Family History Discoveries and Adventures

[buffnut453]

I know several forum members have been digging into their family history...so how about sharing some of your discoveries or adventures you've been on trying to track down your heritage? I suspect many of us gravitate to relatives who served in the military but I don't think anyone will be mortally offended if I open up the aperture to include any family history discoveries (after all, this is the "Off Topic/Misc" part of the Forum.

While I'm sure it would be interesting to learn that somebody's great-great-great-great-great-great-great....etc....grandfather was second-in-charge to Attila the Hun, I think it's more fun learning about more commonplace stories. We don't all have royal blood in our veins but that doesn't mean our ancestors' stories are any less valid or important. Frankly, I'm more interested in the successes or discoveries people have made while digging through old documents or photographs.

I'll get the ball rolling in a few minutes with an adventure I dragged my family on last weekend....

 

[buffnut453]

Ok...here we go.

This is my Mum's cousin, Frank Lee (apologies for the poor-quality photo - it was taken from a microfiche at the local library because we don't have any other images of him):

Frank joined up on 15 Jan 1940, enlisting in the King's Liverpool Regiment. He spent most of the War in the UK but, ultimately, his Battalion (the 5th) was trained to form Beach Protection Parties for the D-Day invasion. Their task was to prepare defensive positions and hold off any German counter-attacks. Frank went ashore on SWORD Beach on D-Day. After the threat of counter-attack was gone, Frank's unit was broken up and the soldiers were used as combat replacement reinforcements. Frank joined the 1/5th Bn, Welch Regt as they pushed into Holland.

Frank was captured at the Battle of s'Hertogenbosch on 24 Oct 1944. He passed through STALAG XI-B, Fallingbostel, before being sent to STALAG VIII-C at Sagan in Poland, arriving on 25 Nov 1944. That's the last positive confirmation we have of Frank as a POW. STALAG VIII-C was evacuated on 8 Feb 1945 and the inmates marched south into Germany. The journey took over a month, covering about 600km during the worst of a German winter, ending at STALAG IX-B, Bad Orb, just east of Frankfurt. STALAG IX-B was liberated on 2 Apr 1945 by US forces. Frank was evacuated on 11 Apr, arriving back in the UK at the US Army's 130th Station Hospital near Swindon. His family received a telegram informing them that Frank had arrived back in the UK. Two hours later, a second telegram arrived. Frank had died...the cause was malnutrition.

Last weekend, I dragged the family to Bad Orb to visit the former site of STALAG IX-B. The site started out as a military camp in 1909 but was abandoned after the First World War. Educational reformers took it over in 1920 and turned it into a children's camp. It became a POW camp in 1939 but returned back to its former use after the end of the war. The WW2 images below came from the following website (Stalag IX-B in Bad Orb, Germany (WWII German Prisoner of War Camp, Stalag 9B)):

Aerial view of the camp:

And, for comparison, here's a satellite image of the site today.

Although the general layout is very similar, the roads are all new and none of the original buildings remain, although some of the foundations of the huts may remain (see below):

The one building that does remain is the Camp Headquarters. It's the lowest building visible on the satellite image. Today it's a Thai restaurant:

By some fluke, I managed to take my photo from almost the exact same location as the wartime photo.

And to wrap it all up, here's Frank's grave. After he died, Frank's body was brought home and he was buried in the main cemetery in his home town. The pallbearers were 6 former POWs.

So...over to the rest of you now. What family history discoveries or adventures have you been on?

 

[michael rauls]

Very interesting stuff. I don't have pictures and documentation( although my aunt probably does as she's really onto family history) so all a I can do is drop a couple names. I'm very, very distantly related to Michael the Drunkard, the king of a small kingdom back when England was made up of many small kingdoms. I did an internet search on him a year or so ago and it turned up nothing but I do have a set of encyclopedia from the 50s that mentions him so he was apparently at least a minor historical figure.
My other claim to gynecologic fame as it were is I'm also very distantly related to Pocahontas. Yes there really was such a person that the childrens stories are modeled after believe it or not.
An interesting note on Pocahontas is she spent the final year or so of her life in England and is buried there in a town called Graveschurch I believe.

 

[Mainly28s]

I did a bit of research on my grandfather a while back- all I have is here (on my website) along with a few family photos. I also know that one of my grandmother's brothers went down in the Skagerrak in a U-boot in either 1917 or 1918.

