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Most shocking thing you have found out about your ancestors

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  • #21
    thats funny Lin

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    • #22
      My great uncle who committed suicide by cutting his throat in 1928 in Welland Ontario. Presumably it was after a family dispute as he wasn't found until

      next morning lying in the chicken coop in the back yard of his home. After inspecting the scene the local sheriff decided that there would not be an inquest.
      Whoever said Seek and Ye shall find was not a genealogist.

      David

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      • #23
        My great, great uncle committed bigamy, and I believe served a time in prison for it. His 'second wife' moved to Australia (I think while he was in gaol) with other members of her family, taking their two children with her. Uncle followed her and they lived the rest of their lives together until his death in 1914. I don't know if they were ever able to marry legally, but it seems to have been a love match!

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        • #24
          a couple of sad ones
          my 3x gt grandmother committed suicide two months after her husband died of a stroke aged 60. She was 56.

          my 2x gt grandparents lost 3 of their children within 2 weeks, of scarletina. They had 10 children altogether, only 3 of whom lived into adulthood.

          another 2xgt grandfather lost 2 of his wives in childbirth. He didn't have any children with the third but drank himself into an early grave. He had a total of 8 children (that I know of) of whom 4 died young.


          a lighter one: my gt grandfather, who I have pictured as a very strict, upright, solid sort of person, was fined 10 shillings after being found guilty of being drunk in charge of a horse and cart.
          Vicky

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          • #25
            some very sad stories here ,I'm surprised more people did not commit suicide, the hard times they had.

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            • #26
              Such sad and dark stories. I wonder how much they impacted on further generations.

              Suicide features in my direct paternal line and the event in 1863 appears to have impacted even on todays generations on how it affected her son and then his relationships with his children and thereby their relationships with their children.
              Bubblebelle x

              FAMILY INTERESTS: Pitts of Sherborne Gloucs. Deaney (Bucks). Pye of Kent. Randolph of Lydd, Kent. Youell of Norfolk and Suffolk. Howe of Lampton. Carden of Bucks.

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              • #27
                also found out that i had ancestors in Cameroon from the 1700s

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                • #28
                  I've got three.

                  1) Two brothers (my 3x great uncles) and their friend raped a young woman and were transported to Australia in 1844

                  2) A 3rd cousin who murdered his wife then gassed himself in the oven in the 1930s

                  3) My wife's great aunt who was jailed for 6 months for attempted suicide in 1897.
                  Co-ordinator for PoW project Southern Region 08
                  Researching:- Wieland, Habbes, Saettele, Bowinkelmann, Freckenhauser, Dilger in Germany
                  Kincaid, Warner, Hitchman, Collie, Curtis, Pocock, Stanley, Nixey, McDonald in London, Berks, Bucks, Oxon and West Midlands
                  Drake, Beals, Pritchard in Kent
                  Devine in Ireland

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                  • #29
                    Most shocking...
                    I nearly stopped researching my paternal grandfather! He'd left my grandmother, and their two very young children, in May 1916 (coincidentally?? when conscription was extended to married men) and skipped it to Canada.

                    From his naturalization documents in 1937, I found the info to spot his marriage in 1937 to a young woman. He was claiming to be 34 (rather than his actual age of 50), and she was claiming to be 19 - which seemed horribly disparate, as it was, but later evidence showed she'd been under 16. I concluded that he'd been after an American-born wife to ease his naturalization, and she'd been flattered by the attentions of a mature man, when she, herself, seemed to have been a somewhat neglected middle child of a large family. [Shockingly, there are still places in the USA where such a marriage would be accepted as reasonable.]

                    Quite what happened about the fully-documented marriage that had taken place only four months earlier in 1937 and in the same US State, I'm not sure, because the not-after-all-bride is to be found in the 1940 census, as a single woman, living with her parents. ????

                    The grossly-disparate marriage lasted twelve years, and disintegrated for much the same reasons as the previous one: his cruel, aggressive, and unreasonable behaviour, and excessive drinking.

                    His ashes are interred in Florida. I'm afraid that my reaction on seeing his memorial stone was not one of mournful tears, but of "Gotcha!" :D
                    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)...

