Family history

[Mickwhitt 4,642]

Hi all. 

My brother has been doing a lot of family history detective work, tracing ancestors of ours over the years.

A while ago he asked me to take him to a village called Castleton which is not too far from us, about 40 miles I guess. 

He had found a branch of our family name in that area and wanted to have a look round the local cemetery. 

After a bit of tombstone reading we found several with our family surname.  Its quite unusual, Whittingham.

When I was at school my name didn't quite fit in the space on the register, so my teacher would always call out "Whitting" and when I answered he would finish "Ham"

Such fun! 

You can imagine what I thought when I saw the gravestone engraving of John, one of my distant cousins from 1758...

 

[ebinmaine 67,626]

Love this stuff. 

 

My family history in Europe goes back on one branch to mid 1200s. 

We're related to a couple kings before the infamous Henry VIII. 

 

What's that get me?

Notta durn thing but it's cool nonetheless. 

 

There's a family tree in a cousin's garage that occupies 2 pieces of plywood. One horizontal, one split at the end. 

The names at the far right side are pretty small and all the space was full at the last generation. 

 

Thanks for sharing, Mick!

[stevasaurus 22,764]

Mick, you might want to do the rice paper and charcoal thing to copy what's on those stones.  Pretty coal.  

[Mickwhitt 4,642]

It tickled me seeing the same mistake on the gravestone as on my school register.  

Just imagine the stone Mason , chipping away for hours then when he gets to the end of the line not enough room..@$#%£¥₩₩£€^

 

[rmaynard 15,514]

Some of my ancestors on my father's side were from England. We happened to find an old coat-of-arms and had it looked at. The "expert" who researched it said that one of the symbols indicated that a male member of the family was in the King's court, and was probably a valet. We have always joked that old Henry Maynard was the keeper of the King's knickers.

[Jeff-C175 7,202]

People generally think that the family tree gets exponentially wider and wider the further back one goes. 

 

That is true... to an extent.

 

If that continued indefinitely at some point your own tree would have more people than existed on the planet at that time.

 

Logical thinking would reveal that everyone's family tree is DIAMOND shaped.  Wider and wider to a point that it begins to narrow again.

 

The conclusion is that we are ALL related.  But you knew that already, right?

 

When I was deeply into family research years ago I read a paper by a noted genealogist (sorry, don't remember name!) that explored statistics.  One thing that stuck with me was that statistically if you had European ancestry the odds were over 90% that if you had a time machine and went back 2000 years, the FIRST person you met in the FIRST European village you went into would be an ancestor.

 

Also he continued and said that if you could trace ONE family back to 1600s colonial New England the odds are over 90% that you are related to at least TWO US presidents.  If you trace TWO lines back, the odds approach 100%.  Yes, distant cousins, 10th or so, but related never the less.  I've traced over a dozen family lines back and at last count more than ten US presidents are distant cousins.  And that is not at all unusual.

 

And heaven help you if you find in your tree that cousins married,  prepare yourself for the realization that your siblings are ALSO your cousins!  In fact, that entire line are not only direct ancestors but also cousins.  Weird but true.  My siblings are also my 10th AND 12th cousins.  My father was my 9th and 11th cousin, once removed, my Grandfather 8th and 10th, twice removed and so on back a whole bunch of generations.  Maybe that's what's wrong with me! 

Edited April 14, 2021 by Jeff-C175

[Mickwhitt 4,642]

Wow Jeff,  that's mind blowing stuff. My brother loves the whole deal but I struggle to get too enthusiastic about it. Im more of a here and now type.

Your post reminds me of a witness statement I once read from an experienced cop. He had mentioned that someone was related to someone else in a previous statement. Our prosecutors wanted to know how they were related. It wasn't important but they do like accuracy. So the cop had to go back, speak to the witness and put in a supplementary statement, a bit of a pain for a busy cop. So he described the relationship thus...

"John Smith is the son of the sister of a lady who married my mother's brother. I consider him to be my second cousin" 

It made my head spin trying to unravel it.

The prosecutors never got back to him over that smart Alec response. 

 

Edited April 14, 2021 by Mickwhitt
Spelling error

[Stormin 9,981]

You should try the Chorley, Lanc's area, Mick. In my late twenties I worked with a Mick Whittingham. Quite a few Whittingham's around there.

