Do you feel closer or more proud of your poor ancestors?

[blaencoch]

My mum and my dad came from very different families. My dad's family in the 1890s were English speaking Welsh. They were solicitors and accountants. Had big houses with servants.

My mum's family were coal miners in the valleys. They spoke only Welsh. They were poor. 14 people in 4 rooms.

But, I feel fare more proud and connected with the poor family, than I do the middle class? Despite the fact that I live a life far closer to those in my dad's family (heck even I'm a lawyer).

I don't think it's a feeling of pride so much as an OMG what must your life have been like? ancestors left Somerset mid 19c because the mines were running down and went to the north east - one census return shows a couple, their children and a pauper DGF living in a couple of rooms (DGF as, presumably, preferable to the workhouse). Both adults working in the mines. I don't feel close to them because I can't begin to imagine it.

No, I'm curious about all sides of my ancestors, I feel quite removed but also happy and excited to learn about family history.

I think life must have been incredibly tough for my parents parents and beyond them. I’m Irish so we were only a couple of generations off the most horrific poverty and famine and I think it has showed up in significant trauma in many families.

No, not really. Why do you feel more proud of a particular side of your family?

Family history is interesting, but I don’t feel especially proud of any of my ancestors based on class.

Not really, the only feeling of "pride" I get is that some of my ancestors were amongst the Quakers who organised the sugar boycott to protest against slavery. But as a PP says, its still more a fascination with what their lives must have been like rather than a pride.

I wouldn't say proud or connected, but I find one side of my family much more interesting because they are so different to my life now and any parallels I can draw upon delight me.

My maternal grandfather came from a monied family, but married into the working class (don't flame me, it was what it was called at the time). Meanwhile, my DzFs side of the family were Showpeople, so travelled with fairs. There is still a ride in action that is very distinct that beloved to my family, and when I speak to the operators, they know of the history.
I'm proud of both sides, for different reasons - on my DM's for marrying for love, and making it work for them, and my DF's, for surviving a very difficult upbringing because the family could no longer afford to carry on being showpeople (massive back history there) - they were incredibly poor, but my DDad grew up, survived and went on to marry and have us his children.

Sounds bad but I couldn't give a shite about any of my ancestors. I never met my maternal grandparents
and my paternal grandparents were divorced with nanna resented us and grandad having nothing to do with us, same with aunts and uncles. I started my family tree some years back and felt I had no emotions during the process, sacked it off. Both sides from poverty.

I know what you mean I think OP. I've studied my family history in some detail and I was really struck to discover that at least half my great grandparents were illiterate. I've got copies of their marriage records where the signature is "her mark" and a X.
I wish I could travel back in time and tell them that they would have University educated great grandchildren. It's amazing to think how much has changed in only 3 generations and I feel very fortunate to have been born when I was. I'm sure it would have been completely unbelievable to them, living in the kind of poverty that they did, that they could ever have a great grandchild who was a doctor, never mind that it would be a great grandaughter. I am proud and grateful of the efforts of the generations that went before,as their hard work laid the foundations for me,and in all probability the biggest difference between them and me is simply opportunity. My paternal grandfather in particular was a very intelligent man who worked his way out of abject poverty despite having basically no education.
On the other hand my DH has some very wealthy ancestors and some members of his extended family like to point out that they aren't descended from paupers and feel it makes them superior. DH on the other hand feels awkward that his ancestors were the kind of people who made money out of the oppression of people like my ancestors. I don't think we are responsible for the actions of our fore fathers and nor are we the same as them - though it is good to recognise that you have generational privilege I guess - but I am glad that DH doesn't believe it makes him better than others. He feels more affinity with other branches of his family with less privileged backgrounds.

I’m similar - very working class on my dad’s side, minor aristocracy (several generations back, not now) on my mother’s. I don’t feel proud of either side, particularly. I feel equally interested in both, though it has to be said that the posh ones are a lot easier to trace!

I don’t understand pride, how you can be proud of somebody you or your parents never met

I feel more lucky to be alive now than proud when I consider my ancestors’ lives and the hardships they must have faced.

No, I don't see why you would be "proud" of relations, because they were poor.

You might be proud of someone you had found had done something really meaningful with their life, or if you found out they did something heroic, but I'm not sure being poor is something anyone would be "proud" of.

My ancestors left England and sailed on a ship across the Atlantic to Connecticut in 1636 with little more than a few clothes and a few pounds.
It isn’t that though, it isn’t their finances - it’s the sheer guts that amazes me. To have the courage to get on a boat and leave family and friends and everything familiar behind for someplace completely unknown to them - and set up housekeeping and make a living and live there forever, that astounds me.
What if they hated it? What if they failed? I know it was dangerous.
I wish I could’ve known them. I wish I could talk to them.
Those are the people I wish I could meet.

