I recently joined a fabulous group of women for a global writing challenge—Gail from Is This Mutton (UK) Deb from Deb’sWorld (Australia), Jill from Grown Up Glamour, Mary Katherine from MK’s Adventures in Style (USA), Penny from Frugal Fashion Shopper (UK), Australian blogger Sue Loncaric from Women Living Well After 50, Leslie Clingan from Once Upon a Time and Happily Ever After and Marsha from Marsha In The Middle. On the third Thursday of every month we’ll respond to the prompt “Tell Us About XXX” which could cover any subject matter. It could be a blog post with opinions or memories; a poem, photos, anything at all. Last month, the challenge was Friends and Friendships and was prompted by Penny. This month, Jill chose the fascinating prompt of…family history.
Quite a number of years ago, one of my uncles decided to delve into our family history and discovered a rather intriguing ancestor who had been quite well known…for all the wrong reasons! His name was Sammy Morton and he was an infamous highwayman!
If you’re unsure what a highwayman was, let me enlighten you—he was a robber who patrolled the roads during the 17th and 18th centuries. They’d stop travellers and swipe their belongings, often dressing in finery and putting on a bit of a spectacle. Despite the romanticised portrayal, they were essentially just criminals making life difficult for people trying to go about their business. Shocking right? Above are some dubious images of highwaymen created by Leonardo AI…some of the horses have only three legs lol! But this one is quite dashing (despite having an odd eye) lol!!
Whenever I think of highwaymen, it’s actually Adam Ant that always springs to mind due to his Stand and Deliver song and video. Do you remember it (I’m showing my age now, aren’t I?!)? That’s how I imagine Sammy Morton to look lol
Despite Morton being a bad guy, I loved his name so much that I actually used it for one of the good guys in my Raven Witch Saga novels! What? It’s a great name lol!
As for other family history, sadly I don’t have much else to tell you about. With me moving to Portugal when I was just ten years old, I hardly ever saw much of my other relatives and when you’re young you tend not to be interested in finding out until it’s too late. And with my mum passing away so young (she was in her early 30s, when I was just 13), I don’t know any of her ancestry, either. But if you’re keen to read more about family history, check out the others bloggers in this global writing challenge…
When Sue from Women Living Well After 50, looked at this month’s Tell Us About prompt, she didn’t think she would have much to write about. Then she discovered a surprise ancestor in her family tree and is planning to do some digging. https://www.womenlivingwellafter50.com.au/family-history-discovering-a-surprise-ancestor/
Jill’s summary explores her family roots and like many Australian families there is a mix of early free settlers and convicts. Grown Up Glamour.
Unexpected visitors led to an unexpected, and surprising, family history connection. Cue lots of information flowing backwards and forwards and DNA testing done now awaiting results. Read more at www.debs-world.com
Marsha’s great-great-uncle was the eleventh President of the United States, she thinks. She also thinks her dad could have gotten into West Point if only her Grandma Rose had pulled some strings. Read more about what Marsha thinks she knows on her blog! https://marshainthemiddle.com/
Gail from Is This Mutton was an early uploader of DNA to find more ancestors. Has it worked? Find out at https://www.isthismutton.com
Penny goes slightly left field and instead of writing about a distant ancestor found in the family tree she tells us about the process of writing a story about her mother, and a mystery….. She hopes that this qualifies as family history! https://frugalfashionshopper.co.uk/
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