The latest edition of Tracing Your Roots from BBC Radio 4 (available via podcast for a limited time) was about family myths and legends. There were four very brief examples, with a short discussion on how each of the stories could be proved or disproved.
This got me thinking about my own family myths and legends and the fact that I don’t appear to have any in my family tree.
I have tried to remember if I was ever told any stories as a child or whether there was anything I wanted to try and prove when I started my research, but I don’t think there ever was. No criminals amongst my ancestors, no stories of relations moving to far off lands and making their fortune, no missing millions waiting to be discovered and I didn’t think I might have been descended from the illegitimate child of some distant King or Queen.
Plenty of mysteries and puzzles have turned up since I started researching, like why did my grandfather end up at school in London, but nothing actually from the start that I wanted to prove or made me start researching my family tree.
I suppose there is only one myth that I had and that was one that I created soon after I started researching. I rather foolishly believed that my ancestors and relations were not very interesting and never did anything unusual. How wrong could I be!
Was there a particular family story that you wanted to prove that got you started in family history research, or was it just general curiosity?
Apparently one of my ancestors was involved in founding Everton Football Club, and another was “Irish Royalty”, but havent found anything about either of them yet!
Great blog btw
Thanks for your comment, glad you like the blog. Certainly sounds like a couple of interesting ancestors, I hope the stories are true!
Hi John,
I was lucky enough to appear on Tracing Your Roots in 2008 as my grandfather had written a small account of a journey to russia at the end of WW1 with Ernest Shackleton. It was a fantastic experience.
Gill
Sounds like fun and an interesting story. I think I must have missed that one.