Ancestral Anecdotes

[Loyalist]

Do you have a story or family lore about any of your ancestors? Regardless of how distant, please for free to share.

Let's see...

My paternal ancestor, a Scotsman who came to Canada in the early 19th century, was in the process of fleeing from the Red River Colony (in present day Manitoba) to Ontario when he became engaged to another Scottish settler. He and his wife-to-be were encamped with their families on opposites sides of a river. On the day of the wedding, he and the minister who was travelling with the group went to the riverbank where there was supposed to be a boat in which they planned to row across. However, someone had stolen it the night before, but instead of giving up, they shouted their vows to eachother from across the river.

On my maternal side, another ancestor had an eventful life. He was born in Wales in the early 17th century, and moved to London at a young age, where he became a constable. He killed somebody in a tavern while on duty, but was pardoned by King Charles I in 1625 for "justifiable manslaughter". He anglicized his surname shortly after, and migrated to the Colonies in 1635, becoming an indentured servant to a noblewoman. After the contract was finished, he was kidnapped by men loyal to Cecilius Calvert (2nd Baron Baltimore), but managed to escape and settle in New Amsterdam, where he became a Quaker.

Finally, another paternal ancestor (7 x great-grandmother) was a French Huguenot who survived numerous pogroms against Protestants. On one occasion, she hid inside a chimney while French soldiers searched her house. The family later fled to Switzerland, where she married a Swiss-German man and eventually emigrated to Pennsylvania. They lived there for less than a decade before the Revolutionary War broke out, and once again fled, this time to Canada with the Loyalist migration. They built a church bearing their name which is still standing, and is less than a ten minute drive from my house. She and her husband are both buried in the adjoining cemetery. This excerpt from a local history book is posted on RootsWeb:


She was born in France, 21st May, 1748, and at the age of twelve moved into Switerland with her parents. Sophia spoke French, German, and English, and had a remarkable memory. Her descendants often listened at her knee to her stories of life in France, in Germany, in Switzerland, in Pennsylvania and of early days in Upper Canada. As a girl in France, she once escaped when she stepped up into their wide old chimney, while soldiers searched the house on a round-up of heretics.

Source (http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=doan-speers&id=I196643)

[Æmeric]

One of my ancestors was kidnapped by Indians on the Virginia frontier when he was a young boy, sometime in the 1730s. He was eventually ransomed after several years but kept going "native" & was suspected of aiding the Indians druing the French & Indian War. His brothers finally got him to settle down & marry. He died in his 96th year in 1820 in Tennessee.

[Brynhild]

My Irish GxgxGrandmother had a child born out of wedlock to a Scottish man who became her husband (my GxgxGrandfather). They left Victoria and moved to New South Wales, had about 7 or 8 children and opened two pubs out in the Central West when the goldrush of the 1870s was booming.

[Electronic God-Man]

This story used to be online somewhere, but for the life of me I can't find it, so I shall recount it as best I can.

A certain family that I am directly descended from used to live in New York state before the revolution. Shortly before the revolutionary war had started they had moved to the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania. In 1778, an army of British soldiers, but mostly filled with Iroquois warriors, attacked the towns in the Wyoming Valley.

Before the actual attack the people living in the area had built a fort in preparation. They knew that an attack was coming. The men had gone out to gather food and wood the one day. That evening the husbands of two of the young ladies, who were sisters, did not return. In a panic they demanded to be let out of the fort and search for their husbands. I think they each had children at the time as well.

The guard would not let them out, because he felt that it would be too dangerous. The two women apparently fought their way through the guard and escaped from the fort with their children. I think they knocked the guard out.

They wandered through the woods searching for their husbands until they found a small hut that had light glowing from inside. At first they feared that it might be an Indian hut, but it turns out that this was both of their husbands camping out for the night.

That very night as these two families were away, the British and the Iroquois attacked the fort in the Wyoming Valley. Most of the English settlers died that night by the hands of Iroquois warriors. Many were scalped.

But my ancestors had escaped by sheer luck. :thumbs up

Here is the story of the Wyoming Valley Massacre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Valley_massacre).

