Lives of your great-grandfathers


Only know about my paternal great grandfather and still have a vague memory of meeting him when I was little.

He fought in WW1 and I was told he was at the 1st Battle of Ypres and at Passchendaele. Absolutely deaf as a post due to him being in an artillery crew to the point that my one vague memory involves him having an ear trumpet like Madame Fanny from Allo Allo
 
Knew all my grandparents. Haven't really got any knowledge whatsoever about their parents and no idea where to start when finding out (for free)
 
Know a bit about 3 of them. No idea of dates, just what I got from my parents.

1 was a Sherriff in Edinburgh. Sounds impressive, but when I looked into it, it means a f***ing debt collector or bailliff. Must have been a nadty bastard doing that back then. Makes sence, because his son (GF on Mams side), ended up as a sargeant in the police, and he was a f***ing horrible c**t.

Gets a bit better elsewhere.

Another was an Irish sailor (Quinn). Bit of a lad. Spent most of his life in India and China seas.

Only other one I know was on my Dads side. He was a Romany Gypsy, born and lived his whole life in a horsedrawn traditional Gypsy Caravan. My Grandad was born in that van too. He was the first of that line to "Go into brick" as they call it, when he bought a house in Doncaster. Probably accounts for my wanderlust😁. He ended up as a senior crane driver and instructor at Pilkington Glass.
 
Who were your great-grandfathers? and what did they do in their lives?

Just been thinking about this after looking at another thread, to think about the challenges they had to face in life, and how different it is from today.

1. Born in Old Simpson street 1899, Deptford, Died in Dunkirk, a bit old (40?) to be in the army.
2. Born in Southwick, 1909, Irish family, killed in a mining accident in Hylton Colliery (1954), had 7 children!
3. Born in East End, 1924, fought in Burma Campaign, died in 2016 (the only one I ever knew)
4. Know nothing about the final one, born 1919, died before I was born.
Re: great grandfather #2.

My grandfather was born in southwick (Alice Street) in 1909.
 
They’re not bad at all in fairness. My dad and uncle have been plucking away at our ancestry for a few years now. All miners, ship builders, mariners going back to late 1700s iirc.
Also found a few of the family tales don’t quite match up with the facts either. Can get quite interesting if you have the time. My auntie found a cousin living in Australia she never knew about and they’ve been visiting each other back and forth for the last 8 years.
 
Just looked at two so far, both born to Irish parents.
One born in 1858 in Irish Row, Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil. Worked in the foundry. Moved to Middlesbrough in the 1880s when the Merthyr company opened a steelworks there. Had at least one month's hard labour and think he was a bit violent. Still not found when and where he died.

The other born the same sort of time in Monklands, Airdrie. Worked in pits there, then oil shale in Linlithgow, on to Glasgow mining and then down to Northumberland about 1900. Involved in the early local Independent Labour Party, helped establish an Irish club, and involved in the local Catholic church. Trying to trace newspaper articles he wrote. Died in 1938
 
Knew all my grandparents. Haven't really got any knowledge whatsoever about their parents and no idea where to start when finding out (for free)
All Durham libraries have free access to Ancestry. If you are still in Crook it looks like the library has a regular family history session. The County Archives and Clayport library have other resources too.
 
Posted this before in remembrance thread.

Great grandad was a miner at Dawdon pit. He was 33 had a wife and 3 kids and lived in the miners houses in Dawdon. and didn't have to join up as mining was a protected job at the time but his mates wanted to so he went with them. DLI wasn't raising a battalion at that point so they went to Newcastle and joined the Tyneside Scottish. 22nd btn and did basic training at Alnwick castle. Early 1916 they went by rail to Southampton and then onto northern France to a quiet sector at the time ....the Somme.

At 0720 just near La Boiselle and the glory hole a mine exploded and at 0730 the men of the 22nd went over the top to attack and hold the crater then move forward to contalmaison wood. It was approx 250 metres between the British trench and the German trench with a rising gradient. My GG went over and was never seen or heard from again. He has no known grave and his name appears on Thiepval monument.
I visited a couple of years ago and with some map overlays I could stand exactly where his btn was and I walked the hill towards lochnaggar crater. It was the weirdest feeling as it was raining and windy. As soon as I started walking the rain stopped and the wind died. You could hear birds and the warmth of the sun. When I got to the crater it started raining again and the wind came back. My Mrs was proper freaked out but I felt calm. It was like he realised someone had come to pay their respects to him and he wanted to let us know he was at peace.
 

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