 

[buffnut453]

Very interesting stuff. I don't have pictures and documentation( although my aunt probably does as she's really onto family history) so all a I can do is drop a couple names. I'm very, very distantly related to Michael the Drunkard, the king of a small kingdom back when England was made up of many small kingdoms. I did an internet search on him a year or so ago and it turned up nothing but I do have a set of encyclopedia from the 50s that mentions him so he was apparently at least a minor historical figure.
My other claim to gynecologic fame as it were is I'm also very distantly related to Pocahontas. Yes there really was such a person that the childrens stories are modeled after believe it or not.
An interesting note on Pocahontas is she spent the final year or so of her life in England and is buried there in a town called Graveschurch I believe.

I'm struggling to trace my family back past 1700. Records are rather spotty and even when they do exist, they usually provide insufficient information to enable positive family linkages (eg' listing the bride and groom in a wedding record but not mentioning any parents' names). I've had to correct a few mistakes made by other researchers who made "leaps of faith" in associating a person with an event when there wasn't a shred of evidence to make the connection. However, it's still fun...at least it is for those of us who are interested in this stuff.

 

[buffnut453]

I did a bit of research on my grandfather a while back- all I have is here (on my website) along with a few family photos. I also know that one of my grandmother's brothers went down in the Skagerrak in a U-boot in either 1917 or 1918.

Great stuff on your website. So glad you managed to find some of the family photos. It drives me nuts that people throw away vital historical records as "old junk". Truly remarkable. I'm lucky my dear old Mum clung onto the few family photos that we had, so at least I have some images of my Grandparents and Great-Grandparents, as well as a few Great Uncles and various degrees of cousins.

 

[michael rauls]

Great stuff on your website. So glad you managed to find some of the family photos. It drives me nuts that people throw away vital historical records as "old junk". Truly remarkable. I'm lucky my dear old Mum clung onto the few family photos that we had, so at least I have some images of my Grandparents and Great-Grandparents, as well as a few Great Uncles and various degrees of cousins.

Very much agree. When I said I didn't have pictures or docs I meant of the two" notable" names I was mentioning. I do have lot's of stuff, pictures, letters, artwork, etc going back to my great grandfather but unfortunately not beyond that. The stuff is priceless to me.
An interesting note on my great grandfather whom I never met unfortunately is that we share the same favorite piece of music, Air for the G string by J.S. Bach.......what are the chances.

 

[GrauGeist]

Through various circumstances, my family's ancestry can be traced back a considerable ways, reaching back nearly 1,000 years along one branch of the family tree. So there's a wealth of stories and notables in my ancestry, the majority of them being military.

One such person, was Gillies MacBean (I have a great deal of Scottish ancestry, Clan MacBean being one of the branches) and his story at the Battle of Culloden is the stuff of legand.

A Culloden Warrior from Clan MacBean - Wild Eyed Southern Celt

 

[michael rauls]

I'm struggling to trace my family back past 1700. Records are rather spotty and even when they do exist, they usually provide insufficient information to enable positive family linkages (eg' listing the bride and groom in a wedding record but not mentioning any parents' names). I've had to correct a few mistakes made by other researchers who made "leaps of faith" in associating a person with an event when there wasn't a shred of evidence to make the connection. However, it's still fun...at least it is for those of us who are interested in this stuff.

It is fascinating stuff and the more you know about them the more they become" real" almost preasant in a way, not just a distant hazy figure from the past.
I'm very lucky in this regard as my aunt has pretty much done all the work for years. Anything I want to know I just have to ask.

 

[michael rauls]

Through various circumstances, my family's ancestry can be traced back a considerable ways, reaching back nearly 1,000 years along one branch of the family tree. So there's a wealth of stories and notables in my ancestry, the majority of them being military.

One such person, was Gillies MacBean (I have a great deal of Scottish ancestry, Clan MacBean being one of the branches) and his story at the Battle of Culloden is the stuff of legand.

A Culloden Warrior from Clan MacBean - Wild Eyed Southern Celt

Very cool. I didn't know there was a sword known as a Claymore. I wonder if this is the namesake of the Claymore mine or is that is just coincidence.

 

[GrauGeist]

Very cool. I didn't know there was a sword known as a Claymore. I wonder if this is the namesake of the Claymore mine or is that is just coincidence.

The M18A1 was named after the Scottish sword, as the inventor of the mine was Scottish

 

[buffnut453]

I'm constantly amazed by the family history resources now available online. The most common, of course, are Ancestry and FindMyPast but even normal Google searches can reveal interesting info. One of my cousins, Jim Gamble, served in the RFC and then RAF during the First World War. He was selected for pilot training in late 1917 and ultimately went on to fly Bristol F2b Fighters with 11 Sqn in France during the last few months of the Great War. Google searches provided me with a few interesting images of 11 Sqn and its operational bases. However, information is pretty scarce and, since new records become available every day, I periodically search the web for any new records or images related to Bristol F2b Fighters and 11 Sqn in the period 1918-1919. During one such search recently I came across a set of images held by New Forest Heritage Center (images sourced from the Arthur Simmons Collection - Simmons, Arthur George – New Forest Knowledge):

Some of the details on the New Forest website seemed very familiar. Sure enough, a check of Jim Gamble's logbook revealed he was the pilot of this aircraft when it crashed. The photos relate to an engine failure on 9 Jun 1919, Jim carrying out a (mostly) successful force-landing in a field near Meckenheim, Germany. Jim is the pilot standing front right with a big grin on his face (see link below for additional details). The logbook entry confirms the link between Jim and this event on 9 Jun 1919:

I provided some additional background info to the New Forest Heritage Centre to help with the curation of their records. They uploaded the info which provides some additional details about the incident.

