I wonder how many families have been brought up with various stories that have been passed down through the generations. On my father's side, the only story there, was of a sister who was supposed to have died when she was 14 years old, no name or year when she died was ever given, unfortunately even after much research, I still haven't been able to prove or disprove this story, so it has been relegated to the pending tray, you never know, some answer may turn up later, there's always hope!
Proving or Disproving Family Stories
Now, on my mother's side (she was Scottish, so I rather irreverently, call them 'The Scottish Lot'), there is a much more complex story. My cousin and I both wanted to get this story sorted out, our mothers were sisters, my cousin was brought up in Glasgow with both parents being Scottish, I was brought up in London with my Scottish mother and English (from Oxford) father.
The story was that our Great Grandmother had been rather a wild one, had misbehaved, and finally disowned by her wealthy aristocratic family.
Where do you start with a story like that? I decided to start with our Grandmother (our mothers' mother).Through the site 'Scottish People' I got her birth certificate, this is where I found out that our Grandmother was illegitimate, no father's name was shown. This must have been the 'misbehaviour' that was often talked about, and the result was our Grandmother!
This was something that neither my cousin, nor myself had ever been told, I presume our mothers must have known their mother had been born 'out of wedlock', if they did , not a word was ever mentioned to us. Our relatives (the ones that knew the truth), did an extremely good cover up job, the father has never been identified.
That was the easy bit, now to find out who our Great Grandmother really was. My cousin was sitting there biting her nails, waiting for me to find her some aristocracy, “Preferably wealthy, please.” she said.
My next step was to trace our Grandmother through the censuses, I had already got her birth and marriage certificates, just to make sure I was on the right track. The main thing I noticed was the use of the surname 'Smith', as neither my cousin nor myself, had heard of the name 'Smith' in the family, we thought that was a sure sign the real surname was being 'covered up'.
Checking the birth certificate I found that our Grandmother was born in 1877 in Selkirk, so the next census would be the 1881. There she was (as a little 3yr. old), with her mother (our Great Grandmother), and the head of the household was an Agnes Smith (Shepherd's wife). We thought this must have been where the name 'Smith' was borrowed from, but looking more carefully at the census we noticed that our Great Grandmother was put down as the daughter of the head of household, in other words the daughter of Agnes Smith, and our Grandmother put down as her grand-daughter.
Surely there must be some mistake there, so I double checked everything I had found so far, I also followed them forward through the censuses to make sure they were the right people, it's extremely easy to follow people and find you have taken a wrong turning somewhere, but in this instance every thing checked out correctly.
The next step was to go back to see if it was possible to find any trace of our Great Grandmother's birth, was she really the child of Agnes Smith and her husband Adam, the shepherd, it was beginning to look as though she might be.
I managed to find her birth details in an old parish register entry, she was born in Tinwald, Dumfries-shire in 1848, and was definitely the daughter of Agnes and Adam Smith.
Sorry no sign of any aristocracy or money, my poor cousin is now extremely upset, but I have an idea how the story may have come about.
My own mother told me, many years ago, how she used to love her Grandmother, my Great Grandmother, because of all the exciting stories she used to tell, so methinks that is how the story of being disowned by a wealthy aristocratic family was born!
I should imagine there are many families that have had similar stories passed down through the generations, you never know, one of them may turn out to be true! Or not!