Another shock horror ancestry secret unveiled

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Dave7

Legendary Member
Location
Cheshire
My Bro is still working his way through the family tree.
Early 1800s my great great great granddad was put in prison for 2 weeks.
The serious crime was..........
boarding a train without buying a ticket :eek:
Anyone else with such despicable family secrets ?
 

welsh dragon

Thanks but no thanks. I think I'll pass.
My Bro is still working his way through the family tree.
Early 1800s my great great great granddad was put in prison for 2 weeks.
The serious crime was..........
boarding a train without buying a ticket


Outrageous. Should have been shipped off to Australia :laugh:
 
One of my great great great grandfathers was sentenced to transportation for life for poaching a rabbit. While in a prison hulk and waiting for a transportation convoy, though, the gamekeeper who he'd knocked out (but who appeared otherwise uninjured and to make a full recovery from his brief moment of unconsciousness) died within the 'year and a day' limit. The Lord of the Manor, who was heartily disliked locally as being a horrible specimen, had my ancestor prosecuted for murder, of which he was found guilty - and hung.
 
I have never tried to look at my family tree

probably not easy on my Mum's side as her Grandmother was married 7 times
the first 6 died of natural causes (or so I was told!!!)

apparently during the last marriage the vicar took her to one side and said this had better be the last because people are starting to talk!!!
 

Joey Shabadoo

My pronouns are "He", "Him" and "buggerlugs"
My uncle once did the research, spent a lot of money and traced it back to the 16th Century. A lot of males killed on military service from Culloden to Colenso. Half a dozen killed in WWI, 2 killed in WWII then Korea, Malaysia and Northern Ireland. A lot of disease too - cholera, smallpox, diphtheria and other diseases caused by malnutrition. Two were killed working in the pits and I know both my grandfathers died from chest conditions caused by mining coal. One was deported to Australia for "affray", others emigrated involuntarily during the Clearances. There were a couple of murders (both women) and quite a few children disappeared into workhouses.

I'm sure without white privilege and the colonial benefits of Empire, things would have been a lot worse.
 

Drago

Legendary Member
My Grandad was interviewed by the police over a suspicion that he was involved in the disappearqnce of Lord Lucan. This is bad.

Nothing came of that, but some years later my Sister reckons she overheard a conversation between Gramps and my Dad which pretty much confirmed it. This is very bad.

My great Uncle, Norman Jewell, was the captain of HMS Seraph, which played a key role in Operation Mincemeat during WW2. This is good.

My Great Great Grandad got a medal from the French in WW1 for saving a load of peasants who'd wandered into a bridge just as they were in thne middle of blowing it up. I guess thats very good, although French medals are more like toys than serious gallantry awards.

It all gets a bit murkier on my mums side, a Jewish family latterly from Hungary. My Grandad was a bit of an itinerant and spoke several langages inlcuing - shudder - French, so it is strongly suspected that he is not who he said he was and may possibly have been trying to hide from the dibvle somewhere. He earned a living as a bare knuckle boxer, so wasn't exactly an upstanding citizen.

Because of that we can only trace parts of the family on Mater's side to the early 20th century, but Pater's side is well documented back to the mid 1500's.
 
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One of my great great great grandfathers was sentenced to transportation for life for poaching a rabbit.

To complete the story, the lord of the manor was held in such disrepute locally that while my ancestor was awaiting transportation, the vicar and other local worthies of the area put together 'a subscription' to pay for better accommodation and food for grandpa and to buy passage for his wife and children on an accompanying non-prison ship, such was the respect in which the family as a whole was held, as well as the hatred of the Lord of the Manor and the injustices he had perpetrated. After my ancestor was re-tried and hung, the unused money paid for a tiny rent-free cottage for the widow and her children, which apparently made the Lord of the Manor so angry that he died of an apoplexy shortly after he found out that they wouldn't be going into the workhouse - this according to my aunt, who did a huge amount of research into the family tree.
 

Beebo

Firm and Fruity
Location
Hexleybeef
My Bro is still working his way through the family tree.
Early 1800s my great great great granddad was put in prison for 2 weeks.
The serious crime was..........
boarding a train without buying a ticket :eek:
Anyone else with such despicable family secrets ?
The first passenger services were in 1820’s so it must have been a very new and exciting thing.
 
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