My Victorian Ancestors' Secret Revealed | Real Stories Full-Length Documentary

[Music] could you be connected to someone famous in history are you trying to trace a family member or think an ancestor is linked to a battle royalty maybe even a scandal I'm Sean Williams and we're trying to help people find their place in the past and perhaps learn something about our own welcome to my family secrets revealed we've gathered a team of historical and ancestry experts to solve intriguing family Mysteries there is a possible connection with Polish royalty yes after pouring over birth records doing DNA tests and building family trees we wanted to have a look at your DNA you are 76 British they'll reunite people with long lost relatives prove links to famous faces we are actually related to him that's incredible and sole family puzzles about long-lost relatives we just kind of disappears from history there'll be Scandal along the way she had an affair with a member of the high clergy stories of heroism he really saw the underbelly of a World War it's a bit of an eye-opener isn't it this they'll also be unexpected reunions tears of joy [Music] and a chance for people to find out who their ancestors really were quite a lot to discover that's the biggest shock and the best one too today the hope for a royal connection the same nose eyes chin so it all kind of like fits the search for how an ancestor met his end he apparently died on the Lancaster and a dark secret hanging over a family she had five children but I believe that the youngest child wasn't hers foreign house in Bristol a historic Manor House in Somerset where people from all over the UK have been Gathering eager to have their questions answered there's a steady flow of visitors here all hoping that their stories from the past can be brought right up to date I am trying to trace my family tree and I'm trying to trace it on my mother's side I'm trying to find out about my grandfather's father I've gone back as far as 1730 and I sort of stuck there on the hunt for those answers today are our experts historian and writer Tessa Dunlop and then the fourth Bond goes down what's known as the smokestack booth detonates in the engine room and what happens next it explodes and taking on our first case DNA expert Brad Argent theater was hugely popular in the 19th century with workers in the industrial revolution wanting to find some entertainment and Macy's ancestors were right in the heart of the Victorian theater world but they also harbored a shameful Family secret and she's Keen to find out more my name is Anne Macy I live in Newport in South Wales my great-grandmother was born Elizabeth Nathan her stage name was Bessie Nathan she was an actress she went all over the world acting Bessie Nathan was an incredible woman began her acting career in 1874 and that was a time when women on the stage were considered perhaps one step above prostitutes and she met this Irish actor Charles Guilfoyle Seymour and they married in 1879 she had five children my grandmother was Margaret's Annie and my great aunt was Harriet now I found a newspaper item saying that 14 year old Harry had run away from home and that was in 1894 there is nothing in the newspapers that says she came back but in 1898 Bessie hope is born and suddenly the whole family upsticks and leaves Manchester and moves to Newport and they've got this new baby Bessie hope who was registered by Charles gilfonsimo as his daughter and I don't believe it [Music] my theory is that Harriet ran off with an actor and her mother put the notice in the newspaper to try and make her come back but I don't think she did not straight away and I think she went back home because she was pregnant with Bessie hope and her mother said don't worry we'll sort this out and her mother decided that the only way to sort this was to bring Bessie hope up as hers as Harriet's sister and to move away from where everybody knew them if it's true it's true and if it's not true I'll apologize there's my question so Ann welcome you've come here today to find out a little bit more about this handsome woman here this lady is Bessie Nathan and she had apparently five children but I believe that the youngest child wasn't hers I believe that she was the daughter of my grandmother's sister and I just want to find out if I'm right basically so what do you know about Elizabeth or Bessie I know she was born in London in 1855. I know that she lied consistently about her age that she married in 1879 in Liverpool and she married an actor called Charles Guilfoyle Seymour from then on she was Bessie Nathan on stage she was Bessie Guilfoyle she was Bessie Seymour she was Bessie Seymour Guilfoyle and she lied about where she was born she lied about how old she was um she was an actress and as my auntie view used to say she went all over the world acting and I don't think she could help us out Fred I just you think she was in an actor both on stage and off stage Oh yes totally so let's try and get a sense of what the family looks like this is a family tree so and here you are down the bottom this is your grandmother is that right then we can see right on the end here we have Bessie and you can see that Gap between Harriet in 1880 yep and Bessie in 1896 yeah so it's a little bit of a what's going on yes and Harriet runs away now how old was Harriet when she ran away she was 40 she was 14. she disappears for a couple years and then she comes back and then Betty appears on the scene and here we have Bessie's birth record and we can see here that