Greetings fellow listers, In response to a recent posting on the Roots List, I received an email from P. Badcock. Here is an excerpt below which I found interesting and wonder if others are aware of this Hoax and if the article mentioned in the Telegram is recorded somewhere on line. Maybe this Badcock or an alias is 'pulling my leg'. In any case, if the article exists, I would love to read and copy. Smiles, Lloyd "As an illustration of what may come of oral histories, and > of interest to you, is The Churchill Estate Hoax which was > published in July, 2002 in THE TELEGRAM. The basis for this > article came as a family story from my grandmother and her > family in Boston and was a mystery for many years. Frankly, > they thought they had been cheated out their share of the > enormous Churchill estate involving both Newfoundland and > England. This story was an intriguing one involving Winston > Churchill, the Duke of Marlboro, pirates, a Churchill heir being > lost at sea, a fortune estimated at 100 million dollars > including a substantial part of the waterfront land in St. > John's, and included Churchill descendents in Newfoundland, > Boston, New York, and Vancouver. As it turned out it was > probably the biggest hoax ever in Newfoundland and left many > Churchill descendents, including probably 200 or more in > Newfoundland of which some even mortgaged their homes, a lot > poorer." ===== A three year hobby of researching Surnames (and variations) /ancestors, recorded in BNA before 1835.....*Batten *Beauchamp, *Beecham, *Bishop, Bucham, Buchan, Buchanan, Churchill, *Dawe, Fitzpatrick, *French, **Lamb, **Russell, *Roswell, Rowell, *Rousell, Snow, *Sparks, Tucker In-law surnames of interest include Earle, **Babcock, etc. (*Timeline Docs. on file for these surnames and a history of Bay Roberts CB and St. Mary's PB. All subject related comments, contributions and questions are welcome. **Maritime L o y a l i s t surnames.) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com