Family History

[poliphilo]

Ailz and her mother sit and talk about family history. Dot has been digging around. She even bought herself a subscription to one of those very popular genealogy sites.

Ailz is learning all sorts of things. About an uncle's adultery, for instance. Somewhere out there she may- in consequence-  have a cousin she's never met.  The family was once quite well-to-do. Ailz's great-grandfather took the name of a benefactor- which explains why members of the family show up in historic documents as sometimes "Smith", sometimes "Robinson" and sometimes hyphenated "Robinson-Smith". 

Ruth was going to buy us a subscription to one of those sites for Christmas. No need now.

My family is already accounted for. My sister pursued the paternal line to the point where it disappears (c.1900) into the swamps of the Thames estuary. This allows me to speculate that my great-grandfather was a foreign sailor on shore leave- which would explain why my grandfather- in spite of his West Country name- looked so un-English. As for the maternal line, that's proudly respectable and can be traced through generations of Baptist preachers and Quaker businessmen to the Earl of Stafford and through him the Plantagenets. I have the family tree (drawn up for me by great-aunt Enid) tucked away in a folder somewhere.

Comments

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Be careful what you look for as you might just find it!

My own ancestry is a complicated mix of English, Scottish, Breton, Italian, Latvian Jewish and Roma and even more so now I know a bit more about the Latvian Jewish ancestry and that that branch of the family (the part that remained in Riga) was wiped out by the Nazis during the Sho'ah.........

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I entertain a fond hope that my great-grandfather (the putative foreign sailor) might have been Jewish, but it's completely unprovable.

Re: Pride. In being Celtic and free.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The name isn't actually Smith. :)

A DNA test? I don't actually care that much. But, yes, if I did it would be the way to go.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

You might be surprised at what you can find now - the nice thing about Ancestry.com is that it helps people researching similar familial lines to share research. It's entirely possible someone out there distantly related to you has gone way past 1900 (in fact, I'd be surprised if there wasn't information at this point).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's a crux. My grandfather was born around the time his supposed father (the man named on his birth certificate) died. There's a strong possibility his real father was someone else. I asked him about his dad once and he said, in effect, that there were some things I was better off not knowing. He's long gone now so I can't go back to him.

I could possibly push the research into the family name further back but since it's likely there's no blood connection I'm not sure I see the point.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Or there might be a blood connection that surprises you. It's an excellent mystery to pursue, I think. I cannot look up my own ancestors, being adopted and having no access to the details, but I take a fair amount of interest in John's genealogical research.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

An ancestor on my mother's side was a Quaker businessman who (the legend goes) was responsible for funding the journey that allowed the cash-strapped Duchess of Kent to travel back to England to give birth to the child who later became Queen Victoria. :)

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

I had an introductory subscription to one of those sites once. I knew I wouldn't have time to pursue it, so I only did a 2 week thing, or something like that. Anyway, it was just long enough for me to discover that I am part German. I had no idea (I was in my 40s at the time). I have a long-lost grandfather who left my grandmother when my mother was 3. I found him on the site... and his father, and his father, and, yada-yada-yada, all the way back to the 1700s when the first guy came over to the U.S. from Germany to Pennsylvania. So, actually, I am part "Pennsylvania Dutch" which actually means that my German ancestors were anabaptists.

I have "paternity issues" though. There is reason to believe that my dad wasn't actually my father, and reason to believe that HIS dad wasn't actually HIS father, so, one of these days I'm going to get a DNA test because I would like to know what really happened. I'm going to do that when this whole grad school thing is finished and I have a real job again.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

We have this TV programme called So You Think You Know Who You Are- in which celebs go through the process of researching their family trees. They unearth some fascinating stories.

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

we have it here, too. I've never seen it, but some of my American blogger friends have written about it. One of these days I'll get around to doing this.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's good fun. Alex Kingston found her several times great grandmother was a brothel keeper who died leaving her grand-daughter a sizeable property portfolio.