Unconfigured Ad Widget

Collapse

Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

A Cautionary Tale

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • A Cautionary Tale

    I hardly dare post this as I will never be taken seriously again on this site.

    To cut a very long story short, my late father knew his grandmother very well. She was called Hannah Hibbert and she told him lots of tales about her childhood.

    I couldn't find their marriage, but hey ho, what more proof do you need, the woman existed, my dad knew her, knew the names of her parents and so on. I traced the Hibberts back 8 generations.

    In my own defence (and I need one!) this was pre-internet days and access to census etc wasn't easy.

    Fast forward to my first computer and my first look at census in chronological order, so to speak. Horror of horrors, Hannah Hibbert was the second wife, the mother of none of the children (including my great grandmother). However, I left her in the tree, suitably placed, because my dad idolised the woman and she must have been lovely.

    Tonight, idling about, I thought I'd have another look for their marriage. It isn't there. What IS there, and my blood ran cold, was Thomas Green to Hannah Wood, nee Gerrard.......

    Found Hannah in 1871, married to Mr Wood and living in the household of Thomas Green's brother........

    I've never been able to find the baps of Thomas Green and his brother John, despite knowing they were born in Gawsworth - their father says so in 1841 and they were there in 51 and 61. Could never find John Green after 1851, name too common.

    John Green in 1871 says he was born in Salford......oh my!

    Mr Wood is Thomas Green's nephew - his eldest sister Annie married a Wood and Fred is her son.

    A final mystery is also solved - Thomas Green had four daughters. I knew them all well in their old age, and the youngest, Emily, left me a nice sum of money when she died.

    Recently, digging around in some old papers, I found her will. She never married and made many bequests (but I got the most, lol!) including one to "my nephew, Edwin Wood". I had assumed Edwin was Annie's son. Nope, he was Hannah's son!

    The moral of this tale - get the certs get the certs get the certs and never never take as fact what a family member tells you, no matter how well they remember the person.

    (Hibbert was the name of Harriet Gerrard's mother, by the looks of it!)

    Off to burn down my tree.

    OC

  • #2
    Bob

    Well, it's all come together nicely now I've got round to doing it PROPERLY, lol.

    If only I'd decided to do that 30 years ago, instead of having a blinkered approach, trying to squeeze the facts to fit the story!

    Not only did I have the wrong great grandmother in my tree the first time round - she turned out to be step grandmother - I had the wrong step grandmother the second time round! Inexcusable. I ought to have my tree on One World Tree.

    I am now off to look for the baps of Thomas Green and his brother John in Lancashire instead of Cheshire. That will hopefully give me the name of their mother, who is a mystery, and possibly the marriage as well.

    OC

    Comment


    • #3
      OC at least you are able to pass on the fruits of your experience.
      ~ with love from Little Nell~
      Chowns, Dunt, Emms, Mealing, Purvey & Smoothy

      Comment


      • #4
        Nell

        But it's so embarrassing!

        It all fits together so well now that I cannot believe I didn't spot this years ago. I want smacking.

        OC

        Comment


        • #5
          You shouldnt be embaressed OC , just proves to us all to make sure we double and maybe triple check what info we have ;;
          borobabs passed away March 2018

          Comment


          • #6
            OC.............please don't burn the tree!!!!

            I'm trying to do my son-in-laws tree......Green marries Brown...lol I kid you not.

            But Miss Brown's mother was Mrs Hibbard.

            Now what would you charge to post it all to me and I'll just use it for a while...lol

            Hibbard/Hibberd could esily be changed to Hibbert.

            Comment


            • #7
              And ............I wouldn't mention smacking and feathers in the same sentence....


              ****oh I just did*****

              Comment


              • #8
                OC - there's hope for me yet! Like you, I've found that family tales, no matter how widely believed, or how honest the tellers, may only contain a grain of truth

                Thanks for sharing this, a salutory lesson indeed

                Anne

                Comment


                • #9
                  OC
                  just remember 30 years is a long time, & we're all benefitting from that 30 years of experience with the help you provide now.

                  yes....definitely buy the certificates, but how many of us have some that we know don't tell us the truth? !!
                  ~ Louise ~

                  Researching Dalzell, Highmore & Sumpton in Cumbria, also Braidford & Chevalier

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Phew! That was brave of you to tell us all - you could have kept quiet about it.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Oh, gawd, I've just realised something else as well.

                      Hannah whateverhernameis was born in 1830. My father was born in 1921. It seems most unlikely he spent any time talking to her! (Haven't traced her death yet) Wonder who he spent all that time with!

                      OC

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Oh family name stories handed down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
                        Everyone I spoke to told me my paternal grandmothers surname was MITCHELL so I never doubted them, one of dads brothers was given christian names of Joseph Mitchell. I had the original small birth certificate of my dad and small copies from some of his siblings, no one had full copies, but then I didn't need to check his mothers maiden name did I, the family had said!!!
                        When I decided I would like to obtain a marriage certificate for the grandparents I searched for months and always drew a blank. No marriage showing for Richard Northey and Catherine Mitchell. I couldn't find a birth for Catherine Mitchell in the right area either.
                        I finally decided to get a full copy of my dads birth certificate and found his mothers maiden name wasn't Mitchell but JOBES. So, where did the Mitchell come from? Finally tracing all of my grandfathers siblings to America I found one of his sisters had married a Joesph MITCHELL and the grandparents had named their son after him!

