What surprising family folklore stories have turned out to be true?

[SuperGinger]

Every family has some random family folklore that just seems wild, what is yours?

I'll start, my great maternal grandparents were friends with Mahatma Ghandi, checked it out and it is in fact true.

My paternal great grandmother was a childhood friend of Queen Mary when she lived at White Lodge, they kept in touch throughout their lives including during the war when my great grandmother was in Nazi Germany, she married a German.

My children have two relatives featured on UK banknotes, one from my side one from my husband's.

Late DM had a large and hideous old vase she'd inherited and always told me it was a Dresden vase. She looked after it very carefully as a prized heirloom and it was passed down to me. Yeah right, I'd always thought, so a couple of years ago I took it to a valuation day at our local auction place. Turns out it is Dresden, and dated circa 1850, which is around the time my GGgrandparents moved to London from Germany so I guess they brought it with them. It's worth a few hundred quid.

I still don't like it.😂

That my maternal great grandfather lived on the same street as D. H. Lawrence and they were good friends growing up.

Oh that is awesome

I've always thought all that Dresden china was over-rated but actually whenever I see old pots in the British museum I'm often underwhelmed and think if I found that in a charity shop I'd totally over look it.

My df, born in the 1930’s, was baptised by a cousin of the Queen Mother.
The cousin became a catholic priest so was not very welcome within the royal family.

My grandad worked for the Kray brothers in the 1950’s. Always thought he was telling porkies, but nope, actually true!!

Wow. In what capacity?

My grandma’s friend got taken up by a cyclone hurricane with a pig. The pig died but Mrs Kavanagh survived and broke her wrist.

Apparently as a ‘runner’ and he did a bit of driving for them. Very much on the outer circle I think, which is probably a good thing given how their situation turned out!!

My great great grandfather was a master mariner and captained cargo boats in the Irish Sea. It was rumoured he had been orphan d rather tragically when half the family were lost at sea. With a little research on Ancestry I was able to convince firm that my 3 great grandfather, his wife ( my 3great grandmother) and two of their children were indeed drowned when the ship he was captaining was wrecked just off the Irish coast near Belfast in a huge storm n the early 1860s. Over a hundred ships were wrecked during the storm over 2 days all round the coast of the UK.

We were told that the family once had money and that Great Grandad owned a string of Hansom cabs in London and gambled them away in a card game. On researching the family tree, appears that at one period he did indeed have wealth, recorded on census as Hansom cab owner, house address in a good area in London (still there amazingly and very expensive area now), son allowed / afforded the opportunity to be a scholar and then... on a later census, lived in a house where there were multiple occupants, in a very poor area of London and listed as labourer. Seems the tale told in the family was true.

My grandad employed Arnold Clark in his car showroom but didn’t promote him to salesman as he didn’t think he was up to much!

Having extensively mystery shopped Arnold Clark dealerships, your grandad wasn't wrong. 😁😆

My great great great grandfather was related to an Earl but was disowned as he married someone from the lower class.

My grandad married his sister in law (after his brother, her husband, died in ww2)

My paternal great, great grandfather was one time Lord Mayor of London and, alongside many of his personal monogrammed items of silverware, cufflinks, tie pins etc, I also have some silk menu cards and seating arrangement plans from banquets which he hosted - it was always said that his son in law was known as the 'Sardine King of London' due to having a prosperous sardine canning business and holding a Royal Warrant - this appears to be true as I have found documentary evidence amongst family paperwork. He also had a close friendship with Prince Edward (later Edward V11) and was a guest at several of his shooting parties, as well as mixing with music hall stars from the late Victorian period, including Weedon Grossmith as personally inscribed copies of Grossmith's autobiography and 'Diary Of A Nobody' attest.

On my maternal side one of my ancestors was the pirate/explorer/naturalist/cartographer William Dampier who marooned, and later rescued, Alexander Selkirk, the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe, from a deserted island in the Juan Fernandez island group. I have one of his sea chests and a naval pattern telescope which belonged to him.

My late Ddad used to tell me he was related to Bert Weedon (very famous guitar player for those who might not know!). I always thought he was making it up but it turns out that they were second cousins.

My great-gran's grandfather was involved with "the smugglers" and narrowly avoided transportation. This was in Croydon. About 1810. Yeah, sure. Smugglers in Croydon.

Years later, I read a book on smuggling in the early 19th century. It seems Croydon was notorious as being where the middlemen operated from. They went down to the coast, bought the stuff from the blokes on the boats, then brought in inland and sold it to the London merchants.

Who'd have thought it!

Not "folklore" as such since I found out it was true virtually the day after.

The "Mr Jagger" I was introduced to at my Granddad's funeral was Mick Jagger's Dad.

Turns out he was. He knew my DGD through a sporting activity.

My dads mum hated my mum as “she was black”
we laughed a lot about it as she wasn’t, I’m as pale as snow and thought she was being ridiculous (even if she had been, it’s stupid and racist”
until I did ancestry and a DNA test like “uhh dad?…”

Thats odd as so did mine and my great uncle!
They were jewellers.

My great grandad invented a special dye process which revolutionised textile production in the early part of the 20th century. His son, my grandad's brother, invented the squeegee. I thought it was just talk as surely they'd have been rich off the proceeds, but I've since found out it's all true and they're weren't rich because gt grandad didn't think to patent the idea and gt uncle couldn't afford to patent it and someone else, who could, got in first.

Blind faith members apparently went to a family funeral and my DH is furious as his DF can't remember which particular people it was, as apparently they were quite famous.

It is horrid. It lives in a box in the loft. 😁

Ahh wow! I wish I’d asked my grandad more about it all when he was still alive, I’d be fascinated to hear all about it now.