Strange coincidence

I found a legitimacy issue with my mum's grandad. Wasn't sure to tell her as she adored him, so I said his mother was not an attractive personality and wasn't it great that he turned out so well!

Lovely for all of you to have discovered past family members. Just before my mum died she told me that my aunt had been pregnant by a serviceman during the war and had handed over the child to a couple at "the corner at the end of the road". It was her only child. My aunt was the kindest loveliest person and this makes me feel so sad. I would have loved to have met my cousin but there is no way of tracing him/her.

Having found my natural mother 35 years ago, (I was adopted) and consequently knowing my natural father's name, nationality, education etc., I started tracing family through Ancestry and also had a DNA test done. I would meet my mother from time to time - it was nevertheless an extremely strained relationship as I was born in 1945 and having an illegitimate child in those days was almost criminal. I spent some time trawling Ancestry to find traces of my father and the earliest I got back to was one Nikel Drumm in 1591 - a farmer in Germany whose descendants emigrated to America. Whilst trawling, I came across an actual photo of my father at the age of 21, and this was the very first time I'd seen an image of him. It sent shockwaves through me. I also found my half brother who didn't answer my contact letter. His birthday is Christmas Day, and mine is New Year's Eve!!

I've just remembered that a psychic told me,some years ago,that I had strong family connections to Lancashire.This puzzled me because I did not know of any family there at all.
A few years later,a second cousin got in touch through Ancestry and introduced me to a whole branch of my grandfather's family that I didn't know about.Yes,they all live in Lancashire.

My 4xgreat grandfather was found guilty of the manslaughter of his brother.His punishment was to be "burnt in the hand," a branding carried out by the court.

My great grandmother passed her illegitimate first son off as her brother or lodger left another son with her widowed mother, married a widower who had five children whom she helped raise, had a further six by him, then she then married one of his sons (that she had raised), she had another five children by him...I think it is called incest. Apparently she was very vain and clearly lied about her age to say the least of it! However three batches of children by three men... the first unknown the next two father and son takes some biscuit. This was Victorian Marylebone scary stuff. I think some of these women had they not had to entirely depend on men and their relationships with them for a living could have offered much in their energy and enterprise.

they had all agreed to take the secret to their graves

That sounds so annoying!

My great grandfather many times back had his goods seized and sold in the market place because he wouldn’t pay his taxes as they were funding a war and he was a Quaker.

Vampirequeen, you should be able to find your huband's grandparents on the census, 1841 to 1911 being on the internet. I found my gr.grandad was taken to court for receiving stolen goods but he was a very honest man and was lied to by the real villain. Nothing has been said in our family about this and I can understand why. But these days it's not such a big deal. I found it on the British Newspapers website.

That's so interesting though!!! I just had the DNA results back from MyHeritage - a birthday present from my eldest daughter. It's thrown up all sorts of surprising details (and questions!!) and now I want to find out more as one set of my grandparents clearly weren't being honest!! Exciting stuff!

Oh, my great great uncle from Essex - a typical ‘wide boy’ was transported for life to Tasmania, (Van Diemen’s Land they called it back then) and his wife was his fence (she got a month in jug for ‘receiving’ his stolen property). Eventually some years later, on the far side of the world he bigamously married another convict (a lady I hasten to add) from Norfolk

Genealogy is fascinating

And I was trying to say, maybe not all that unlikely!

But it wasn't a coincidence at all. It was a genological fact.

Wish I had a suffragette!

Ancestors of both my parents were transported to Australia. One for stealing a horse and the other for stealing a bag of apples from the market. The latter survived and at the end of his sentence started a new family. His descendants from that family are still in Australia.
My 4x great grandma was born and baptised in 1814 in the village where I now live. I had never heard of the village until we came to look at a house here.

I did the tree for a lovely elderly lady, found her grandfather was a widower who then married ! His eldest daughter

Great grandfathers younger sister was jailed for 5 years for killing an infant in fact I think it was the second infant to die in strange circumstances the one she was jailed for was malnourished and being feed on bread water and a touch of gin Her own children were illegitimate and she was looking after her daughters illegitimate babies

DH had a great great grandfather who went to Wakefield Prison a couple of times. Drink was always involved and he didn't seem to mind whacking the odd constable.

The most interesting and infuriating is one of DH's grandfathers. We're not even sure of his name. His children including DH's mother are still alive but no-one will say anything about him. One uncle said that they had all agreed to take the secret to their graves. What on earth could this man have done? We've tried and tried but no one is telling and we don't even have a surname because he wasn't married to DH's grandma even though she had several children with him.

ha ha OOpsadaisy 12 I found that both my 3xgreat granny and grandfather were in court on the same day,she for not paying the rent on her pub..him for selling alcohol without a license.Makes it interesting to find these wee gems along the way.Granny also spent anight at hM's pleasure ...she knocked a policemans hat off during a demonstration of suffragettes.No jail birds since then...well not that I've found ...yet

Sorry Great granny

That’s why it’s so interesting, you never know what you will find.
I’m off to see why Granny was in Prison......

Probably a lot more likely than winning the lottery!

Or correct me....

Am I right in thinking that you have 4096 x 2 in that generation? Not sure of my maths here, but if you divide the population of Yorkshire then by that number you have the chances of this happening!

Now that is interesting vampirequeen . Genealogy is fascinating and the more we find out about our ancestors the more we appreciate how lucky we are to actually b here at all.

At least that’s one ancestral line less to chase up!