What made you fall into a black hole when finding out about your ancestors ?

[WinterBerry40]

Mine was on my mother's side in the mid 1800s a family with unusual names led to me deep diving into finding out as much as I can about them .

Names :
Thomas , Joshua ( my gg x times gf ) Ambrose , Emmanuel , Hercules ,Charity , Penella , Lendon , Joan .

I discovered they were travellers and had led lives ( and thanks to their names ) which were easily traceable with lots of info available .
They were quite well known in their area and even have things wrote about them in historical incidents .
My mum would have never known she came from traveller stock and I'm quite proud to have that in my family history .
Hello out there if these names are linked to your family also !

If people are chasing Australians, https://trove.nla.gov.au is one of our treasures. It goes up to about 1960.

Small, rural papers are still being digitised and uploaded as funding comes through. A Queensland tranche went on recently.

I'm sure the sign was still up opposite the cinema for Englands Glory - it was a long time ago to be honest, I left Gloucester years ago!! My ancestors also worked the canals - Jacksons so I expect they knew each other :)

My great great grandfather stabbed someone who was trying to attack him (France) apparently he saw the reflection in a mirror.

Another person think his wife, came to England with her husband in 1700/1800 but the English hated her so she slit her throat. My mum was left the death certificate and I think the knife. Grim. We were related to his second English wife.

my great great grandmother was Irish, Daisy
Bunce, got pregnant at 18 unmarried I think in London and died either in childbirth or soon after her baby (my great grandmother) was born. No idea where in Ireland she was from.

Loads more but too much to put here and bore you all with!

Oh no black holes though. My great grandfather we know of his family’s origins but might be confused. Said to be French Jewish tailors who emigrated to Somerset. Then their religion afterwards was CofE. Why was it changed? Persecution? In 1800s. Not looked into that. Ancestry costs a fortune! And it’s the time required to do it.

Wow! Claim to fame! Any more info?

That’s so sad about the witch. Poor woman.

I discovered that my late Mum’s account of her first, very brief marriage was wildly inaccurate in almost every detail. Fortunately, my cousin, who had been close to my Mum at the time, clarified the information Ancestry threw up. After that, I discovered that pretty well every bit of family history my Mum had passed on was equally unreliable. Up until that point, I hadn’t realised she was an inveterate liar.

Bunce isn’t a common surname in Ireland @Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain
In fact I have never heard of it.
Could Daisy have changed her surname ?

Doubtful.

A relative who married into the family has the family bible with all documents from that side of the family and she fell out with my nana (who she used to get on very well with) over an inheritance not in her favour and the evil old witch wouldn’t share this info now! We are in touch with her son who’s a cousin. But lives in NZ.

I think I might do some research on it though. Tragic though isn’t it? But I suppose common in Victorian days.

Yes it is tragic @Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain
Another possibility is that Bunce is the surname of the father of the child.
Her surname might be different.
Daisy too is unusual if she came from Ireland. Most Irish girls, whether poor or middle class were Catholic and were given Saints names.
This went on until the late 1950s/ early 1960s approximately.

We have bigamy and illegitamacy on dh's grandparents side

I’m Irish and know people with the surname Bunce. It is rare and is found mainly in Munster. I’ve attached a screenshot of its distribution in Ireland in 1901 below. (You can find that if you search Surname Maps of Ireland, which are based on the 1901 census and the 1911 census.) When did your great-great gran leave Ireland do you know @Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain?

Daisy is a version of Margaret so it’s probable she was Margaret on her birth certificate.

Ah @Silverofthemoon I live in Leinster and have never heard of it.

Yes, I’m in the right part of the country for that particular surname I think. I still only know one family of the name though.

I see it’s a North Kerry surname @Silverofthemoon

Mostly, although on the Limerick border too at that time and a few in the other Munster counties. This is them 10 years later.

I found out I can apply for Canadian citizenship under the terms of a new (2025) Canadian law as my great grandfather was born there. He later left, but it is 100% certain that he was born there and his parents resided there.

Two of DH's GGG ish Grandad's fought in the same battle during Napolionic wars on opposite sides.

I spent way too long imagining how different the family tree would have been if they had killed each other on the battlefield. (Obviously both survived or DH wouldn't be here).

In general, I was astounded at how many babies women birthed and how few survived 😥.

@Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain There was a Daisy Bunce in Belfast. She may be a generation off for you but it could be a family nickname. One has to start somewhere. See the image attached

I'm on a genealogy website and some relatives have obviously been doing research because I can click back through my family tree for many many generations but I don't know how accurate their research is. Once when clicking back through grandfathers I found quite far back a ggggg something gf who was a Shaman who was sentenced to be burnt to death but actually died on his way to his execution.

Oh wow! Thank you. In fact I got it wrong, my great grandma was Daisy Bunce, her mother (great great grandma) was Irish and died at 18 giving birth. I think she had a different first name but surname definitely Bunce. She never married. So her DD was illegitimate. Don’t know if this happened in NI or England. Would make more sense she’s northern Irish rather than southern due to surname thinking about it.

Sadly this isn’t the correct woman as my Daisy married Sidney Paull and eventually lived in Ladbroke Grove where she died in late 30s in I think early 1920’s. She was apparently buried in a mass grave (someone there said 4 people to grave not more) and she had lots of people following the funeral procession as she gave money to and helped the poor. Her husband was a man made good, tally man, owned first car in street and cats whisker radio. Someone here said her death might be in a local paper archives so must research.

Oh wow thank you! Will put into search engine. We always assumed she was southern not northern Irish and haven’t looked into it yet.

As I stated before an inlaw has all the family docs from that side but apparently her son is visiting soon from NZ so hopefully he can persuade her to pass on info.

I have no idea exactly when she left Ireland. At a guess in 1870/80 or so?