General Chat

your family tree?......................................................................

On Gr homepage before you sign in, they had a pirate on the family tree. Has anyone actually found pirates?

I found pirates

You're not just pulling my leg a la Long John Silver are you?

no

are you descended from pirates then Keith?

maybe

how about the circus....is anyone descended from circus performers?

My ancestors had pretty normal jobs but I still find them interesting,

A few who regularly appeared in the 'petty sessions' (liked their booze) LOL. And a GG uncle who tried to derail a train!

oooohhh criminals Maggie. Did you find out why he tried to derail a train?

I have got a few interesting ones - some are intriguing because I only have scraps of information about them (my 3xgreat grandfather John Woodcock's baptism record suggests that his dad may have been a gentleman and there is/was a place called Woodcock Hall not far from where he lived but there are about three options in the locality who could be his dad!).

Others are intriguing because of the hint of scandal (my other 3xgreat grandfather, Edward Willday - farmer, bailiff, accountant, and prisoner on two separate occasions, for larceny and chicken theft respectively!) and some are puzzles that may have had their origins glorified by their in-laws (great grandma was said to be "a lady" and very wealthy, but all I can find so far is that she worked for a woman who had once been married to a descendent of the Duke of Wellington - I had to go on The Peerage website to work that one out! - and that her dad was a cemetery keeper). Saying that, great-grandad's family were gamekeepers and domestic servants in some very grand houses but they were never in residence at the same time as the landowners!

I have several interesting people in my tree. Number one is my Great grandfather who was an opium smuggler in Hong Kong and owned a string of brothels there also.

Number two was my great uncle who was a bigamist (but never found out).

Number three is an aunt who, at 14 , married a man in his thirties & went on the music hall stage. They subsequently had a family but she left & changed her name to that of her new lover, had a child and became a very proper and snobbish old lady. I do wish I had known her history then.

There may be a pirate in my tree!! I have yet to find evidence confirming it, but another GR member who shares the tree, told me about this chap.
I don't know if he was wealthy, but there's no money now lol.

Hi Secret Squirrel.

In our case they were called equestrienne commedians. We would call them circus clowns. My OHs great grandfather and great great grandfather, on grandmother's side of the tree. I discovered the fact on his grandmother's death certificate. Occupation of father: "circus clown". Confoundedly difficult people to track. Don't appear on many census lists; could be because they were out of the country during the census. Eldest daughter is born and then disappears until she is on the boat to Australia.

Must say, as I have before, it explains an awful lot about himself!!!

Sir Michael Stanhope 1518 - 22 January 1552, beheaded in the tower of London, naughty boy.

I had a very snobby great great aunt. She left the family silver to the church. After she died the vicar had it valued and it was fake!

I have since found out that her dad was in prison in 1841 for stealing clothes (his dad had a Pawn shop).

My great granddad murdered the next door neighbour; he was tried for Manslaughter but was found Not Guilty. The next door neighbour had done some unspeakable deeds but the court said as he had a heart condition he could have died any time. Great granddad's fist just hastened things on a bit!

And AuntySherlock's is still one of my favourite chuckles here. I'd been lending a hand on sorting her husband's ancestors, and she had reported on receiving a certificate.

You get the long awaited certificate ... and it says:
Occupation of father - Circus clown
Oh good. All this work, and you're descended from Bozo ...

As AuntyS said:

When I first received the certificate I just took one look at him and said. "Well this really explains everything!"

Well, at least he had a job!

How I wish he was mine :-)

I want to know about these unspeakable deeds ... or maybe not ...


I just have a deserter. Gr-grfather, objected to being shipped to Afghanistan in 1878 after doing his 5 years in India. If only the world had listened to him ... He lived in fear for the next 60 years of his long life, even in Canada, and even under his assumed name. Nightmares about the old Queen coming to get him. Carried all his secrets in a locked case as he went from one child's household in Canada to another, "visiting". The case was to go to his oldest granddaughter, his confidante (who died last year). A snooty daughter-in-law got hold of it first, most likely shrieked in horror at the idea of her own upstanding family's name being associated with such things, and burned it, I learned a few months ago. And I've spent 5 years searching for what went up in smoke.

Oh, and a pair of grx4 grandparents who were expelled from Dorset back to Wiltshire around 1790, under the Poor Law!

It's easy to joke about such things now, but how horrible they all must have been for them.

The unspeakable deed was something awful to do with children including my great great aunts.

I was absolutely horrified when I read it in the newspaper of 1894.

The whole village was in court at my great granddad's trial.

A great cheer went up at the Not Guilty verdict. The court called for Order lest the whole place be cleared.

Awful, isn't it? I wonder what would have happened in a modern day court of law?