My great, great, great grandfather was a Pirate! Drowned when ship sank in Great China Sea. Arrrgh!

I found out this year that my great grand father on my Dad’s side shot and killed his landlord’s agent. He avoided the gallows on account of testimony that he was mad and so were his ancesters! My dad never knew any of this!

Another relative had a book published and then banned under the Obscene Publications Act.

Another lived in the house on Abbey Road where the Beatles recorded an album and hosted supper with J Edgar Hoover.

On my Mum’s side, though perhaps not exactly correct, wealthy ancestors son got rather friendly with one of the servants and was excommunicated.

Hmmm, that’s about it

We had a relative named ‘Homer’ in the states. His wife moved back to the UK when he died, with her son. He’s mentally disabled and lives in a care home. Turns out when she died in her little terrace in Manchester a couple of years back, she was worth around £5 million which all went to her son….errm, I mean the state because since he’s in care, it pretty much falls into their hands.

Brilliant. Make a will, people, especially if you’re very, very rich.

Forgot to mention my now deceased uncle was a figher pilot training on Harvards (possibly in Canada) then flying Gloucester Meteors. He had a few stories. Overshot the runway in a Harvard, went over a road and parked it in the front living room of someone’s house. He certainly wrote of one possible two Meteor’s and almost another Harvard!

Dad told me he was always going into hospital to take him home.

He was your archetypal dashing RAF Officer, like Terry Thomas. Boy did I look up to him when I was a lad!

Flying Ox, what’s your grandad doing on the side of a house?!?

I found out that at least 4 generations on my Dad’s side all lived and worked within a stone’s throw of where I’ve been working in London. Nothing exciting – wallet makers and ostlers for the most part…

Traced mine back. Dad’s side were all potters and five generations never strayed more than a couple of miles from Stoke on Trent.

Ex-wife’s great great great great great grandfather was Sir John Barrow. Interesting chap. Highlights:

– Very high up in Admiralty
– Barrow Monument in Ulverston
– Point Barrow, Barrow Strait in Alaska named after him
– His idea to exile Napoleon to St Helena

My grandmother always came over as all correct and proper, imagine her dismay when she discovered she was descended from a highwayman who was hung alongside Dick Turpin.

Another strain are descended from German chemists.

The family name goes back to the Vikings.

‘Tis a wonder that I turned out as well adjusted and sociable as I am. 👿

Related to a number of bad ‘uns on Mum’s side

Seems as though all my relatives were either poor, criminals or mad

Great-grandmother on my mother’s side was a suffragette, and apparently chained herself to the railings of Downing Street.

I can’t help thinking it explains a lot about both me and my mother…

Great, great, grandfather was an immigrant from Germany in the 19th century. He went native and wound up heavily involved with his local cricket club and sponsored them quite heavily. Great grandad was a businessman with a taste for booze and ladies, apparently he managed to snuff it without much left in the kitty. He disinherited my father because dad didn’t like cricket.

Uncle John was taken prisoner by the Japanese in Singapore in 1942 and survived the war. The rest of the family had no idea he was still alive until 1945…Uncle Bert ran away from school and joined up, fighting in the far east. He returned from the war, bought a bicycle and toured Europe, amusingly getting in touch with our German relatives along the way. Uncle Frank was a test pilot, he was disciplined by the RAF for absconding and trying to hitch a ride to the far east when he heard about the fall of Singapore. He wound up working for De Havilland and after that buggered off to Oz and became a lay priest. He’s referred to as the “white sheep” of the family.

Mother’s side are all Irish apparently, although one of them was a decorated pilot during WW2.

Always fancied doing this. How easy is it and can it be done for free or is it best to use a site like ancestry.com?

can use ancestry.com or genesreunited or findmypast for free, to build the tree and get hints to other trees and records.

they’ll all make you pay before they let you contact other users, or see records (census records can be very very helpful).

pretty easy to put in all the people you know. starts getting interesting when you need to start searching records. and then you get an email from a 4th cousin who’s already mapped out shed loads starting from your great grandad (had that on 2 lines so far).

My Dad’s great aunt (or something) married one of Henry Ford’s sons, and used to send back highly inappropriate and very expensive gifts to her family in the impoverished South Wales valleys, like fur coats and original paintings etc. They all thought she was bonkers, until recently it occurred to me and my Dad that she was trying to help them out financially because she couldn’t send money.

They used to play with the stuff as kids.. what a shame..!

Hearing WWII stories seems odd to me – my Dad’s family were all miners so never fought, and my Mum’s Dad was a desk jokey in the RAF so never fought either, and died of lung cancer in the 50s. So I don’t have any military stories at all.

I should go back and look up some more stuff though, whilst my folks and my aunts and uncles are still with us.

Oh and my Mum’s Auntie was a bridge Grand Master.

In investigating my wife’s mothers side, (who was born in Stamford), and my fathers side, (who was born in Scarborough), we found out that one ‘pair’ of each of their grandparents lived next door but one to each other in Nottingham in the early 1900’s.

The Flying Ox – Member
I’m a bit Armenian. My dad’s mother’s father arrived on a boat in 1916 to escape what the Ottomans were doing to those they didn’t like.

On my mum’s side, her uncles were dwarf twins and traveled the country with a circus.

EDIT: Oh, and this is my grandad:

Looking at the scarf and ironic helmet, was your grandad a hipster?

A distant cousin, Great Grandmothers family were “John”, but I’m related to arguably Wale’s greatest No. 10, Barry John.

His talent cover rugby hasn’t rubbed off, but his ability to drink has. 😆

My great grandfather was one of the designers behind this:

Be sure of one thing, you will find many skeletons & many cupboards, my parents found out they were related – something like 5th cousins once removed (I think it means my 4x & 5x great grandfather is the same person) & probably not that rare when you consider population growth & the sheer number of ancestors you have

A protoplasmic atomic globule……