i watched, the other day, a programme entitled “Who Do You Think You Are”: The remit being to look back through the ancestor of notable celebrities. The star in question last week was Paul Hollywood who was taken on a journey back in time though concentrating on his Grandfather who had spent a significant time seeing active service during WWII. while this may not have been such a notable find, the journey he took proved to be [obviously] emotional for Paul.
This got me thinking:
I’ve watched a number of these ‘journeys’ many of which have revealed some amazing stories and notable ancestors. Yet through my Family Tree, all I had unearthed my 8 times great grandfather who was reported for carring a corpse! through Garstang in 1624 plus another (uncles great, great grandmother) who died in a lunatic asylum. But, I continued to dig and research and at last I found a 4th Baron (mind you, he was deemed guilty of treason and sentenced to death but was finally reprieved but lost his fortunes and title 😦 ). Yippee, at last, someone of note with entries in Wikipedia. From here, Wikipedia kind of eased the journey and I continued through the line until I found a link to the Duke of York.
Now obviously, this doesn’t mean I’m of noble birth, although many people say I’m a bit special – not sure what they mean by that though but, how cool to have baron, a viscount, even a duke in the family tree. Even more cool that they would appear to have been scurrilous scoundrels leading to time spent in The Tower and even possible execution.
Okay, okay, the nearest noble person, Baron William Widrington (4th), would appear to be my uncle 8 times removed but he appears to be in my tree and that will do for me. I do however need to check all links to make sure they’re sound (confidence is low) but for the time being, I’ll take what’s there and bask. 🙂
What next?
Well, my next task will be to find more detail on the grave robber and the lunatic asylum – these, for some strange reason, seem to have a significant draw on my interest; and, confidence in the two is much higher.
In the meantime, if I find any more nobleness or even saints in the tree, be assured, I will tell all.
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