Like the first time a genealogist asked me, "Are you on Ancestry?"

Not seeing the capital letter, I was very puzzled and thought, 'What??!!! That sounds like a really dumb question, because like everyone else I HAVE ancestry and am lucky enough to have the names of over 45 of them, but there's no way I'm ON ancestry. For a start, they're all dead, including my parents.'

So still puzzled, I asked, "Are you using the right grammar? Don't you mean 'Do you have ancestry?'"

Moral: Say or write more than just "Ancestry" when talking to a newbie. It can save time and embarrassment.

And a whole lot of dumb things to say at once are to regale some poor stranger in a library with a whole lot of details of, to him or her, your terribly boring ancestors.

In that situation, if I'm talking to someone who lives in the countryside I might say just, "One of my great-grandfathers sent the first Romney sheep to New Zealand, and after he arrived he was flooded out twice and lost two farms before becoming successful with the third." Keep it as short and sweet as possible. In most cases, thirty words are probably far too many.

Or else I'd mention one of his brothers who served in the 8th Ohio during the American Civil War. He was rather unique because he served at the two biggest battle of the war, Antietam and Gettysburg, and at the end of his service 87% his original regiment had been killed or wounded out, and he survived with a groin rupture and, later, cataracts.

But sometimes I don't even mention them, because some people aren't interested in farming or wars, so I might mention that I luckily located two stashes of dozens of old family letters from the mid-1800s onwards, so spent years typing them into computers.

And sometimes I just keep quiet, which is probably the best thing to do.

dbb - 2019-06-19 17:55:00

Probably.

cinderellagowns - 2019-06-19 19:45:00

I'm always fascinated with anyone's genealogy stories mostly due to the fact the most of my lot were all coal miners and Ag Labs and really led very ordinary lives.

From tracing the ancestors I can proudly say our super power is working hard and living a very long time!

daisy86 - 2019-06-19 20:45:00

daisy86 wrote:

...most of my lot were all coal miners and Ag Labs and really led very ordinary lives.

Now there you go, see? I thought, "Someone who works in an agricultural laboratory (which I dealt with recently) leads a very ordinary life? Not in my experience!" Then I realised you might mean agricultural labourers,

Anyway, were they Cornish? The ancestors we know anything about from the mid-1800s onward were Treseder/Tressidder/Trezidder (there are about 20 variations) market gardeners and one of them was responsible for coming out to Australia and New Zealand and taking some of our cabbage tree seedlings back to Cornwall, where they are now considered to be tropical palm trees!

Many Kiwis would instantly recognise what those "palm trees" really are. They decorate much of the southwest of the UK and (I only learned recently from a movie I saw on TV), even part of western Scotland.

Anyone who has Google Earth can view the cabbage trees along the coast from Cornwall to parts of Kent. There might be more there than in NZ now, after the cabbage tree die-off that we've had recently.

But the rest of my earlier Cornwall ancestors certainly lived in the mining and farming districts and only put a cross on the parish registers.

Edited by dbb at 4:18 am, Thu 20 Jun

dbb - 2019-06-20 04:16:00

dbb wrote:

Now there you go, see? I thought, "Someone who works in an agricultural laboratory (which I dealt with recently) leads a very ordinary life? Not in my experience!" Then I realised you might mean agricultural labourers,

Anyway, were they Cornish? The ancestors we know anything about from the mid-1800s onward were Treseder/Tressidder/Trezidder (there are about 20 variations) market gardeners and one of them was responsible for coming out to Australia and New Zealand and taking some of our cabbage tree seedlings back to Cornwall, where they are now considered to be tropical palm trees!

Many Kiwis would instantly recognise what those "palm trees" really are. They decorate much of the southwest of the UK and (I only learned recently from a movie I saw on TV), even part of western Scotland.

Anyone who has Google Earth can view the cabbage trees along the coast from Cornwall to parts of Kent. There might be more there than in NZ now, after the cabbage tree die-off that we've had recently.

But the rest of my earlier Cornwall ancestors certainly lived in the mining and farming districts and only put a cross on the parish registers.

Miners in Cornwall would most likely have been tin miners rather than coal miners.

mungojerrie - 2019-06-20 08:47:00

When I first started putting together Mr's tree I went to a tiny little cemeteries micro fiche and looked thru the names, I returned home to report that I had found his ancestors but the cemetery is full of people with the same name and it must be a scandi name, I researched it and still to this day I laugh and laugh
ILMO

flora11 - 2019-06-20 11:42:00

Like claiming a connection to "Somebody Famous''. Probably you and 10,000 others and the d.n.a. percentage is below the margin of error, but 'That is fascinating'.
Actually, most people are, and most of their ancestors were, 'ordinary people'. Each of them is unique and can be real if you look, accepting that human frailty has always existed.

Edited by amasser at 11:54 am, Thu 20 Jun

amasser - 2019-06-20 11:53:00

Hows this for a laugh? Delving into my Dad's family tree I asked my Auntie (his sister) what her maiden name was. Talk about dumb and dumber. She laughed till she cried. Husbands Cornish lot were either mostly copper or tin miners.

aisling8 - 2019-06-20 21:23:00

dbb wrote:

Anyway, were they Cornish? s.[

No, not Cornish. They came from Wales, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire mostly with a bit of Scottish and Irish as well.

While they lived ordinary lives I often think about how hard, dangerous and unpleasant their working conditions must have been and how we live today would be so foreign to them.

daisy86 - 2019-06-21 10:46:00