Vote the Diary

[MayBea]

The fact that anne won't allow any DNA testing speaks volumes to me my dear

It tells me she's a puritan pilgrim like her grandmother...

[pinkmoon]

It tells me she's a puritan pilgrim like her grandmother...

Mystery solved.

[Kaz]

The fact that anne won't allow any DNA testing speaks volumes to me my dear

You can read into it what you please but it doesn't 'prove' anything.

Its frustrating as hell, a few small acts could tie up all these loose ends.

[RivkahChaya]

However, I, for one, still believe that Mrs. Barrett's is a descendant of Florence Maybrick. Feldman discovered the trail of the Diary through the step-mother.

Have you seen pictures of Anne? I think her picture was consistent with those of Florence and her mother.

A simple DNA test would prove if she is related to Florence's family, and even if she is of Colonial American extraction.

We have a databank of colonial American DNA? really? that's such a vague designation-- I mean, we might have a databank of Mayflower descendants, or Jamestown colonists, but the colonial era was a long stretch, and the term "colonial American" included both people born here, and people who arrived here from other places during that time, not all of whom were originally from what is now the UK. It also included people who worked here, but traveled back and forth a lot. There were people who were born in England, and died there, but still considered themselves "colonists," because they worked here during the greater part of their adult lives.

Cripes, one branch of my father's family can lay claim to the title "colonist," and belonged to the oldest synagogue in the Americas, the one that received a letter from George Washington, promising them a place in a free nation. Heck, I could probably join the DAR. "Colonist" does not equal "Puritan," albeit, that's what most of the very earliest colonists were, but by the decades just prior to the revolution, the proto-US was a very secular place.

[MayBea]

Ancestry.com has a DNA project you can participate in for 99 dollars. I believe the test can determine familial matches up to fifth cousin. So you can find your relatives already on the site's database.

http://dna.ancestry.com/

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Florence Maybrick could trace her ancestry to Jamestown like Winston Churchill. His mother was American.

Any indigenous genes in someone in the UK would also be a tell-tale sign of colonial descent.

[Paddy]

Florence

"Florence Elizabeth Maybrick widow of James Maybrick deceased" was born in Mabill? Alabama in 1861 her father was a native of USA.
according to her request to leave USA in 1906. It also states she is a literary writer and that she would be away for two months.
Anybody can see this on Ancestry USA (including her writing)
I suppose it could be possible that Florence was forced to aid her husbands addiction until his death and wanted to show her anger at being accused of murder?
It could also be possible that Mr Barratt did not know the diary was a fake?
If Mr or Mrs Barrett were descended from her I am sure it would have been discovered, wouldn't it?

Pat..............................

[Bridewell]

Come on everyone vote!If you don't vote you can't moan about the diary.

You can, you know!

[pinkmoon]

You can, you know!

You're right

[GUT]

You can't moan.

Why not?

Everyone else seems to.

[Kaz]

"Florence Elizabeth Maybrick widow of James Maybrick deceased" was born in Mabill? Alabama in 1861 her father was a native of USA.
according to her request to leave USA in 1906. It also states she is a literary writer and that she would be away for two months.
Anybody can see this on Ancestry USA (including her writing)
I suppose it could be possible that Florence was forced to aid her husbands addiction until his death and wanted to show her anger at being accused of murder?
It could also be possible that Mr Barratt did not know the diary was a fake?
If Mr or Mrs Barrett were descended from her I am sure it would have been discovered, wouldn't it?

Pat..............................

Yes, all of those things.

[MayBea]

...If Mr or Mrs Barrett were descended from her I am sure it would have been discovered, wouldn't it?

Paul Feldman found plenty of evidence in this regard, as pointed out by Livia Trivia here:

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=14290&page=14

Alice, I believe, would be Alice Graham, the adoptive mother of William Graham.

[Livia]

Hi MayBea,

No, the Alice referred to in that post
was the step daughter (or possibly the
daughter) of William Graham. She is listed
as Mary Alice on the 1911 census. She was a child of
3 or 4 in 1910-11 when a well dressed lady visited
her mother, Rebecca Jones Graham.

Alice Spence Graham, William's mother, was
still living in Hartlepool in 1911 and according
to William's children, they did not know their
grandparents. Alice Spence Graham had 11
children, 9 of whom lived to adulthood.

So I guess it depends on how much faith you
put in Alice's memory of seeing Florence when
she was a very young child.

After researching the Graham records that
are available to me, I haven't found anything
that would indicate William Graham was not
the son of Adam and Alice Spence Graham,
therefore, I do not now believe that the diary was
a Graham family heirloom.

If Keith Skinner says he can prove the diary came
out of Battlecrease, then that's good enough for me.

Liv

[MayBea]

]

... I haven't found anything
that would indicate William Graham was not
the son of Adam and Alice Spence Graham,
therefore, I do not now believe that the diary was
a Graham family heirloom...

What about the provenance through Billy Graham's step-mother, Edith Formby through her mother, Elizabeth Formby? She had a laundry near Battlecrease and allegedly fenced items stolen from there.

[caz]

It could also be possible that Mr Barratt did not know the diary was a fake?

It's pretty inconceivable that Mike Barrett knows any more than anyone else who wrote it, when or why. Why should he? He was left totally on his own, free to do whatever he wanted with it, but with not a bloody clue.

Love,

Caz
X

[Livia]

]
What about the provenance through Billy Graham's step-mother, Edith Formby through her mother, Elizabeth Formby? She had a laundry near Battlecrease and allegedly fenced items stolen from there.

Yes that's the story according to the Grahams. They'd also have
us believe that the diary was in their possession for almost forty
years, moved from house to house and no one read it, until
1968-69 when Anne read some of it and found it "interesting".
Then in 1989, Billy gives the diary to Anne and she hides it
until at some vague point in May or June of 1991, she reads
it and decides to give it to Tony Devereaux, whom by her own
admission she barely knows, to give to her husband with the
instruction to "do something with it." At this point, neither
Barrett knows who wrote it, or anything about Battlecrease
or the Maybricks. But according to Anne's story the diary
has been in the family for years. For all she knows, the diary
could have been written by her great grandfather or some other
relative, yet she gives it to a near stranger?

Compare the above story to the one told by Shirley Harrison
in the 2010 edition of her book, where in 1997 Robert Smith
travels to Liverpool to interview Tim Martin-Wright.

Occam's razor.