Family Information

[Vagus]

I see on another thread that Barmaid is writing a small book about her family for her aunts.

I've recently written an eighteen page document about my family, prompted by one of our children asking who so and so was and how do they fit into the family.

I thought it would just be a page or two but once I started I couldn't stop. It includes my thoughts and feelings about various people in the wider family, and how everyone fits in. My dad was adopted as a six year old but was encouraged to keep in touch with his birth family, I had seven grandparents one way or another at one point.

The children have all found it fascinating and each now has a paper copy of it, I'm really glad I was asked to do it as it made me remember lots of things both good and bad, which I'd forgotten about.

Have you ever done something similar?

[andres]

Just finished sorting all the family photos that I had collected over the years. I put them into albums and gave them to our grandchildren . I keep writing notes about my ancestors and one day will collect them and put them into a book.

 

[Barmaid]

Pasta, with access to original records it is possible.  Catholic records do tend to be very detailed - I've seen some that give the most wonderful detail.  Your relative also possibly had access to a family bible (which tend to be contemporaeous and accurate). 

Having said that, about 100 years ago, a great great uncle of mine who was considered himself to be a local historian ostensibly documented one line of my family.  It is absolute nonsense.  I think he did it by searching the parish registers in the locality and the grave stones (pretty much all that would have been available to him then) - he "merged" two families with the same name and came up with a "tree".  Unfortunately, what he did not know and probably could not have found out is that "our" line did not come from that locality.  His descendant has published that tree online with absolutely no back up data.  Unfortunately, it has then be taken by internet researchers and "added to" and then copied - so we have a tree where someone has a child in one town in March 1842 and then another child in June 1842, whilst the wife dies in 1844, she still manages to give birth again in two different towns 3 months apart in 1845!  And so this continues.

Similarly, a great aunt of mine traced another line back to one of William the Conquerer's knights.  What a pretty scroll it was too.  Except what she did was  to find a knight with a name similar to ours and then traced it forwards - the gaps she could not fill in, she clearly just made up.  That too has been published on the internet.  

This is not unusual.  Trees that were created several hundred years ago are often incorrect since people would pay good money to show they were from ancient/royal lineage.   The fallacy is that because it was created in the past, it must be correct.

The internet is a useful tool, but is a menace.  I use the internet as a finding aid to locate the actual records.  I do not trust anyone else's research or anyone else's transcription.  Unless I have seen original documents that are satisfactory evidence, (and even then there is no guarantee - although DNA is now proving useful with the last 200 years or so), then I won't accept it.  But I am a little bit of a pedant when it comes to this stuff.

Sorry, rant over. (And that was not a dig at you, Pasta - it is just how I see it).

[pastafreak]

About 7 or 8 years ago, my brother was contacted by ...as far as we know...reputable heir hunters in the US. They had narrowed us down to being relatives of a woman in a California nursing home, who was under guardianship as she had no near relative there. Records showed that she, and her already deceased twin brother were the children of our father's half brother. Their mother was native American. There had always been a family rumour that there was some sort of connection on our father's side.

Sometime later my brother was contacted by a man who claimed his wife was related us...her mother was the daughter of the same half brother. Well, the timeline was totally off as were locations, and when I traced said daughter(also deceased) there was no mention of *our* known cousins. My brother never contacted them, nor did I. I figured the truth would reveal itself. Somehow I guess they put 2 and 2 together and made 5 🤔

Unfortunately the elderly cousin passed away and all of her assets had gone towards paying her nursing home fees and medical care. It was a huge amount...dammit!

[pastafreak]

Edit...not 'said daughter'...should be mother. 

[maggiebee]

Growing up I always thought that my father was a twin. However, a search revealed that he wasn't but had twin brothers - one who died at 15 months and the other at 12 years.  This led me to Aberlour Orphanage where my father had been from the age of 2. His mother had died when he was an infant and his father conveniently *** off to Australia leaving grandparents in charge. They were unable to cope hence my dad and his brother being placed in the orphanage where his brother died aged 12. My dad then returned to his grandmother and started work when he was 14. Hard life and one that I am still trying to piece together.  

[andres]

One of my Cornish ancestors was kidnapped by the Barbary pirates and enslaved to the Sultan of Morocco.