Searching my ancestors ..a Granny named Sue

hollydolly

hollydolly

SF VIP
Location
London England
I have just discovered my great grandparents on my paternal side... first names...

On the paternal side of my family.. all the first born males are named Charles.. my grandfather, my father, my brother, and his son my nephew... I always knew this... and as my paternal grandmother was Margaret ( Meg).. and her first born daughter my fathers' sister was also Margaret.. and they gave me that as my middle name as the first born girl to my family.. I presumed therefore that must have been my great grandmothers' name too... no-one talked in our family, they were all very buttoned up the back .. we were never told about our history except that we were Irish immigrants to Scotland... on my mother side..
...so I was delighted, to find last night while searching.. that my great grandfather.. and grandmother. were not called Charles & Margaret as I'd been led to believe.. but Andy and Sue ( Andrew & Susan ) ... how cool is that ...very modern names way back in the mid 1800's

..and what's even odder tho'... is there's not another person in the huge long line of children and grandchildren named after them, in a family where names were regularly passed down...... at least not that I could find.. I wish I knew why !


Anyone search their ancestors and find something they were surprised about ?
 

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According to Ancestry DNA, my wife’s father is only about 6% German where as his mother was 50% German according to ancestors. Also, he was found to be around 12% Swedish but there were no known Swedish ancestors.

My wife’s mom was found to be about 2% Central Nigerian, and there were a bunch DNA matches showing the same.

My Ancestry DNA returned predictable results. What was surprising was that I found a 5th Great Uncle that was a renowned physicist and mathematician who founded an observatory.
 
I have really gone down the rabbit hole now that there's another date on the Census since I last looked.. a few years ago

It's very difficult from here following a Scottish , Irish ancestry, because unlike every other country the results are all available online even if for a cost , but not for Scotland, the lates year for the cencus I can get is 1921.. the earliest I can get for births is 1855.... and each search costs me money...
If I was in Scotland I could go and look at the record for myself.. but outside of Scotland it's an expenisve way to search

..I found that both side of my paternal family were living in overcrowded sitauations.. as were all their neighbours..

In the 2021 census my Maternal great grandfather was living with a wife, 5 teenage kids.. ( some had already left home) . and a married daughter ( my granny ..er husband my grandad .. and their first born, my aunt )...in 2 Rooms ..in a tenement...

..and this was common according to the Census ... many of their naighbours lived 5 to 1 room... and other like my granarents as many as 10 to 2 rooms...
 
hollydolly said:
was it Agnes ?
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Yes, same surname too. Until recently, 'Scotland's People' had a free and much broader search period. Today, I can't even find my parents family - a lot of basic information seems to be unavailable. I haven't tried 'Ancestry' and I'm not really too interested, although my mother's background is a bit of a mystery.
 
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My Paternal Scottish Granny was also named Susan but she would never divulge her maiden surname to anyone .
It was a forbidden subject for discussion.
Searches done by my brother who now resides in England did not reveal anything about her family. He was able to search actual records in Edinburgh. He thinks they were scrubbed , his words. Who knows . Perhaps some noble blood line.

We do know that Granny was disowned by her family coz she married poor old Grandpa who was defined as a b*stard in the records and was a lowly seaman out at sea most of the time.
His mum never married the father but she took his name and called herself Mrs so he was not a good marriage prospect.
Granny was very prim and proper and we had to behave in her company.

I never knew the Maternal Grandparents. My mother was Irish,and yes some Spanish ancestry.
She was orphaned at a very young age , lived in England for few years with who knows and ended up in a Scottish orphanage
run by cruel nuns. Then at age 14 she was shipped back to Ireland as a maid to some wealthy family.
How she ever met my father is still a mystery to us and they would not tell.

So intriguing compared to today's records where we know everything,
Blood, dna etc etc....nothing is private anymore.
 
Mizmo said:
My Paternal Scottish Granny was also named Susan but she would never divulge her maiden surname to anyone .
It was a forbidden subject for discussion.
Searches done by my brother who now resides in England did not reveal anything about her family. He was able to search actual records in Edinburgh. He thinks they were scrubbed , his words. Who knows . Perhaps some noble blood line.

We do know that Granny was disowned by her family coz she married poor old Grandpa who was defined as a b*stard in the records and was a lowly seaman out at sea most of the time.
His mum never married the father but she took his name and called herself Mrs so he was not a good marriage prospect.
Granny was very prim and proper and we had to behave in her company.

I never knew the Maternal Grandparents. My mother was Irish,and yes some Spanish ancestry.
She was orphaned at a very young age , lived in England for few years with who knows and ended up in a Scottish orphanage
run by cruel nuns. Then at age 14 she was shipped back to Ireland as a maid to some wealthy family.
How she ever met my father is still a mystery to us and they would not tell.

So intriguing compared to today's records where we know everything,
Blood, dna etc etc....nothing is private anymore.
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so much similarities in your story and mine..

My mum was raised from the age of 2 in a catholic orphanage by the Evil Nuns .. she and her sister were abandoned by their parents in favour of their sons...
 
hollydolly said:
so much similarities in your story and mine..

My mum was raised from the age of 2 in a catholic orphanage by the Evil Nuns .. she and her sister were abandoned by their parents in favour of their sons...
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Oh how awful to be abandoned like that. So cruel.
My mother had two sisters Mary and Bridget. Mary was our darling aunt.
Bridget got adopted when in orphanage and they never saw her again.
There was also a brother.....no trace of him either.