Frankly, I was amazed to find these images with a standard Google search. It just goes to show what can be found with a little persistence.

 

[fubar57]

Very cool stuff gentlemen. Not much is known about my ancestors other than they were horse thieves being done in by hangmen or hangmen doing in horse thieves

 

[XBe02Drvr]

The M18A1 was named after the Scottish sword, as the inventor of the mine was Scottish

That's not the story we were told by our ROTC weapons instructor, Sergeant Garland. "The Claymore was named for a heavy Scottish two handed broadsword, which, swung in great arcs by powerful Celtic arms, mowed down everything in its path, just as its modern namesake does."
Cheers,
Wes

 

[XBe02Drvr]

My family has a long history of preacher - farmers of the Universalist persuasion. "Six days for the farm and one day for the Lord."
My great grandfather, who was raised on a nearby farm which still bears our family name (though we haven't been on it for 125 years), went off to divinity school at Tufts and came back with a wealthy heiress in tow. One look at this hardscrabble Vermont farm, where women were expected to spend their lives barefoot, pregnant, and work hardened, created an instant culture clash, and Isaac was invited to come back when he had found a "real woman". Salvation came in the form of a friend who was recruiting pastors for the rapidly growing Universalist missionary network in Japan. Thus, my grandfather was born and raised in Tokyo and grew up to become a Universalist preacher, but not a missionary. In his endeavors as a young, charismatic preacher, he inspired another seminary student to become a missionary, and so my mother came to be born and raised in Shizuoka. My brothers and I grew up eating guinabe, oyako dombri, unagi dombri, etc, with chopsticks, much to the astonishment of our hard core yankee dairy farming neighbors.
BTW, that wealthy heiress, who became disowned for her poor choice in the marital line, instead became the first "gaijin" (foreigner) and the first woman to become a professor at Tokyo Waseda University.
Further back, there is a rather tenuous trail of descent from a knight with the surname Catus, who participated in the last successful cross-channel invasion, in 1066.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[Elmas]

I've already said here

My grandparents in WWI

and here

Bombs

 

[buffnut453]

It's been a while since I bored everyone with my inane family history ramblings...so I thought I'd (over)share a little more.

One of my Great-Great-Grandmothers, Elizabeth Hayes, had been a stumbling block for many years. All the Census records indicated she was born in Belfast, Ireland, around 1833. Her marriage certificate to my Great-Great-Grandfather, George Pickavance, gave her father's name as Samuel Hayes, a "wire drawer". However, it had proved impossible to locate any other details about her. Irish records are notoriously challenging to locate, and multiple efforts to find any other details about her family resulted in failure. I even ordered a birth certificate for an Elizabeth Hayes who was the daughter of a British soldier and was born in Ireland in 1834...but it wasn't my relative (the father's name was wrong).

A couple of weeks ago, I tried a long-shot and posted a question on the Irish section of RootsChat. A very generous and helpful gent dove straight into the challenge and uncovered some fascinating info that pushed the Hayes line of my tree back 2 generations.

It turns out that my hunch about Elizabeth's father being a soldier was actually correct. He had married Eliza Jane Searle in Portsmouth after returning from almost 20 years spent overseas. Samuel had enlisted in the 47th Regiment of Foot in 1808 at the age of 16: his regimental number was '14'! His battalion was sent to Gibraltar for garrison duties before being shipped to Cadiz to join Wellington's forces taking on Napoleon in the Peninsular War. According to his medal records, Samuel took part in the Battle of Vittoria in 1813 and, later that year, the siege of San Sebastian (see image below).

During the latter action, the 47th lost 17 of 22 officers and more than half the enlisted personnel. By the end of the action, the Regiment was commanded by a subaltern. Following the Peninsular War, Samuel's Regiment was sent to India where it took part in the Third Mahratta War and the First Anglo-Burmese War. The latter involved the taking of Rangoon and fighting up the Irrawaddy River to Ava, near Mandalay, the Regiment storming a number of strongholds en route (see image below). Samuel was entitled to the Army of India Medal with the Ava clasp.

