I'm a recent newcomer to Family History, having got started only a couple of years ago. One of my father’s cousins has researched my father’s family tree, and has managed to trace it back to around 1715, and I suppose that seeing such a large number of relatives and ancestors was the one of the initial influences which set me going.

    My mothers maiden name was Crabbe, and the story has always been in the family that we're related to the famous poet George Crabbe (famous?! - who else do you know who's heard of him ?). He was reputed to be a great-great- - -uncle. This theory was backed up by my memory of a number of first editions of the poets work which my aunt had and which had been in the family as long as anyone could remember, and by some poems written by my great grandfather. When I found a biography of George Crabbe at a book fair (another of my weaknesses) I couldn't resist buying it just to find out a bit about him.

    It was hard going reading it, because much of the book was a commentary on his poems (and having read them I can understand why he is no longer famous - although he was and still is a very important poet). But this is what really got me going. Are we really related to the famous poet ? I set out to discover whether or not we were.

    In the time honoured way, I talked to all my relatives - what could they tell me about the family ? It turned out to be not much, but it did give me a start. I had my grandfather’s name and those of his wife, and a few of his brothers and sisters, my great grandfather’s name and two of his brothers, and my great grandfather’s name and a possible name for his wife. I had a few copies of certificates and that was it. The first thing to do was to check out what I had got.

    It was easy to check the few details I had with Saint Catherine’s House, obtain certificates and prove that what I had been told was correct. But it soon became very evident that there were a lot more Crabbes and Crabbs (and I already had both spellings in the family tree), and surely some of them must be related.

    Then I had a stroke of luck. I learned that there was a one-name study of Crabb(e), and so I wrote to John Crabbe. He was very modest - "I am one of the newcomer grades ....I'm not in a position to be too much help yet". How wrong he was. He was able to supply me with masses of information, and from that I selected what seemed reasonable guesses as members of my family, checked them out at St Catherine’s, and soon had about 50 members of my family. Would you believe my great grandfather turned out to be a triplet!

From the biography of George Crabbe I had managed to draw up a tree of the poets immediate family, and John gave me more information about the poets relatives, so that I had quite a good picture of who we could be related to. [See Issue 1 of "The Crabbery" for the tree]. It could only be Robert Crabbe (b 1758), William Crabbe (b 1763) or John Crabbe (b 1768).

    I knew from the biography that William Crabbe went to sea, was captured by the Portuguese and taken to Mexico, where he married and never returned, so I felt I could rule him out. I knew from biography that John Crabbe also went to sea, married the ship owners daughter and died at sea on his next voyage (after he was cast adrift by his crew) and the IGI showed John Crabbe marrying Margaret Deare in Liverpool in 1796 and having a daughter in 1797. So that ruled him out too.

    That only left Robert Crabbe. John had told me that Robert had been married twice, and that his wives were Mary Julians and Jane Pyett. He told me there were children from the first marriage but not from the second, but he could not tell me the children’s names. I knew that Robert had lived in Southwold in Suffolk, where he was a glazier so I now had enough information to see if I could find my missing link.

    Without too much trouble I convinced my family that Lowestoft was a wonderful place to spend a long weekend, so we packed the tent and off we went. The library in Lowestoft has all the parish registers for the surrounding district, and I was itching to get my hands on them. As soon as I could I was in there. Amazingly Robert Crabbe and his family almost leapt out of the registers at me. His children were George Crabbe (born 1783, d 1849, both in Southwold, with no mention of marriage or children in between) and Mary Crabbe (b 1785, d 1786). Was George who I was looking for ? It didn't look as though it was very likely.

    Just for good measure, I checked out the poets family to make sure that he didn't have any more brothers (or sisters), and he didn't. So now I know, we aren't related to the poet, unless of course it's further back in his family. I'm still looking.

    And my family tree ? Well I now have around 200 members, most of the Crabbe lines seem to have died out, there are still just a few left, and I've now got back to my great great great great great grandfather, who by coincidence is called Robert Crabb (without an E) and was born in about 1720 (but I don't know where !).

    John Cooper

  [Editor’s note 1 - also an unfounded & unprovable legend in my family and those of several other correspondents.]

  [Editor’s note 2 - I was delighted to welcome this contribution from John Cooper - he has been one of the major contributors of new data to the Crabbe database. I hope it will encourage others to ‘have a go’ at writing about their experiences as well. (Incidentally John, my thanks for the unsolicited plug!)]

  "Don’t Believe All You Hear (2)" which deals with John’s following up of another ‘old family story’ and to where he was led on that particular chase, can be found under Vol 2.3.