By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions. We in turn value your personal details in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
Please log in or register. Registered visitors get fewer ads.
Watching Olivia Coleman on Who Do You Think You Are, has anyone done their family tree and found any skeletons in cupboards?
The best one I found was with Mrs CB's great grandfather, the family had been told by her grandmother that her dad had died in Cardiff when she was three in 1910.
Then I found out that he in fact hadn't but he had joined the Army, (we assume running away) as soon as she was born in 1907. He later turns up married to someone else, with a kid and calling himself a widower living in Preston.
Looking into him a bit deeper, I found out that he was discharged from the army after two years, and then when the first world war broke out in 1914, he shot himself in the foot to avoid being recalled to the Army. The foot became gangrenous and he lost his leg. He was known locally in Preston as the 'one legged tobacconist'.
Claiming a royal connection may be pushing it, but we found something in common, european cousin marrying in the early 1800s. Not sure it was all that unusual in rural communities in the days before mass transportation tbf
The one big positive was uncovering a grandparent's secret employment by the SOE in Ww2 where his army records note that he spent 3 years on deployment training/preparing fighters to go into France and help the resistance. He never told anyone about that in the 30+ years he lived afterwards.
did a fair bit of research a few years back.
My Dads, dad's family in the 1650's distant ancestors fled France (village called Haironville near Metz) cos of the Huguenout persecutions to Guernsey where some of them still live.
My Mums dad family come from Kent, near Canterbury with my oldest known relative being born in 1599 being one John Hogpen.
Havt got far with the maternal sides of both families with the possibility that my mums mums family arrived in the UK from Europe in the mid 1800's
My Dads, dad's family in the 1650's distant ancestors fled France (village called Haironville near Metz) cos of the Huguenout persecutions to Guernsey where some of them still live.
My Mums dad family come from Kent, near Canterbury with my oldest known relative being born in 1599 being one John Hogpen.
Havt got far with the maternal sides of both families with the possibility that my mums mums family arrived in the UK from Europe in the mid 1800's
Got shed loads of French ancestry (both sides) and a little bit of Scots.
The side we know least about is my paternal grandfather (and surname) which is possibly a derivative of an Irish name from a bunch of hoodlums, a place in Yorkshire or a peasant job in the navy. I'll let others decide which is more likely but my money is on the hoodlum link :-)
Yes, I have reserached my family. Mother's side - all from Essex (around Earls Colne, Coggeshall and Great Tey) as far back as I can go (around 1700). Father's side, back to around 1700 for his father's side around Stoke-by-Nayland, his mother's side much more interesting. Traced them back to 1020 in Normandy, proving the family rumour of being decended from one of William the Conqueror's knights. He was given the manor of Bedingfield in 1066, so my distant ancestors not only owned Oxburgh Hall but one of their progeny was Sir Francis Bacon (my 11th great uncle). By my grandmother's time, and a few generations prior, her line of the family were as poor as the proverbial church mice.
Also found my mother's great grandfather died in Warley mental asylum in the 1870s. Grim. And her parents were actually first cousins once removed.
I've done a fair bit of mine - most of it is on a website I run. Best bit was when I had an email from a chap in South Africa asking if I knew "Dave" and "Roger" . Which is my dad and my Uncle, and it turned out to be a cousin of theirs, that no-one had ever told me about. That part of the family that lived in South Africa were interesting, in that they worked at Robben Island ( as a guard and a nurse), when it was a leper colony.
Nothing particularly dubious yet. However, there were a couple of interesting marriage situations: One where a widow and a widower married, then one of the children from each of their previous families married each other (they were, of course, biologically unrelated). Then another instance where it happened the other way around, the widowed father and mother of a married couple went on to marry each other. Neither of those were in the Norfolk branches of the family tree.
Nothing particularly dubious yet. However, there were a couple of interesting marriage situations: One where a widow and a widower married, then one of the children from each of their previous families married each other (they were, of course, biologically unrelated). Then another instance where it happened the other way around, the widowed father and mother of a married couple went on to marry each other. Neither of those were in the Norfolk branches of the family tree.
