The Silent Scream

(*Image from www.leopoldmuseum.org)

Anybody who is researching a family tree will be aware of the times that the lack of progress with certain family lines can infuriate you. Your research seems to come to a full stop, no matter how many different sources you are looking for in parish records, nothing is coming to light. 

It can be made more difficult when there is already some faulty research in existence, along with Chinese Whispers of family or local oral tradition. 

I'm in the middle of trying to cut through a fog of myths about a distant relative, who, long ago, committed a terrible crime. Lots of sources exist about him, and the events surrounding the case... But what is true and what is not? 

That he committed the crime is not in doubt. It is confusing about how he received folklore status and was thought to be a victim, as the brutal way he killed his wife of only a few weeks shouldn't award him that accolade. 

The parish records of the time have his birth, marriage and death, but don't show a brother being born to the same parents as him, instead, a first cousin with all the correct details. Unlikely that the record transcriptions would be that wrong. That set my mind on a tangent, and I wondered if fostering was as common in the lower classes at the time. As a foster brother may well be referred to as a 'brother'. 

He is also said to have had an illegitimate child, but this isn't recorded either in the parish records and they are full of other examples, so it would have been entered. 

It is possible that I will never untangle the history behind the mystery, but it is fun (even if frustrating) to try.