I found my grandmother

No she wasn't lost!!

I've recently become interested in my family history. My mother comes from Co Mayo in Ireland. Her mother left Ireland for the USA when she was 17 but returned shortly after, cos her parents found a good man from Belfast for her to marry, John Richardson, my grandfather. And I found Annie on Ellis Island's immigration records.

Here is her passenger record

Queenstown became Cork shortly after Irish independence in 1923.

Sounds silly as I never knew her, she died in 1948, but I'm so excited!!

[Stingo]

I have an ongoing research thing which is er...on going. 'Tis rumoured that ancestors on my maternal grandmother's side emigrated from Ireland...I was unaware of that website...cheers Ed Looks interesting. I do know for fact that ancestors on my dads side went to the states...made contact with a 'remote' cousin some time ago...perhaps it's time to resurrect this project.

[timwilky]

Good on you Ed. I have always been tempted to have a look into my family history. unfortunately when your birth certificate says under the fathers name "Some soldiers" you don't have a lot to start with.

Mrs Tricky is really into this.

Her great grandfather fought in Africa in WW1.
Her mum cleared out her attic and was going throw a load of stuff out.
Mrs T (being nosey) had a rifle through it first and found an old ammo box full of her great grandfathers war stuff. Its amazing, there's his enlistment a discharge papers, a Vickers machine gun manual.
Old photos of men in his unit (Motor Machine Gun Corps).

Theres photos of the early armoured vehicles they used as well. Rolls Royce cars stripped out and armour plated with a dirty great Vickers gun mounted on the back.

And her mum was just going to put all this in the dustbin !

I got curious about this... so I went over to the Granddad, and asked him about it. He apparently had already done the work, and told me that "I wouldn't be interested".
So... I sort of suggested that I might. And he insisted that it was very dull altogether.
After a period of my quietly pleading with him, he elaborated slightly.
"Rogues and highwaymen of the highest order".
He was genuinely mortified.
I furtively looked about, and asked him to repeat... "We were Highwaymen Philip. Thugs and rogues hanging about robbing passing carriages up North." He whispered this in a very serious way. He told me that I shouldn't search any more, as it would only upset me.

Damn right I didn't want to do any more research. I might find something that would contraadict this new found fact. This is possibly the most exciting thing that you can tell a 12 year old. I was walking about in silent awe for the next half hour.

Originally Posted by philipMac

"We were Highwaymen Philip. Thugs and rogues hanging about robbing passing carriages up North."

So you're really a dandy highwayman?

As long as I can wear those fancy buckley shoes and that massive hat and wave those pewter pistols about I am happy.

I would imagine some of those snooty English colonial type girls are only filthy too. And hankering after some scary highwayman action.

And awaaaaay!!!!! Clipity clop clipity clop clipity clop clipity clop

Can only trace my family history (on my dads side) so far back as the Boswell name is a Romany gypsy name so birth certificates etc didnt really get recorded, we have mananged to trace back that the name originated in India!!
Theres even a Gypsy Boswell museum. , its one of the oldest Romany gypsy names, so im very proud of it, esp as its a proper gypsy heritage NOT some "traveller" who calls themself a gypsy.

http://www.boswell-romany-museum.com/index.htm

If there is one thing us Highwaymen hate, it's Pikeys.

Originally Posted by Ed

Sounds silly as I never knew her, she died in 1948, but I'm so excited!!

Not at all.

My Uncles hobby is to research his family history. He's been doing it the last 30 years and it's amazing how enthusiastic he is about it.