The oddest 'family tree' situation I know is a friend of mine who was adopted.
when he researched his natural family and adoptive family tress he found out he would have have the same grand-fathe
No one in either family was aware of this when he was adopted
I am not entirely convinced by AncestryDNA's efforts I am afraid. I shelled out for one of their tests and got some seemingly detailed results back which, unfortunately in my view, showed be to be only 2% Gael but had quite a few other interesting threads (South European, Iberian, Viking, Finnish, Russian, French). Then out of the blue a year or so later I got an updated analysis which just looked like it had been simplified and split me three ways but mainly Anglo Saxon from East Anglia and the East Midlands (fair enough as that matches up with the family tree) and seemed to have slapped the Viking, Finnish and Russian side into a Swedish category. Latino and Celtic gone, a much more boring analysis.
I suspect that, and AncestryDNA reports come with cringingly dumbed down 'demographic related to national history' information, what you get now is a cautious feedback which has been moulded by respondents who do not want anything that confuses them or gives them ancestors too racially different to what they want.
Yer right not to be to convinced zombers. It's obviously incredibly simplified and dumbed down. If I understand correctly (I have a friend/colleague who's a serious expert in ancient dna) the reason your test failed to show your Geal ancestry could be as simple as say your ancestors being from say the East of Ireland rather then the West. These tests struggle to separate people from Dublin from Brits through there dna. If you look at Phil's below he as 11% 'Irish' dna, this 11% would be traced back too the West if Ireland. Your ancestors could have lived there entire life in the East of Ireland but the only trace of Irish dna found through one of these tests would be where they had mixed with people from the West of the country
On my mum's side of the family, we have a Mr Lloyd, who was the founder of Lloyds Bank, apparently. Also on that side of the family, we apparently have the first chairman of West Ham United, so I'm told.
I discovered I'm 11 per cent Irish, which I hadn't anticipated.
I found out I had a great great grand aunt called Fanny Cox.
I'm related to a 'Fanny Close' who is my great grand aunt on my Dads side. Managed to get back as far as 1107 on that side. A bit earlier I am related to Sir Walter Roberts, Barron of Glassenbury, Sheriff of Kent.
Are you sure it was Fox and not Cox? If the latter, it could be you're related to Phil?!
This is going to fulfil a lot of stereotypes if we find out we're all related to one another! Already I may be related to Guthrum and, more obscurely, to Swailsey via Bros.
I'm related to a 'Fanny Close' who is my great grand aunt on my Dads side. Managed to get back as far as 1107 on that side. A bit earlier I am related to Sir Walter Roberts, Barron of Glassenbury, Sheriff of Kent.
I might roll up one day and reclaim the manor.
I shall refrain from any comedic comments which may lead to me banning myself.
You're clearly from better stock than me. No sirs, just a Freeman of London and a well-regarded Regency clockmaker.
Researched my Mother's side, got back to 16th century. All Farm Labourers. My GG Grandfather was a powder boy in the Crimean war apparently. Nothing exciting at all.
My Father's side is Scotland / Ireland, I haven't started on that yet. I do know a GG Auntie emigrated to the US / New York and died in a car crash. I'd like to find her record and whether there is a grave in New York.
Yer right not to be to convinced zombers. It's obviously incredibly simplified and dumbed down. If I understand correctly (I have a friend/colleague who's a serious expert in ancient dna) the reason your test failed to show your Geal ancestry could be as simple as say your ancestors being from say the East of Ireland rather then the West. These tests struggle to separate people from Dublin from Brits through there dna. If you look at Phil's below he as 11% 'Irish' dna, this 11% would be traced back too the West if Ireland. Your ancestors could have lived there entire life in the East of Ireland but the only trace of Irish dna found through one of these tests would be where they had mixed with people from the West of the country
I am slightly intrigued by my 11 per cent Irishness as it must go a fair way back as I've no Irish ancestry that I'm aware of going back quite a few generations. Obviously there's scope for parentage being misattributed somewhere down the line, but again that would probably have been a while ago if that was the case.
Researched my Mother's side, got back to 16th century. All Farm Labourers. My GG Grandfather was a powder boy in the Crimean war apparently. Nothing exciting at all.
My Father's side is Scotland / Ireland, I haven't started on that yet. I do know a GG Auntie emigrated to the US / New York and died in a car crash. I'd like to find her record and whether there is a grave in New York.
Most peoples ancestors (mine included) were dirt-poor farm labourers.
Michael Parkinson was famously rejected for WDYTYA because his family for generations worked in t'pit, and nothing remotely interesting ever happened to any of them.
I wonder what the ratio of celebrities researched to celebrities actually broadcast it?
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
