General Chat

Oops, crossed in the post. Congratulations -- and do pass on my thoughts of her (sorry, no prayers from these quarters!) to my young, uh, third cousin once removed. ;)

And speaking of shock -- who here would've picked me & Brian for cousins, even by marriage??

Hi Janey,
No, it was my son Mark who got married (2005), they are expecting our first grandchild Halloween Day.

Susanne isn't married and is still at home. She missed out on social life late teens and early 20s due to a knee problem (she was in a wheelchair at one time) and has never caught up.

I keep telling her to emigrate to Canada (or Oz). If I were younger I certainly would. I'd settle for a couple of months exploring over there, now. I'd do the Lakes, the Rockies and the coasts. Make that six months, it's a big Country !

And of course we must always remember -- Canada sprang into action in 1939, while those Yankee cousins sat it out until 1942 ... before they decided to save the world single-handedly ...

That's wonderful that everyone got back together, Shirley, although sad about their father. So many of the home children never managed to make contact.

My mum's Uncle Charlie truly was orphaned (I have now discovered) and came over at an age when he was the classic case of a farm labourer, not an adopted child (found him as such in the 1911 census). Apparently he always told his family that Charlie Smith was his "orphan" name. Then I found his marriage record and saw he'd given his parents' names, and I've found their marriage etc., so that really was his name. I wonder that he didn't stay in touch with older siblings. I guess they might not have ever known what became of him either, just as those parents didn't.

I,m delighted to have Canadian cousins ,as Janey has said lots were descended from British Home children as my cousins are, Their Mum was a Home child in 1909 aged 10, bless her, Grandad was widowed in 1906 leaving him with 4 children and no family that could help him ,he needed to work so it was no other option to put his children aged from 7 to 2 in a McPherson home in Londons East End By the time they were in the home the parents had to sign a disclaimer to the children otherwise they wouldnt be kept up to date with the childrens welfare and whereabouts, This was cos Barnados had done the same as parents had objected to their children being shipped overseas without asking their permsiision and had made a big STINK about it ,To cover themeselves when children were admiited to the homes the parents had to in effect sign away their parental rites otherwise Barnodos wouldnt take them ,Other Home s followed suit,
Anyway my Aunts daughter found the family in WW2 when she came over in the Canadian Nursing Corps to london and found one brother which led to a reunion with the other two brothers and grandads wife & chidren of his second marriage which wasin 1909 just after the girl was shiiped off to Canada,unfortunately grandfather had passed away in 1939 so nell never got to see her dad again BUT since then the family has stayed in touch .My Mum was the eldest child of the second marriage
My youngest sister & her OH and daughter emigrated to Canada in 1978 and last year at last decided to take Canadian citizenship.
I always think the British and Canadians have a lot of respect and kinship with each other.
As i said I am very proud to have Canadian famliy

Oh, Brian, the funnybone isn't in the genes then? ;)

Oh, that's all right; thee and me aren't quite rellies, are we?!

You must remember your first reply to me -- in fact, the very first reply to the very first message I ever sent here!

"There are similarities there, but not an exact match"

Now, call that a hug if you like. ;)

The particular Owen Sound branch in question, no, we haven't managed that. Before No.1's DKA episodes came the last year of cancer doings, my mum and my sister, and it's just always some blasted thing. Sister's young daughters suffering from Lyme disease for the last three years, their father currently starting treatment for the same thing ... Me being where I am, mum and sister being hours away ...

I did hear from another branch of the Owen Sound clan via ancestry.ca a couple of years ago -- a descendant of William & Annie's sister Emily's daughter Rose. Emily, the one my mum thought was her maiden aunt, who had three husbands ...

And then the very next prospective cousin I contacted here (he's the one with the French side, also shared grx2 grparents) said:

"MMmm, not so sure"

Now who could blame me for thinking I must smell of rotting seal meat or something?!

Next came the Ohio cousin (more shared grx2 grparents). Much more enthusiastic. Unfortunately, a right-wing fundamentalist ...


I was shocked to hear about your daughter -- was she the one getting married when we first 'met'? (And I did send my best wishes in that thread!)

Hi Janey,
You're a little unfair to infer that we in the UK don't want to know the Canadians.
I thought that we had established that my wife and yourself are related and we've shared a load of info. on the Dennises etc.
I'm sure that on another thread you were telling us about your OH diabetic crisis. So sorry to hear that but glad he made it through.
I haven't got his details on my tree so far, maybe we'll catch up again soon and fill in some more gaps. I haven't done much on that side recently.
Did you ever make contact with the Owen Sound branch that I gave you details for?

You might have seen that our daughter had a hospital mishap three weeks ago. She got back to work today, but it certainly makes you realise how thin a thread all life hangs by.

Take care, God bless you and your (and in a sense, our) family.