 

  One of Carol's half sisters is into the family tree thing. Early last year she was contacted by a man tracing his mothers family. Turned out she was a long lost sister to Carol and her two brothers, who was adopted at 9mths old. Carol's mother was unable to keep her, but never made any secret of it.

  She married a farmer in Wales and we went for a visit last year. Both girls over the moon to meet. Going down again as soon as we can.

 

[Mickwhitt 4,642]

Norm there can be some amazing connections. The family name is pretty thin on the ground round here. But the connection to Castleton came about as our ancestors were rope makers for the lead mining industry in the area. When that died out they moved to Sheffield in the steel industry and then onto Barnsley where we are now. Coal mining was the big industry here but my grandad worked in a small local iron foundry before the family moved into mining.  He retired on Friday age 65 and died on the Monday, what a retirement bless him. 

[ranger 1,750]

Mick, a few years before I retired, one of my Field Engineer colleagues was a ”Paul Whittingham”, He left the company to set up his own business in theTelford area? 

Doug.

[formariz 11,987]

On a somewhat related topic, family history has always been a subject which has fascinated me from a young age. In my culture and specially among members of one generation before me, not much information was disclosed about many family members and who is who. I always found an evasive attitude to any questions posed and many times outright ignorance of actual facts. Just as a very small example of it , I only found out who my maternal grandfather was when I was already 30 years old. That was only because of my incessant pursuing of the facts. Even in my mothers birth certificate it states that father was unknown. Not true. Everyone knew who he was, they were I guess just embarrassed or reluctant for what ever reason to disclose it. On my fathers side everything is very clear and properly documented. On my mothers side however is a totally different story. Still today when a few of us get together and start talking about it, I have to bring out paper and pen along with the family tree I made , for people to understand what is going on. It always makes for a few hours of back and forth conversation and analyzing of the facts. Quite honestly even I sometimes still get confused. I probably would not ever be able to learn the truth except for one day my blessed mother coming to me with a photo and saying" enough is enough, there is no need to hide something which none of us are guilty of. This was my father", proceeding then to tell me the whole story. In a few words it all started at a time when young girls were sent to a family for really a life of servitude during which they were taken advantage of ,and had children from fathers and their sons. Hard to fathom today but that is how things were at that time. Today many of the older generations still around are still  not happy when I bring it up. However as my mother said to me, I am not guilty of anything and all I want to know is the truth and who I am.

[Jeff-C175 7,202]

4 hours ago, formariz said:

, not much information

 

I had a similar situation with my paternal Grandmother's family.  I found out years after she passed that her Grandfather packed up his family and fled the UK and changed their surname when they arrived in the USA.  The reason for his flight was ummmm, uhhhh, for let's say 'financial reasons'.  His 'business' failed and he owed a lot of people a LOT of money.  The authorities never caught up with him.  Scotland Yard is probably still looking for him, and now that the cat is outta the bag I expect they'll be knocking at MY door!

Edited April 15, 2021 by Jeff-C175

[Mickwhitt 4,642]

My sister in law told me her dad was from a different part of the country. He had been involved in some kind of low level incident drawing the attention of the local constabulary. He decided to move away and did what we call a moonlight flit (flitting is our local term for moving house, "Have you flitted yet Mavis?").

He jumped on a bus or two and when he thought he was far enough away hopped off. The name of the town he landed in was Rotherham, so he took that as his new surname. He never told her his prior name and she has no idea where he came from originally. 

Something and nothing that changed a family completely. 

Mick 

[Jeff-C175 7,202]

5 hours ago, Mickwhitt said:

moonlight flit

 

That sounds like exactly what my GR GR Grandfather did,  he went a bit farther away though!  I suppose because it was a LOT of money involved. (In today's dollars, many many millions)  I have more details that I really should not divulge.  It's funny that I only learned of this from 'new found' relatives in the UK who I made contact with during my family history research many years ago.  THEY knew the whole story, but NONE of the relatives on this side of the pond did!  Any that did were long passed.  The mystery in my head began when I was about 10-12 years old and my Grandmother's cousins from the UK came to visit... and they all had a DIFFERENT SURNAME!  It puzzled me then and has always been in the back of my mind.  I asked about it over the years and was always told; "Shut up kid, you don't need to know!" (paraphrased).

 

But I know now!  ha ha   I probably shouldn't be telling this stuff.  Ahhh, what the hell, they're all dead and gone.