[Gooding]

My great grandfather, Melva Lawson McDonald, on my mother's paternal side, was both a lawyer and a teacher.He had the first school bus route established in that part of Tennessee and during the 1930s, he moved up to Washington,D.C., with his wife, Bertha Baird, and found work with the government.LOL, my great grandmother got my grandfather a shirt, but they quarrelled and she took the shirt back.My grandfather, Boyd McDonald, was so pissed off that he joined the Merchant Marines! LOL, he wasn't with the family when they moved back down to TN.:D My great grandmother, Marie Pecot,on my mother's maternal side, moved to DC after she married my great grandfather, James Cornett and was disowned by her family in Louisiana for marrying a Protestant.They talked to her again after she had three kids and divorced my great grandfather.
My great grandfather on my paternal side, James Gooding, was a businessman who owned and operated a furniture store in Loudoun County,VA.My gggrandmother on that side, Olivia Dennis, had my gggrandfather sign the first prenuptual agreement in Purcellville,VA.Yeah, we're quite the family.:D:P

[Loyalist]

Seuthanan, I see the British regiment responsible for that massacre was Butler's Rangers. I have at least two ancestors who served in that unit. If any of my family was involved in that incident, allow me to apologize on their behalf. :thumbs up

[Electronic God-Man]

Seuthanan, I see the British regiment responsible for that massacre was Butler's Rangers. I have at least two ancestors who served in that unit. If any of my family was involved in that incident, allow me to apologize on their behalf. :thumbs up

Yes, it was Butler's Rangers, wasn't it?

To be honest, I think most of the "massacre" was due to the Iroquois. I think that they had been previously attacked and dealt with rather harshly by American revolutionary forces, so they were looking for revenge. If I remember correctly the British did try to call off the Iroquois but they had a different sense of war and honor and would not hold off.

I really don't hold anyone responsible for these sorts of things. Shit happens, as they say.

And of course, this massacre led to hundreds of Americans leaving the area and eventually forming the state of Wyoming way out west, if the legends are true.

On a similar note, I also have at least one ancestor who was actually scalped by Indians, but she survived. I'll try to find that story.

[Treffie]

My great uncle (Alban Leyshon) was a goldsmith and was very friendly with Dylan Thomas, they used to drink together in a local pub. When Dylan used to visit my uncle at work, my uncle used to heat up copper coins and throw them out into the street while they were still hot.:D They both had a childlike sense of humour (sounds familiar :rolleyes:), so I can imagine them laughing at other people's expense as they tried to pick up hot coins in the street. :D

Here's the story.

http://www.swansea.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=383

[Aino]

Ah, I have lots of ancestral anecdotes to choose from. Some of the stories come from published books, some directly from court records. I love reading old court records, as they usually paint a very detailed picture of the people involved and their lives. In addition, many of the stories can be incredibly hilarious.

Here is a story about my 10th great-grandfather, Johan Dewitz, who was a bugler in the cavalry in the 1660s. He was arrested and taken to court for stabbing a young man to death with a sword. He told the court that the man he had killed, Juho Martinpoika (Johan Mårtensson) had attacked him with a big backsword while simultaneously singing an impudent song, although Dewitz had already mounted his horse and was about to leave.

After the attack, Dewitz had dismounted his horse and asked Juho Martinpoika why he had attacked him. Juho Martinpoika had responded by hitting Dewitz in the head with the sword, which had made Dewitz fall to the ground. However, he had immediately gotten up, and a sword fight had ensued between them. Dewitz was unable to explain how he had wounded his opponent.

Witnesses told the court that the two men had been perfectly friendly with each other at first, and Juho Martinpoika had even joked about a dog owned by Dewitz's brother-in-law. But then Juho Martinpoika had tried to kiss Dewitz, which had annoyed Dewitz, and he had told Juho Martinpoika that it is better to kiss one's bride than a man. This, in turn, had angered Juho Martinpoika so that he had pushed Dewitz, and Dewitz had fallen to the ground. An argument had then ensued, and finally Juho Martinpoika had fetched his sword and attacked Dewitz while he was about to leave the place.

The district court gave Dewitz a death penalty for manslaughter and for breaching the duelling prohibition. However, the case was transferred to the court of appeals, where the punishment must have been reduced as he is still shown in records for many years after this event.

[Loxias]

One of my great-grandfather was a doctor, he would still give me the most painless injections when he was past 90.
He led a very strict lifestyle, never drank anything while he ate, always followed a very strict timed routine everyday, he practiced golf, horse-riding, tennis and aviation. He was a kind of person that doesn't exist anymore.
His wife, my great-grandmother is 96 and still alive today. She often tells anecdotes about life during the war.

Another great-grandfather was a bit of a crazy scientist, he worked on creating gasmasks, and tested them on himself, he lost one of his lungs in the process.
My mother also says that apparantly he invented some form of paper lamination but he was a bit too oblivious of real life, one of his associates stole the idea.
I don't know the amount of truth behind that, though.