she's definitely 1896 when Harriet ran away and when Bessie was born they're very close yes and one of the things I've been trying to find out is the fact that Betty hope is born she's registered in in Charlton and they they moved to Newport and open a fancy Goods Bazaar why do you think Harriet ran off she was appearing on the stage with her father and my grandmother her sister and I've got reviews as late as the end of November and early December 1894 when she's appearing in a play called The Way of the world I think it was and I think there was an actor um and I think he encouraged her and she ran off with him I wonder if her upbringing and you know perhaps that she had quite an independent mother created in her a sense of Independence and a strong sense of self and she felt that it was quite okay for her to run off and do that I think if she was anything like her mother she would have yeah so this document is citizenship application for the daughter Bessie hope or she appears in the document holder because she married an American Soldier and the link to America is really important because it's important for telling the story right and forgetting to the truth as to where does Bessie fit in the family and looking at your DNA and looking at the DNA of descendants of Bessie hope in America and as your cousins were able to determine exactly where Bessie fits in the family and Bessie hope is definitely the daughter of Bessie Nathan she really is she really is but that's wonderful it's this so what was Harriet doing in those years then no it's that's fabulous it's fabulous it proves that it's right that's good Bessie Nathan was telling the truth all along excellent that's brilliant thank you so much for sharing this wonderful story and for bringing to life such a wonderful character what a fantastic role model to have in your family she is the most amazing woman I've ever known thank you so much thank you man thank you so much thank you I'm three inches off the ground and floating I am just so excited because now I know it's got to be more than 10 years that this question has been hanging over who she was where she was in the generations because once you've had a thought you can't get rid of it and if you ever say it out loud then that thought becomes it becomes real and finding the answer is important well now I found the answer it's been proved that Bessie Nathan had five children and that Bessie Hope was definitely her daughter marvelous really really good having arrived today thinking that her family kept a dark secret about Bessie Hope's real mother and now leads with DNA evidence proving that Bessie's mother was in fact the woman who raised her still to come DNA expert Brad Argent looks at the fascinating life of a salty sea captain can he bring these descendants a new Fijian family it's beautiful beautiful women they're welcoming he understands their culture I cannot imagine him leading a monastic life in Fiji [Music] historian Tessa Dunlop has stepped in to help Maureen lock figure out one possible reason why her ancestor changed his name who is that handsome man in your hand yes this is my grandfather Ernest lock he's from Ireland and there's a conundrum isn't there surrounding his name yes that's correct it was confusion because our family name is log but at some point we believe he used Mullins and we're a little bit confused of where that name came from well Maureen we did extensive searches for an Earnest lock both in England and in Ireland and we came up with very little so we then decided to use the address you gave us in Battersea London better see that's right and there we discovered he wasn't living alone Ernest had company had Cornelius who we think was his brother and there were two up shires Margaret married to Leopold upshire now when we tracked back Margaret upshire it transpires that she was born Margaret Locke always okay and then we were able to connect Earnest with Margaret they were siblings his sister got married and was still living with him with her husband and so we have an Ernest lock and a Margaret lock and it so happens their mothers made a name with Mullins I see which explains why honest later on used the name Mullins because it was kicking around in his family already it was his mother's maiden name and the question of course is why did Ernest jettison the name Locke and use his mother's maiden name Mullins therein lies the Enigma now we can't definitively say why he did that we can't go into a young man's mind all that time ago but I can tell you the Ernest was no choir boy we had a rake around in his past I think all young men would prefer that we didn't rake around in their past but if you change your name you're begging for attention to be honest he was a teenager in the late 1890s and he got on the wrong side of the law we find him drawn up in front of a judge with two other Lads of a similar age I think he was 17 being thoroughly reprimanded for roughing up an Italian ice cream vendor for beating him up quite brutally in fact this wasn't without precedent immigrants were increasingly unpopular overcrowded parts of the East End and in the city areas of London Italians had come in inconsiderable numbers from the middle of the 19th century almost from often poor mountainous areas they were distinctly different in some cases they were catholic they were quite noisy sometimes they were a bit kind of unusual looking yeah now the judge saw three young Lads and he gives them a a real telling off and he says if you must be violent for God's sake join the