Genealogy Chat

My family was the same ...... don't ask questions and you won't be told any lies!!


My grandfather fought in WW1, in "Mesopotamia". My mother was 10 when the war started, so was old enough to know things. We had a short sword that she told me grandfather had picked up on the battlefield, and she also had a dried flying fish that "flew onto the ship bringing granddad back to England, he dried it and gave it to me". But that is all that I know. I have no idea of the regiment etc etc ...... and Harry Schofield is quite a common name.

He didn't talk about it, I didn't ask about it.

His only daughter-in-law burnt everything to do with her husband's family when he died in 1991 ....... and I wasn't fast enough to write from here to ask for any pictures, documents etc. Her reasoning "I didn't think anyone would be interested"! By that time I was the only grandchild still alive ......... but she never asked me!! She's now 93, still pretty bright, but claims she knows nothing about the Schofields.


My father was in restricted occupation during the war ............. but he never talked about it, nor did I ask about it. So what did he do?????


I started doing my research back in 2003 ...... I knew my brother had done some work on my father's family, and that a cousin had traced it back to 1720, so I thought I would start on my mother's family.


I was sooooooooo lucky that first afternoon!!!


I knew nothing except that grandmother was called Clara, she had a sister Florrie (because she lived next door to us when I was small) and a sister Hannah who had gone to New York and who was my mother's godmother ................... and I knew that because we used to get letters from her until she died some time in the 1950s. But I didn't know the maiden name nor the married names of either of the sisters.

But as I said I was lucky ................ they married before Mum was born! I found Mum's birth registration. Then I looked a couple of years earlier on freebmd ...... found a Harry Schofield married to a Clara Cotterell.

Found, by accident as I really didn't know what I was doing, the 1901 census site ........ and there was a Clara Cotterell with sisters Florrie and Hannah.


I did all that in the first couple of hours searching ..... it came so easy!!!


But there were all these siblings of my grandmother's and grandparents, none of whom I remember being mentioned! One of grandmother's aunts had at least 5 illegitimate children by 1901. May be that was the reason there was never any mention of any relations??!!

I know Mum used to occasionally go to other graves in the cemetery, "our family" she used to say ....... but I never asked who they were!!!!



As regards our children.

My daughter has informed me that she doesn't like a boring old family tree .... she wants to know how people lived, what they did, their relationships, etc. So I have a very small "traditional" tree, most of which is not on here ............. I keep all the information in almost a story format!


One of my nieces (out of 3 daughters that my brother had) is interested in family history ..... the other 2 couldn't care less.


sylvia

My biggest regret is that I didn't go to London this summer to visit my great-aunt who was 95 as I had planned to do. Apparently she loved to talk about the old days and I had loads of questions I wanted to ask her. But things cropped up and I never went to see her and we sadly lost her in October.

My maternal grandmother liked to talk about her family and even took me to visit the graves of her parents and siblings who died in childhood. As it turns out I knew more about my gran and her family than my mum did as like others have said you didn't ask personal questions of your elders.

My dad on the other hand is a nightmare. He knows absolutely nothing about his parents early lives, his grandparents or anything else regarding his family. He must have spent his entire childhood with his fingers in his ears lol. It doesn't help that his maternal grandfather had a really common surname and lived in London so I have not been able to trace his family on the census. I'm hoping for a breakthrough one day. Aren't we all? lol.

Caz

Susie lol, yeah sounds like they are related!

I had a lovely email via GR from a lady from her hotmatches, I was about to dismiss it cos I didnt think that it was right, she was asking about my 'Smith' relatives and if they had lived in Warrington, and mentioned the name 'Bibby'...... I was telling dad about it & he turned around & said "My Granny Smith had family called Bibby and she used to take me to visit them in Warrington" ........... next thing he is stood by my computer "ask her if she has a Billy, Lilly or William Bibby in her tree, thats my grannys family"

I am currently struggling to pin down DOB's for some of my nanas siblings, lol Smith aint the easiest name to search ............. I was trying to work out who was who, dad looks over my shoulder ....... "you have uncle Fred & Uncle Tom in the wrong order .......... hmm & wheres Lilly, & why dont you have My cousins xxx & xxx on there " .................. hmmm maybe cos I only just found out about them 10 seconds ago?

hmmm & in the 20+ years I have been trying to do this tree he has NEVER said this! ............... when i asked why the answer was "I thought you knew" ....... how he thought this I have no idea -

LOL I swear my family think I was BORN knowing things , or I learn them by Osmosis!

