Were your ancestors involved in the British Empire?

[timidtina]

Just curious really. In my part of the country (West Wales) most people’s family have never left the region so have been based here for hundreds and hundreds of years. Obviously there are some people who have moved around, but on the whole it’s a very old fashioned area.

When I lived in Cambridge and in London, I’d often meet people whose mum and dad or grandparents, or even further back, were involved in the British Empire. That’s to say their dad was born in Kenya or granny in India etc. It seemed a much more “global” society. Obviously now there’s a large chunk of the population whose family came to the UK because of the Empire - but I’m asking more about people whose families went out to the Empire and then came back to the UK.

My DGD (Mums side) was born in Darjeeling as his DF worked for the customs and excise. Learned to speak Hindi before English (Indian Nanny) and was overjoyed when Indians were coming to Britain in the 60s as he got a chance for a chat and a decent curry.

Nope.

But I do love a cup of Earl Grey in the morning and a chicken tikka masala when the mood strikes.

No, my ancestors are very much English Scottish Irish very working class, miners, steelworks etc
Some signed up in ww1 and 2 but other than that no travel or living abroad went on!

My Great-grandfather was born in India, his father was a sergeant in the Indian Army, originally from a very small village in Fife.

Nope.

Mine were illiterate farm labourers and domestic servants.

No, but a boyfriend's’ parents were killed by the Mau Mau. He was hidden by his Kenyan nanny, so he escaped

My ancestors were poor mill workers, they only had jobs due to the Empire and therefore benefitted but on the other hand their families had been cleared off the land they cam from so in other ways they were victims (some were Irish so it was more direct). I think a lot of the population was like this - beneficiaries and also victims simultaneously.

My Dad was based in Singapore for 3 years when he was in the RAF. I think Singapore was still under British rule at the time...

I have a great-great-great-great grandparent with connections to the East India Company who it appears may have kept an enslaved African: it was more common than a lot of people realise, I think, for fairly “ordinary” merchants, farmers, traders etc to have an enslaved person working as all-round general household help and labourer rather than slavery just being about vast numbers of enslaved people owned by the very wealthy; and also, post abolition, for people to employ a former enslaved person as a household servant but often on much less favourable terms than they’d employ a white servant.

Some of my ancestors were soldiers in the British Army during the 19th and early 20th centuries and did some of their service in the colonies, particularly in India. My great-great grandfather stayed on in India after he left the army to work on the railways and he and a bunch of other people from that side of my family are buried out there.

I've got a great great cousin of some sort that ran away to America or Canada (no one is 100% sure which) due to an incident involving a game keeper and a "get off my land" moment.
He came back though so I guess pioneer life wasn't for him.

Blood line wise a lot of my Irish and Scottish ancestors went to, Australia, America and Nova Scotia. The french stayed in France. I don't have any English blood but of course if I could go back far enough they may have been enslaved to fight for the empire

I wonder why you are asking? We are not individually responsible for our ancestors actions. (Society as a whole is, which involves us all - but not on an individual level)

As far as we can establish, it’s all farm
labourers, domestic servants, coal miners, char women and other subsistence workers as far back as we could find records.

Some moved from estate to estate seeking work, none left U.K. or Ireland until a handful of emigrants to Canada, Australia and New Zealand from the 1920s onwards.

Most boring episode of Who Do You Think You Are ever 😉

I don't think any of my lot had any connection from it, no. Some of my ancestors came to Liverpool from Ireland during the potato famine, some arrived in London from rural Germany, one moved from Scotland to Essex for some unknown reason and the rest were rural Buckinghamshire agricultural labourers. All of them were as poor as church mice, and some ended up in the workhouse.

No my ancestors on both sides were either farm labourers or servants. In and out of the workhouse. But the fact that subsequent generations led better lives and and post war were able to benefit from better education and health etc was due to how wealthy the UK became as a result of the Empire
I was the first in my family to benefit from a grammar school and university education.

This is outing so I’ll have to name change but my ancestor founded Singapore, so very much so! Also London Zoo

My great grandmother was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her parents were from Ireland originally. She got pregnant at 18 by an English soldier, and she left her daughter with her parents while she worked as a domestic servant. (All discovered in the local census records) They obviously decided to make things legal before he was posted back to England, and they were married in Dublin before travelling onwards to his barracks in Kent.

Great grandfather had been a soldier since a young teen, and had been in the Crimean War.

Edited to add, several of their sons joined the army, and two died at Ypres.

Nope. As far as I know they were all unadventurous rural types who barely left the UK. Any migrations have been within the last 50 or so years.

Nope.

Most people on the planet will have had their lives changed in some way by colonialism in centuries past. The British don't carry the can for all of it. We need to remember that a number of other European countries also had empires overseas, and were also involved in the slave trade. Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany all played their own part too.

Many in various capacities. Father born in the far east where his father was a in big trading company. Other relatives in India and one apparently briefly was governor of Sudan. Another was eaten by a tiger.

Most of these were second or third sons of landed families who went abroad to seek fame and fortune.

From what I can gather mine were pig farmers in Waterford and highwaymen

NO
We were, and are, Working Class

Nope. One of the family got very into the genealogy thing a few years back. My ancestors were tinkers who then became labourers and factory workers on one side, and the other were farm labourers. That followed through to the the last generation (my parents).