Genealogy Chat

So the family story went......

Louisa left her two very small children and ran away with a sailor to Australia in 1891.

BY keeping my nose to the info I had found, I have today received her death certificate. She died 9 days after giving birth to her youngest child.

With a new born and a son of 18 months, it made sense for her husband to re-marry quickly. He did, he married Louisa`s sister 6 months later.

But why was the family story made up???

i have a family story that my nan told me she said two of her aunts had married counts and went to live abroad,well one married an italian musician and lived in wales a long way from dorset and the other married a german hairdresser and lived in london ,not so glamorous lol
karen

Family stories and myths certainly do filter down the generations and like Chinese Whispers get more distorted with each new generation.

I and my siblings were told our line came from a rich family with a large country house and a supposed forefather was expelled from the family for getting a local girl into trouble. Because our surname is the same as a line of well know wine importers we were also told we descended from that family.

Other myths we heard was our like was descended from Scotland simply because we had a letter E in our surname while others with the same surname did not. Research however showed the the letter E crept into the surname about the early 1800, prior to that no one had the letter E in their surname.

Like so many others that have heard such myths, genealogical research showed that my line came from a distinguished line of agricultural labourers.

In yesteryear it was mainly only wealthy families that had both the time and money to trace their ancestors. It however sometimes more tactful to allow other family members to go on thinking what they have always believed. After all, they must be right, their parents told them the stories as did their parents before them.

Michael

The family stories are wonderful things, aren't they?

I, too, have found that my rich, land-holding ancestors were, in reality, from the highly esteemed class of agricultual labourers! All good fun, eh?

Wasted over a year searching the wrong records as a result of family "knowledge" that my g grandfather was born in Ireland but moved to Birmingham.

Mistranscriptions meant it took some time to track him down. He moved to Birmingham from the Cumbrian Fells. His mother in law came from Ireland.

Hi,
i was led to believe that my Great Nan's mum and Dad on my mum's side came from Northern Ireland and that Nanny had gypsy in her,well her dad's line came from Cambridgshire and her mothers mother came from Cork!
No trace as yet of the gypsies.
My mum still won't believe me,because someone in her youth told the tale!

Blue12

Hi,

it's funny how the older generation prefer to believe family stories than actual documented proof isn't it?

My mum spent months arguing with me that I had found the wrong family on the 1901 census because the place of birth given for my grandad was about three miles away from where he told her it was. Even when his birth certificate arrived with his exact birthdate on it she still insisted it was the wrong person. It took me months to track down his death certificate because his name had been mistranscribed on the index but it was only when the cert finally arrived and confirmed the place of birth as the same as the census and the name of the informant was her sister did she concede. lol.

I know to tread carefully when passing documents on now however I have found this out the hard way. My mums cousin has been researching her family for several years and always believed that her grandparents had married in an abbey but during my research I found their marriage registration and duly ordered the cert. The cert gives the place of marriage as the local register office. Mums cousin asked if she could have a copy of the cert which mum sent her and sadly her cousin hasn't spoken to her since. I feel awful. I really didn't mean to offend anybody. I was just sharing my findings with other family members or so I thought.

Caz x

Certainly in the 1890's it was unlawful to marry the sister of your deceased wife.

This did not change until The Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907 passed into law.

Despite being unlawful it certainly went on. My grandfather's mother was a second wife. Her oldest sister had died and she came along and looked after her sister's children .... and her husband!

Pete

Somewhere in my mum's family is an Indian prince or Rajah.....still searching for him. No connection so far to India at all. Plenty of ag labs on my dad's side, makes you wonder what the Indian prince would feel about one of his descendants marrying a common ag lab's descendant!

Still family stories are great fun as long as you don't take them as gospel as I think we are the first generation who can really start sorting fact from fiction, and I feel really priviledged to be able to do so.

Liz

I and all my cousins were told that we descend from Oliver Cromwell!!! there may well be some truth in this somewhere along the way as he did have connections with this area of Cardiff plus the name Williams featured somewhere in his life so he has always been referred to as Uncle Ollie!!!!!

Our Family story ,is that Grt grt Grandma was a jewess ,+ married out of the faith, causing big scandal.
Have written to 2 eigth cousins on GR + they both had the same story.
I can't find any truth in it yet......... but watch this space !

