The 51st AGM of the Society took place virtually with members in attendance from various parts of the world. Before we got down to the business part of the AGM members were given a useful illustrated talk by Dr Frances Hurd about the Secrets that some of our ancestors had and the lies they told to keep them secret. In her talk she featured instances in both her private and professional research of people she had found being economical with the truth, especially in documents we might suppose would be correct. She gave the salutary advice that we should cautious taking items we find at face value without further research.
Frances started with lies told when joining the army. Lying about age is probably the most common lie we will come across and some young men also gave false addresses to make it harder to check. In one case history the senior officer was told that the soldier didn’t appear to know where he lived as he had given several false address. To which the senior officer replied I know but he is an excellent soldier! Outlining another case history Frances showed attestation papers where the man in question was said to have light brown hair. She followed that image with an image of a lock of the man’s hair that his mother had kept. This proved he had red hair, and with further research Frances found that his mates nicknamed him ‘Carrots’. She said there was no way that an officer, checking the soldier standing in front of him against his papers, could avoid seeing that hair colouring was incorrect.
Next examples were lying when marrying. Again lying about age featured, also place of birth and occupation on marriage the latter undoubtedly to make themselves look better in Society.
Frances gave a case of George Hirst an accomplished musician who gave a different occupation in the census. He played the organ with leading orchestras at principle venues until an article appeared in a newspaper about him supposedly completely ruining an event with a terrific noise at a crucial part of the concert. He never lived it down and from then on gave up on saying he was a musician and gave his occupation as the Wool trade, which was not entirely untrue since it was the business his family were involved in.
Illegitimacy was where some of the biggest lies are told. Many people even today cannot accept that people in their family had a child out of wedlock. Pregnant single woman would be questioned as who the father was as no parish wanted to accept someone who might become a burden ‘on the parish’. Once a father was named the child could be assigned to a parish usually the father’s parish and he was liable to pay a sum for the upkeep of the child.
Some women even went as far as murdering their baseborn infants and Frances told of a case of one poor young woman who was raped repeatedly whilst in service from the age of 13 and over several years gave birth to 7 children each being murdered. Frances said it was not that uncommon and it is possible to find cases of infant murder quite easily in court records. She showed news articles of several sad cases.
Then there is the ‘Family story’ Frances gave a couple of incidences from her husband’s family where she had researched to find out if the stories had a grain of truth to them and she was able to find reasons why the story existed, even if it wasn’t true or as passed down. Such as two men with the same name having links to the same family and place and the family story told the story of the other man as if he was theirs. Another case of a family born and bred in Dover Kent who supposedly never left so how had the family story placed an ancestor in Scotland? With research Frances was able to piece the story together and found that the 3rd Light Dragoon guards although stationed in Dover were also stationed Nottingham for a time and were sent to quell a riot in Edinburgh.
Another case of economy with the truth was centred around mixed race Anglo-Indians. In the East India Company some men took Indian wives, which was not acceptable to either race. Frances showed a family tree of many generations where nearly all the men had Indian wives and as they would have been looked down on because of their mixed race so they avoided giving information in documents that might have led to their mixed race being found out..
Another issue which is much in the news today is a family’s links to Slavery, no one wants to find a slave owner amongst their ancestors. Frances said that University College London had researched slave owners from those who were compensated when they freed slaves when it was abolished. They found that the term Jamaican Merchant was used to indicate a Slave owner.
Frances ended with the case of Alice who must have looked good for her age as she married a second husband who was in his early 40s when she was 54 but masquerading as 39. The same Alice had quite a lot of secrets to lie about. She became pregnant by the boy next door and they were both disowned by their families. They moved to another part of London, lied that they were of full age when they were married. But they seemed to do OK as they had a business selling Dressing Cases which was a luxury item at that time. To attract more business Alice started to give her place of birth on censuses as Paris and Frances commented that she could almost hear her Allo! Allo! false accent when serving customers. They became Jewellery merchants but as they only had one servant when others had two Frances thought they were probably not as well off as they were appearing to be. This was confirmed when Robert the husband died in what he was able to leave his wife Alice. She then married a second husband lied about her age being 39 when in fact she was 54! Frances said she must have been a looker to have pulled that off. Although, the marriage ended in a divorce. Alice said in her statement that her husband came home one day they had words and he left!
In summing up Frances said it was important to have an open mind about what we find and question ourselves, “is it how it is?” Some people will refuse to believe their ancestor was a murderer or rapist but she advised us to get the skeletons out of the attic and dispel the toxic effect of the past.
About the speaker: Dr Frances Hurd is a historical researcher with a background in publishing, heritage and academia.
After a short break the 51st AGM was underway as planned at 11:30am. The names of the Executive Officers and Committee were read out by President Peter Ewart who took the chair during the election of the committee for 2025/2026. There is only one unfilled place for an ordinary committee member and if anyone would like to come on the committee to fill that place they can be coopted so please contact the Chairman.
Peter proffered his thanks on behalf of all members of KFHS for all that the Executive do to keep the Society running in difficult times. He said he recognised they had particular difficulties in the past couple of years and he hoped that the future year will be much smoother. The Accounts were agreed as were the proposed changes to the Constitution. Chairman Viv Carter said that next year there would be more changes to the constitution to bring it in to line of what we actually do now with online meetings etc. A full report of the meeting with a breakdown of the voting will appear in the next Journal. The meeting finished at 12:15pm.
The 52nd AGM of the Society will take place on Saturday 24th October 2026. full details will be announced closer to the date.
Report by: Tricia Baxter