Gail

Karen, I wish I could wind back the clock so much to the day my grandad started telling me about his family, and I wish SO much I could have recorded it, I really regret going to that new years eve party now!

George, I agree, I wish I had taled to my other grandad about what happened to him in the war, he died in 1977, officialy from other causes, but he was sick from the day he was discharged from the army, and he was pretty much confined to the house much of my childhood, so many oppertunities to talk wasted.

Polly, I am finding now my Brother & Sister have children of their own they are much more interested in where they came from (something that I have always been interested in) and they are asking more questions, my sister-in-law actually asked me if I would work with her mum to do a complete tree for my niece, lol a daunting thought as we both have over 8 generations in our trees on at least 3 sides............. I think its wonderful they are getting involved now, and my nephew & neice will both have as much info as I can get for them when they are old enough to understand it, we all talk to them about family stories now so hopefully they will grow up knowing about at least 2 generations - and my neice also has a living great-great grandma she knows.

Gwyn, lol I do that too! ............. a lot of my relatives came from an area near my brothers house, I quite often stop & look at addresses, and when I am asked why I explain "this is the house grandad was born in" or "great grandads shop was in this position" or whatever ............. lol the best was when I was driving thru rural Cheshire, took an 'accidental' wrong turn & then 'accidentaly' found the village my grandads family had lived in for over a hundred years, and the church Great grandad & his family had worshipped & married in............. didnt do it on purpose honest lol it was purely an accident I turned just there hehe


Gail

I suppose I was lucky.We visited my maternal gran once a week and I was the only grandchild,and gran was the lovely cuddly kind,so different from my dad's mum who was Victorian and distant.
My mother's mum used to tell me stories about when she was young(and she was one of 13 and when her father died,her mother married a man with 12!!)
I used to listen sitting in the firelight and it seemed magical talking about the orchestra they had.Can't imagine how they fitted all those people in the small terraced house,but some of the big family were married and away I suppose by the time the last ones appeared.
I always knew her mother ,my g.gran came from Cornwall and gran told me that her mother lived in Looe and during the Napoleonic wars,one time the soldiers were away when they were being attacked and all the women put on red shawls and sat on the coast to make the French think the soldiers were waiting for them.
since I've been doing my history,I believe that it wasn't my g.gran who did that,but my g.g.gran who was born in Looe.Some stories can be romanticised by the telling,but I ,being an only child visited lots of my mother's aunts and uncles,as people lived nearer to each other then and it was your"duty" to visit.Must say we had lots of sing songs round the piano,and the jug kept going to the off licence to be filled.Even during the war we still visited and had a lot of laughter and I still know loads of old songs and with all the verses that were sung.
That maternal side,one line back to 1650,but father's side I am not doing too well,early 1800's.
My gran's father was Irish and I am stuck with that as it is Tipperary,and I did have some wrong info from the Heritage Centre in Tipperary that I visited a few years ago.
My daughter is quite interested and son..to an extent.I have found quite a few 2nd cousins from Genes and because I had listened when I was young have been able to pass some of the stories on to them,even about their own grandfathers and grandmothers.I also identified a lot of pictures(for which I was grateful to receive)of the Victorian family as I'd known a lot of them through all the visits.
So everyone,talk to your offspring and keep the interest going!!

Brenda x

I actually remember my grandad starting telling me all the family history years ago, unfortunatly I was young, and it was new years eve and I had better things to do!

I do remember a lot of family stories, I was lucky enough to know all 4 of my grandparents, and one of my Great-Grandparents (step-gt-grandma) and their memories took me back to the late 1880s, (gt grandma lived to be 99 1/2) and she was an amazing lady, thru her Iearnt all about my gt-grandad and amazingly his 1st wife, my grandads birth mother ('grandma' brought him up most of his life after his mother died very young)

LOL I did fall foul of the 'false story' tho, my Nana deliberatly didnt tell me something for 3 years that kept me from finding her Parents marriage, she says she didnt know when her parents married, although when I finaly found the marriage (her mother used a family nickname not her real name!) , and went thru the hell of figuring out how to tell my 89 year old Nana her parents married weeks before her eldest brother was born she suddenly produced the ORIGINAL 1903 marriage cert! (lol after 3 years of searching for it I was NOT amused to find she had had it all along!)

