On 16/06/2013 12:22, roy.stockdill@btinternet.com wrote: > However, am I being unfair in thinking these showbiz > luvvies can turn on the tears and emotion to demand? Clearly, none of them can > be family historians since people such as ourselves would take it all in our > stride! Wouldn't we??? Have to admit some degree of upset as we have uncovered more and more circumstantial evidence that partner's grandparents are most likely to have died in the holocaust. But anything further back or less horrific seems to be more or less simply how things are. -- Rod

Polygonum wrote, Sunday, June 16, 2013 7:52 PM > anything further back or less horrific seems > to be more or less simply how things are. An ancestor of mine, an Arden... He allowed his daughter to marry a rather s t r a n g e young fellow, who then took it into his head that he would go to London and kill the Queen - Elizabeth I, it was then. So off he went. He stopped at an inn near Watford, and bragged about his plans to the clientele, one of whom alerted the Authorities, who arrested our young fanatic. He was duly given the "third degree", and spilt that his unknowing father-in-law and he had concocted the plan. My innocent ancestor was thereupon arrested, tortured and executed, and his possessions confiscated. The fanatic was released. The blameless destitute and homeless widow eventually announced that she would go to London to beg the queen to grant her a small pension that she might survive - she had nothing left to lose. Off she went... and was never heard of again. Cruel times.