Helping Friends To Discover Their Own Genealogy
My enthusiasm for genealogy means all my friends get their trees looked at too, which is completely my free given gift to them, because I know how to do the research and enjoy it so why not. Some family stories they already knew of and some they did not. Finding a family connection between two friends who live near me in the south of France was the most amazing find of all, both being from the weirdly haunted small Kent village of Pluckley, and not only that, it turns out my ancestors were in that very same village. So there we were meeting up in friendship, by chance, in an obscure part of rural France, only to have this connection long back of our ancestors having known one another. If I'd not been one to delve into genealogy this would have been a link ever unknown to us.
The two friends I found to be distant cousins:
Genealogy diary blogs I have made while researching the trees of these two friends:
I looked at the point where friends Jeremy's and Ian's families converged, and that still amazes me, that they are cousins and would never have known but for me.
One of Jeremy's many times great uncles, was victim to a highway hold-up, robbed at gunpoint, for which his assailants were hung. It had been a violent attack, in which he'd been shot many times in the mouth by a group of men known as the Tenterden Gang who had been terrorising the area. As they met their fate, hanging from the gallows, local women who had tumours came to touch their hands, the belief of old being this would cure their ailment. Some of Jeremy's ancestors were friends of a clergyman writer, Richard Harris Barham, who published a book of passed down old Kent stories, the Ingoldsby Legends, at one time widely popular in Britain. One of the stories was inspired by Jeremys ancestor Joseph Washford, who worked as a gardener. To cover Joseph's bald head his employer, a lawyer, gave him a wig. But the wig was evil and transformed Joseph into a baddy. One of Ian's colonial ancestors had extra marital children with a slave woman called Nanny, two daughters who he freed from slavery. Ian reckoned he himself would have been making merry with his favourite slave girls too.
Ian's family covered up from him that they were part Italian, so that he was unashamedly insulting Italians when young, calling them wops, not realising he was one too. |
Jeremy's great grandfather Peter, who ran pubs, was prosecuted for drunkenness and cruelty to his wife. He beat her, threw her out of the house, and made excuses for it all. His brother Joseph was also cruel to his wife, and not only that, he attempted to murder a lone lady on a dark lane, leaving her for dead in a ditch. To escape his reputation he emigrated to America.
One of the Maxteds of my own family in Pluckley stole from a Kingsnorth, the Kingsnorth's being the family of my friends Jeremy and Ian, for which my relative was sentenced to transportation to Australia.
Another friend, Mary Cullen, is of the esteemed Scottish Munro clan and Ian also has Monro's who had a mansion, Druids Stone, where really was located a druids stone. Wouldn't that be a hoot if Ian was not only a distant cousin of Jeremy's but of Mary too, as if Ian is somehow the keystone connecting us all, in ways we can barely imagine.
I've look more at Jeremy's ancestor 'Oliver Beckerlegge' of the United Free Methodist Church, taking care of peoples souls, and interestingly getting into trouble again and again for refusing to vaccinate his firstborn. The slaves of Jamaica, whose labours fed Ian's family fortunes in the sugar trade, rebelled and even sacrificed one of their white captives. |
Other Friend's Genealogies
Genealogy blog diary blogs for Anna and Liz (two other very close friends here in France):
Anna's grandfather Sydney Wentworth Carroll, creator of the open air theatre in Regents Park, who she hadn't even realised was born in Australia, was the son of 'Madame Midas', a celebrated personality whose great wealth came from her discovery of gold in the Australian outback.
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Liz's ancestors Absolom and Sarah Harwood emigrated to America, but en route, during the ship journey, their baby Mary died, and upon reaching America Absolom also died. With such back luck Sarah gave up on ideas of a new life out west and returned with her children to England.
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Many Other Friends Genealogies
Links will lead to research I have done so far, often being updated and enriched, so they can benefit from the stories and information I have and still am uncovering.
Links will lead to research I have done so far, often being updated and enriched, so they can benefit from the stories and information I have and still am uncovering.
(More stories to come later)
Fanny's Anglo-Indian Pattle ancestry is shared by others I know, both Michael Poynder and the writer William Dalrymple. Fanny was the daughter of Bunny who was the bisexual lover of her gay grandfather, all tangled webs that they wove.
