Who Do You Think You Are?

[Richard Tarleton]

Probably never sold one before ...

Eh? They sell stacks of them. You need to be quick to get your Xmas issue. But back on topic, Hugo Rifkind reviews it in today's Times - "...go back 22 generations, and assuming none of your ancestors interbred (which of course they did), you've a direct link to a potential 16 million people". And according to "Who do you think you are" magazine, [quoted by Rifkind], 'descendants of Edward lll are believed to be in excess of four million"

[BBMmk2]

Whichever combination of 'German/Austrian/Castle/Conductor/Composer' I've googled, M.Rieu has come up first.

I think it is unfortunately. If only my ancestor won the Battle of Bosworth Field, things would’ve been so different.

[vinteuil]

My ancestors had castles up and down the country. Unfortunately, Henry Tudor got in the way.

... brassbandmaestro - you are special because you are you. You are not special because you have royal ancestors. We all have royal ancestors -

https://www.popsci.com/descended-from-royalty

.

[french frank]

As I believe I've mentioned before, my great-grandfather was butler at Wyastone Leys, and my grandfather was born in the butler's cottage. Just to throw down a challenge to BBM

Sorry, my great grandfather was a butler, not a musician of any sort.

[Serial_Apologist]

... brassbandmaestro - you are special because you are you. You are not special because you have royal ancestors. We all have royal ancestors -

https://www.popsci.com/descended-from-royalty

.

I was once told that an ancestor of mine, a Lord Brackenbury, was in charge of the Tower of London at the time the princes were murdered. Not a reputation to be lived down the centuries!

[Richard Tarleton]

Hi guys! Yes, the weather wasn’t very good. Went to Pompey.

Many years ago my sister (who lives a short ferry journey away ) sent me a VHS tape aimed at the Spanish business market entitled "Portsmouth - Ciudad de Oportunidades" .

I always find treading the decks of HMS Victory (currently sadly lacking its masts) a moving, not to say spine-tingling experience - likewise its neighbour HMS Warrior, on which my cousin (three times removed) Jack Fisher was appointed Gunnery Lieutenant in 1863. He went on to, er, greater things.

[vinteuil]

:

I always find treading the decks of HMS Victory (currently sadly lacking its masts) a moving, not to say spine-tingling experience - likewise its neighbour HMS Warrior, on which my cousin (three times removed) Jack Fisher was appointed Gunnery Lieutenant in 1863. He went on to, er, greater things.

... indeed he did - I see that "In 1917 he was awarded the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun with Paulownia Flowers, Grand Cordon, the highest of eight classes associated with the award... "



A bit of a bruiser when young, I wd guess -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fisher,_1st_Baron_Fisher#/media/File:JohnFisherMidshipman1856-60.jpg

.

[Richard Tarleton]

... indeed he did - I see that "In 1917 he was awarded the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun with Paulownia Flowers, Grand Cordon, the highest of eight classes associated with the award... "



A bit of a bruiser when young, I wd guess -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fisher,_1st_Baron_Fisher#/media/File:JohnFisherMidshipman1856-60.jpg

.

Indeed - he was very competitive. The following is an extract (slightly edited) from the family history I've been working on for a while now (Charlotte being my great great grandmother):

Charlotte Lambe's elder sister Sophia married William Fisher, ADC to the Governor of Ceylon. The eldest of Sophia's 7 children was John “Jack” Fisher who went on to become First Sea Lord before and during the First World War. Our great-great grandmother was thus Jack Fisher's aunt, our great-grandfather his cousin. Our father was told by his aunts to be sure to mention [the family connection] when he went for his interview for Dartmouth Royal Naval College in 1937.

Some fascinating insights into Jack Fisher’s early life are provided by Jan Morris in her book “Fisher's Face”. Jack was sent back to England by his parents, and at first lived with his maternal grandfather Alfred Lambe, father of Charlotte and Sophia. Alfred was a wine merchant at no. 149 New Bond Street, which in those days was next door to the fishmonger. Today it is the Louis Vuitton shop in the heart of London’s Mayfair, next door to Miu Miu. In his old age Jack wrote that Alfred Lambe had been deprived of a fortune in Portugal “through the artifices of a rogue” and had been forced to take in lodgers. Young Jack was fed on a diet of boiled rice and brown sugar, which kindly lodgers topped up with bread and butter. .........
Jack was sent to a boarding school in Coventry and spent some of his holidays with his godmother Lady Horton, widow of the governor of Ceylon. His sponsor when he joined the Navy aged 13, in 1854, was Admiral Sir William Parker, Nelson's last surviving captain and a neighbour of Lady Horton's ...........


The Herkomer portrait in the Wikipedia piece is a very bland affair conveying none of the complexity of Fisher's character.

[french frank]

A bit of a bruiser when young, I wd guess

I understand it was hereditary I'm ashamed to say I'd quite forgotten that the Mary Rose museum was in also Portsmouth, even though I've passed through the town several times. I well remember being riveted to - was it the television? when the ship was salvaged.

[Richard Tarleton]

I understand it was hereditary

I'm not a direct descendant

[french frank]

I'm not a direct descendant

Well, my experience is that you are not at all a bruiser!

[Pabmusic]

Many years ago my sister (who lives a short ferry journey away ) sent me a VHS tape aimed at the Spanish business market entitled "Portsmouth - Ciudad de Oportunidades" .

I always find treading the decks of HMS Victory (currently sadly lacking its masts) a moving, not to say spine-tingling experience - likewise its neighbour HMS Warrior, on which my cousin (three times removed) Jack Fisher was appointed Gunnery Lieutenant in 1863. He went on to, er, greater things.

Was he ( and are you) related to the Fishers who were Adeline Vaughan Williams's family - there were naval types there, one killed at Jutland, another became an admiral? They were cousins of the Stephens family, which included Vanessa and Virginia.

[BBMmk2]

Was he ( and are you) related to the Fishers who were Adeline Vaughan Williams's family - there were naval types there, one killed at Jutland, another became an admiral? They were cousins of the Stephens family, which included Vanessa and Virginia.

Quite some pedigree there. Well you all know about my ancestors. Quite a blood thirsty lot!

[Richard Tarleton]

Was he ( and are you) related to the Fishers who were Adeline Vaughan Williams's family - there were naval types there, one killed at Jutland, another became an admiral? They were cousins of the Stephens family, which included Vanessa and Virginia.

Pabs I haven't explored William Fisher's (Jack's father's) family at all - it certainly wouldn't be a blood relationship, as my connection is through his mother's family, the Lambes. He had two brothers who followed him into the Navy, one also an admiral, but neither killed at Jutland. He didn't have much to do with his immediate family.

Apologies for this intruding on the Absent Friends thread, prompted as it was by BBM's visit to Pompey - if we ever had a "Who do you think you are" thread I can't find it.

[antongould]

Pabs I haven't explored William Fisher's (Jack's father's) family at all - it certainly wouldn't be a blood relationship, as my connection is through his mother's family, the Lambes. He had two brothers who followed him into the Navy, one also an admiral, but neither killed at Jutland. He didn't have much to do with his immediate family.

Apologies for this intruding on the Absent Friends thread, prompted as it was by BBM's visit to Pompey - if we ever had a "Who do you think you are" thread I can't find it.

You could always start such a thread ....