My GGF the celebrity

I can picture the main character (Francis Matthews) even 'hear' his voice. When I say 'picture', it was very lined..405 lines. When BBC2 arrived (625 lines) it seemed very smooth by comparison ! I think upon reflection that the radio series was much more exciting.

 

Sorry Tim, I thought you were just being funny. I didn't know there had been a TV series. I only remember hearing the radio programmes when I was very young.

 

I've been enjoying some of the remakes of Paul Temple on BBC iplayer

 

Have I just found the ultimate relative?

I have heard from another LC member who is a 5th cousin, that one of our ancestors, Mary, married William Christmas in 1768.
Then, for the rest of her life, she was greeted as Mary Christmas !
Even better, Mary and William had several children so we can now claim to be related to Father Christmas !!!

 

No, they only had two legs each and there was more than one of them. Doh!

 

I guess this come is somewhere in this thread (?)
I have just been following the trail of a set of distant cousins and found my xth removed relation Ada Wakefield (from the Strangleman line - see several messages back) as a servant in 1911. Imagine my surprise (as they say) to find, on checking the census entry, that she was servant to one of the more affluent branches of my tree (yup, Cubitt ones). Ada wasn't any relation to them ( the 2 lines only come together with my grandparents' marriage) so I don't know if that should increase or decrease my surprise.

 

I have a similar situation - my mother's 2-g grandfather was the head gardener at a property where my father's 2-g grandmother and her children lived as semi-permanent house guests. This was in 1850s New Zealand so given how small the immigrant population was then, the coincidence is less surprising, I suppose. The gardens at the house are still lovely too

 

I very much doubt this has any relevance to your story Liberty, but I was reminded on reading it that a while back (a year or so) I also found a Servant girl living in a family household, and she had a different surname to the family members and shown as a lodger. As the family were of humble stock (Farm Labourer sort of thing) I was intrigued at finding them with a Servant. I omitted her from the Family branch of the Tree and it was only much later when exploring a later Census I found her with the same family, but this time she was a Warehouse Worker.

Later research revealed others with her surname and I found a family connection via a marriage of her mother's sibling. I have no idea why she was living with her mother's erstwhile in-laws on both occasions, but clearly the Census merely recorded her 'occupation' as Servant but not to the family of her residence. Hence later she changes her occupation to Warehouse worker.

I often find young family members employed as Servants to well to do professionals, Doctors, Clergy, Bankers etc. where there is no doubt they are indeed working in that capacity within the Household. But it is also possible that a girl (or boy) might merely be recording a 'servant' occupation that applies outside their residence. Food for thought anyway.

 

I have come across live-in farm workers described as servants rather than ag labs etc.

 

I have found this particularly common in Scottish censuses - and it's also not uncommon for some of those 'farm servants' to be poorer cousins or relatives, at least in my families.

 

Does this ring bells with anyone - people working on a farm are put down as 'farm worker' or agricultural labourer, regardless of what they were actually doing there? I know I have one instance where the chap goes in 10 years from apparent ag lab to a farmer of a sizable holding. I am 99% sure that he was always on track to be a farmer, but was doing a sort of practical apprenticeship in the earlier census.
And I echo Suzanne's experience - another household has the bachelor uncle farmer with 3 adults niblings (=nephews/nieces) down as farm servants, which they almost certainly weren't.

 

I love that word "niblings" - is this a Liberty special or has it more general usage?

 

I had the word used in an email communication to me a while back and enquired then what it meant. I was told (and online 'Wictionary' confirms) it is used (mainly in the plural) as a gender-neutral term for nephews and nieces.

Apparently it was coined way back in 1951 by Samuel E Martin a Linguist using nibbling (for Nephew/Niece) by analogy with sibling. Even so not sure if the word has made the OED yet?

 

As Bob has indicated, I can't claim credit. If I can help to spread its use, though.....

 

One that's bit more offbeat than Mary Christmas, but it made me laugh.

I recently found the christening of my 5G GM, Alice Goss, and saw that her parents were Thomas and Love. It took a little down to track down the maiden name of my 6G GM (not helped by her being a widow when she married Thomas). So I put her on my tree, as is my habit in these cases, as Love Unknown, hence the amusement. I dare say some of you know of the hymn that begins, 'My song is love unknown'.

 

Family folk lore always said that we were related to the Churchill family/Dukes of Marlborough and subsequently Sir Winston Churchill (whose ancestors changed their name back to Churchill from Spencer). Other branches of the family whom I have never met, one of which emigrated to Australia ca 1880 heard the same tale, though a link has never been found. The nearest I got was tracing relations to a nearby village in Devon ca 1715.......but in the process I discovered that my mother is 5th cousin to another ex Prime Minister, Sir Edward Heath whose ancestors also originate from Devon. My uncle died in WW2 in a plane crash with the Duke of Kent and my auntie (MBE, OBE) was a church missionary in Fiji, which is wonderful as there is actually information online about both their lives.

 

My Nana told my mother and I, when we embarked on this genealogy journey, that she descended from nobility - and eventually I was able to prove her right (but sadly not until after both had passed). These gateway ancestors led to royalty (and recently, very distant relatives like the actor Benedict Cumberbatch! ). Keeps things interesting when more direct ancestors led such quiet lives.

But what I really wanted to say was that I've used You Tube in my research somewhat, because its had clips of (then-famous) relatives singing. Has anyone else thought to check there?
(If anyone is curious, on You Tube you could look up Eve Becke, and The Hutchinson Family Singers. The Hutchinsons are especially interesting as they apparently helped Abraham Lincoln get elected!)

 

I was discussing family history with a friend and mention was made of the many ancestors who were low paid agricultural labourers. I said that I had managed to break away from that mould but the conversation took place while we were moving hay for my wife's horses. It suddenly occurred to me that there had been little change and that I am now an UNPAID agricultural labourer.