Army and I think later on we knew that he did just that yes he did indeed so all good in the end Ernest Maureen now knows that Ernest most likely changed his name from Loch to Mullins to distance himself from his youthful misdemeanors and took the judge's advice to join the Army next a sister and brother searching for the missing pieces in the life of their seafaring ancestor my name is Ian lochby Gaskell this is my sister Valerie Valerie Moore and we're here basically to look into The Life and Times of William Lockerbie I remark a very remarkable man named William lockeby our great great great great grandfather William lockup he was an extraordinary man he was a great Adventurer he came down to Liverpool and went to sea and he ended up marooned on Islands in in the Pacific build your marriage a journal when he was marooned on Fiji about all his excavates and the skirmishes with various islands and in the introduction it is mentioned that he marries Effigy and princess I would really like to find out if that actually did happen our connections with the maritime history is very strong in terms of the shipbuilding side but what really fascinates us I think is William he ended up being becoming a ship owner and a merchant really I'd love to know more about that how he made his fortune as a merchant [Music] so Val Ian welcome Hello nice to be here so we're here today to learn a little bit more about the wonderful William Lockerbie you're going to find out now just how wonderful he was but first of all let's set the scene a little bit how are you connected to William Lockerbie this is your family tree we'll get right back to William Lockerbie your three times great grandfather and we can see that it's through the Gaskell yep connection so tell me about the gaskells and the locker piece Richard Lucas he was in the boat building business in Liverpool and he was also in partnership with Lockerbie Richard also married his daughter Jane now lock of his ship the empire was huge I think we found four boats that he owned over the period from about 1821. here is the evidence right connecting the gas called and the lockerbies Richard Luke Gaskell yep and Jane Lockerbie and the occupations you can see the gaskells ship right shipwright and Lockerbie Merchant Merchant yep and it was a particularly prosperous Union because from that Cayman Empire these are ships that we found were owned and managed by William lockerby in the Lloyd's registers now as you can see there's more than a few I'll say there is wow he's a man of means now this starts in 1823 yeah are you saying that he owned these ships are managed and owned so he may manage some of them he may have owned some of them wow but the story of William lockerby goes back to Fiji there's a journal of William lockerby's and it makes for absolutely fascinating reading it was one of these things that I couldn't put down because every page there is this adventure he does find himself marooned in Fiji uh he um was left there by the ship Jenny on American ship with six American Sailors and left to fend for himself maybe he's stuck there or maybe he chooses to stay there it's a little bit uncertain he finds himself in a position where he's captured by the natives by one of the warring tribes they negotiate with one of the tribes for release and then collectively they wage war on another tribe having the superior Firepower they are easily outnumbered he's a bit of an entrepreneur and a bit of a player and using his connections on the island he manages to get 10 tons of sandalwood and then on the 2nd of June in 1808 he boards the ship the general Wellesley and leaves Fiji he had a bit of a thing for Sandalwood he obviously made a lot of money now there's an interesting connection between well Lockerbie and pretty much everybody who was alive at that period but the one I'm interested in is his connection with the Tyrant Captain blind the son of a Plymouth Customs Officer William Bligh went to see age seven quickly becoming a skilled Seaman and a navigator by the age of 22 he was sailing under Captain Cook just 11 years later he would Captain his most notorious voyage and it's a story that was immortalized in the film The Mutiny on the Bounty it's 1789 and Bly is sailing the Bounty and Naval vessel bound from Tahiti to the Caribbean by then his reputation was that of a man with a volatile temper something that would see him thrown off his own ship the bounties First Make christian Fletcher led a mutiny which resulted in Bly and a handful of his loyal semen being cast adrift in a small boat with very meager rations four thousand miles later the highly skilled Navigator Bligh would sell them to the safety of the Dutch East Indies but when he returned to England Bly faced charges over losing his vessel although acquitted his reputation never truly recovered and by 1808 he suffered another Mutiny of sorts known as the rum rebellion and it is at this very moment in Blythe's story that our protagonist William Lockerbie steps in what can you tell me about Lockerbie and Bly well Lockerbie actually was sailing into Port Jackson which is Sydney known today and he had his own little supplier rum Captain Bligh had a bit of a regime and he didn't like this sort of activity going on his soldiers of the day who came in to inspect William lockerby's cargo tried to I would call it a bribe can we have that for one dollar a barrel and he said well no this is not right so there's a journal more or less says no Soldier not going to do it and this set the scene for not a good relationship