Hey, Dakota, you aren't related to me, are you? cos we have this same story in our family. Nor can I find any evidence for it, tho' my mum was adamant. She had been told by a great aunt Freda, whoever she may have been!

Big mystery.

Hi Meriweather
The Jewish story is.... Sophia Newton b1819married Robert Tucker b1826
no fathers names or occupations on marriage cert 1845 Langtree Devon
had they been dissowned ?
that made her Sophia Tucker, (if you are old enough to remember the singer?well it wasn't my Sophia, but perhaps that is where the story came from.
Anyway the nearest I have got is she was born nearly next door to the synagogue in Exeter.... any relation ??

Hi

My grandmother was jewish and married outside the faith and was indeed disowned by her father. He killed himself weeks after his daughter's wedding although we are not sure that the marriage was the cause. Although my grandmother did keep in touch with her mother and siblings my mother can't remember her father ever visiting the jewish relatives. My grandfather was such a darling, I can only think he wasn't welcome because of the marriage.

I used to think this story was strange because my great grandfather himself married an Irish woman. However, that bit is the bit that incorrect, before my grandmother, the line is jewish through and through.

Hi, Dakota. Not the same rellies, I fear, but I am intrigued by the name Sophia as, perhaps, having been given to a Jewish lady. In our tree (all from Susses) there is a lady whose name seems to have been given to the enumerator as 'Sophiah'. Of course, Sophia is a name of Greek origin, meaning wisdom. Sophiah doesn't make so much sense to me. Additionally, apart from her eldest child, John, (she seems to have been a widow, or unmarried) the rest of the children are all listed by initials only. I am wondering if the enumerator couldn,t understand what she was telling him. Or what? Mystery.

Truth to say, there is another legend in our family that says there is an Italian connection, which this one may be. No indication on the Census form that this lady, Sophiah, was born outside of the UK, though. But the first Census (1841) may be unreliable, in thus respect.

Thank you for sharing your very intersting family history with me. Of course, in those days, for a Jewish person to marry out of the faith could cause devastation all round. I have always wanted to find that we truly did have a Jewish family connection, but very dear Jewish friends of mine have explained to me what that might have meant for everyone.

Happy onward hunting.

Meriwether,
That is strange, because one of the GR 'cousins' said that my Sophia was apparently a Spanish Jewess, so I had the exciting vision of the Spanish Inquisition (looking like Monty Python ) throwing the family out of Spain, + them settling in Exeter + setting up a Sephardi Community !
The truth will out in the end.....

>>>I have always wanted to find that we truly did have a Jewish family connection, but very dear Jewish friends of mine have explained to me what that might have meant for everyone.<<<

I am intrigued as to what that means. I know nothing of the jewish faith other than what I have read. My grandmother never mentioned her faith to me.

Hi, Dokata. Yes, yes, yes. I love your imagery, and it is ringing a peal of bells. Thank you so much. I'm so sure that this the answer to my family dilemma! I could kiss you. And if it is so, the lady in question would have been the wife of a gr.gr. Uncle, or thereabouts, rather than a gr. gr. Grandmother and, perhaps, afterall, I didn't inherit my red hair from her , but from somewhere else.

Sephardic Jews, and others, in Spain were given the chance to convert, weren't they? and many appeared to do so, whilst remaining essentially Jewish.

Thank you so much for providing this clue for me.

Dear PollyS, as Jewish families have always been expected to marry only into Jewish families (although things are much more lenient, these days). This has always been such a strict rule of blood and faith that anyone not doing so, and renouncing their faith, could, completely destroy a Jewish family. It could, by the same token, also cause enormous difficulties within Christian families with Jewish connections. This is all historical stuff, may seem strange in this day and age and has nothing to do with being politically correct. Sorry I can't explain it better.

I just have to revert the thread to its tangent to add: now we have the proof that Ann of GG and I are related!

She is descended from Oliver Cromwell ... and I am descended from the General responsible for the Restoration!

Hiya

Thanks. I did already know this although only within the last couple of years. I am the daughter of the daughter of a Jewish daughter so technically I, my daughters and grandaughter are seen as Jewish by Jews.

Still trying to get my head around it I have to say and still have lots to learn. Looking forward to finding some my Jewish cousins of which I know there are lots.