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I overheard a conversation yesterday, a lady talking about her family tree and an ancestor who should would have liked to meet.
It got me thinking - we all have someone in our tree who intrigues us, stands out from the rest who is perhaps beyond living memory.
So - who is yours?

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Mel

Searching for lost relatives? Win the Lottery!

Mel,

excellent idea - you are so good at thinking of topics for us!

and yet...... to choose one from our almost infinite number of ancestors
is terribly difficult. For instance (to name but a few) I'd quite like a
chat with Eve, as in Adam and Eve: with my distant relative Nicholas
Bannister, one of the JPs who sent the Lancashire Witches to Lancaster for
trial in 1512: with John Mundell of the Isle of Wight, who was a Master
Gunner in the Royal Navy in the 1760s, at the time of the Seven Years War
with France: and with my great-uncle John Louis Bannister who is said to
have emigrated to Australia but whom I've not been able to trace after 1901.
One very strong candidate is my great-grandfather Daniel Hills, who was born
in Sussex in 1805, the year of Trafalgar, and would have been 10 in the year
of Waterloo. It's reasonably certain that he knew his son-in-law my
great-grandfather Joseph Tideswell whom I knew at the end of his life (and
near the beginning of mine) about 1944-5, so the three of us span two
centuries. I think we'd have quite a lot to talk about.

One thing that makes it particularly difficult for me to choose an ancestor to meet
is that I realise each of them must have had a very narrow knowledge of the world
outside his or her own immediate circle - we tend to forget how much easier it is
for us to get information about almost anything than it has ever been
before - and that most of my ancestors almost certainly knew less about
their own ancestry than I do! So the choice comes down to which ancestor's
own life and times I'd most like to know more about, and I think the answer
to that question is one or another of my great-grandfathers. Perhaps
especially William Bannister b 1835, who in 1891 gave his place of birth as
Burnley Lane Head, and (as I've posted on this forum previously) rose from
being a doffer in 1851 to a fairly prosperous Grocer in 1891. He must have been a
strong character. My grandmother was one of his ten children (that I know of)
and I remember enough of her to make a strong connection with what Wiliam could
tell me, and to get a full picture of his family's life in Burnley 100-150 years ago.

That would be fascinating.

Charon

Now there's a question Mel! I have an image in my head of all of my ancestors, I try to imagine what they were like, what there lives were like. The one that I think I would most like to meet though is my maternal Grandmother, she died 6 years before I was born, me Mam was only 16 years old herself and she was left to bring up her two younger brothers.
My maternal Grandmother was only 40 when she died, she died in childbirth, the baby she had which was a little girl lived for only 6 short weeks, me Mam went to the babies funeral all on her own, can you just imagine that for a 16 year old girl who had only just lost her Mam
From what I have been told my maternal Grandmother had a hard life and lost several of her children as babies or toddlers. Her husband my Grandad was not the best of husbands and could have treated her better, I suppose that was the case for a lot of women in those days though, they had to stay put because of the children and of course there was no social services in those days.
It all started off well for her in the beginning when she first met me Grandad, she was engaged to be married to another fellow, but she met my Grandad and apparently that was it, they sneaked off to be married one morning, not telling other members of their family, they had made secret plans. So I suppose you could say it was a case of as you sow, so shall you reap.
She was buried in a paupers grave in York cemetery and when the baby died she was put in the grave with her, no headstone, nothing. But me Mam's brother before he died found where her grave was and had a lovely headstone erected with all their names on, even the children that died in infancy. When my uncle passed away (he was the last remaining of the children)
I felt responsible for the upkeep of the grave, as me Mam had died a lot of years ago.
I know pay a subscription to York cemetery every year for the upkeep, because the grave is not local. I go three times a year to see it and remember, so my maternal Gran is the one that I would most like to have met.


Stephanie.

James Kippax, he was the father of Joshua Kippax born Briercliffe 1769 and for the life in me I cannot find out any more about him--with proof. I am pretty sure about him but not 100% and it has driven me crackers for ages.
AND
Not as far back but another pest, Daniel Parker born c1788, married Mary Nuttall 5th Oct 1809. Again, I am pretty sure of his parentage but cannot prove it.
That is for starters

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Gloria

I'd be dangerous with a brain.