he damned Captain Bligh and this didn't go down too well so he was sentenced to one day's imprisonment and uh he bought it he didn't actually stay in prison he bought himself out for a couple of pounds a few days later the soldiers that were serving Captain Bligh for some reason rather imprisoned him and sent him back to England to serve trial for I think probably corruption and I I'd love to know a bit more about that so there is a wonderful quote in the journal this is William lockerby's recollection of that event I feel myself more than rewarded for the loss of my 20 pounds in witnessing the downfall of the tyrant it was a fine calm evening and I expended a whole box of candles in lighting the ship for and aft as Chile directly opposite so you have to remember at this time Bly was held prisoner in his own house right out the front of it was the ship of the man that he had and tried to imprison William Lockerbie so what did Lockerbie do he lit the candles and he just stood there and went in your face blind celebration yeah and that to me is the mark of the men of this guy he's cheeky very he's arrogant very right he's a little pushy that he's got the actions to back it all up and so there's one more thing I wanted to cover off because when you when you reached out to us you asked a question about what more did he do in Fiji because isn't there a rumor that Fiji and Princess or something there is a real rumor that he married a a Fijian princess and continuously was on such good terms with the chief it's sort of quite feasible and I just wondered if there was any descendants yeah in Fiji and this is where we have to move from you know documentary evidence of which there's clearly plenty just to speculation and interpretation cannot imagine him leading a monastic life in Fiji it's beautiful beautiful women beautiful women they're welcoming he understands their culture he's accepted so we've had a look at your DNA right and of course there's no Fijian in your DNA and and there wouldn't be because you're descended from William Locke these Jane lockerby but did he have any children on the element we don't know because the records just don't exist but at some point in the future and it could be tomorrow or it could be next year you could get a match in the database with somebody who has a reasonable amount of Polynesian DNA and that will be the Smoking Gun evidence that you need to know whether or not William left a little present behind when he left Fiji thank you both so much for coming today and for sharing with us this wonderful wonderful story of William Lockerbie thank you thank you so much I've learned so much [Music] love loved every minute of it um I learned a few things more than I didn't know before for example the number of ships they had he had a lot [Music] that meant so much to me to see a little bit more history that I just didn't know I thought he had five ships no it was more than that extremely proud to be part of that story you know a long way away I know in terms of time but I'd like to think a little bits rubbed off yeah why not so Val and Ian leave not only knowing that their swashbuckling ancestors boat owning Empire was much bigger than they'd imagined but that Fijian Sandalwood also made his fortune whether William Lockerbie had any children when he was on the island of Fiji well that question can only be answered in time [Music] the sinking of HMT lancastria in 1940 was Britain's worst Maritime disaster but because it happened quite near the beginning of the second world war the news was kept from the British public Lorna holder wants to know whether her ancestor was involved my name is Lorna holder I'm from Vista which is near Oxford I wanted to find out more information about my ancestor Donald Carroll he is my grandfather's cousin I went online typed in his name I just put the basic information that I sort of knew and it came up with his name and mentioned the ship lancastria which was a ship that took a lot of the soldiers from Dunkirk he died on that ship apparently I don't know anything about him or what he was doing so I wanted to learn more about him and more information about maybe the Lancaster itself I haven't been able to do much research on that side of things either Lorna thanks so much for joining us it's okay now is your interest in one particular family member or in genealogy in general in one particular family member um Donald Carroll so we see Patrick there is your great grandfather we track and find his sister Helen and it's Helen's son Donald in other words your great grandfather's nephew clearly the story attached to Donald Carroll is pretty spectacular for you to be carrying it today in the 21st century 2018. he interests me okay tell me more um because he apparently died on the Lancaster it was a ship just out that tried to save the troops just after Dunkirk but it didn't make it home would it surprise you to hear it was in fact Britain's biggest Maritime disaster I've possibly heard that it was quite big but I don't know how big because the ones that Garner headlines of course the Titanic the licitania also was another biggie during World War One both wiped out but all those that drowned on the Titanic and those that died on the Lusitania add those numbers together and you're not touching the number they reckon that 4 000 perished on the LA castria in 1940 okay she was a Cunard white Starliner an ocean liner between the wars and she was requisitioned as many ships were for the war effort [Music] and lost her RMS title she became HMT