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Most shocking thing you have found out about your ancestors

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  • Most shocking thing you have found out about your ancestors

    I found out that my great great grandfather was in jail for robbery.

  • #2
    One of my ancestors was a slave owner.

    OC

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    • #3
      One of my great uncles was wounded and repatriated for hospital treatment to his injuries four times in WW1. After the fourth spell in hospital he was sent to the front again where he was to die in action. It took the powers that be 6 months to confirm to his parents that he was dead. They had been so desperate for news of him that they had paid for newspaper space to ask any of his comrades or childhood mates in another regiment to call on them with any news when they returned home.
      Last edited by GallowayLass; 23-04-17, 12:06.

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      • #4
        One of mine starved her 1 year old to death, seems she hated him, she would leave him alone in the flat from 8am till 8pm without any food, and the landlady used to give him food,as she felt sorry for him.
        A family burnt to death in their cottage etc etc so many sad tales.

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        • #5
          My SADDEST one was Jane Green who was " found dead in a field, of childbirth" alongside her " bastard stillborn infant" " both unshriven". Not even given the recognition of being a boy or a girl. This was in 1789. I am still moved to tears when I think about it, she was 19.

          OC

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          • #6
            I remember you mentioning that some time ago OC, poor girl it was must been horrendous having a stillborn by herself, and of course the father of the baby never suffered.

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            • #7
              I was so sad when I read my g'grandfather's DC and found that he had committed suicide. No one in my family had ever mentioned him to me until I started researching, and no one had ever mentioned the suicide. Turned out that everyone in the grandchild generation knew about it.
              And it's so sad when I read about a death from things that are so easily prevented - the mother who died during pregnancy from 1918 flu, children who died from polio and measles, and so on.
              And why did my g'g'grandfather lose three wives to childbirth??? In fairly short order, too.

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              • #8
                This isn't shocking but very sad and a bit scarry.

                My Great Aunt was found drown at the age of 18. Newspapers say she was pregnant.
                2 of her aunts, my 2 x G aunts who were sisters were found drown.
                My 4 x G Grandfather on the same line committed suicide by hanging himself. He was out of work and had his relief cut and couldn't cope anymore.
                Then in 2009 my cousin on the same line was found dead in the river. Never found out the circumstances.

                There could be more but these are the only ones I know about.
                Last edited by Lin Fisher; 23-04-17, 15:45. Reason: spelling
                Lin

                Searching Lowe, Everitt, Hurt and Dunns in Nottingham

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Val wish Id never started View Post
                  One of mine starved her 1 year old to death, seems she hated him, she would leave him alone in the flat from 8am till 8pm without any food, and the landlady used to give him food,as she felt sorry for him.
                  A family burnt to death in their cottage etc etc so many sad tales.
                  Oh Val, that poor little baby.....
                  Jacky

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                  • #10
                    My great grandfather served at least 3 prison sentences for abandoning and not providing for his wife and four little daughters. My granny did not know (as far as we know) as she was very small. Then their mother died when granny was 4 and they were brought up by their maternal grandmother ..... father still absent but very much alive in another town.
                    Anne
                    Last edited by Anne in Carlisle; 23-04-17, 16:40.

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                    • #11
                      Mum's 'Aunty May'.....orphaned at age 9, sent ,with my grandmother, to the nuns, her younger siblings placed in other orphanages or relatives, the youngest adopted. Probably sent out (like Grandma) to work as a skivvy about 13 yrs.....somewhere along the way, about 18 yrs old discovered life for a pretty girl was easier as a prostitute and from 1907 until her death in a park as a vagrant in 1945, made regular appearances in the courts, the newspapers and prison on charges of soliciting, drunkenness, abusive language, vagrancy, shoplifting.
                      Completely cut off by her family, I knew nothing of this relative until a chance notation in a family book made me ask questions and investigate.

                      Shocking? I guess so and it must have undoubtedly been a trial for her sister...but I was left feeling not so much shocked as desperately sad for the waste and wishing that life had been kinder to 'Aunty May'

                      Beverley



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                      • #12
                        In July 1865 The Lancet reported this inspection of Shoreditch Workhouse. Scroll down for the report.

                        an excerpt " A poor fellow lying very dangerously ill with gangrene of the leg had had no medicine for three days, because, as the male "nurse" said, his mouth had been sore. The doctor had not been made acquainted either with the fact that the man's mouth was sore or that he had not had the medicines ordered for him."

                        The condition of the wards was appalling and makes for gruesome reading.

