Genealogy Chat

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?

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

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

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???