One of my great-great-grandmother came from a noble family from Eastern Brittany (near Rennes), they suffered quite a lot from the revolution, and the last ancester to have lived in the castle had been an officer in Napoleon the IIIrd's army who ended up crippled from war and completely out of money, so he had to sell the castle, he didn't outlive it for long.

Another Great-great-grandmother lived a part of her life in a ranch in Argentina (where she gave birth to my great-grandma), there she wrote some book that had a moderate success at that time about being a woman in the pampa. Her husband, my great-great-grandpa was nicknamed Uncle Tchad (like the country), because he was a bit of an explorator, had traveled a lot through African colonies.

[Beorn]

When members of my family weren't saving their mates from cave ins (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showpost.php?p=67635&postcount=1766) or taking a day off from school to watch the Beatles in the Cavern Club, or being well renowned for their singing and musical talents, they were usually found engaging in the criminal underworld of Bristol.

I had one great-Uncle(?) who got so deep into the life of crime, and owed so much money as well as going overboard in how he acted about town, that he was warned by close friends and accomplices that he was about to be made an example of and have his knee-caps removed by way of a gun and a insincere whisper in the ear. He high-tailed it out of Bristol and landed up on the shore of Australia where some previous family had settled long before. But he didn't make a life of missionary work with the Abos like them, but simply became a regular Joe with a regular job and family.

His grandchildren often came back to Bristol and stayed with my Nan. They would cause so much trouble and steal so much that in the end they were told to F-off and not return.

On the other side of my family, my Mum's Uncle was suspected to be in the SAS or some form of Special Force. My Dad would always ask him why for a man of the Army he was always so unclean shaven and long haired. :swl.

[Liffrea]

Nothing exciting, my two great uncles Harry and George both served in the Somme campaign, both were gassed on the same day, one (can’t remember which) brought back a German officer’s knife, I still have it, complete with blood stained into the blade where it has rusted.

My mother’s family Tagg’s have quite a long history in the East Midlands and have owned a substantial amount of land in Derbyshire in the past. There are a few famous names further back in time but I personally don’t count any of that nonsense as important (very few people in Europe can’t claim some famous person or other). Apparently there were Tagg’s at Agincourt, can’t claim they were anything to do with my ancestry, though.

Some Irish gypsies came over in the 1880’s (opened up a horse “dealership” in Chesterfield what more proof do you need?). My grandmother Tagg (stone dead before I was born) detested the Irish with a passion and wouldn’t have anything Irish in the house.

Other than that, nothing much, just farmers, labourers, craftsmen, occasional warriors, just ordinary people.

[Goidelic]

My great-great-great-grandfather was an Irishman who fought in the Civil War.

My other great-great-grandparents were Irish Catholic peasant immigrants.

My 6x great-grandfather was a Revolutionary War soldier of peasant Ulster-Scots descent.

My 7x great-uncle was apparently a Methodist preacher of Ulster-Scots descent.

That's it as far as famous people go. I may have other famous ancestors that I'm unaware of but from my understanding at least 3/4 of my ancestry is of peasant stock. :)

Also, forgot to add my father was born in Ireland with his parents but left at 2 or 3 with them, most of the Ulster-Scots is from my grandmother but she also has Gaelic Irish ancestry as well. :)

[Óttar]

This fellow is one of my ancestors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Benjamin,_Sr.

My relative Edward Monroe Meekins, a 32nd degree Freemason, married Harriet Adams, a descendant of John Adams, America's 1st VP and 2nd president.

[Electronic God-Man]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/B.F._Skinner_at_Harvard_circa_1950.jpg

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BF_Skinner#Walden_Two_and_Beyond_Freedom_and_Digni ty), the behavioral psychologist, was closely related to me. I think he was something like my grandfather's cousin.

The man wrote a sequel to the book Walden. :cool:

He had some tough critics:

Noam Chomsky

Perhaps Skinner's best known critic, Noam Chomsky, published a review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior two years after it was published. The review (1959) became better known than the book itself. It has been credited with launching the cognitive movement in psychology and other disciplines. Skinner, who rarely responded directly to critics, never formally replied to Chomsky's critique. Many years later, Kenneth MacCorquodale's reply was endorsed by Skinner.

Chomsky also reviewed Skinner's Beyond Freedom and Dignity, utilizing the same basic motifs as his Verbal Behavior review. Among Chomsky's criticisms were that Skinner's laboratory work could not be extended to humans, that when it was extended to humans it represented 'scientistic' behavior attempting to emulate science but which was not scientific, that Skinner was not a scientist because he rejected the hypothetico-deductive model of theory testing, that Skinner had no science of behavior, and that Skinner's works were highly conducive to justifying or advancing totalitarianism.