I am finding now when I find out things I run them past my mum or dad (depending on whos side it was) and see what they remember, Mum was a product of the 'not in front of the children' upbringing so she only knows certain things of her family, but she does actually remembers much more than she thinks when i prompt her.

Dad on the other hand drives me nuts!
I find things out, run them past him and then I get............. ohh yes I remember that.......... and then he will tell me things he thinks I already know, but he has never told me
I have just given hom a notepad & pen & told him to jot down anything he remembers - my Nana was one of about 11 siblings, surname smith lol, who scattered all over the country working on the railways............ anyone want to find me a Charlie, Ada, Lily, Fred or Thomas Smith, DOB only aprox & place of residence unknown!
LOL Amendment to this, dads just decided to give me Thomas's last known address, right down to the house number & street name ! grrrrrrrrrrr

lol good job I love him!

Gail

I know my mum told me my grandma never told her anything of substance when she was growing up - I hate to think how many secrets Grandma took with her when she died.

She actually got married about five weeks before my mum arrived (having divorced someone else after walking out on him with another man! - my mum's half-brothers went to live with Grandma's sister and she barely knew them growing up) but when questioned by my mum, Grandma "couldn't remember" her wedding date and "didn't know" how many years she'd been married.

My other grandmother, "Gran" (never Granny - "it made her feel old"), on the other hand, told me many snippets. Some I now know to be untrue but they may have been told incorrectly to my gran on purpose - for instance, she thought her grandad died in Canada (actually Lancaster Lunatic Asylum) and that her mother was born in Canada too (actually Bootle, but she didn't like Liverpudlians, I'm told). She did remember all the names but one of her aunties (actually her great-aunties, but maybe I phrased the question the wrong way - I was only about 13 at the time).

imagine how it feels when asked"mum who was your dad" Well like so many on here it was taboo to ask about those things and sadly like others it is too late now

rose

And what are we, the present generation doing to make the next generations interested?......
My daughters would rather watch paint dry than get involved with family history, ...and yet they just sometimes remark, " Didn't a relation live in that village?2, ..if we travel certain areas of the country.

Our grandson is staying here this weekend, so today we went out to a little old village not far from here and had Sunday lunch....
The fact that a birth certificate received yesterday showed someone born yards from that pub, in 1904 was pure coincidence.....?
We've also taken him to Wales and shown him the village where his great grandmother was born. He remembers her, my Mum, and can now picture the scene when she told him about walking to the next village for bread, when her village was caught in snowdrifts.
Hopefully he will remember at least some of the family tales and so we will have handed the baton of interest on to another generation.

Gwyn

My mother married outside of her religion and became an instant 'leper' to her parents. A few years later the wound began to heal and I was taken to 'The Grand House' only to being totally ignored and never to return or see my maternal grandparents again. Fortunatley another family member has researched this side..........I dont think I would have the heart to.

My Mum, her parents and sisters left Dublin when Mum was aged 12 but luckily I knew my Irish Grandparents but didn't see them that often as they lived in London and we lived down in Wiltshire.

I never heard Mum talk about any of her aunts and uncles only an aunt Alice who lived in the USA.

Like most of us older 'uns I never asked Mum who this aunt Alice was when she was alive.

When my son was at junior school and Mum was still alive then, they were asked to do a family tree so he asked my Mum the names of her parents...well I knew Grandpop's name but hadn't a clue what Gran was called but she told my son that her name was Emily Brady. Well I never knew that!
Mum had no idea who her grandparents were so the Irish side of my son's family tree for school ended there.

I reminded Mum about her Aunt Alice who lived in the USA when I was small. After some thought she said that she was sure that Alice was her Dad's sister.

I already knew the names of my Dad's parents but he had no idea of his grandparents names either! He could remember a couple of aunties but didn't know which side of his family they belonged too!