his Majesty's trawler slightly less glamorous and it would have been a much less glamorous experience going on Border by 1940. a massive ocean liner which was there in the Loire Estuary to take home all the British refugees so civilian military Embassy members the question mark is we're sitting here now and I expect a lot of people watching like you and me until relatively recently haven't heard of this no Britain's biggest Maritime disaster there is a reason for that it's all to do with timing wartime of course distorts the great propaganda machine takes over and we have a big deal happening at the beginning of June and that is the Dunkirk Retreat we also have another big deal who's just come into power and that was Winston Churchill yeah okay it's been a premiere for I think scarcely a month and he started on his great oratory Mission we've had the blood and toils speech we've had we're going to fight him on the beaches and on the landing craft okay we've had all that people are hooked in the morale needs to be lifted we've got the boys out of France but it's a retreat okay we're on the back foot and on the 16th of June the day before the lancastria sinks Churchill gives arguably one of his most famous speeches let us separate ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years men will still say of course it was men men will still say this was their finest hour and what happens the next day respond the Nazis came very quickly bombed one two three times the ship starts to list in a matter of minutes I think in under half an hour and then the fourth bomb goes down what's known as the smokestack booth detonates in the engine room and what happens next explodes and it explodes you get over 1 000 tons of oil on the sea surface and you get more Nazi and centuries and then you have an Inferno so you have people possibly like Donald trying to jump and they're jumping into flames the ship goes down on the 17th of June it doesn't come out until much later the end of July and I think it's leaked into the American and the Scottish press of all places and here we have it's the 30th of July six weeks later and look at the tone of this it's interesting lancastria how they escaped how survivors sunk by Nazi bombs off Saint Nazir were saved so the positiveness is it the positive yeah not the bad they have that's called wartime propaganda and in fact the second article from The Daily Herald Tommy's trapped in Sinking lancastria Met Death with song what's that reminiscent of the Titanic yeah the band will play on yeah because they're all playing aren't they as they're thinking yeah so we're going to drip feed this into the media it's going to get out there in the end despite the sensor but hey oh boys are brave even when the Nazis are drowning them and blowing them up they're singing what is it roll out the barrel yeah when they weren't oh we don't know we just have to hope it was quick yeah let's now find out if your great-grandfather's nephew was indeed one of those men and women who perished here is Donald Carroll's territorial Army record of service we know from this that he joined up on the 1st of December 1939. he was born in 1919 so by 39 a 20 year old man fighting fit perfect okay the British the British army would have thought and indeed he was enrolled to the Royal Army Services Corps okay so we know that from his army record let's now go to the second document that we have because what you want to know is did this man board the Cunard the lancastria here we have Donald Carroll and I regret to say is indeed a casualty card as you suspected yeah and you can actually see the lancastria is named there he was reported missing on the 5th of July 1940. okay so about three weeks after the ship went down so we know he was on board in an army capacity and he was reported missing so he died and they want no one knew about this it was totally covered up I doubt his family knew the Press certainly didn't know can you imagine nowadays something like this happening so how do you feel about this story and and having the family rumor confirmed I'm glad we've got it confirmed so we definitely like know it was it's definitely that's how he died um it's obviously it's tragic it's not nice to think that a family member has gone through that and I dread to think what he had to go through um but I'm I'm glad we've is confirmed and we know so I'm really sorry about Donald but in a way from his watery grave he's served to remind us all of this epic loss and by Joe if they deserve to be remembered huh yeah I definitely think people should know about it people should be taught about it and they should know their history thanks so much no thank you for sharing that story bring it bringing it to our attention no thank you very much I'm sad that my ancestor Donald had to go through that and died on that ship also glad that we've kind of got it confirmed now that he definitely was there and that is how he died it's a shame I think for the amount of people that died on that ship you know everyone knows about the Titanic and there was a lot more people that died on the Lancaster way more than the Titanic and no one really knows about it so I definitely feel people should know it's affected a lot of people but it's just a very big mixture of feelings really I'll definitely make sure that I tell the story of Donald Carroll and my sons know about him and my other family members they now have confirmation and I will make sure that they know about it definitely make sure that it's not forgotten in any way possible that