What is your deepest connection with the past?

[Dappy777]

My grandfather, who died when I was 21, was raised by an old aunt who was born in 1872. Possibly, when she was a kid, she met, or was in the same room as, someone born in the 1790s. She was born two years after Dickens died, and 57 years after the battle of Waterloo.

I once read a newspaper article in which the journalist said that his first assignment, as a young reporter, was to interview a lady who’d just turned 100. This was in the 1950s. That lady told him she could remember her grandfather telling her about fighting in Spain during the Napoleonic wars.

Nothing as grand! The only thing I have is a partially completed family tree spanning back to to the late 1800s. I would love to delve further I to it.

I am descended from King Rollo of the Vikings. I kid ye not.

My late DM once saw King George V and Queen Mary, and both my parents were among the cheering crowds outside Buckingham Palace on VE Day.

All 4 of my grandparents was born when Queen Victoria was on the throne.

Late MIL may have a connection to a very famous landed gentry family - she was told the legend as a young child. I have done some digging but am yet to get to the bottom of that one. It is possible as her family was rather well off and had servants when she was small.

How on earth did you get back so far?! Tell us more!

King Rollo is a cartoon from the 1980s. 😁

He was William the Conqueror's great great great grandfather. 😂

My mum is 93, born in 1932. It was fascinating watching The Kings Speech with her and her remembering it all. She has lived through 5 monarchs.

My house - built 1830s and I love it's history.
My maternal grandmother swears we are descended from a Scottish clan from the 14th century and have our own Tartan.

My dad is autistic and family history is his special interest 😂

My mum remembers talking to someone who nursed Florence Nightingale before she died. Definitely a connection to history!

In my last year of primary school, I met a lady in our village who was 100 years old. She would have been born in either 1865 or 1866.

For many years I believed that I had a great grandfather who was born in the reign of George III, but DNA testing showed that actually his much younger wife had had a fling with someone else!

Hopefully you have named one of your children Rollo to honour this. If i had a child I'd be throwing that in there somewhere. 😄

Our cottage was built 1580

My grandad was much older than my grandma. He fought in the First World War and was buried alive in the trenches for two days before he got dug out.

my mother as a baby was baptised by Óscar Romero

That is amazing. I remember being blown away when my great uncle, to whom I was close and who died about 10 years ago in his early 90s, told me his dad had been born in 1860! This arose out of me asking him what his dad (our great grandfather) had done in the war and him saying he’d been too old to fight even in the First World War. Great Uncle was the youngest of multiple children and Dad had clearly started late as was in his sixties when GU was born.
I couldn’t believe that I was sat there in the 2010s in the same room as someone whose dad was born in 1860. It also explained some of the more traditional attitudes in our family - my mum’s mum had been brought up by a proper old-school Victorian, not even an Edwardian!
I should add that GU served in the RAF during the war.

My grandfather was born in 1876. He didn’t marry until he was in his 60s. I remember seeing him when I was a child.

Not as old as some posters stories but this is what resonates with me. I was on a train to Southampton about 2012 or 2013. I cant remember where I was coming from, it might have been Stoke or Oxford. This older lady got on and was dressed in a military style uniform with a few medals dotted about. Anyway we had a good chat...turns out she had been to a commemorative outing at Bletchley Park where she had worked during the war. She told me that the numbers of attendees were dwindling off and soon there wouldnt be any original servicemen or women left to go. She was a lovely lady who told me a few stories of her time there. At the end of my journey she told me her name but i stupidly have forgotten it, and kick myself to this day i didnt write it down. I dont live in England anymore but some day im going to Bletchley.

I love this!

Just think, that lady you met probably spoke to someone who was born in the 18th-century. So you have spoken to someone who spoke to someone born in the 1780s or 1790s.

My grandmother's sister married a man who was wounded at Dunkirk. I also remember meeting my grandfather's brother, who was at D-Day.

My grandmother told me she could remember going to her grandfather's house and seeing a Zulu spear and shield on the wall which he had brought back from the Boer War.

I suspected I am descended from Vikings because I have the contracted fingers, am very blond and some of the names in my family indicate this also. I have a folk memory of spending all summer gathering and preserving food, firewood etc. to get through very long harsh winters.

I did my ancestry DNA test and I am right.

I am fascinated by of people who live very long lives and become like ghosts from another world – who remember things now long gone. I vaguely remember reading a reprinted/vintage newspaper article from the 1920s in which the journalist had interviewed a very old man who had witnessed one of the last public hangings. He had skipped school and walked 20 miles to see a woman hung in a field. He said he wished he hadn't and that the image of her body dangling motionless had haunted him all his life.

I also remember a very old lady in my street in Suffolk as a kid. She had been born around 1910 and was a real old country person. She didn't really belong in the late 20th-century.

Husbands grandfather was born 1864. He didn't marry until he was 40, had a very large family . DH father was one of the youngest and was in his 40s when DH was born.
All my grandparents were born in 1890's. The last one died in 1981. Lived under six monarchs, through two world wars, saw the arrival of cars, planes and Man getting to the Moon.

My Grandfather on my DM side was born in 1872 and was 60 when my Mum was born. He lived in Scotland and DF was in the RAF so we lived all over the world, i only remember seeing him once although he outlived my Granny who was 20 years younger than him.
My DF went into the RAF in 1948 and went to Kenya in 1949, while there he went on a trip from Nairobi to Monbassa on a Steam Train.
His Grandfather was born in 1876 and was in the Army, he and my Ggranny went by ship to China in 1899 and were caught up in the Boxer Rebellion. They were then sent to India, where my Granny was born. Their final posting before returning to UK for good was to Malta. I met both of them when I was very small.