Anthony Burgess

In his novel, A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess criticizes Skinner's theories as being immoral, claiming that moral choice is a necessary part of one's humanity. The novel's protagonist, Alex, believes he can be released from prison early by participating in an Ivan Pavlov/B.F. Skinner inspired rehabilitation program referred to as the "Ludovico technique," which conditions criminals to become nauseous from the mere thought of violence. Before participating in the program the prison chaplain warns against it, declaring that an action is only good if derived from good intentions. Thus conditioning in any form is criticized for being dehumanizing and oppressive.

Awesome. My relative was a totalitarian and made A Clockwork Orange possible. :p

[Grey]

My great-grandmother was full of odd stories, although I can't understand half of them because her English is horrible. I'll tell a few that I know, but they're nothing magnificent.

First of all, she laughed about an incident in the 1940s when it rained fish in my town. It was storming and all of a sudden there were loud thumps on the roof. People looked outside and were astonished to see fish falling from the sky. It was investigated afterward and apparently it was caused by a waterspout over Spring Bayou that hurled the fish into the air to land all over the area.

There was the Great Flood of 1927 which completely submerged most of my parish. I live in a slightly elevated area, which was one of the only places that remained unflooded for miles and miles around, and so became a sort of haven for those who were displaced. Even today it's known as the Island.

On my family's land there's one place that has always remained overgrown and unused. This is where my family allowed the Confederacy to build some sort of storage area, where a large amount of gold was hidden away. When the Union soldiers came through they took control and scoured the building for gold but found nothing, and they demolished the building. Their arrival was a complete surprise and there was no time to move it, so it is unknown what happened to it. After the war and everything, the place was just forgotten about. My great-grandfather and his two sons used to spend all day working on the farm, and then they'd come home and spend a couple of hours every night digging for gold. He had all sorts of theories about where it could have been hidden, but died without ever finding it. The story became a sort of family legend, and when I was little I'd dig around for it, but at this point most just resign themselves to the idea that there's nothing out there.

Also, apparently my German grandmother was a close relative of Robert Ritter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ritter).

An ancestor who came through Gibraltar was an inventor and did a lot of work on the propeller. He came to the US as part of the European Regiment in the Confederate Army.


My girlfriend's great-great-grandfather was a moonshiner who after the death of his first wife fathered several half-black children. In response his two white sons became devout Protestants and one became a member of the Knights of the White Camelia and the other became a Grand Dragon in the Klan (I believe that's the correct term).

Her family are the Kimballs, and their ancestors had a relative who was dating an Injun/Black woman. He was kicked out of the family and forced to change his surname to Kimble so as not to damage the family's name.

Her ancestor owned a plantation, and apparently it was taken away at some point. They just learned that they could have reclaimed the place and still own it (the gov't never notified them of their inheritance), but just a few years ago the government auctioned it off and now there's a plant of some sort in its place.

[Mesrine]

My great uncle (Alban Leyshon) was a goldsmith and was very friendly with Dylan Thomas, they used to drink together in a local pub. When Dylan used to visit my uncle at work, my uncle used to heat up copper coins and throw them out into the street while they were still hot.:D They both had a childlike sense of humour (sounds familiar :rolleyes:), so I can imagine them laughing at other people's expense as they tried to pick up hot coins in the street. :D

LMAO, Alberto Sordi does the same trick in Il marchese del Grillo. I love that kind of humour. :D

edokG9l1XGg

[Black Turlogh]

My grandfather and his brothers had the prankster's blood and so every chance they came across to scare the shite out of their friends and family was one not to be passed.

At the wake of my grandfather's uncle, he and his brothers came up with an elaborate scheme involving a board, ropes and pulleys to re-animate the corpse, which had been placed on ice in the deceased's home, as was the custom of the day. They'd gone to the house early before the other family members had arrived, and had fastened the body to a large board which was stood upright so it seemed as if his uncle was standing. When the other attendees gathered outside the home to greet one another, they noticed the body walk to the window before waving to the people outside and breaking into dance. People were in amazement, some cursing in disbelief while a handful of the women had fainted.