Very proud of them. They had to be so much tenacious and enduring than me.

I find the ones that lived in great poverty more interesting, because they lived such a hard life and it's difficult to imagine (they lived on Cheapside in London when it would have been slums). But I don't feel proud of them, no... I don't know them. They're just names in a census who I know happen to be related to me.

I also have a very wealthy ancestor (sadly the money didn't make it this far through the generations 😂) and his life is interesting in a different way. Less hardship of course, but interesting to learn about the business decisions he made and how they affected the town he lived in.

Pretty much this.

In fact the ones who weren't dirt poor are more interesting as they moved about and had different jobs. The ones who were very poor were all called William and Mary, lived on farms within the same 5 mile radius, had lots of children called William and Mary, worked as Ag Labs.

The one who went to sea and turns up on ship manifests in Sydney in the 1860s, or the one who went off to America and sided with the British in the revolutionary wars are MUCH more interesting.

All mine were working class - working in northern mills and similar. For this reason, sadly, there's very little information to trace other than names and professions in censuses/ marriage certificates; and the furthest I have got back on any line is to around 1800, where the man in the marriage was a carpenter.

The only reason I'd wish them richer would be so more information was available. Although there's something haunting about an old marriage certificate for completely forgotten people - imagining the wedding having its time of bustle and excitement and celebration - and now all that remains is a piece of paper with faded writing on it.

I used to feel proud of my ancestors, and I wasn't aware that was what I was feeling. I have perhaps 3 or 4 that were locally famous (mayor kind of level) and one who still is nationally famous, just about. I was proud of what they achieved. They were particularly into education and the nationally famous one helped to found a university.

More recently I've found out more about the darker side of all of them, and some of it is pretty dark. Lots of eugenics. One was the subject of a long Guardian article about just what a bastard he'd been in the 40s to his employees, and I've been to an art exhibition about the damage from what he did.

I still feel interest in them as people but I've let go of pride. I have to say that there were bastards among the poor ones too but at least they didn't write it all down.

My dsis has been tracing my ddad family as there were conflicting stories of where they came from.
Romany gypsies.
So far she's found the families of both our grandparents.
Great grandmother, my grandad's dm was in prison twice.
1890 - She obtained 4 women's jerseys, a skirt, a hat and a pound of mutton under false pretenses - 6 months imprisonment.
1892 - she obtained gin, wine, salmon under false pretenses - 1 month imprisonment
She's described in the records of 1892 as aged 20, a servant.
Tbh it was a bit of a shock, exciting and sad all at the same time.
My other great grandmother, my nans mum, she actually found a photograph on line, she's selling flowers at the side of the road.
Her husband was eventually killed by a doodlebug during the 2nd world war.
She found both families recorded on a register of gypsies, kind of like a census for gypsies.
It's a funny feeling finding your ancestors, people you've never met but are connected to, I've enjoyed it but it makes me sad, the suffering

Seems odd to feel pride. The only one I’m proud of was my late grandmothers brother who was lovely according to my granny and was a ship’s doctor in WW2 who went down with the ship when it was torpedoed. He could have got out but chose not to leave his patients (witnessed by a colleague who escaped). Drowned at 27. Proud of him.

My Irish great grandad was imprisoned on his wedding day for being drunk and disorderly! What is strange is that I have always wanted to visit a particular area in India. I booked a trip that was cancelled due to Covid . I recently found out that my father’s family originate from that area . I never met him and didn’t even know he was Indian.

Why would you feel "pride" just because they were poor?

I started researching hoping to find someone famous or important but have found coal miners and farm labourers as far back as I can go. No marvellous woman making it as a doctor or famous scientist, just ordinary, poor women who raised families in horrible conditions, buried children, cared for elderly relatives, dealt with husbands being horribly injured in pit accidents. I'm proud of them. They had a hard life but they survived. I hope they had some happiness in their lives. I hope they had a chance to sit and feel the sun on their faces between all the shit they had to deal with.
But I'm not sure I would be more or less proud if they were richer. I've nothing to compare them to.

I feel similar after learning more about my Irish side and what they must have faced. After the famine, my ancestors moved into Dublin - absolute slum of the world at that time, and my GG Grandmother died at the age of 30 from TB a few months after the birth of my great grandmother. My other Irish great grandmother was born in the workhouse in Dublin. They were both in abject poverty. I loved them dearly and wish I had been able to ask them more.