                        My Great Grandfather Richard Lock a Sawyer was admitted to workhouse infirmary on 13th July 1865 and died 18th July 1865 of gangrene. I often wonder if it was he who was indicated in that report. Really upset me the first time I saw that.
                        Kat

                        My avatar is my mother 1921 - 2012

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                        • #13
                          Another which makes me so sad.......my 5 x ggm had 19 children in 23 years. The first six all died within three weeks of each other, of smallpox. She must have been demented with grief. She had another 13 children, only two survived to adulthood and she outlived them all, dying at 84. She really must have wondered what her life had all been about.

                          OC

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                          • #14
                            Such sad reading here....the things they went through is heartbreaking. Not found anything in mine....keep hitting brick walls but I will get back to my research soon.
                            Jacky

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                            • #15
                              Until I started on my genealogical journey, I had no idea of anything other than my shallow roots – ie my mum and dad. An early discovery was that my maternal great grandmother died, aged 34, leaving seven children, six under 10 and a son of 12. Six months later, my great grandfather died from injuries sustained in a roof fall (coal mine), leaving the children in the care of his unmarried sister. The eldest child died in a mining disaster in1895 - one of the many whose body was never recovered - he lies somewhere under the M6. My mother was born and lived some thirty miles away from her mother's birthplace. She became a nurse, and spent many years as a colliery nurse. I don't think she was aware of the sadness in her mother's early life. She had great empathy with and respect for the men she treated - maybe innate? Not sure it was reciprocal - when I had a holiday job in the colliery canteen, I found out that the men called my diminutive (5') mum 'Slasher' because of her no-nonsense removal of dressings. How well that resonated with me and my scabby knees!
                              When we hear of the hardship and tragedy that people have endured, now and in centuries past, we cannot help but feel great sadness but also amazement (and thankfulness for some of us might otherwise have never existed) at indomitable human spirit.

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                              • #16
                                really sad stories, makes our little problems seem like nothing.
                                Jacky they also thought but could not prove, one of her older children died in mysterious circumstances, how could anyone come home after leaving him all those hours yet still not feed him.

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                                • #17
                                  OH's 2x-great-grandfather Charles Lamb, a gunsmith from Whitby who went down to London by boat, probably on business, in 1834 and succumbed to cholera. For years we didn't know when and where he had died. Then OH's cousin found a report of his death:



                                  You have to search for the account of his death. Just do ctrl + F "Lamb" and it should find the passage. The details are quite gruesome, so be warned!

                                  His poor wife had 8 very young children at home and was in desperate straits after his death.

                                  I have other sad events from my research, but this is the one for which I have found the most information.
                                  Elizabeth
                                  Research Interests:
                                  England:Purkis, Stilwell, Quintrell, White (Surrey - Guildford), Jeffcoat, Bond, Alexander, Lamb, Newton (Lincolnshire, Stalybridge, London)
                                  Scotland:Richardson (Banffshire), Wishart (Kincardineshire), Johnston (Kincardineshire)

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                                  • #18
                                    In the late 1890s a man was up for trial in the South Wales valleys, accused of abusing a 6 years old little girl.
                                    Did the newspaper reporting this event really have to publish my grandmother's name, - it must have been horrendous without yet more publicity.

                                    I was shocked to learn that my paternal grandmother was only in her 30s, when she died of flu leaving 6 children. Dad was 4 and had 2 younger sisters and a baby brother.
                                    This grandmother's father was 33, when he died of typhoid in Southampton and her maternal grandmother was 35, when she died.
                                    All so young.

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                                    • #19
                                      Gosh, there are some very sad tales here, so I'll avoid telling another one.

                                      It was a bit of a shock to find that my great great grandfather was charged with attempted murder in Essex in 1861. He shot at the mail man, who had sacked him from his job. He was acquitted for lack of evidence, but, judging from his previous record and how he treated his wife (assaulted her and threatened to cut her throat), I feel he was probably guilty.
                                      Jenny

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                                      • #20
                                        Just to cheer you up a bit after all the terrible things that have happened to ancestors this will make you laugh but I'm sure my Grandmother didn't think it was funny!!

                                        A newspaper article from 1940 has my Grandfather being fined. He was apparently walking home after a few drinks in the blackout and met a policeman shining a torch. He told the policeman to put the light out as it was illegal. The policeman didn't so he knocked his helmet off. Next morning he was in court and fined 20s. Probably didn't have that much to his name.
                                        Lin

                                        Searching Lowe, Everitt, Hurt and Dunns in Nottingham

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