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A little piece of family history


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My Dad, who is now 79, has been doing some family history in recent times and he's dug up a lot interesting things about vikings, Welsh farmers and most obviously, the wire industry.

 

Anyway, there were two medals sat doing nothing in a drawer for many years and my Dad knew they belonged to his grandfather, but assumed they were regular medals for military service.

 

He dug around a bit and they turned out to be medals for bravery as a civilian, and has now found a link to the story behind them in the London Gazette. My great grandfather was presented with a medal by George V for trying to save the lives of two colleagues at Whitecross wire works in Warrington in 1931.  He was also awarded a medal by the Liverpool Humane and Shipwreck Society and a gold watch by Whitecross.

I thought that some forum members would be interested in this little bit of history so I'm sharing it with you.

 

Check out the right hand column of this page, it gives a very graphic account of the incident:

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/33781/page/8161

 

Anyone got any similar stories?

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I keep meaning to do some research on the family.  We have photo's from the 1920's and 30's that paint a picture of my mothers side of the family.  Photos of hunting parties in India, family members on skiing holidays in the Alps (this was the 1930's, so only people from the right classes would be up there!), visits to India, Burma and Kenya, etc.

 

I think the family went downhill soon after!!

With the best, thats a good bit of PR, though I would say the Bedford team, theres, like, you know, 13 blokes who can get together at the weekend to have a game together, which doesnt point to expansion of the game. Point, yeah go on!

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My grandfather was a chief carpenter working in the docks in Portsmouth, he worked there all through WWII and he also did a lot of the interior carpentry on the Royal yacht Britannia, there is a photo of him and his apprentices on board having just finished one of the staircases.

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On my mum's side, we have the work of an ancestor who was one of the earliest pioneers of photography, plus stacks of other documentation besides.

 

On my dad's side, nearly all the family memorabilia was lost in a fire when my grandparents were moving house and sending their belongings forward by train, but the freight carriage was burnt to ashes. 

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I am not renowned for my worship of a Supreme Being, so imagine my surprise to find that my paternal grandmother's brother Harry emigrated from Keighley to New Zealand around 1902, changed his name from Ramsbottom to Ranson and ended up as the Principal of Trinity College, Auckand  (Methodist Theological College) for ten years     Ended up living (and dying) in Mt. Albert, Auckland

 

We even have a recording of an interview he gave to the BBC  in the 1940s. Sounded a bit of a pompous preacher.

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I've traced my Dad's side back to Devon in the early 1800s - the censuses from 1841 are online but there were a couple before then which can be searched. That ancestor was listed as a "hound feeder" on an estate near Tawton, Bishops Tawton or summat.

 

You can find a lot of stuff out there. One of my aunties got a copy of the passenger manifest from the ship my ancestor came out here on and even the fact that he was admitted to hospital as soon as the ship docked in Adelaide in 1849.

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On my mum's side, my Uncle traced one root of the family back to the 16th century.

 

One of the things lost in the fire on my dad's side was a Stars & Stripes from the US military, due to an ancestor having served with a degree of distinction in their Civil War. 

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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My grand-dad's spent some time researching our family tree and seems to think there might be some link to Butch Cassidy as it's thought he may have been a son (or grandson) of a chap in our distant family who emigrated from the Blackpool/Preston area....tenuous link eh?

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I have a background of working class family. Still trying to find some details of the horse trader from Cumbria.

 

I was connected by someone on one of the web sites and told the story of one of the husbands of my relatives. He survive the war as a POW and was in Denmark waiting to return when along with a large number of others was taken ill and died on the hospital ship. Tragic.

 

 

www.thedanishscheme.co.uk

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Spend many a winters evening pottering around with my family tree, tough on my side as  Taylor married a Smith on one line, got stumped on one line were if family stories are correct 4, possibly 5 brothers died in WW1, then chased another back to the late 1500's as farmers close to were I live now.

 

Because I keep hitting deadends on my side, I've spent a fair bit of time looking at the wifes, made easier as she had an unusual maiden name.  So far found a few bishops, the architect of the House of Commons, a link to a Prime Minster (not a direct decendent but a brother of one), a general who was killed in the English Civil War locally at Houghton Towers, along with links to the familys who lived at Atherton Hall and Warden Park back "in the day" and links to Sanderman Port.

 

Plenty to keep my interested and stop me from trying to guess my way through the Taylor marrying Smith conundrum!  I do find it facinating and unearthed some fantastic family photos, amazing what people have tucked away in draws that they think will be of no interest.

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I guess that's the worst thing: a family full of John Smiths who married a shipload of Mary Joneses. My mother's side had surnames like Herring and Finan so they weren't very common in Tasmania.

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I guess that's the worst thing: a family full of John Smiths who married a shipload of Mary Joneses. My mother's side had surnames like Herring and Finan so they weren't very common in Tasmania.

True, although I have an Aunty who a member of a local history society and doing it the "old fashioned way", so all off line she's managed to break through and trace them back to the 1600's, not ready for any spoilers yet though, so plugging away on my own, safe in the knowledge I can check my findings against hers should I need to.

 

Its all fascinating stuff though.  I wonder how future generations will cope, were as we can sometimes have to little information to go on, future researchers are going to be swamped with information!

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