I can [Music] sad news but after years of uncertainty Lorna now has the confirmation she longed for her ancestor Donald Carroll was serving his country when he met his end on HMT lancastria next up who wouldn't like to have a connection to the royal family well our next visitor Beatrice Walter thinks she might have just that even though she was born in Germany I did a DNA test and I found that 26 of me is British and I have no idea where it comes from because I thought I was well more or less 100 percent German Scandinavian because my dad was tall and blonde and blue-eyed I also found a couple of years ago a picture of Queen Victoria's youngest daughter Princess Beatrice and we do look alike it's the eyes the chin the nose everybody who actually sees the pictures they all say the same and I do hope that there's some kind of connection at least a little bit to maybe the royal family as everybody wishes Beatrice yes welcome thank you for having me I'm looking at Beatrice up there and I'm looking at Petrus in front of me and you really look a lot like Princess Beatrice the same nose eyes chin so it all kind of like fits one of the interesting things about the royal family is they're not actually British as you know as you will know they are mostly German yeah and Beatrice her dad was German and her mother was half German so Beatrice is probably about 75 German herself she was the youngest of Queen Victoria's children and when Albert died Victoria looked at to Beatrice and she was her favorite as well so there's a couple of ways that we can go down this path and look for a connection there's the family tree and there's the DNA yeah so let's explore both of those parts okay so let's have a little look at your DNA results a big chunk of Eastern Europe right yeah not really a surprise coming from what you know 26 a quarter of you is Great Britain yeah right which is quite a big part for not knowing where it comes from well it's bigger than the bit of you that's technically German yeah and this is where it starts to get very interesting yeah we start to look at ethnicity and how it plays out in our genes yeah if you look at these maps you can see the bright green which is Great Britain you can see it covers the good part of the island of England but you can see it also Covers Part Central Europe Central Europe of France and of Germany so it's not that unusual to see Germans or even French people with British DNA but if we're trying to connect you to the royal family yeah through your DNA yeah we're going to need to get a sample um from the royal family which won't happen so if you could help us out with that I try my best that would be wonderful okay but we're not going to get access to that now that said it might not be the royal family it might be somebody who's more remotely connected to them but a known connection and if you get a genetic match with that person then that becomes very interesting but I want to go back to your family tree we're stepping back here and as you can see German German yeah German German German it's all very German yeah now we okay we haven't gone back a long way and it's challenging because you know access to family history records in Germany is somewhat restricted and very limited yeah and very limited and destroyed during the war yes yes indeed some of them were destroyed during the war so we can see there's a strong connection with Germany just like the royal family has a strong connection with Germany okay the fact that you're German probably increases the likelihood that you're related to the royal family than if you were British because the royal family are not British no and so whilst I can't conclusively say you are or you aren't connected what I can say is right now there's no evidence but if you build that tree back if we go up and up and back and out if you can find a connection in your family to German aristocracy that is your passport to the Palace and that's your connection back uh to your doppelganger yeah she is so weirdly we're here in Britain and you have British DNA [Music] but the answers to your question lie back in Germany because that's where the Royals lie yeah so try my best to find something well shake that tree who knows a tiara might fall out yeah hopefully it was fantastic to actually have that help and we don't know whether there's connection with the Royal House of England but I got to do my digging now in Germany and hope I gonna find some royalty in Germany which were connected to um Queen Victoria and so on I tried to find my tiara now in the German area and regions [Music] three batteries can't go down the DNA route but if she can build more branches on a family tree and find a link to aristocracy she might just get her tiara [Music] it's been an exciting day in Somerset solving Mysteries and discovering lost family but it's goodbye for now join us again soon when we'll be helping more people discover their place in history [Music] thank you

Channel: Real Stories

Views: 201,405

Keywords: DNA mysteries, Real Stories, Victorian ancestors, ancestral revelations, family heritage, family heritage revealed, family history mysteries, family history research, hidden ancestry, historical discoveries, historical experts, historical investigations, history revealed, mystery solving, revealing ancestors, secret lineage revealed, surprising heritage, surprising lineage, uncovering family stories, uncovering secrets, unknown ancestors

Id: uyzAlA7K8UM

Length: 42min 48sec (2568 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 19 2023