General Chat

I would ask my paternal grandmother if life with the man she ran off with was worth losing her elder two children for. I had believed that she had died when my dad was very young, but now know that I was eight when she died.
My regret is that I could have got to know her (and my half-uncles)

I would ask her husband (my grandfather) why he didn't make any effort to stay in touch with his (only) son, and why in later years he didn't acknowledge us 9my siblings and i) when we visited his daughter. I thought that he was "just" a lodger, who we were not allowed to disturb (or even speak to)

Didn't find out till years later that the man who disliked children was my grandfather.
Did you die a happy man granddad? Actually, when did you die?

Note his name was not uncommon so too difficult to trace a death for him as -
1) I only have a vague idea of when he died (eary 60's to early 70's)
2) He used different dates of birth on different documents, so can't cross reference using d.o.b.

I'd like to know why my mother's father never mentioned any of his family. I didn'y know he had siblings until I started doing genealogy. He was alive until I was 22, but family was never mentioned. I think there must have a big row. I have discovered that his mother left the family with one of her daughters before 1901 and seemingly soon after her last child died at a few months old.

I'd also like to ask my mother why she never told me that her maternal grandfather was living with them for the last few years of his life. He also was never mentioned, but there he is on the 1911 census, and she was 8 at that time.

I only found out about that when the 1911 census came out!

I would like to ask my paternal grandfather about his traveller ancestry which I knew nothing about till I started doing my FH.

First question I would ask my so called grandmother .

Why did you take Frederick and leave your daughter (My mam) behind to be adopted.

Hang about where pensioners gather, if you feel you are up to it!

Have a bit of a shufty in the local papers too. Crime, child neglect, who knows what you might find.

Sharron you did give me another avenue for investigation and I checked that out, another cousin of mums and a possible son of his but nothing found, me thinks I will have to go there and look in local phone books and hopefully knock on a front door or more. :-D

I bet there will be some old biddy about there whose mother used to talk about it. Faily would keep it to themselves if it was shameful but you can bet everybody else chewed it over!

I have been back there to visit mums cousin, he was only about 1 year old when my grandmother scarpered, he remembered visiting mum at the orphanage but knew nothing of my grandmother his Aunt. He is now deceased and there is no one else i can ask.

Zzzzz, have you been back to where she was born? Gossip does come down through the generations.

From google apparently around 220,000 people got assistance with passage to Australia between 1921 and 1929 because they needed people over there. Perhaps that is the way she managed it?

Kath. x

Kathleenbell, she scarpered 1928 leaving Mum here in an orphanage at the age of 4 or 5, she wasn’t married and didn’t tell anyone over there about her life here.
She was born 1901 and died 1985, mum was born in 1923.

Sharron. No one has heard of my Mum or her Mum over here.

i am glad I started doing the family tree when I did, we were waiting, excitedly for the record office to be able to afford to buy the 1881 census at the time because I was able to talk to the old ones at the time..

One had nursed her sister-in-law when she died of the Spanish flu in 1918 They had been in service and driven Cases and Field Marshalls. Noah told me how they had put paddles on the wheels of the traction engine when they had to take the threshing tackle though wet ground.

Oddly, my great-great grandmother Green had lived in the village and died in her sons house to the north of the village in 1899 but nobody remembered anything at all about her, had never heard anything. God knows what happened there but there must have been one of their mighty fall-outs.

I'd ask my maternal great grandmother who the father of my maternal grandmother was and I'd also ask my maternal grandfather's parents why they baptised my grandfather with a different surname to the one he was born with and used all his life. (we know it's the right person because he sent off for his baptism record using his own name but must have explained why it was in a different name). We don't have a copy of his letter but we do have the vicar's reply from 1935.

Was your grandmother a £10 pom? Lots of people emigrated to Australia in the 50's and 60's for £10.

Kath. x

I could have a word or several with my Grandmother the first question would be why did you give the wrong name as to who my Mums Dad is.
The next would be where did you get the money from to scarper to Australia.

What would be the first question you would ask an ancestor.