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Strange how some family members drop off the radar

ProfilePosted byOptionsPost Date

SylviaInCanada

SylviaInCanada Report 17 Aug 2015 17:27

Argyllgran is quite right about the ease of movement and the difficulties we are leaving behind for our descendants to try to solve :-D

I was born in one county, OH in another. Both of us have name and surname combinations that sound as if they could be easy to trace but in fact are surprisingly common. I think DET and I even share one surname :-)

I did not marry in my home town or even county

We immediately left the UK, went first to the US then moved up to Canada, where my married name is even more common than it was in the US. We disappeared for a year to another country, leaving very little trace behind. We also left very little trace in that other country when we moved back to here.

Our daughter married a man with a very unusual surname every where except in the province from which he comes. She moved to his province, and their son was born there.

+++DetEcTive+++

+++DetEcTive+++ Report 17 Aug 2015 15:59

Argyllgran is right about the ease of movement.

We have a common surname, married in Kent but then our son was born in Berkshire. There are quite a few births with his name combinations. He married in Northumberland and their child was born in London! To top it all, his wife's maiden name is quite common as well.....and she wasn't born in the county they married in. :-)

If someone comes across a 150 year old Allen male going by the name of George let me know please

SuffolkVera

SuffolkVera Report 17 Aug 2015 14:02

I think there's a whole fleet of space ships depositing folk on earth and abducting others. And there is a rule on whatever planet they come from that says every few years they have to change their name.

I have a great uncle who appears never to have existed at all, except my father knew him and he appears, aged 5 or 6, on a school group photo. Dad often spoke about an uncle who was just a bit younger than him but I can find no record of his birth, life, death or anything else. I once managed to contact a distant cousin and found he had also done a little work on his family tree. He had added the mystery man to the tree as a child of his grandmother (my gt.grandmother) but he had no dates or other information. It was reassuring to find I hadn't actually dreamt him up; someone else knew of him as well.

How can someone living in the 20th century and in a close knit, loving family be completely unrecorded? :-S

ArgyllGran

ArgyllGran Report 17 Aug 2015 12:07

Mine were all born in the normal way, but several were apparently abducted by that spaceship and never reappeared!

Gai

Gai Report 17 Aug 2015 11:58


Has anyone else had family members just appear from no where?

Gai :-S

ArgyllGran

ArgyllGran Report 17 Aug 2015 11:54

Future family tree hunters are going to find it even more difficult.

As has been said, people used to live and die in one small area, generally speaking.
This is true of my family - my mother's side in a small area of England, and my father's side in a small area of Scotland. But from my grandparents onwards, with easier travel (though not yet on an actual spaceship!), we scatter to the winds, and we aren't alone in that.

I was born in one town, married in another, had three children in three other different places, and will probably die in yet another place.
I pity any descendant trying to track that.

Kim Annette

Kim Annette Report 16 Aug 2015 17:32

im so glad im not alone..... and now thinking about it yea my many g grandfather just turned up in gateshead... fully formed... maybe same space ship did several drop offs...

SylviaInCanada

SylviaInCanada Report 22 Jul 2015 19:10

Chris ................


that's definitely another option :-D

Chris in Sussex

Chris in Sussex Report 22 Jul 2015 18:41

If not alien spaceships then perhaps time machines!

From the past or the future they land in 1851, or whenever, as a fully formed adult and decide to stay :-D

Chris

SylviaInCanada

SylviaInCanada Report 22 Jul 2015 18:24

my whatever x grandfather did hang around, in that same small village, until his death and burial ............ at least, according to the Parish Records checked by several people including my first cousin. We know everything about him, except for before he married and his exact age. It is assumed that he must have been around 20 when he married!

The majority of the family didn't actually move from 3 small villages all located in a 10 mile area for the next 150 years, except for 3 very daring members who emigrated to Australia in the 1840s and 1850s. One of those even decided to move on further to California with half his family, leaving the older children in Australia.

Most of them were very stick-in-the-mud until around 1890


I wonder if your guy changed his name for the period of his marriage, for some reason??

Karen in the desert

Karen in the desert Report 22 Jul 2015 17:53


Yes Shirley, it sure is strange, and v annoying when it happens :-)

Sylvia, my paternal grandfather arrived on that same spaceship!
It dropped him off so that he could marry my grandma in 1920 (I've no idea where he came from). He hangs around for a few years (he shows up on the ER's for those years) and then said spaceship picks him up and takes him back to who-knows-where! He was never seen or heard of again.
I am at a loss to know how in hecks name that can actually happen....but it did :-0
Irritating or what :-S

Maddie

Maddie Report 21 Jul 2015 10:49

:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

SylviaInCanada

SylviaInCanada Report 21 Jul 2015 04:12

I'm almost convinced that there is a giant alien spaceship that circles the earth picking up and putting down our ancestors at will :-D :-D :-D



My x times gt grandfather apparently arrived on this earth fully formed in time to get married in 1740. There are loads of people that have been researching the family for the last 40 or so years, yet no-one can find him before 1740. His wife's family has been traced back to the mid-1500s, never apparently moving from the same small area.

But him?????


nope


Only reason I can see is that flippin' spaceship dropped him off in that small village :-D

Maddie

Maddie Report 20 Jul 2015 10:58

so very true. I have got stumped with one great grandmother and a great grandfather, so can't progress those lines any further. Keep returning to them but no luck.
If they knew then what we know now would they be so elusive !!!!!

Gwyn in Kent

Gwyn in Kent Report 19 Jul 2015 20:10

I know what you mean Shirley.

My Southampton-area JONES are probably my worst line.

GG grandfather George JONES is last seen in 1851, but is referred to on his wife's death certificate in 1855, so I guess he was still around somewhere, although no home address was given when she died in hospital.

............Looking for George JONES, a labourer, not the easiest task................

Shirley~I,m getting the hang of it

Shirley~I,m getting the hang of it Report 18 Jul 2015 16:28

Am sure others have blank walls on family members .

I have FTM and look at the older family from time to time to see if they can be found after the last time they show on any census

some updates on FTM /Ancestry do come up trumps sometimes but its frustrating when you follow them through then they seem to drop off the universe

Am an time served researcher so know some search tricks but even i get stumped at times on where did they go etc

Frustrating cos i like to round things off :-(