There was some darkness afflicting the family down through the ages, which was why Virginia Woolf, Fanny's great aunt, had drowned herself. Such a darkness the family called the visitation of the black dog. |
The original Cooper was a girl, Celia Cooper, who had two illegitimate sons in the early 1800's in the Norfolk town of Gressenhall.
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Quickly enough I connected Arthur back to Scotland, and even one of those Scots had been born in Australia.
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One of Rosie's ancestors bred a four legged chicken, this having been enough to get him in the papers. One many times great uncle, Alexander Mosses, was a famous portrait artist in Liverpool.
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Another of Rosie's ancestors, who was the innkeeper of the Cromwell View in Sheffield, died from falling off the towns Wicker railway viaduct.
One of Rosie's ancestral couples never married, regardless that they had many children. They were removed from one parish for being dysfunctional.
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Rosie's ancestor James Jessett changed his profession from making harnesses to cleaning chimneys, a profession which was susceptible to cancer of the scrotum, once known as chimney sweeps cancer.
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Debbie's ancestor Ralph Waggett perished with his grandsons in Wallsend Colliery in an explosion due to seeping gas. The many dead were laid in their homes with flowers and evergreens upon them.
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Akila has some illustrious ancestors, the Drummond-Hay's, as well as a long Indian colonial connection, her family having run a tea plantation.
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Ella May's ancestors of Lowestoft saved lives at sea, and going further back, one of her greats was prosecuted for what were called 'sodomitical practises' with another man, for which a prison sentence was in order. Her fathers side were Barnsley farmers, ill treating their animals, adulterating the milk they sold, lying and stealing; quite a bunch. Her ancestral Steed's lived for a while in Boulogne in France. Harry Steed became a theatrical agent, acting, singing, comedy and burlesque, running a theatre in Tottenham, with mentions in the papers for playing well the part of a pirate in Robinson Crusoe.
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In some ways mine and Nick's families almost entwined, his people being from the same part of London, marrying in St Martin in the Fields and attending the church of St Andrew by the Wardrobe.
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Stephen's well to do Jewish family provided a full and elegant range of materials for London's theatres, evolving from Supran & Company, to Leff & Jason, to Theatreland, and all this from having begun as impoverished immigrant cap makers.
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Jewish Ancestrys
Marc's family were chazzans, cantors, of the synagogues in which they led the soulful prayers.
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There it is, like Henry Lincoln's tree, Marc Sirota's, and Stephen Marcus's, this is also an Eastern European lineage, Ray being of Sirotkin's from the Ukraine and Silverstein's from Lithuania.
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Zia's family surname, Musaphia, is a Sephardic Jewish name originating from Portugal. Her ancestors had to pretend to convert to Christianity to survive, only carrying on the Judaic ways in privacy and secrecy. In the 1600's her family followed a self proclaimed messiah, Sabbatai Zevi, this being a time of millenarian ideas with an expectation of soon returning to their ancient holy land.
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Mr Kinsey has descended from people of fatal mining accidents, and there is a story from olden days. A Jamieson ancestor had demolished an ancient cairn known as the Witches Stone, after which he fell into alcohol and ruin and another involved went blind. The curse of the Witches Stone remained in the family, so it may appear, for his sons afterwards had his fatal mining catastrophe.
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Guys ancestor George Henry Ballard was a bank manager who committed suicide. He blew his brains out, literally. Though a competent man, he'd suffered mentally with worries and insomnia.
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Ross's ancestor George Jenkins not only fought to suppress the Indian mutiny, saving the besieged Europeans of Saugar, but he was then off to fight the Maori's in New Zealand, a place his descendants would end up living in. His medal for that time was auctioned back in 2000, sold to someone or other for £150. It was George's daughter, Amelia, born in Bangalore, who caught the heart of Walter Perry, who'd been fighting in Afghanistan. He brought her back to England, where their son, also named Walter, married a girl descended from refugee French Huguenots.
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I discover that Annette's Philips and Phelps (the names being interchangeable) of Broadwindsor, are also the ancestors of a famous personality, Kate WInslett. My Netti Netti is related to Kate Winslett!
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Anthea's mother, who had been brought up in a convent, wasn't illegitimate after all. Her parents had indeed been married.
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To be continued (work in progress)