This was one of the highlights of my grandfather's life, without doubt. To pull a prank on such a scale brought a tear of laughter to his eye even in old age. He was old enough to be called a man in those days, he said, but still young enough for him and his brothers to receive a hefty beating from their father, which he always claimed was well worth it. :D

[Barreldriver]

My family patriarch Robert Reader III was exiled from the family estate in Yorkshire for leaving the Anglican church and becoming a Baptist. His father Robert II gave the inheritance from his father's, Robert I, title for his sisters dowries. Robert II became a churchwarden for the Anglican Church.

Robert III settled in Mecklenburg County, VA with his wife Grace Brigham of Blacktoft in Yorkshire. He established a 448 acre plantation, upon his death the estate was divided among the descendants. Most of them going to Overton County, Tennessee, this includes my main lineage. Thomas, my direct ancestor and son of Robert III, took a Scots-Irish wife before coming to Overton County with his wife, his brother Robert IV, and his in laws. Thomas' son William became a constable in Overton County, and it is speculated that he served in the Confederate Army, Tennessee Infantry during the Civil War, though this is uncertain, the records hint at it but I cannot confirm it 100% due to lack of pension requests. William's son, James Buchanon Reeder, was just your average Appalachian, he married a woman of one of the more prominent families in the region, Emaline Smith, this family were among the founders of Overton County of a Colonial Anglo-Scots stock (her main line was from Somerset). My great great grandfather, Johnny Hardy, the son of James, was a moonshiner and trouble maker, wound up doing time in Nashville as a result of his moonshining. He took a Scots-Irish and Welsh mixed wife. My great grandfather Talford Mainous, the son of Johnny, was a hard working farmer, had a 100 acre farm in Overton County, Tennessee with 40 head of angus cattle, came up North during the Depression and rented land out to other farmers for a while till finances were rebuilt.

Throughout my life I had heard stories around the coffee table about how our family were "blacksheep" or "exiles" and that's how we wound up in America, I never found out exactly why until I did genealogical research, and to my dismay it was all because of a religious fiasco.

[Guapo]

I'm jealous after reading all of this. Most men in my family were just gamblers, alcoholics, womanizers and murderers, nothing magnificent. I guess there's one, Vojvoda Sindjelich, a paternal ancestor that blew himself up and hundreds of Turks in a battle. There's a very famous song about him which goes something like "you cut Turk's heads off that's why Serbs celebrate you". That's about it.

[asulf]

One of my ancestors was a giant, of colossal strength only capable of lifting a car, with his arms and take off the wheel all-wheel .....:wink

under Napoleon, it was mounted policeman favorite technique of his arrest was that it ...
He grasped in each hand Spoilsport loosen the soil was up to his face and smashed them .... the one against the other, let them fall to the ground, and with a tone heavy with menacing promises saying this If ever the one of you tries to escape .. I kill me using the other as a weapon of ..... :cool:
the way he has never lost a single rogue:D

[Electronic God-Man]

A Walloon ancestor of mine in Nieuw Amsterdam:


"...it has been said of Adrienne Cuvellier that when one of her sons-in-law returned from the massacre of the Pavonia Indians in February, 1643, with thirty prisoners and also heads of several of the defunct enemy, she, 'forgetful of those finer feelings that do honor to her sex, amused herself in kicking about the heads of the dead men which had been brought in as bloody trophies of the midnight slaughter.'" For the most part, New Amsterdammers had opposed this conflict with the Indians. Many who witnessed her behavior saw it as disgusting....and also directly blamed her family for the war. ["Cuvellier-Cuvilje" Herbert F. Seversmith, 21 May 1947]

Keepin' it real. :cool:

[Liffrea]

Originally Posted by Vojvoda
Most men in my family were just gamblers, alcoholics, womanizers and murderers, nothing magnificent.

Like most men then.;)

Some people have an unfortunate urge to see the past with rose tinted spectacles.

[Cato]

When he was a boy, my grandfather (mom's side) got his nose broken for calling a black kid a nigger. :D

[Bard]

Nothing incredible about my ancestry but my granddad (father's one) was very rich, he owned like half of the town where I actually live but he was too uhm... soft hearted? So lending money to friends and other people who needed it he ended up broken because people didn't return him the money.
edit: and I forgot to mention that my mother's uncle was into building business but he failed (he was broken I think) so he suicided by drowning into the canal in front of my mom's house, and a cousin of him died when he was 18 because he was working on some electric stuff and someone turned on the electricity.
Pretty sad and macabre anecdotes I suppos :p

[Graham]

My great granny Jessie Henderson had an affair with an ex Italian POW, ended up fucking off to Argentina with him, just after ww2

those untrustworthy eye-ties grrrrrrr :icon_arghhh: