Who Do You Think You Are?

[amateur51]

Family history methods can have wider uses too. I was once attracted at an auction sale to a small hand-written journal which contained the birthday and age of the (anonymous) writer and the baptismal names and date of baptism of his son. As he appeared to be a journalist (and poet?) born in 1795 I thought it would be interesting to find out more - just as a pastime.

The journal cost me £3 but gave me a huge amount of fun (which cost a bit more!) and I eventually donated it to the British Library, together with an edition of the published poem that was being written at the same time as the journal - and which the BL did not have in its collection. It was published under a pseudonym but it was possible to track it down and identify the author. Not anyone who became famous however. Chiz!

Highly enterprising and public-spirited french frank!

[clive heath]

I got sucked into the genealogy lark by the large amount of material that my father left behind which it would have been disrespectful/daft to have ignored. There are photos back to the 1880s, a vellum conveyance dated 1790, a letter from my paternal ggfather, Alfred, to his parents, in immaculate copperplate, written ( almost certainly to a formula ) toward the end of the summer term in 1841, ( 100 years before I was born!) "....the Midsummer vacation, I am requested to inform you, will commence on the 16th Inst...." and especially a Victorian Floral Birthday book which my father's aunt Amy must have been given at a young age. In it she has the signatures of as many people as she could persuade to sign, some who included their year of birth, the earliest being 1796. An interesting entry is that of Florence Sparagnapane who turns out to have been active in the suffragette movement and who married well. All the pages are on Flickr.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/44628898@N04/sets/72157623013741159/

Jan 19th has the signature of a young Robert Heath Lock who became pretty famous: Chairman of committee appointed during World War I to organise experiments on the drying of fruit & vegetables; introduced an important new strain of rice (“Lock’s paddy”) into Ceylon; author of “Variation, Heredity & Evolution”. He married Bella Woolf, whose brother Leonard married Virginia Stephen and we know how that worked out!

The weird thing is that his father, John Bascombe Lock, was a "beak" at Eton where he, Robert, was born. John was my paternal ggfather's sister's son-in-law or my gfather's cousin, I think! He left Eton to go to Caius College, Cambridge almost the exact year that my other paternal ggfather's employer, Percy Clive, owner of the Whitfield Estate, Herefordshire, started at Eton, assuming he went at 11. Lt. Col. P.A. Clive of the Grenadier Guards died in action while with the Lancs Fusiliers in 1918. He saw action in the Boer War as did my maternal grandfather, just to round it off nicely.

[visualnickmos]

PS said g-grandfather had a very distinguished artistic career, this episode simply added to the interest

...anyone we might know?

[Richard Tarleton]

...anyone we might know?

I doubt it unless you're into the Arts and Crafts movement - much of it spent as scholar and teacher, in India - here's his Wiki entry! (I wrote the "Life" bit). There's a photo of him here at a family wedding. I have read his books on Cotton Printing in the Madras Presidency, and Indian Metalwork, in the V&A Library.

His retirement home not too far from you, visualnickmos? He was looked after until his death by a housekeeper who sold a number of his artworks and pieces of furniture after his death saying he'd gifted them to her. As this was in enemy-occupied France nothing could be done until after the fall of France - his daughter, an army doctor, travelled down at the first opportunity at the end of the war, hitching a ride with the American army, to rescue the remainder of his stuff - there is much correspondence with British consuls, French lawyers etc.

[John Wright]

Researching the Wrights, as I said above, revealed a blacksmith business in the 1830's. The building where they had the forge was made into a cottage by our granddad and named 'Anvil Cottage'. The cottage still has that name, the family sold it in 1953.
I'm fascinated by the occupations of our family ancestors: as well as blacksmiths we've had a coachman, shoemaker, hedge-cutter, and many women did domestic work at local manor houses.
It was said in the Richard III thread that everyone will have royal ancestors or at least a link back to nobility. As one would expect, then, the most fascinating discovery we have made is a link to Scottish nobility. We knew of a story handed down the generations but had no names indeed did not know which generation, it seemed a very romantic story, the very stuff of a 'historical novel', and now the story is maybe coming together.
Scottish borders, great-grandma born 1841, her grand-dad in 1785 married a woman from the notorious Johnstone family. Her father was a coachman for Lady Maxwell at a local manor house. In that household was another young lady, from the noble house of Crawford (Fife), installed there as a companion for Lady Maxwell. Research suggests that the young lady's father had supported the Jacobites at Culloden (1746) in opposition to the royalist (possibly his uncle) the Earl of Crawford (John Lindsay the 20th earl), that being the reason he was deported, and his daughter needing a home. I will have to access some peerage archives to confirm all that.
Anyway our coachman eloped with the young lady living in the manor house! Their gravestone is in Dumfriesshire and we'll be visiting them on our next journey north of the border.

[mangerton]

It is a fascinating study, and I've been researching my family tree for well over twenty years. I've uncovered a few skeletons, some very large families (we must remember there was no TV in those days - not even R3 - and people had to make their own entertainment), and a few sad things.

On a happier note, I have an ancestor who was a railway engine driver, and my first cousin once removed emigrated to Canada and became Musical Director of The Canadian National or Canadian Pacific Railway.

I also discovered that my great great uncle married the great great niece of William Shield who was Master of the King's Musick.

[Richard Tarleton]

Great story John! Yes it looks as if John Lindsay fought on the Hanoverian side in the '45 - quite a soldier by the look of it, he also fought at Dettingen which was the last occasion when an English monarch (albeit in this case a German one ) actually took part in a battle.

It would be wonderful to have a portrait of your coachman ancestor - handsome devil, obviously - how long did they live, did anyone come looking for them?

[John Wright]

Richard, our coachman and his young lady both lived to about 90, that's what I'm told the gravestones say, quite unusual for the 18th/19thC, and they are buried within the parish of the manor house so they must have remained 'respectable' within the community. Information from the 18thC is difficult to confirm but we'll try and do so.

[Richard Tarleton]

BBM - according to today's Times, both Nick Clegg and the singer (formerly?) known as Prince are both descended from John of Gaunt.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

the singer (formerly?) known as Prince

Formerly-and-now-once-again-known-as.



(Unless he's changed it again.)

[Stan Drews]

Great story John! Yes it looks as if John Lindsay fought on the Hanoverian side in the '45 - quite a soldier by the look of it, he also fought at Dettingen which was the last occasion when an English monarch (albeit in this case a German one ) actually took part in a battle.

I'm rather ashamed to admit that, although I was aware of some of the Lindsay family history, I've just learned thanks to this post that John Lindsay is buried a mile or so down the road from my house.

[clive heath]

Link to the peerage page giving some gen on John Lindsay, 20th Earl of Crawford, touches forlock.

http://thepeerage.com/p2125.htm#i21246

[Richard Tarleton]

Link to the peerage page giving some gen on John Lindsay, 20th Earl of Crawford, touches forlock.

http://thepeerage.com/p2125.htm#i21246

The one careless bit of wording, I think also cut and pasted into the Wiki entry, is

He fought in the Jacobite Uprising in 1745.

- as a card-carrying Hanoverian (and former colonel of the Black Watch) this must presumably mean he fought against the Jacobite uprising.

[BBMmk2]

BBM - according to today's Times, both Nick Clegg and the singer (formerly?) known as Prince are both descended from John of Gaunt.

OMG!! Richard, I thought you were a friend!! :) Argh!! :)

[Richard Tarleton]

OMG!! Richard, I thought you were a friend!! :) Argh!! :)

I was waiting for you to spot that bbm