Find My Past

Im not really bothered who my ancestors were but many people are. So are you one that goes onto GenesReunited and have you found anything really interesting?

Re: Find My Past

My husband has traced his family back to the 1500s

He discovered he has an ancestor who was a slave master on Tobago... not something to be proud of I know.

There are now lots of families on Tobago who have my husbands surname, we are not sure if his ancestor was a naughty boy or if the families were obliged to take the slave masters name.

Re: Find My Past

Thats really interesting summer ☺

Re: Find My Past

I have Doc

Most of my family are born in Yorkshire with only a few foreigners
in the mix. Foreigners being people from Northumbria, Lancashire
and Scotland.

Researched my lines back to different times. One back to 1547
in Yorkshire, one in Scotland to 1437 and another in Yorkshire to 1565.
Many more lines to the 16th and 17th centuary. They didn't move a lot
in those days.

There are some sad ones like one gggGranddad dying by his own
buggy and horse that run over him. Broke his leg and gangrene
set in and he died 4 days later. A few illegitimate. One was my
ggGrandma who was 17 when she gave birth to my g Grandad.
The Father was the son of the Squire. The parents then told her that the son had committed suicide but we found him in Barnsley married with some other woman.

My gGranddad was married for 5 years and had 2 children when is
wife died and he married another lady my ggGrandma and she had 9
children by him. The families were quite enormous in those days and
the most I have found in my family was 16.

I could go on but its been a fantastic journey for me in my older life
as we were never told anything when younger about the family
Children were seen and not heard when I was younger.
I feel as though I was meant to discover the family again and thank
the ancestors for letting me find them on the fantastic information
you now get online. Its a priviledge to find them and bring them
to life again.

My Scottish family were Reivers so if you google that you will find a
great warring group of people who kept alive by being strong and
determined.

Probably why I am a tough old bird as they say.

Re: Find My Past

I haven't but a relative I have never met traced my paternal line back to the reign or King Richard 1st .

There is also family 'folk law' about one female ancestor an only child who ran off with a coachman. She was disinherited and the beautiful estate in Derbyshire which should have been her inheritance went into chancery. I have done a brief search but can find no details of these events .

Re: Find My Past

We found that MIL's ravings about her grannie being in the circus were actually all true! They were from Belgium and her great grandfather was a tightrope walker and his wife rode horses bareback while jumping through hoops of fire...

More sadly were were able to see two very prevelent causes of death in the family both of which are affecting OH.

Re: Find My Past

I haven't, but I had a cousin who had already done it so I know of my ancestors a fair way back. That's on the UK side, though. I'd love to find out more about my Polish father's ancestors but that is probably a non-starter from here.

Re: Find My Past

Cass that sounds interesting about your Belgium tightrope
walker and his wife.
Do you know if they were in Pablo Bangues circus.

He was the first black circus owner and had a famous circus
that toured mainly in the North of England. He is buried
in Leeds.

The Beatles song "Being for the benefit of Mr Kite" is about
Mr William Kite who was a tight rope walker. He was in Pablos
circus in about 1865.

Really interesting story about Pablo and his circus. If you kow the couples
surname I could try and find it for you if you want.

Re: Find My Past

I found lies .... and a few more lies .... surname changes ... a kleptomaniac jaibird ... and a G-G-Grandfather listed on a census return as an imbecile.

At that point, beset with anxiety attacks that I'd inherited their genes I stopped looking.

Mr M's is more interesting. He has 15th Century wealthy Kentish yeomans.

Re: Find My Past

My 2 x great grandfather spent a lot of his adult life in Shrewsbury prison always for stealing chickens. I figured it must have been to feed his family but he was actually supplying the cock fighting trade.