Dad was the youngest of 8 children so most of his relatives where pretty ancient when he was growing up!

So my son went off to school with a very sparse family tree!

I started tracing my family tree nearly 5 years ago and that was all the information I had to start off with.

With both parents now gone and just one aunt left on the Irish side it has certainly been a hard slog finding out Irish information.

Dad's side was quite easy to trace, just one or two hiccups..but they have been resolved and I've got back to the 1600's and 1730's.

I know its been said before...do ask ANY living relatives for any info..no matter how insignificant it seems.

I asked my cousin, the daughter of my Irish Mum's only surviving sister if she knew of any Irish relatives.
She wasn't sure..but she had her Mum's address book at home and gave me some names, addresses and phone numbers out of there. She said that they were relatives, but didn't know if they were our Mum's or her Dad's.

I was quickly on the case and found 3 of my Mum's relatives...descendants of my Irish Gran's sisters!

One lived in the USA so I wrote to her and she sent back copies of all her family's BDM's PLUS the death certificate of Gran's Father and Grandfather. She also knew Gran's mother's name and also told me that my Gran and hers were from a BIG family...of about 20 children, but not all survived.

When the 1911 Dublin census came out I was overjoyed to find my Gt Grandparents on there with my Gran aged 16 and a brother. Looking at the original hand written copy, Gt Grandfather had signed his name Michael Patrick Brady and Bridget his wife was from Roscommon. It also stated that 18 children born alive but only 8 living.

Phone calls to the other 2 in my Aunts address book also revealed a whole lot of information and wonderful photos. It turns out that I had met one of Mum's cousins when I was about 12 and we were staying with her eldest sister up in London for the week. At the time I had no idea who this 'Birdie' was and never thought to ask Mum either!!

I now have a vast amount of pictures all framed of some of my Grandparents' brothers and sisters on both sides of the family. Some relatives found on here and some on Ancestry....including the granddaughters of my Mum's Aunt Alice in the USA!

It's been a journey and a half...but well worth the effort especially when to see the family likeness in your own children!

Sue C...your reply made me smile...I was pulled aside and told one couple in the tree were not married and could I pretend they were if anyone asked! The request came from a grandchild of the couple. none of those involved are with us still funny how some people are eh?

it all sound's so sad,
i only started researching my family history four years ago,but even then it was too late for most of the info i would loved to have had,a lot of the family died 1980/to present,.
gwen xx

What a nice thread this is. I am enjoying all the stories, and hope plenty more peeps will add to it. Thanks Alan, for putting it up.
K

I agree, if I had asked my grandmother anything like this I would probably have had a clip round the ear. LOL Most of what I do know has been from my now dearly departed mum who would reminisce.
It is fortunately very different today and I do try to involve the younger generation, but they will have all my notes when their turn comes, hopefully not TOO soon :)

I was fairly lucky. When my mum was alive, she relished in telling me all the "family scandal" and when there's a bit of scandal involved, you tend to listen.......not that it seems very scandalous by todays standards, but when I started this, I already knew that both my maternal and paternal grandparents were not married.....at least not to the the right other grandparent. Saved me alot of trouble searching for marriages I was never going to find.

Because Cynthia -they would have shut up ,'not for little ears' -don't beat yourself-!!

When they got together, my mum and grandmother used to chatter endlessly about the 'old days'. Why didn't I just LISTEN??????

Know the feeling, i must have spent over 9 months trying to document my Dads 12 year career in the Royal Navy 1937 to 1948 what ships he was on where did he serve etc etc., if i had asked him he would have told me in hours, but when he was alive, i wasnt doing family history, so the question never arose. I am amazed at the things i found out about him.How i wish i could show him what i have done.Its still not yet complete

George

I have had an interest in my past for many years but was estranged from the family and so had no opportunity to ask..with help from wonderful people on here I am making progress on the tree...I have a few older photos on my wall and my grandchildren can tell anyone who asks who the people are and what ever it is I was able to remember about them...I hope I have not got a defective memory!!! and also about current family members..so hopefully the problem will not occur for the next generation ..I know some of my very young visitors have gone home to thier families and mentioned the " dead people" and so the discussion starts and information is shared. Wonderful.