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                    • #30
                      It's not my ancestors but, looking for some records, I "tripped over" a pair of burial register pages from St Michael, Coventry (the cathedral, these days), from 1834... ages:
                      1] 5 mo
                      2] 2 yr
                      3] 7 mo
                      4] 2 mo
                      5] 11 mo
                      6] 11 mo
                      7] 47 yrs
                      8] 5 wks
                      9] 29 yrs
                      10] 11 mo
                      11] 2 wks
                      12] 18 mo
                      13] 81 yrs
                      14] 3 mo
                      15] 9 mo
                      16] 76 yrs

                      People glibly say that people live longer these days. In fact, I believe that the impression of shorter lives in time past is down to averaging so many infant deaths. In that list are two who are older than 70 (76 and 81) as well as the more youthful adult deaths (29 and 47). 75% of those deaths are of children under 2 - almost all are under a year old. That really is shocking.
                      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)...

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                      • #31
                        Originally posted by Christine in Herts View Post
                        People glibly say that people live longer these days.
                        The remark that I hear glibly said: Parents were not meant to outlive their children.

                        If it's not said about an event pertinent to the people in the conversation, I will often chirp up, and point out that genealogy has taught me that prior to ~1930, children predeceasing their parents was actually common. Vaccination, sanitation, adequate food supply, antibiotics are the modern miracles that have allowed the former to develop into the "norm".

                        Except, unfortunately, in portions of the world where those are not readily available.

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                        • #32
                          Yes, I was brought up on the myth that everyone died young pre-1900. It was the biggest surprise when I started doing family history to realise that if they survived childbirth and childhood then they lived just as long as we do now. Many of my ancestors in the 1700s were in their 80s and 90s when they died.

                          OC

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                          • #33
                            Originally posted by Olde Crone Holden View Post
                            Yes, I was brought up on the myth that everyone died young pre-1900. It was the biggest surprise when I started doing family history to realise that if they survived childbirth and childhood then they lived just as long as we do now. Many of my ancestors in the 1700s were in their 80s and 90s when they died.

                            OC
                            Completely agree - many of my co-workers who hear I am into family history say - oh, of course people only lived to be 40 or 50 in the past.
                            They just don't understand that the average death has been vastly affected by the death of many infants and that many people died in old age.
                            herky
                            Researching - Trimmer (Farringdon), Noble & Taylor (Ross and Cromarty), Norris (Glasgow), McGilvray (Glasgow and Australia), Leck & Efford (Glasgow), Ferrett (Hampshire), Jenkins & Williams (Aberystwyth), Morton (Motherwell and Tipton), Barrowman (Glasgow), Lilley (Bromsgrove and Glasgow), Cresswell (England and Lanarkshire). Simpson, Morrow and Norris in Ireland. Thomas Price b c 1844 Scotland.

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                            • #34
                              The most shocking one I found in my tree was 5x great uncle who committed suicide by drinking Prussic acid - he had gone from his home in London to the Isle of Wight to do this.
                              Must have been a most horrific death.
                              Margaret

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                              • #35
                                Two tragic accidents.

                                O.H.'s great uncle was one of 183 children who died in this tragedy:- http://www.sunderland.gov.uk/CHttpHa...hx?id=6964&p=0

                                My great grandfather was killed when he was crushed between a railway goods truck and a tunnel wall just 10 minutes after leaving home for work at Dumfries goods yard where he worked as a clerk. He left my great grandmother with fatherless children the youngest was my 6 month old grandfather.
                                Cath.

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                                • #36
                                  Originally posted by Cath RJ View Post
                                  Two tragic accidents.

                                  O.H.'s great uncle was one of 183 children who died in this tragedy:- http://www.sunderland.gov.uk/CHttpHa...hx?id=6964&p=0

                                  My great grandfather was killed when he was crushed between a railway goods truck and a tunnel wall just 10 minutes after leaving home for work at Dumfries goods yard where he worked as a clerk. He left my great grandmother with fatherless children the youngest was my 6 month old grandfather.
                                  What an awful tragedy for the children and not to have found any blame by any adult is an absolute scandal.

