Tag: #history

“Born On The High Seas”

One thing I’ve been doing with my spare time lately is digging into some family genealogical history. That means I’ve been running search after search on some provincial archive websites for the past few weeks.

At one point the other day I had tracked down some records relating to my great grandmother. Emphasis on the “some.” A couple of records that I was looking for were proving elusive.

Eventually I found a record where great-grandma had given an attestation for the birth of my grandfather’s sister, which she signed with the surname “Rose.” Nothing odd about that, except my g-grandfather’s surname was McLean and her maiden name was Flynn. This might explain why I can’t find her death records by searching for Flynns and McLeans.

So, I dug a bit deeper, and I found a marriage registration between my great-grandmother and a gentleman named, no surprise, Rose. A wedding that was witnessed by my grandfather and his sister and that took place when both the bride and groom were 75 years old. Three weeks before the groom’s death, according to another record I found registered with the province. Huh. Well, it was the 1950s, so I guess things were different back then?

Anyhow, I have more free time than I know what to do with nowadays, so I ran some queries on young Mr. Rose as well. I quickly found another record relating to his parents that showed his mother was from Northern Ireland, and that his father was born… literally, and I’m quoting here… “On the high seas.”

I bet there were some interesting stories that came out of that family history!

Archived birth certificate showing child's father was born on the high seas.
Archived birth certificate showing child’s father was born on the high seas.

Suffice it to say, this was a much-too-long way to get to the joke this reminded me of:

I’m not saying ships were slow back then, but ships were so slow back then that a heavily pregnant woman approached the captain one day and says “I need a doctor, I’m going to have a baby!”

The captain says to the woman, “Ma’am, you shouldn’t have gotten on board the ship in that condition!”

To which the woman replies: “I didn’t!”

Anyone else got a funny/strange/unexpected story from their family’s past that they care to share? I’d love to hear it!

Follow The Tim Traveller

You really should check this guy out.

With all the wandering around Paris that I do, often followed by Tim posting a video he shot in places I was recently meandering around, I’m kind of surprised that I haven’t bumped into him yet.

In any event, give his YouTube channel a follow. He’s pretty knowledgeable, not to mention entertaining.

Come for the underwater swimming “apparently wasn’t a great spectator sport”, stay for the “Olympic pigeon shooting, and you’ll notice I did not say ‘clay’ pigeons.”

I’ll have the elephant, medium rare

A Christmas menu, 99th day of the siege. Unusual dishes include stuffed donkey's head, elephant consommé, roast camel, kangaroo stew, antelope terrine, bear ribs, cat with rats, and wolf haunch in deer sauce.
Alexandre Étienne Choron, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

One of the things I regularly do when I’m in Paris is just wandering through its neighborhoods, wandering aimlessly while on the lookout for some hidden historical gem. As a bit of a history nerd, no matter where I go, there’s always something new to discover, even if it’s not where I originally planned to end up.

Take one day last year. I started out to take my usual walk through the Bois de Boulogne, but—classic me—when I passed Hippodrome Longchamp, on a whim I decided to turn left and crossed the Seine, thinking I was heading for Saint-Cloud, (more on Saint-Cloud in a future post) but no, I found myself in Suresnes, a town just north of Saint-Cloud. It wasn’t exactly on the agenda, but hey… daily discovery achievement unlocked!

Now, about Suresnes… it’s a charming place, I’m sure, but even less pedestrian-friendly than Paris or Boulogne. Especially around the bridge where traffic was buzzing and construction was everywhere. This wasn’t turning into the peaceful nature walk I would have been enjoying in the Bois de Boulogne, so I did what any good explorer would do: I headed for higher ground. After all, the higher you go, the quieter it gets—I hoped.

I climbed the steep streets, the noise started to fade, and soon enough, I found myself in a residential area, and then—thankfully—surrounded by green space and playgrounds. Near the top, I was rewarded with a sweeping view of Paris, and, in true “let’s-see-where-this-goes” fashion, I detoured down a pathway into a large park.

A quick glance at Google maps revealed I was standing in Parc du Mont Valérien. Another discovery! As I read on, I found out there’s a fortress at the top of the hill, Forteresse du Mont-Valérien, which has a whole history of its own, not least of which was during the 1870 Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. Naturally, I fell down a Wikipedia rabbit hole.

Here’s where things get wild. During the siege, Paris was completely blockaded by the Prussian forces, and the food situation got dire. So bad, in fact, that once the Parisians finished eating all of the cats, dogs and horses in the city, they turned to eating some of the animals from the Jardin des Plantes zoo. Yeah, I had to read that couple of times too. We’re talking Côtes d’Ours (Bear Ribs), Chat flanqué des Rats (Cat with Rats), and Cuissot de Loup, Sauce Chevreuil (Haunch of Wolfwith a Deer Sauce) showing up on menus. It’s almost unimaginable now.

As for the elephants, their names were Castor and Pollux, and according to some survivors of the siege, they weren’t particularly appetizing.