Samuel returned to England in 1829 and married Eliza Jane Searle in Portsmouth in 1831: Eliza was 17 years his junior. Eliza's parents were Henry Searle and Mary Cooper, and they lived on Portsea Island. Eliza Jane was Christened at St.Mary's Church, the oldest church on the island, in 1809. She had some good company, with the famous engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel having been Christened in the same Church in 1806, and Charles Dickens following her in 1812.

It seems that their eldest daughter, Elizabeth Hayes (my Great-Great Grandmother) was born in Ireland in late 1832. By that time, Samuel was having medical problems related to a liver complaint. He had spent a fair amount of time in Kilmainham Hospital, Dublin, and was ultimately discharged from the Army on 12 December 1832. His Regimental Review Board was chaired by Major Sadlier, who was the first white man to cross the Arabian Peninsula, in 1819. Samuel's character was assessed as "a good and highly efficient soldier, very seldom in hospital. As a Non-Commissioned Officer, very trustworthy, zealous and sober." His paperwork included a physical description: 40 years of age; 5 feet 6.5 inches in height; light brown hair; Eyes, Grey; Complexion, Fresh. He had attained the rank of Sergeant at the time of his discharge.

Samuel returned to his home town of Warrington, Lancashire, with his wife and new baby. He was officially an "Out-Pensioner" of the Royal Hospital Chelsea (the "In-Pensioners" were the forerunners of today's Chelsea Pensioners). Samuel applied himself to several jobs but ended up as a wire drawer. The making of wire was a major industry in Warrington, indeed two local sports teams are, to this day, known as "the wires". Samuel and Eliza went on to have another 7 children, all born in Warrington. Samuel died in his hometown in 1864.

Needless to say, I'm thrilled at the information the kindly gent on RootsChat helped me find. Hope this personal diversion wasn't too boring!

 

[Lucky13]

The last that I heard anything, the relative (I've forgotten her name) who was doing this, she had nearly reached the 1500's....
Apparently, as I may have mentioned before, I've got a relative who served in the USN during the Korean War and later on USS Coral Sea CV-43....
Need to ask my dad about the latest gossip, as Nordstrom is a large family it seems and there's also more than one....
Seen a few Nordstrom in WWII, Korea and Vietnam plus also a Medal of Honor recipient in the late 1800's....should there also be one with a connection to USS Yorktown, it certainly would explain things!

Time will tell!

 

[gumbyk]

My G.Grandfather, Arthur Charles Goodhue enlisted in 1915, and survived the war (just) in the 3rd (Rifles) brigade. He was awarded the Military Medal:

Sergeant A. C. Goodhue, "A" Company's Lewis gun sergeant, was sent up to the front line to co-ordinate the work of the Lewis guns there in dealing with the attack, but meanwhile the Germans had rolled up our line for a distance of about 100 yards to where a small sap led diagonally from the main trench, and a German officer with twelve men, under cover of rifle and revolver fire, was advancing along the parapet towards the handful of our men at this point. Just as Sergeant Goodhue arrived he heard the German officer call out in English: "Come along, you New Zealanders; you will have to surrender!" With a characteristic expression voicing derision of the idea of surrender, Good-hue brought a Lewis gun to his shoulder and discharged the whole drum at the party, killing the officer and six of his men. The remainder, some of whom were wounded, made good their escape.

Neither of my Grandfathers saw combat in WW2, one was too young, and the other was a fireman, so wasn't eligible, but worked in crash rescue at the same airfield that I did all my pilot training at.

I've also got a 4th great Uncle, Cevrin Goodhue, who served in the Union Army, who I don't know any more about than his name and where/when he died.

 

[nuuumannn]

Like most colonials, I'm a mongrel. My dad's grandfather came from Billericay in Essex in the UK, but his grandmother was Eastern European, but of what flavour is not precisely known. Polish and Czech has been mentioned, but no one alive on his side of the family knows. On my mother's side, her father was a native New Zealander/Maori who died of tuberculosis when she was two. According to family legend, he used to swim across the river behind the farm where the family grew up and visit my very much married grandmother for the odd dalliance and three little brown children were soon intermixed among the five pre-existing white ones! My grandmother's family is more obscure. She was illegitimate - her mother was British - Scottish has been bandied about, but where from is not known and her father was, according the family legend again, an American sailor who came to New Zealand aboard a ship during WW1. I have a great Uncle who fought at Gallipoli but no one knows anything more. I remember visiting him as a child. My uncle served in Vietnam for a 13 month tour. Woof.

As an aside, another uncle's ex wife, and subsequently their daughter, my cousin is related to Louis Bleriot - Bleriot's sister emigrated to New Zealand, apparently.