family tree

[eleanor2]

i had a lovely day at trentham gardens with daughter yesterday.it is called trentham village. because it has a large indoor centre plants and special gift items etc.then small wooden shops like down a village street.with all sorts of different things on sale. over christmas we will be having an outdoor ice rink to.
any way i found a lovely little gift to give my dad a laugh. a resin plaque with the words
my family tree has lots of nuts in it. my dad will hang it in the living room and we wil akk have a laugh about it. i laughed at it as soon as i saw it.
anyway i had a great grandad who owned a pot bank.he couldn't stand the stress and drank the profits away.so he lost it.his name was mentioned on flog it the other week.when they were in stoke-on-trent.because he owned it with a family member of well known potterry painters(not clarice cliff) my other great grandad owned land and gambled it away. what have you got in your family tree.....

[Oola]

Nothing spectacular, but I had a very distant cousin of a grandmother who was an actress...first to be tied to a railtrack in a movie or something obscure....

Rich, on the other hand, has a couple of interesting ancestors. He is descended from William Lenthall, the speaker of the house of commons during Charles I's reign, (faced up to him when Charles stormed into the house) and another branch of his family were the first to manufacture buttons!

[eleanor2]

wow oola thats great.i love the film oliver cromwell.thats charles the 1st time isn't it.i bet i'v seen your cousins granny to.my hubby loves old black and white films. come on you lot i bet theres some interesting stories out there.i bet theres even some skeletons in the cupboard.

[keepersdaughter]

I had a great-aunt who passed on three years ago aged 100. A few years ago I asked her to write down a little family history. While she couldn't remember at that point any real famly stories or anecdotes, it was fascinating to learn of relatives I hadn't known existed, names, etc. I recently asked my uncle, Dad's brother, if he would scribble a few lines about my Dad's side of the family. I haven't heard anything yet. I have a strong feeling there could be a lot more interesting 'history' that side of the family tree ;)

[Sandra]

David Battie is my Grandmother's cousin. Eleanor2, was the painter called Charlotte Rhead? She was a painter at (among others) Crown Ducal, which was the manufacturer of the orange tree design, the subject of my posting under junk shop finds.

I can trace my family tree direct to C.1643, on my father's side. The family came from St. Lo, Normandy, and were Huguenots. When they were persecuted for their religion (what's new?), they got out quickly, and some settled at Spitalfields at the East End of London. My great great Grandfather was a silk velvet weaver. When this skill was lost to machinery, the family became cabinet-makers or ran pubs. There is no-one famous, so far as I know, in the family, but I am proud that I descend from skilled people. There is an almshouse at Rochester for Huguenots who wish to retire there. Actually, I don't think they are that strict about the Huguenot bit now. If anybody fancies a look, it's online at http://www.frenchhospital.org.uk/

Fascinating stuff, family history. Did you know that the Mormons claim to have recorded every single surname in the Universe? Whatever you think of them, their family website is useful for records. It's at www.familysearch.org

[eleanor2]

i think it was charlotte rhead.it was her brother who set up up a pot bank with my great grandad.well i'm 90% sure.cus it was the same name as my great grandad and he did own a pot bank in s-o-t.
keepers when you find out your family history you could share some with us.we have a mormon library in the next town to us.

[Crocus]

I wish I could find out more about my dad's ancestors, but don't have enough info. There's nobody left who I can ask. Quite frustrating.

[Oola]

I am quite far off the Debenham family tree as compiled by Prof Frank Debenham. It goes back to 1500s and the core family where it started, front Suffolk were known as the 'Debenham Dozen' - not a good lot by all accounts. My Dad's side hail from Isle of Wight and then East Ham in London, as well as Ireland and Scotland, and mum's side goes to rural Essex (there's a pic of my great great (great?) greandparents Reuben and Rachel with all the family, quite amazing), Shropshire and somewhere else.

We have a history of women living a long time in the family - one of them lived to 106, one to 107, my great great aunt Vi lived into her 90s, as did my great grandmother, and Reuben and Rachel both lived to 99. All were in very good nick by all accounts, so there's hope for me. If I live that long I just hope the world is a bearable place.

[keepersdaughter]

Hey Oola, we may be related!. My father's side of the family are from Essex. I always get a little niggled as Essex has a bit of a reputation. Essex girls and all that. I think there are many misconceptions about the county. I believe things changed after the war when there was an exodus from bombed out London and people moving to the surrounding counties. East London accents are associated with Essex now, though remembering my grandfather, he had a very thick rural 'Essex accent' as does my uncle and my aunt, though to a lesser degree. Do you know where in Essex your family may have lived? I'm still waiting for my Uncle Gordon to get around to passing on some family history as I think it all rather fascinating. I have discovered some family secrets - though nowadays it would be considered the norm. probably and no-one would bat an eye.