                        Family stories, take them all with a large pinch of salt :D
                        Daphne

                        Looking for Northey, Goodfellow, Jobes, Heal, Lilburn, Curry, Gay, Carpenter, Johns, Harris, Vigus from Cornwall, Somerset, Durham, Northumberland, Cumberland, USA, Australia.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          You're not alone OC. We all make mistakes, and my greatest one was right at the beginning! You know the old adage - question your rellies while they can still remember things. Well - having had a mother with a blessedly brilliant memory, I just took what she said as gospel - not very clever when I found out years later that she was illegitimate and the person I knew as my Grampa was in fact my Great Grampa and my namesake aunt was actually my Granny. I'd never bothered to check any of the certs in Edinburgh for my aunts and uncles as Mum knew exact birthplaces, birthdays, the lot. I never found out till she'd died and now I've got no male side of the tree as there was naught but a blank were my real Grampa's name should be...

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Don't some folks tell whoppers! My maternal grandparents died before I was born and my mother always told me that my poor grandfather was one of six children who lost their parents at a very young age and were all adopted. Well, with the aid of the censi and certificates, I find "poor old grandad" was the second to youngest of nine children and his parents didn't die until the youngest was in his late teens. My mother said he was adopted by a family called Gordon. By the first world war, he had changed his name from Arthur Gibson to Albert Gordon. His marriage certificate gives him the name of Albert Gordon Gibson, only to be legally amended to Arthur Gibson a month later. Sadly, no one in the family knows the true story behind the change of name as he moved and never kept in contact with his siblings. OC is so right, certificates really do give the true facts.
                            Teresa...

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Teresa from the Bay View Post
                              Don't some folks tell whoppers! ...... certificates really do give the true facts.
                              Ha! They tell whoppers on certificates too! I certainly have one who married using a false surname, led us a long way up the garden path before we finally sussed out who she really was ....

                              Comment


                              • #16
                                my great granparents wrote on the 1911 census that they had been married for 15 years, you all found out for me that they were married in 1907 so thats 4 years! no wonder i couldnt find a marriage certificate for them lol

                                Comment


                                • #17
                                  Originally posted by Teresa from the Bay View Post
                                  Don't some folks tell whoppers! ... OC is so right, certificates really do give the true facts.
                                  Blackberry's comments resonated with me.

                                  I have quite a lot of official documents with entries which are incorrect. Some are clearly deliberate lies, while some are just mistakes, based on shortage of info.
                                  • A g-g-mother who shed 7 years on her marriage cert (to be nearer in age to her younger husband) and for a number of censuses thereafter.
                                  • A g-mother on whose M-cert her father is described as "deceased" but he'd split up from the lying g-g-mother (above) and didn't die for a year or more.
                                  • A grandfather who shed 6 years on several official documents - and 16 on one marriage record - and "forgot" in some records that he'd ever been married and left a wife and two sons behind. And that one appears in neither the passenger list nor the crew list for the ship/crossing on which he claimed to have emigrated.
                                  • Some ladies in OH's tree who clearly felt in the census records that they deserved to be younger.


                                  I think there are more, but those are the easy ones!

                                  Christine
                                  Researching: BENNETT (Leics/Birmingham-ish) - incl. Leonard BENNETT in Detroit & Florida ; WARR/WOR, STRATFORD & GARDNER/GARNAR (Oxon); CHRISTMAS, RUSSELL, PAFOOT/PAFFORD (Hants); BIGWOOD, HAYLER/HAILOR (Sussex); LANCASTER (Beds, Berks, Wilts) - plus - COCKS (Spitalfields, Liverpool, Plymouth); RUSE/ROWSE, TREMEER, WADLIN(G)/WADLETON (Devonport, E Cornwall); GOULD (S Devon); CHAPMAN, HALL/HOLE, HORN (N Devon); BARRON, SCANTLEBURY (Mevagissey)...

                                  Comment


                                  • #18
                                    PS

                                    Well done to OC for sharing her experience of the pitfalls of relying on not enough back-up.

                                    Christine
                                    Researching: BENNETT (Leics/Birmingham-ish) - incl. Leonard BENNETT in Detroit & Florida ; WARR/WOR, STRATFORD & GARDNER/GARNAR (Oxon); CHRISTMAS, RUSSELL, PAFOOT/PAFFORD (Hants); BIGWOOD, HAYLER/HAILOR (Sussex); LANCASTER (Beds, Berks, Wilts) - plus - COCKS (Spitalfields, Liverpool, Plymouth); RUSE/ROWSE, TREMEER, WADLIN(G)/WADLETON (Devonport, E Cornwall); GOULD (S Devon); CHAPMAN, HALL/HOLE, HORN (N Devon); BARRON, SCANTLEBURY (Mevagissey)...

                                    Comment


                                    • #19
                                      Mine is a classic rookie mistake and one that occurred before I discovered bmd indexes, though in my defence I have only been doing this for 8 months but if we're in the spirit of sharing...

                                      Vis censuses I traced the ancestors of the man I was convinced was my g-grandfather back for four more generations, and spent a good deal of time on it. That is, until I was able to cross check for the mother's maiden name on his children born after 1912, and I realised that unless he was 7 at the time he married, he wasn't my man. Now I've heard of child marriages but that would really take the biscuit... :D

                                      My lessons learned? Always cross check on potential marriages first, even for people of the same name. And use a much wider search timeframe than you first imagine...

                                      Kate

                                      Comment

                                      Working...
                                      X