Well, I'm about forebeared out now. Three days buried in old records have taken their toll. But information has been gleaned, new relatives discovered and previously thought of relatives discarded as impostors.
Such is genealogy. The ultimate Cold Case mystery. And filled to the brim with unreliable witnesses.
One case in point is my great grandfather. He was born in 1833 or maybe 1824 or even 1827. The reason - his age changed at every census. And it wasn't just him. Sometimes he was the same age as his wife, sometimes four years older and sometimes three years younger. Time was definitely more flexible in the Victorian era.
As was place of birth. Sometimes he'd say one parish, sometimes another. And my grandmother's name ... that started off as Rose Anna, changed to Rosa when she was 7 and Rose when she was 18.
But perhaps the strangest unreliable witness turned out to be my grandfather whose height oscillated between 5' 6" and 5' 9" over a period of 17 years. Never 5' 7" or 5' 8" always 5' 6" or 5' 9".
Not that that was the strangest fact I found out about him. I was sampling the multitude of records that Ancestry have when I noticed that his name cropped up on the US immigration files. Now, Jesse Pelham Dolley is not a common name. And, as far as I knew, he'd never emigrated to the US. But there he was entering New York in 1922.
And 1929, 1938 and 1939.
I was astonished. Either he was ficklest immigrant the world had ever seen or the most deported.
I was wrong. He was a sailor. And US immigration were staffed by people who loved collecting data. I couldn't believe it. Every crew member who arrived in the States, even if they were staying on the boat, had their name, rank, age, years at sea, height, weight, tattoos and name of parrot written down.
Well, perhaps not name of parrot, but everything else was there. Which is how I discovered his fluctuating height. His weight, however, did not fluctuate. It increased, gaining 21 pounds over the 17 years. No tattoos though. In fact there was a distinct dearth of tattoos - less than 10% of sailors had one.
The one solace for lovers of the stereotypical is a possible explanation for my grandfather's fluctuating height. A spare, and three inches longer, wooden leg.
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Ancestry.com are opening their doors for three free days - which is both a mouthful and a bargain this person couldn't refuse. So, I might be knee deep in family records for the next three days.
But I do have a good excuse.
I started researching my family tree back in the 70s, tracking down parish records, travelling all over the country until ... disaster. I'd traced my family back to the tiny village of Betchworth, relatives were on every page of the parish register until ... a torn page. And a note in the margin saying that all the pre-1760 entries had unfortunately been destroyed when a dog (unnamed) decided that the parish register trunk was just the kind of place to give birth in.
Naturally I suspected a conspiracy. A ruse to hide a secret marriage between one of my forebears and a Prince of the Realm. I didn't realise how close to the truth I'd been.
Close that is in a lateral, several-generations-removed kind of way.
I wasn't exactly related to the Royal Family. I was related to Tarzan.
For those who find this hard to believe, here's the evidence: In 1105, in Hook Norton, Oxfordshire, Robert d'Oilli, constable of Oxford Castle married Edith Sigulfson, daughter of Lord Greystoke.
And we all know who Lord Greystoke is.
My only problem was proving the link between the Norman baron whose father fought with William at Hastings ... and the illiterate brickworkers living in 1760 Surrey.
But I'd seen Alex Haley's Roots. Could I produce my own book Branches - one man's search to prove his link to the King of the Jungle?
So began my hunt to find Kunte Cnut and Chicken Godgifu. Or failing those, Cheetah.
It's pretty well documented that the origin of the Dolley name is via D'Oyley and d'Ouilly. And I've even visited the village in Calvados where the name comes from (It's called Pont D'Ouilly now and before that Ouilly le Basset)
But that vital medieval link still eludes me. Maybe I should try Africa?
A Royal Postscript: just to show how close I was to finding a royal ancestor (other than the King of the Jungle) Edith Sigulfson was Henry I's mistress and bore him a son, the Baron of Okehampton. So royal blood flows in a cousin, several bastards removed.
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