General Chat

My mothers grandfather holds key to our best family tale
His surname was Hiette and family lore had him found by a German family cowering under a wagon after aboriginals had massacred his parents
However after years of investigation and to the disgust and disbelief of older family members it appears his surname was Hyatt and he was given away as a young boy along with a couple of his siblings from the steps of the local courthouse as his mother was unwell and his father was already married

Oh Dear Tania Imagine what he would say if he knew you had found out, about 100 yrs later. My g/father and his sister had a falling out with the rest of their Irish Catholic family sister married outwith the Catholic Church and g/father actually went and signed the documents oh! my what a to-do so much so the pair of them changed their name from McSharry to McSherry which I might add caused me a great deal of trouble of finding info. the Irish sites are bad enough as it is. And my Mum would have had a fit she kept saying we spell our name E. :-D I wonder if any of our secrets will be found out in a 100 yrs time (hiding evidence now!!) :-S

Maybe Tania no one else found out any secrets Or maybe they are to embarrassed to say :-D When I first started doing my tree friend came to stay and got me to do some of her family. There's something fishy about my Dad's birth she said so looked up and found yes mother wasn't married OK! then looked up her marriage 3 yrs after birth "Oh thank goodness they got married" (child was named after the person she married) said my friend laughing.....Haha says I have another look and in the margin .....Marriage April.... June Bigamy Oh dear now friend doesn't really know if her maiden name was ever correct she did get her g/mothers maiden name and the married name oppps :-)

My father’s mother’s mother was Lady Honor Ward. She had never soiled her hands. She ran off with the squire’s son. Her father, Lord Wooton, was given his title for services to food production in WWI.
When I started researching my family I found that Honor was born in 1843. Even if she had been the first born, her father would not have been born later than 1814! Past producing anything I would have thought.
Her marriage states her father was a carpenter and her husband, a miner.
The older generation did not believe my findings either.

Haha that's funny Noll good on them
And your poor friend
Hope she had a good sense of humour because that oops is a cracker
I was lucky as I was looking for john Henry Hiette another researcher was trying to find what happened to john Henry Hyatt
Luckily her great grandfather had actually told his family about the courthouse and wondered what became of his siblings
Apparently the courthouse steps thing was done quite often in NSW Australia at that time !!

Ooh Bernie I imagine that didn't sit right with some of your rellies

I was told that my Great grandfathers head was severed when he went under a low bridge when riding his horse, I got his death certificate, he died of bronchitis, similar :-S

That's bloody brilliant Lynda
Totally similar ways to go. I can see how the confusion arose

That's what makes you a good midwife Tania, you're so good with medical terminology, severed head =bronchitis :-D

This is a good thread ...Something to laugh about :-D :-D
And yes Tania friend had a very good laugh about it running off to tell all her relatives .. Just wish my Mum was alive she was so proud of her name being different hahaha :-D

Don't know about bullsh$t story, but my gran (dad's mum) was a great bullsh$tter.

Perhaps I should say she was a lovely lady with a very vivid imagination!! :-D

Apparently, her mum (who died when she was 3) was Spanish.

Her mum was called Annie Best, daughter of George Best, from a long line of Cornish Bests. Definitely not her dad's mum - her maiden name was Trewen, from (yet another) long line of Cornish ancestry.

She claimed to have the 3rd female pilot's licence. She wasn't old enough
She was a navigator for Healey, the rally driver. Absolutely no evidence of that - she never moved away from Devon/Cornwall until she was in her 50's.
When an old friend of the family was killed in WWII, she claimed to be his wife, and my dad was (apparently) his son. They refused her the widow's pension. Absolutely no sign of her ever marrying him, either.
This man was a friend of her father's, old enough to be her father and was married with 5 children. Gran must surely have known he was married as he was a family friend!

When my dad asked her, for the umpteenth time (in his 60's), who his dad was, she just replied 'Juarez'. Personally, I think her cousin was the father!

Gran finally persuaded a widow friend of the dead man (a commander) to marry her in 1942, and to adopt my dad (then aged 16) so he could join the Fleet Air Arm.
I'm not saying he was reluctant, but one of the proviso's was that, when he died (he was 30 years older) he would be buried with his first wife.

The adoption papers for my dad are interesting. His (grans husband's) address was in Devon, Grans was in Cornwall, and Gran has signed the papers, saying he will adopt dad - his signature, agreeing to the adoption is nowhere to be seen!!

She was a lovely lady, though. In her 70's, she was convinced she had kidney failure, so packed up and sold her smallholding (hubby had died years before), and toured Britain raising money for Kidney Research. She raised a lot, and was awarded an OBE. She died of old age - with perfectly healthy kidneys.

My wife had an uncle that regaled everybody with tales of the hardships of his time serving in Egypt.

His son thought he would get his dads service record to give to the old hero, when he got it back he found his dad had spent all of 6 weeks there after the war was finished :-D

lol Mayfield

I got my father's service records......... nothing matched up with his stories.

:-(

Maggie she was a regular Walter Mitty
How funny
At least her OBE was real

That's a bit of a laugh mayfield and scozz
I must say in my experience men that actively served in wars never say a word about it
The week before dad died I heard things about Korea that he never breathed a word of all I knew growing up was he had regular nightmares and did not like to ever be shut in
His father my grandfather never breathed a word of his service either
Just bawled out my father when he tried to enlist and asked my uncle what the f he would want to that for when he suggested a trip around Europe
When we got his service records a few years back he was actively fighting at paschendele and got a lump of shell in his head there yet no one ever knew

I didn't know until he died...... my uncle was a Desert Rat!

That explains why he and my dad made "herumphing" noises at each other.

Uncle is my dad's sister's husband.

The best story was something about being parachuted in over Germany, as a spy .... yeah right. Maybe his stories are still covered by the Official Bu....Secrets Act.



:-(

Never read the official bu...secrets act
I'm sure it covers a lot of things :-D

Mum had lots of family stories that we hung onto when she was telling them

Lots had a ring of truth but with embellishments

The one I remember most was the one that sent me off on a false trail when I started doing her family tree.

Grandfather and grandmother were both widowed when they married in 1909

Supposedly they had been married for six weeks when a letter came addressed to Mr and Mrs B so gran opened it (going on what I have leant later about grandad would think this was highly unlikely ) it was from a children's home saying we understand you have now remarried please make arrangements to collect your 6 children Gran supposedly went nuts cos he had told her he only had 4

They missed the eldest one as she had been sent to Canada as a home child ,true , but nan was a martyr and took on the other 5

Went around in circles trying to find 5 kids from his first marriage. Only found 3 boys and I did know them anyway as uncles when I was young
Wasted money on certs too

This was all before the 1911 census came online so no help there

Why 6 kids I don't know cos grandad did have 4 kiddies from his first marriage .his wife died in 1905 and the children did go into a McPherson home in the East end of London

Thanks mum sent me off on a wild goose chase for a long time and cost me too

Only a minor exaggeration Shirley lol
It must have driven you nuts