Jeremy Kyle meets Who Do You Think You Are

[diglett]

On 7th January, 1899, 22 year old Annie Catherine Elsegood committed suicide. After a bitter argument with her husband of barely six weeks, during which he had packed a bag and walked out, telling Annie he was going to be single again, Annie had placed her wedding ring on the table and gone to the level crossing in Southchurch. Annie was hit by

Comments

[smogo]

My user icon is a picture of you when you meet David.

[diglett]

There are other ways of extracting DNA, you know!

[wildean_heart]

You are so good at this! I've had a bit of a go but am really struggling. Poor girl though, it does sound like she had a rough time of it.

[diglett]

It is a bit of an obsession and I have spent a lot of time and money on it. Keeps me out of trouble! If there's anything I can help you with feel free to send me what you know and I will have a go.

[picosgemeos]

I must talk to you about this when I'm back! I'd love to get into my family's genealogy. Very impressed - you could turn this into a book...

[diglett]

Yours would be fascinating, all those exotic nationalities in there!

[missfairchild]

What an amazing story, and congratulations to you for unravelling this much of the mystery to date. You've inspired me to do some detective work within my own family, when I have the time (i.e. not until September 2015).

There's a really big genealogical mystery just two generations up from me, and while the surviving siblings don't have any information (things like this were Not Talked About back then), the recent death of an uncle uncovered photographs, a death certificate and a cache of letters that would be a good starting point.

[diglett]

Ooh I love a good mystery. Good luck with the unravelling!

[sushidog]

Wow, there's some proper detective work in there, well done!

I did a little bit of digging into my family tree earlier this year, prompted by my mother giving me a ring which had belonged to her aunt, but which dates back to the 19th century and has someone's initials on it; I never did figure out who it might have belonged to though. So once you've solved your own family mysteries if you want someone's else's to have a go on, let me know! :-)

[diglett]

I would be only too pleased to help, if you want me to have a go just email me what you know! Though sod's law says that your aunt nicked the ring ;-)

[sushidog]

I must be able to send you my ancestry.com info, right? I worked out a fair bit of the family tree. I _think_ the ring was made in either 1853 or 1893 (the hallmark is hard to read) but I couldn't find any significant dates for anyone with the right initials around that time. My aunt never married, but turned out to have quite a few rather nice pieces of jewellery, so I do wonder whether she was a sort of female Raffles, pulling of jewellery heists while maintaining the illusion of being a nice little old lady.

[tvor]

There's a document floating around my family somewhere that shows a line from my paternal grandmother back to one of the Norman knights that killed Thomas a Beckett though we're all a bit skeptical about it. We are sure, however, that my 9 times great grandfather in that same line was the last person burned to death as a heretic in Litchfield in 1612.

[diglett]

God proper drama there! I have supposedly traced my tree up and down to the Queen, demonstrating that I am her 21st cousin twice removed, but I am a bit skeptical because things get a bit sketchy when you go that far back. I am definitely related to Isaac Newton though. Must be where I get my brains from, ha ha.