True or False?

Most of us have a few family stories that have persisted.  Mum told us something her mother told her and we tell our children. The story becomes family lore. Maybe even family LAW.

Daily Herald (London) 10 Sep 1956

One of my mother's stories was that her great grandmother was Sarah Glenister and Sarah lived to be 100 years old and received 10 pounds of grapes from the Queen.  There was even a 1956 newspaper clipping from England to prove it. Gosh! Our family in the newspaper! It must be true!  AND ... we had a photo of great-great grandma Sarah, looking very severe in a high buttoned blouse.

My mother died in 2000 and it wasn't until a few years after that I seriously began to tracing my maternal relatives. I'd known my grandmother, one of the people I most admire ... but that's another story. And Mum had often spoken of her grandmother, Alice Higbed, born Alice Glenister.  Alice emigrated from England in 1915 as a widow, arriving in Australia on the same ship as her daughter, Evelyn, and Evelyn's husband Charles Brooker. Evelyn and Charles were my mother's parents.

I knew Alice had been born in England about 1860 as she died in 1936 aged 76.  But I couldn't find her birth registration.    Let's do a little bit of maths.... Alice's mother turned 100 in 1956... um that makes her birth year 1856. Hang on, how can that be? Alice was born in 1860 so her mother would have only been 4?

I ordered the marriage certificate of Alice Glenister and William Higbed from 1880. Alice's father was shown as John Glenister but Alice had signed her name Alice Maydon [sic] Glenister. The light was beginning to dawn.  I found Alice's birth in 1880 as Alice "Maydom" and, on ordering the birth certificate, found that her mother was Emma Maydom but no father was listed.

From there it was relatively easy to establish that Emma Maydom married John Glenister in 1864 and they had three sons. The eldest son, John, married Sarah Jane Fryer in 1887 and Sarah became Sarah Jane Glenister. It would seem that the Sarah Glenister who my mother thought was her great-grandmother was actually her grandmother's step sister-in-law.

Here's a little diagram to help you visualise the relationships:

Elizabeth West             Emma Maydom .............. m    John Glenister
|                                    |                                          |
William Higbed    m    Alice Maydom                  John Glenister   m  Sarah Jane Fryer
                                |
                               Evelyn Higbed (my grandmother)

But we're not quite finished as Sarah Jane Fryer gives her birth year in various censuses as 1861, 1862 or 1863 which doesn't fit with her turning 100 in 1956.  Unless she stretched the truth a little. That is a problem for another day but for the moment I have proven that my great-great grandmother was Emma Maydom born 1860 and not Sarah Glenister born 1856.

And who was the woman in the photo? That mystery is still be be solved. She could be Emma Maydom (my grandmother's maternal grandmother) but the is no resemblance to Alice Maydom, so I suspect she is my grandmother's paternal grandmother, Elizabeth West.

So don't blindly believe all those fascinating family stories. Check them out for yourself and more likely than not you'll find the truth is even more intriguing.