Wednesday, January 27, 2021

The Way We Were Wednesday - People we know, but never met


This is one of my great-grandfathers, my father's, mother's father.  He was born in about 1879.  At the time he married my great-grandmother he was living in Hammersmith, London, and was a tunnel digger on the London underground. He came to the US seeking opportunities and safety from the impending War (World War I.) He continued to do tunnel work, some subway work in New York and Mexico City, mostly water inlet tunnels around the Great Lakes.  He helped build the road tunnel from Detroit to Canada.  

I heard so much, my great grandmother lived with my grandparents when I was a teenager (she outlived both of my grandfathers.)  I have photos, and documents, I feel that I know him, but he died around the time I was born. 

Do you have ancestors you feel you know, but never really met? 

 

19 comments:

  1. Many. My father did his family history in great detail on both his sides. So I do feel like I know them and certainly answers where I got some of my interests from.

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    1. There is always that one uncle

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  2. Sadly, no. The stories I was told were always too shallow to make me feel I knew these people.

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    1. My mother's family was a great mystery to me,

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  3. No, but I've met plenty I feel I'll never know (and a few I wish I didn't)

    Sassybear
    www.idleeyesandadormy.com

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    1. J wonders why I bother to maintain contact with one, good question,

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  4. Well... there's Hadrian, Louis XIV, Franz Josef...

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  5. my father's side; I don't know much about them. my grandfather and great grandfather died before I reached 5; both of them came from manchester, england. I saw pictures while growing up, but I don't "know" them.

    my father's mother was nicknamed "the bitch", cause she was a hateful, spiteful skank.

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    1. Anne Marie...it's a miracle you turned out so caring and sweet from the horror stories you've told me. We are glad to have you.

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    2. 4 years of therapy helped me, maddie.

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  6. I can't think of one that I never met but I did admire a great-uncle who was rather dashing when he was young. I met him once when I was very little but the pictures and stories about him always hit a cord with me.

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    1. My paternal grandfather has some interesting siblings, I wish I knew more of them,

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  7. My Great-Grandfather's brother, because the one photograph I have of him, and possibly the only photo of him, he looks like me ... or I look like him. Odd to find that.

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    1. I look like a very distant great-grandfather, one that was an officer in the war of 1812.

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  8. That's why family stories and family history are so important, to give us that sense of knowing our ancestors, even a little bit.

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    1. Being remembered, is that immortality?

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  9. Anonymous1/27/2021

    I can't say I do. Perhaps you do have to live in close quarters with someone connected to the person.

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  10. I have heaps. Two of them look down from my office wall.
    My great-great-granfather is one handsome dude.

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