Genealogy Chat

Not so much my ancestor but will be my grandchilds when my daughter decides to have children. One of her husbands ancestors was Lord Byron. And I suppose he was pretty interesting. Maggie

I am very new to this site. Not much added to my tree yet, you may be interested to know that my great aunt is Joyce Cooper the olympic swimmer 1928 games and 1932 games and she won silver and bronze from both games.

We have two - one on each side of the family. My ancestor on my father's side was General Picton. He fought at the Battle of Waterloo and was one of Wellington's lieutenants. The name 'Picton' was taken by several male members of the family as a first name. On my husband's paternal side we have Oliver Cromwell from whom the additional surname of Peveral was derived. They were of course 'wrong side of the blanket' descendants! That's about all I know but if anyone has any more information, I'd love to hear it. Best wishes Sally Clark.

I have been sent a newspaper article from 1879 about a distant anscester of mine who left her 3 yr old daughter and 10 month old baby home alone in bed while she went for an order for the workhouse and came home to find her house on fire and the 3 yrs old dead. And another ancester was a bigamist. apparently he left his wife and children in england, while he and his brothers went to America & fought in the Civil War with the 11th Kansas Volunters, he went on to marry again!

My most interesting ancestor is my great great aunt Kate. My great uncle has told me the following story about her but as yet I have found nothing to confirm it. Aunt Kates husbandfell in a vat of acid at a chemical works in widnes. Aunt Kate was then addmitted to Rainhil asylum and remained there for sometime.

I don't know about most interesting - but my funniest ancestor is on my paternal grandmothers fathers side. He was in the army and they were camped out in a large tent for the night. Well, he couldn't sleep because of the other mens snoring! He went outside and found a sheet of corrugated iron propped against a wall. He decided that he would sleep under that for the night. When he awoke next morning the camp had been invaded overnight. The tent and all the men had gone - the vehicles and equipment had been taken too - and he had slept through it! Also, his family once recieved a telephone call from him and worridly asked why it was so noisy his end. He said that it was because they were under attack! He had shinned up a telegraph pole and plugged in his telegraphist equipment! It had been the only time his superiors were distracted enough for him to sneak a call home! Mine are a mad bunch!!! -Kat

Kat, I like the sound of your lot! I also have a second cousin who, in ww2, was in the Caribbean (Idon't know why - he was a serving soldier) but he used to send coconuts home to his family by writing the address on the shell and sticking on a stamp! My father said they used to arrive like this!

My paternal grandmother's grandfather was known as 'Toffee Ben' in Accrington. He was a great one for experimenting and made many varieties of sweets in his kitchen. He went down 'Accy' on a Saturday to sell them - and was very popular. However, he got a bit carried away, and started experimenting with various things to make dye. To test out his products, he would go and pinch cocks/hens from folks hen-pens and try his colours out. He couldn't understand why his popularity wained. My great-grandma had a sweet shop next door to a pub way back in the 30's. She also sold penny bottles of 'pop'. She put a notice in the window which read: "Penny bottles are tuppence at Sunday when the pubs are shut".

I have been tracing my fiancee's family tree, and am stuck at one man, my great-grandfather-in-law-to-be! Now this man was a bigamist of the first degree ... he married 3 times and never divorced, had many children along the line and then ultimately marrried at 18 year old at the age of 50 (not that that is a problem, but does kind of round him up)! He is completely untraceable in the UK .... So the question is ... do I marry his great-grand-son? ;-!