                                  Margaret

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                                  • #37
                                    I wept when I unravelled the brief life of my great aunt Bridget (1863 – 1901)
                                    Born in November 1863, she married the family’s lodger in January 1881, shortly after her 17th birthday. Her first child was baptised in July 1881. Children came at regular intervals and Bridget gave birth ten times between 1881 and 1901.
                                    Her husband had several court appearances for being drunk & disorderly & in 1887 (his 14th court appearance) he was charged with rape, but eventually acquitted. In 1891 a report on the family home described it as a hovel with no drains, privy or ash pit, no tap to provide water and with a leaking roof. The medical officer got the houses blacklisted, the landlord served an eviction order on all his tenants, but still Bridget’s husband had to be taken to court to get him to move his family out.
                                    In 1895 Bridget’s 7th child died at the age of 10 months Two years later in 1997 Bridget lost her eldest son, William. Aged just fifteen years, he had been employed as a riveter and in May of that year he had had an accident whilst working at the town’s Dry Dock. Following the accident he had first been cared for at home (a two room dwelling) for some time but was then taken to the hospital where he remained for the last six weeks of his life. Her 9th child , born in 1900, lived for just 3 months. The last child was born in September1901 – sadly , aged just 38, Bridget died shortly afterwards & the baby the following year.
                                    No-one knows what happened to the husband, according to the family he was lost at sea, although I think he just cleared off, probably with another woman. The children (of varied ages) were taken in by one of Bridget’s brothers and a couple of the boys were soon in trouble with the police.
                                    It is such a sorry tale –poor, poor woman.

                                    Jay
                                    Last edited by Janet in Yorkshire; 04-05-17, 12:29.
                                    Janet in Yorkshire



                                    Genealogists never die - they just swap places in the family tree

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                                    • #38
                                      Originally posted by Cath RJ View Post
                                      My great grandfather was killed when he was crushed between a railway goods truck and a tunnel wall just 10 minutes after leaving home for work at Dumfries goods yard where he worked as a clerk. He left my great grandmother with fatherless children the youngest was my 6 month old grandfather.
                                      Reading that, I thought where have I seen that before and then it dawned on me that donkey's years ago I had contributed to the search for info on him.

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                                      • #39
                                        Reading Jays sad tale I am reminded of one of my 2 x ggms, Mary Green, who died aged 32 giving birth to her eleventh child. She bled to death. None of my three daughters had even had their first child when they were 32!

                                        OC

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                                        • #40
                                          I have a few. My mauritian lineage were plantation owners and involved in the revolutionary government-ergo slave owners....even mentioned in the reparations records after slavery was abolished.

                                          A 2nd great grandfather's brother lost a son in infancy, then his other son, mother and wife in a space of two years. His died a year later from "chronic alcoholism". My 2nd great grandfather raised the two daughters with his kids.

                                          A 3rd great grandfather was exiled from england in 1842. On the ship to his australia he wrote to his mother stating he was sorry for what he had done....we still have no idea what he did or who sent him away.

                                          A distant uncle is in a northern prison in the 1901/1911 census, i can't find any info on what he did to serve time.

                                          A distant uncle was working in bolivia in 1899, when the native indians captured him and his employers son, who was 15. They were brutally tortured and murdered. Can't think what his father would have felt, had he known.

                                          I also found out my 2nd great grandparents tried divorcing in the 1890's, it was thrown out of court, they reconciled and had my great grandmother....they actually divorced 10yrs later, both times quite scandalous cases of he said she said. Wife was the daughter of a 'gentleman' of who so much lore exists about his family and wealth and no evidence.....there is actually very strong evidence he was a convict who made his fortune upon release.....Said great grandmother was married firstly at 17, to a divorcee. He kept checking his divorce file on and off for decades afterwards- i suspect his divorce wasn't decree absolute even though his first wife married the jockey who got her pregnant. He and great grandmother never divorced, but both remarried....she secondly to my great grandfather who divorced her when she ran off a few times. It was a pauper's divorce and she had run off to a new state by then. Grandfather remembered being torn from his mothers arms at the bus stop as a toddler. He didn't meet his mother until he was a grown man- having been recognised by his aunt at his workplace. Great grandmother had an affair with a married man who was killed by drunk americans driving during the second world war. She bore his daughter and was miffed she wasn't in his will- his wife and legit kids were. She eventually had a 4th liasion, of whom she did not marry but lived de facto into old age.

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