[jazzactivist]

Everyone's family trees sound so interesting. The only interesting part of mine, as far as I know, is that my grandfather's mother was Italian and she and my great grandfather ran a successful fruit importing business in London until WW1 when there was a decline in interest in Italian goods. Their family had to then do a variety of things to make ends meet and one of them was that my grandfather's 6 sisters used to get paid to do 'parlour turns' in the big houses in London, as they had extraordinary long, black hair and sang in Italian. He had a professional photograph of them in their heyday and their hair literally touched or trailed in the floor, even when parts of it were held up in combs and bands! Unfortunately, I haven't inherited their hair or their singing voices!

[eleanor2]

the3 cottage my mum in law lives in.she was born there.i have a photo of her mum and grandmother sitting outside. her mum was in service to one of the big houses in the area.there is a pit close by, the men were miners in the rough old mining days.if we dig deep i bet we'v all got interesting stories to tell. i love hearing about actual lives in the past.oola you arn't related to the debenham super store family are you.

[franbee]

Oooo I love family history. I have been researching mine for 20 years. A lot of my ancestors were farming and country folk from Westmorland and around Morecambe Bay. I love to imagine how they must have lived, and when I drive up the M6 through the old Westmorland, I feel like it is my spiritual home. One of these, a servant girl, married the Schoolmaster, who was from London. More recently I have acquired a document written in 1898 which gives a very involved genealogy for his ancestry. Apparently one of them was at court and was Secretary to Queen Elizabeth of York, he died in 1521. His line go back to the Norman invasion in 1066. Do you think that is why I like France so much?

[eleanor2]

this thread has got me searching. i have even rang a long lost aunt up. my dad says theres a plaque in a local church to my grandad because he was a benefactor.i am going to have a look. i have started taking names down.been on mormon website.didn't have enough info.got to get more. fran i would love to be able go as far back as you.can't you let your imagination run wild.

[franbee]

Eleanor, you need to ask as many older people as you can for info, anything, then write it down. Even vague stuff can help your search.
Did you watch Matthew Pinsent on Who do you think you are? He traced back to William the Conqueror, I can do the same.

[sheddie]

Our roots lie in the Salvation Army and we have many unknown relatives in uniform.Our Dad left home at 16 and never returned to Yorkshire where his family were farmers and our Grandad drove the bus to and fro from the pit, until there was a major explosion, then the family moved to Derbyshire.I have lots more that I haven't read up on yet since a friend looked into our family history.We also heard somewhere in our family that some member could lie on a bed of nails.Do you think he was in the theatre?

[sunflower]

My Great Great Grandfather played cricket for England. As a surgeon then later as a GP he invented a treatment for severe facial Neuralgia, making a poltice out of the achonite plant. He caused a scandal and a major financial downfall in the family by squandering all the money. How? we do'nt know!! We're still recovering lol !!!

[Oola]

Hi keepersdaughter, not sure about what part of Essex but it's only my great grandfather's family so I can ask my grandmother later on today (it's our last family gathering of 'afternoon tea' now clocks go back next week). I know that they moved to North West London (Harrow and Pinner) and owned a dairy.

Rich and I found out that both our grandmothers used to ice skate at the same place in Richmond in London each year...they could have crossed paths and never known it! Until 7 years ago Rich and I lived 80-odd miles apart...strange world isn't it. And Rich's parent's family friend who moved to Derbyshire lived just down the street from my parent's house before they moved....we have quite a few strange connections like that.

[Sandra]

Re descent from kings, did you know that 90% of all English children born after 1995, will have some blood from King Edward III, sometimes called the Father of the English Nation. It is a complex formula, and frankly over my head within the first several equations, but can be proven.

[eleanor2]

i think in my background there is jewish and irish blood. my granny deceased wouldn't tell any -one we had jewish blood.you only have to look at the noses of her sons .they had a double barrel name which goes back quite a few generations.for many generations the eldest son right down to my nephew had the same first name to go with the surname.just a few years back there were 4 generations alive with the same name.wouldn't it be exciting to find you had an interesting ancestor.

[Serenity]

It really is interesting to trace your family tree, I've been looking into mine for about a year now and although there has been nothing shocking or anybody famous to discover it still fascinates me. I recently discovered that a couple of my relatives lived and worked on big estates, one a gamekeeper the other a horseman, and whenever we've visited NT properties its always been the 'below stairs' areas that have been of interest to me - maybe this is why.
My paternal grandmothers side of the family is a complete mystery. I've quizzed her about it but never found out much. She did say that she descends from buccaneers that travelled from Peurto Rico but then she is a rather eccentric grand lady so I'll take it with a pinch of salt!