Family History

[Kærlighed]

My hobby is tracing my family history. I mostly started it out of a desire to find out where I really came from, as my parents never really got on with anyone, so as a child I hardly knew any of my family.

Part of it though, was to find some kind of hero in the family. I war hero maybe or someone who saved a life. With all the people who have fought in wars over the years, and all the common ancestors we have, every family has some sort of hero somewhere. However, my family seems to be the exception. The only person of note I have found was a woman by the name of Florence Crook II, who was the village nutter. That's actually not true. There was an Arthur Millard on the other side of the family who made it to the local press. He attacked a policeman and wound in an asylum for insane criminals where he spent his days talking to the little men who lived in the walls.

No heros, just nutters. Anybody else enjoy family history and do you have any interesting tales of woe, misfortune or heroism worth sharing?

[Zephyranth]

Re: Family History

My father studies family history intensely, and he has only found one interesting story. Sort of a Romeo and Juliet situation where my great great grandmother and great great grandfather married in secret and didn't tell anyone of their marriage until much later. Fascinating.

[JamesByrne]

Re: Family History

The only person of note I have found was a woman by the name of Florence Crook II, who was the village nutter.

Hahaha thats good. Can you trace your family back far?

I have trouble tracing mine back passed the 19th century. War and famine mean it can be down to the church records and the census some times all it tells me is someone in the family vanished. Ive no idea where they went. That might not have been too different to what happend in the day tbh.

I have what some people call heros but one mans hero is another mans villain. My great grand father and my grandfather on my mothers side were leaders in the war of independance,and my grandad in particular is fairly famous. He is in history books doing and organising some fairly violent things. The way he lived left a legacy of violence not just in our culture but in my family. Its harsh. Hes a hero but hes also a cold blooded murderer. Ask the land owners he killed, the soldiers families he deprived of sons and fathers if hes a hero. Glorifying violence is a bad thing... imo.

My grandfather on my fathers side was a more subtle kind of hero. He became the lord mayor of a village but he grew up rough and got the position after doing some illegal robin hood style stuff when the people of the place couldnt feed themselves or heat their home. Which only amounted to going up and cutting down trees for firewood illegally so everyone was looked after and stealing food from delivery vans but it was remembered and what struck me growing up and makes him my preferred kind of hero is even though he was a very rough type of person he cared about his community and right up to his death everyone knew who he was even though those bad old days were gone. He had time for everyone.

I can do more through what the family told me about my relatives and through the history of things like family names and heraldry but its not empirical evidence. I can trace my family back to tribal territories with their associated tutelary and ancestral dieties and otherworld ancestors but i dunno the names of the people who lived there. TBH once you go back that far everyone is related to everyone. There are far too many people now in comparason to the population of the day, not enough ancestors to go around for us all to say Im x tribe. Im all tribes.

[Asrais]

Re: Family History

My dads side of the family are Italian. My great grandmother and grandfather fled Italy during WW2 and made it to Ireland with my grandfather, who was four at the time. According to my Grandmother, they spent the war hiding in various different safe houses around the country. My grandfather was an incredibly talented musician - I think if he were around to day, he would have been classified as Autistic and music was his "thing". I know nothing of the Italian side of the family before that, other than that they were from Milan and that my family were outcasts, I assume for leaving.

On the Irish side, my family were once chieftans (so it is said), before the English came. Funny enough, spent most of their time fighting with my husbands ancestors. They married off their children to one another to make peace! Many of my ancestors, and those of my husbands, were sent off as slaves for the British colonies.

I can't remember where, but apparently there is some Carribean Island or something somewhere that has a large population of Gaelic speakers and they trace their origins back to my family and that of my husbands!

[ConnollyCelt]

Re: Family History

Nothing fancy Im afraid. I can trace my family just beyond the turn of the last century. Most were common labourers, but I also have a few career soldiers and maybe some great uncles in the IRA. It's difficult to track because no one in my family likes learning about the past

[DanieMarie]

Re: Family History

My dad is into it. He traced part of his family to a united empire loyalist (these were people who came to Canada after the American revolution because they were still loyal to Britain). Mostly it's hard though, because both sides of my family immigrated relatively recently, for the most part.

On my mom's side especially things got lost. The only thing of note that we know (because it's recent) is that her grandmother was a reasonably well-known singer before and during the war.

[Dez]

Re: Family History

I've told some interesting stories in here before...my dad's side is a rather rare Scottish surname for Amerca. Most of them ended up in the Midwest, but my great-great grandfather abandoned his wife and daughters, took his son, and became a miner in Park City, Utah. The son was abandoned and raised by a Mormon family, only to have his father show up on his doorstep when he was a married grown man, asking to live with them. That family lived in a chicken coop during the Depression.

On my mom's side, there was a huge feud between her grandmother and great-grandmother. The elder blamed her daughter in law for her son's death ( had a family he was supposed to check on as part of his church duties, got caught in a storm on the lake you had to cross and died of pnumonia). That left his wife with five children to feed during the depression, and she made her living as a washerwoman. She recieved no help from church because of her MIL's influence, either...her children cut across their yard all the time without even knowing they were related.

