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.

I'm sure she had great insight into his health feet tell a lot.

@piscofrisco that is terribly sad your poor father

@changedusernameforthis1 did you get any insights into why he left, apart from his millionaire status? Was he up to no good, a wanted man etc?

My 13th great grandfather was put to death by King Henry VIII for being accused of having an affair with Anne Boleyn

My dgf's db was engaged to Vivienne Westwood. Not sure how to check if it's true. No relatives still alive.

Its not my family but i feel its interesting. The people we bought our house from (an Indian coupe and their tweenage grandson) told us they were moving to bigger place because their son was coming back from Australia, what they didn't tell us was he had been away cos he was on the run for murder, a murder which happened on the pedestrianised green space outside the front of our house! A few months after we moved in at 6 o'clock on a Sunday morning we were woken by the doorbell and found 4 police officers, two at the front and two at the back asking for him, on looking at my snow white husband one said i think we have to wrong house. We told them they had moved but we didn't know where but we did have the number for the guy who sold them his house so he would know. Never heard anymore about it, but kept an eye on the local paper for bit after.

My great great great grandfather was part of the carpenters crew on a ship at the battle of Trafalgar, Never believed it until I did my own research

My grandad on my mums side grew up with the Krays

My dad’s brother lived very close to George Harrison and as they were both musicians played a few sessions together, he quite often went to his house. I have a picture of them playing together.

Not my family, my husband’s. Family legend has it that there was a serial killer in the family so they changed their name and moved away. Apparently they picked a surname at random that they thought was pretty.

Researching his family tree was difficult but my husband found evidence that a great grandfather was the son of serial killer Mary Ann Cotton, the ‘West Auckland poisoner’ hanged in 1873.

Have you been to the museum?

https://www.visit-nottinghamshire.co.uk/things-to-do/d-h-lawrence-birthplace-museum-p641161

My great uncle was on the Carpathia and helped rescue survivors.

My great grandfather was shipwrecked twice and survived. Don't know the second occasion but the first was when the MV Leinster was torpedoed by a German submarine during WWI just off the Dublin coast.