Good evening and thank you for your interesting posts; and thank you also to those who live abroad who have posted :-)

I have found that more 'foreigners' have a better command of the English language than we have of theirs. And what of the other Ex pats? there must be millions of them. I still think it seems strange not to see more on here over the years. I do take your point Karen but can't see it as the only answer ( see initial post :-)

Yes I have wondered.

Both grandparents on my mother's side were Lithuanian, and so I join in on a couple of Lithuanian message board sites for English speakers. Unfortunately, helpful though they are, it's only to a certain point because the sites are nothing like the set up GR has.
Nevertheless, I have often wondered, that if I can do that, how come they're not using GR!!
Perhaps overseas folk just don't know of GR. Plus they would have to have a pretty good command of the English language to be able to understand it all, and to be able to participate . And God help them if they unsuspectingly got caught up in one of those "not so friendly" threads which crop up from time to time!!!!

K

PS If you've got any dead rellies from the desert, I can't help you, I'm afraid. My Arabic isn't that great and anyway, they'd think I was completely bananas, it's not something they bother about like we do.

Daff,

I found out that Gran's tell big fat lies especially mine, and what a whoppper, she invented a non existant Scottish line down to details because she did not want to be from German descent, had me chasing my tail for awhile.

Then discovered Mom's tell even bigger lies. When I opened the cupboard I was nearly knocked over by all the skeletons inside....sigh...

So we just keep digging!

Lindy ;))))))))))))

I haven't seen John in Japan post on here for a long time; maybe he didn't renew.

My gran always said she was descended from the same line as Cromwell... haven't proven a thing yet, well to be honest, haven't even found a link!! lol She died when I was 12, and I don't know which branch of her family to follow first!!

I suppose people who have their lines firmly placed in their birth country, wouldn't need to access the records that Ancestry, GR and others provide... I suppose they would be much more interested in the archives held by their own country.... maybe they would only join in here if part of their line had emigrated to uk, or America, for instance.

Love

Daff xxxxx

Susan,

It could be that they have no interest in posting on a forum where they don't speak or understand the language so well.

Or they use websites in their own countries and language. Or maybe they just hate the English.

Or they are just flat broke and prefer the free boards.

Who knows..? Any or all of the above!!...lol..

Lindy ;)))))))))))))))))))

Yes would love to see peeps from other country posting.

My Grandmother was Dutch and passed away before i was born ~she had family but once she had gone the link broke ~would dearly love to hear from or see my family.

Valen Dank.

x

They are interesting trees you have there Mary and Janey :-)

Well then MaxiMary --! I'll raise you an ancestor who restored the monarchy after that spot of Cromwell bother!

Well, I would if I could figure out whether my weird gr-grfather had any legitimate claim to the name. ;)

It's interesting to observe people in the US with their genealogy chatter. The US population is a very different makeup from the Canadian -- we're hugely Brit (all kinds, except not much Welsh) up to the 20th century, and now have twice the immigration per capita the US does, much from "non-traditional" sources. On the other hand, the US had loads of European immigration early on -- you wouldn't believe how much of the population is of German descent! -- so their family histories are amazingly diverse.

I've met people with Spanish and indigenous ancestors from Mexico married to Irish on one side, German and English and Dutch on the other, and so on. With some French by way of Canada thrown in. A cousin in the US whom I met through this site (shared grx2 gransparents again, on a different side) is of course all English on our shared side up to the post-WWII emigration, but German and assorted other things on the other side, her father's family having been in the US much longer.

Now, that's "interesting", but I'm happy with my ploddingly much of a sameness lot. I suspect we all find our own ancestry fascinating, whatever it is. ;)

Oh -- I've got a Barnardo's boy in the tree -- my mum's mum's sister married one about 90 years ago. Apparently about 10% of the Canadian population is directly descended from a Home Child!

Well I can tell you British history is NOT boring. Being an ex-pat, previously married to 2 Canadians (not at the same time lol) I have learned a lot of very interesting information which my own tree didn't produce. My children's father is a descendent of Thomas Rogers (Mayflower), Sir Thomas Hyde and part of his tree we can get back to King Alfred the great. My tree is interesting but quite tame in comparison, except for the brother of an ancestor who emigrated to grenada and fathered 26 children. despite being divorced I continue to work on my ex's tree for the future history info for my children and grandchildren. Having investigated his tree I am now looking at info from the USA, Holland and France in addition to the UK.
My other ex's info taught me about Dr Barnardos child emigrants.
The world is shrinking, and we are part of it. I welcome info wherever it's from.
mary

Such condecending utterances could only come from an Ancestry such as yours....Ok...you pass Lol

Er ... no ... I find you all utterly fascinating, to a one. Especially the specimens in this particular petrie dish. ;)