Unexpected information from a Chelsea pensioner

I first met the Forscutt family more than forty years ago when I began my interest in family history. My grandmother knew that her mother's maiden name was Forscutt. She thought her grandmother was named Elizabeth, but couldn't remember her grandfather's name. She knew her mother's date of birth, so I obtained her birth certificate and discovered she was illegitimate. This was not something a teenage boy wished to discuss with his Victorian grandmother, so the certificate was quietly placed in a drawer. Twenty odd years later, I was regularly visiting my great aunt and talking with her about family history. I learned that the lack of father for my great grandmother and her siblings was no secret.

She passed on to me a lot of stories and information about that side of the family together with some photos. These included a photo from a family wedding from around 1900 which showed numerous family members who she could name. She also gave me the results discovered by another researcher who had traced the family back quite a few generations. I was able to confirm the first few generations, but the earlier ones needed access to a distant record office, so this had to wait for another day.

Included in the family photo was my great aunt's great uncle Bob, who she said was a Chelsea pensioner. Recently the service papers of the Chelsea pensioners have become available on-line. I looked for him and sure enough, there was a Robert Forscutt born in the right place. But there was a snag. He gave a different name for his father from the one that I had in my records. And he said his father was living in Dublin, which didn't square with anything I thought I knew. This whole line will need a rather major rethink!