly was told this by someone else and is repeating it without malice.

You don't know. I'd stay out of it. I mean, you can ditch him for running around telling people about his family like it's an accomplishment, but you don't actually know he's a liar.

You must be really impressed by it if you spent time researching him? Maybe he’s mistaken, maybe you are. Why does it matter so much to you and why are you so keen to prove he’s not? What’s rhe big deal?

I think sometimes people - for whatever reason - feel the need to distance themselves from their roots. I had a lovely friend who has now passed who was this sort of person. He was larger than life, a caricature of a posh aristocratic gentlemen - and while there were always whispers that he had secrets that he didn't want to tell, we didn't really learn about it until after he died. Oddly, none of us would have cared at all. We aren't aristocratic either! So there was no need to impress us. You can read about his life here:

www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/nyregion/the-secret-life-of-alan-z-feuer.html

Sorry, it's a long article, but really quite interesting.

I dunno, my MIL tells anyone that will listen that she’s a direct descendent of the Duke of Burgundy. My husband obviously eye rolls at this nonsense (no idea where she got it from), but some people growing up hearing this would believe it.

Maybe his sister spun him a yarn? If he is otherwise pretty trustworthy I would give him the benefit of the doubt.

If you like him as a friend apart from this why don’t you just call him out on it and say it’s a silly thing to lie about and as long as there are no more lies then leave it there.

I used to lie about where I lived - I lived in a really horrible area (there were 2 murders whilst I was there and known for stabbings) as it was all I could afford at the time and if I did tell people they’d be at me, so friends knew but work colleagues didn’t. I moved after 6 months being there to a nicer area. Never got found out.

If he’s not doing it for financial gain but just to big himself up, it’s a bit sad really.

My uncle (by marriage) added the surname associated with a famous children’s author to his name and changed it by deed poll. He wasn’t related to the association at all.

Most People lie because of insecurity. If he felt his background was adequate he wouldn’t bother, he probably thinks he needs to be more impressive.

Some people just lie.

Why would anybody WANT to be descended from aristocracy? All that inbreeding...eww!

Dunno. Doesn’t really matter, people get weird fantasies about things like this (hence the popularity of Downton.)

Just ignore it and change the subject if brings it up.

Sounds pretty harmless as lies go. Maybe he just feels inferior or insecure so makes it up.

I think if I had found out like you had I would ask some gentle questions to see if he would confess or double down.

Fitzalan? I know someone claiming that too