Way back in those days in my time frame, records were kept in handwriting and that is what my brother found difficult in his research
So little info and writing faded.
Heck, when I think about it now so is my birth certificate,
I better dig it out and make sure I was born...
O gawd I am ancient!
 
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Mizmo said:
Oh how awful to be abandoned like that. So cruel.
My mother had two sisters Mary and Bridget. Mary was our darling aunt.
Bridget got adopted when in orphanage and they never saw her again.
There was also a brother.....no trace of him either.

Way back in those days in my time frame, records were kept in handwriting and that is what my brother found difficult in his research
So little info and writing faded.
Heck, when I think about it now so is my birth certificate,
I better dig it out and make sure I was born...
O gawd I am ancient!

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see my mum would have been around your age..I can't find anything for her except obviously her marriage certificate and her death certificate. I don't know which orphanage she was in.. aside from the city it was in... but even if I knew there would be nothing to tell, these nuns all destroyed records for many years...

I did track down one of her brothers..my mother always spoke about them like she adored them.. but the only time we ever saw them was at her funeral, and only because they had her insured and they came to get copies of the death certificatee.. so about 20 years after she died I tracked down one of the brothers, and phoned him, he said that another brother had paperwork in his attic relating to my mum, and he would get him to call me..needless to say I never heard another thing from any of them
 
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Have you ever had a DNA test done, @hollydolly ? Ancestry seems to be for finding people in your background history, and some of those can be wrong, simply because people who put the information in did not know the whole story.
DNA will show people who are living today that are related to you, and can help you find more of your mother’s lost relatives that way. 23&Me seems to pretty much just do the DNA testing for living relatives, although you can also have a test done with Ancestry, and then you not only have research results, you have dna results as well.
If you have not done that, it might very well help you to find more information about relatives that were lost in the past.

My grandfather was adopted out when his mother died, and so he was raised with a completely different family name than his biological parents. After I did the DNA testing, it has helped me find people who were from his actual family, and not his adopted one.
 
hollydolly said:
see my mum would have been around your age..I can't find anything for her except obviously her marriage certificate and her death certifiicate. I don't know which orphanage she was in.. aside from the city it was in... but even if I knew there wuld be nothing to tell, these nuns all destoryed records for many years...

I did track down one of her brothers..my mother always spoke about them like she adored them.. but the only time we ever saw them was at her funeral, and only because they had her insured and they came to get copies of the death certificatee.. so about 20 years after she died I tracked down one of the brothers, and phoned him, he said that another brother had paperwork in his attic relating to my mum, and he would get him to call me..needless to say I never heard another thing from any of them
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I suppose you could do the DNA thing for current matches as just suggested if you are so inclined .
I personally would not want to do that as who knows what it might reveal for current family members.
An old friend has done just that and wishes he never had.
Sometimes best to let sleeping dogs lie.


PS...my mother was in The Nazareth House convent....somewhere outside of Glasgow. ?
 
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Always do a DNA!! You may not like what you get, but it is why you are looking. The things our ancestors did and they way they lived can be unusual and weird, but it is what they did and in some crazy you are a product of that. Alot of it isn't pretty but I sure would rather know the truth than wonder and let it make me "crazy".
 
I wouldn't do a DNA test ever... simply because as you know Yvonne..I was a TV and film researcher, and worked on several documentery and consumer shows, where DNA was being tested... and in fact at least 50 % was wrong....it was incredibly unhelpful for most people because half the time it sent them down a road that wasn't theirs.. so thanks for the suggestion but no not for me..

My mum is no longer here... my paternal relatives were there always when I was growing up.. so I don't need to find maternal relatives who clearly want nothing to do with their sister's family..

I just find this discovery of great great grandparents with what we think of as modern names like Andy and Sue... were in fact modern back in hisotry...

My family never spoke of grandparents etc unless they were alive, and I found that my granny had 7 siblings, I knew nothing of... all the time I though she ony had the one brother my great uncle albert, but no... she had 7 younger than her.. .. so it's nice for me to find these from 150 years ago...and wonder what they ever imagined a great great grand-daughter would be doing in 2025... certainly they wouldn't think for a second I'd be searching their names...
 
Mizmo said:
I suppose you could do the DNA thing for current matches as just suggested if you are so inclined .
I personally would not want to do that as who knows what it might reveal for current family members.
An old friend has done just that and wishes he never had.
Sometimes best to let sleeping dogs lie.


PS...my mother was in The Nazareth House convent....somewhere outside of Glasgow. ?
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Miz... my mother was an East Coaster.. she was in an orphanage in Dundee, or Edinburgh.. or Fife or maybe Perth.. any of these places could be the one.. she never said where it was...
 
hollydolly said:
Miz... my mother was an East Coaster.. she was in an orphanage in Dundee, or Edinburgh.. or Fife or maybe Perth.. any of these places could be the one.. she never said where it was...
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Ha!
I ddi a search for the one I mentioned and believe it or not it is now a residential home for the elderly with glowing reports !
However I did a more thorough search of reviews and these are just two of many

"...I hope it a well run and compassionate assisted care facility now.
However if I had placed my mother there before her death she would have thought she had already died and gone to Hell.
She suffered years of physical and mental abuse as a child there when it was a convent.
Her aunt had her removed when she no longer spoke anymore. "

" ,Wife friend was an orphan in here, she and her brother faced years of physical and mental abuse.
Only gave a 1 star as it is the lowest possible...."

Just awful to think that there were so many evil nuns in those days:confused::confused:
 

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