[anunitu]

Re: Family History

I have had a few interesting stories told to me about my family,My mother was a mixed bag of different races,Italian,English,Irish Dutch,and was told we had a little royalty in that mix,an English lord,one of an Italian King,but they came and went a lot back in the old days. My Grandfather moved from France to Canada back when that meant sailing across the Atlantic,and then traveling across the eastern part of the country to Calgary and staking a claim in the Calgary stampede,built his Ranch,and raised goats,and made cheese. I ran into a relative on a site where you trace your family,and learned that one of my Aunts married a polish man that served in the French Foreign Legion. As far as my links to France I am I was told directly descended from the Gauls,a tribe of Celts that were known for their fierceness in battle,the Romans took 4 or 5 tries to defeat them,and that with great loss for the roman army. I am thinking there were a few strange one also because I have never been what one could call "Normal" I have always followed my own path,and never been a sheep in this society. as I remember someone saying "Question everything,and believe only after digging for truth"

[Sarkana night]

Re: Family History

I have some interesting stories about my family.
long time ago, during the french revolution, a french man fled to denmark and fell in love with the daughter of a rich landlord. the landlord had already choosed his daughter's husband, which were a (we don't actually know if this is right) rich doctor or .... something, so this was a kind of forbidden love.
the rest of the story is unknown, so we don't know what happened to them later, or how they died, but we do know that the landlord's daughter got pregnant with a son, and some generations later, the family were very rich and many of the sons were "Knights of Denmark" which were a very high status in that time. those were some of my ancestors. (very strange that my family once were great and rich and now it's just like a common family, actually pretty poor compared to other common danish families)

A couple of years ago, my grandfather suddenly discovered some family members in Chicago. very strange.... but now, he had searched about the story and got to that point that, when all the settlers from europe moved to America, (to get more money, and new houses and more goods which they thoght they could get there) a man from my family (probably called Christian - hahah... i know what you think, but it's a normal danish name....) also moved to America and started family there, and that was the ancestors of my family from Chicago.

sorry for my annoying, bad english!

[Wyrd]

Re: Family History

Only thing noteworthy about my family is that I could trace it back over 1000 years thanks to my parents having unique surnames. On my Dad's side his ancestors were land owning Lords of the North-West of England since Anglo-Saxon times, and on my Mum's side they were Norse settlers back when the Danes ruled half of our country.

Other than that there's nothing really interesting or unique haha

[volcaniclastic]

Re: Family History

My ancestors come from a welsh clan that was reputed to have been hired by King Henry VIII to kill the catholics and help him take over the church during the era when he created protestantism.

There's also a loose rumour that my great-great-times-infinity grandfather could potentially have been Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, but we're missing some links in between and it's a loose rumour at best.

Oh, and my great-great-great-great-great grandfather settled and founded a small town in Manitoba in the 1800s. If you're ever in Morden, Manitoba...I think I'm related to half the town.

[Jembru]

Re: Family History

I rarely believe family history tales that go any further back than two or three generations. If I did however, my family swear we are directly descended from Robert the Bruce. Hmm.. not impossible, but impossible to prove. Records just don't go back far enough to know one way or another, so unless I inherit a castle some time soon, I just don't care..

[WillowoftheWisp]

Re: Family History

My ancestors come from a welsh clan that was reputed to have been hired by King Henry VIII to kill the catholics and help him take over the church during the era when he created protestantism.

.....

Protestantism was set forth by Martin Luther, not King Henry VIII. Henry separated the Anglican Church (Church of England) from the Roman Catholic Church because he felt England was being treated unfairly and like a minor throw-away country by Italy and he was incredibly hungry for more power while Martin Luther started Protestantism after the pinning of the 95 Theses (around the same-ish time as King Henry VIII separated religiously from Italy) because he felt the whole of the Catholic Church was corrupt (selling of indulgences, monks who were supposed to be celibate hiring prostitutes, etc.).

>_>;;

Sorry. *history major* I see these things and can't let them gooo! No disrespect intended. :meow:

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Family History

Researching family history has given me the most respect for all the labourers, widows, servants etc in mine and Mr Penry's family trees. Yes, I had a few very prominent engineers, and even a gang of cutthroats and highwaymen... but most of all what fascinates me was how our ancestors survived.

When I find ancestors with children between the ages of eight and ten described as 'miners' it sends a shiver down my spine.

When I find young widows with five children under 12, struggling to survive and also nurse their 80 year old father-in-law (who was still trying to work as a labourer), I say a silent prayer of gratitude that she managed to keep going.

I know them just by a name or two, nothing more. But I salute them all. For it's not the wild and famous who make us what we are, its the little, unsung heroes and heroines.

[tseringdolma]

Re: Family History

The only thing I can find is that before my great, great grandparents on both my father and my mum's sides, the family was almost exclusively in Canada. Would love to find out more though!