Hi Ruby,
Throughout the past 122 years many people have claimed some sort of real or imaginary "romantic" attachment to the Ripper murders.
As a personal experience of the allure these murders hold for some, allow me to cite the instance of a friend of mine, now dead, who had the same name as one of the witnesses in the Whitechapel murders. Otherwise successful, intelligent and level-headed, my friend spent enormous amounts of time, effort and money trying to establish a genealogical link with this witness, and was severely crestfallen to eventually discover that their similarity of names was mere coincidence.
As sophisticated and all knowing as 21st Century society likes to think itself, there persists in our collective pysche a dark place where myths and monsters roam free, and this is a big part of the reason why so many people remain unwilling to accept the possibility of a more prosaic solution to the Whitechapel murders being found.
Our choice is simple: subscribe to the myth and continue to spin our wheels just talking about it, or tear it to the ground–whoever the historical casualties might be–and discover the truth.
Regards,
Simon
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Historical Chinese Whispers
We often hear about family 'verbal histories', and 'family traditions'.
There is a saying 'There's No Smoke Without Fire'...but is that even true ?
How many of these 'stories' have any link with the truth whatsoever ?
I know that in my Family, it was always said that Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy was an ancestor, and coming from the Dorset area and from a strong naval Family, it seemed likely. Still, a well researched family tree threw up no such link, nor, reading about Thomas Hardy does it even seem remotely possible.
Given the families (such as that of Nathan Shine) that recount some link to the Ripper story -should we even consider them?
Where do they come from ? how do they start ?
What are people's own experiences with these type of stories, and what do they think about them ?
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