LONDON-L Archives

Archiver > LONDON > 2005-12 > 1135284155


From: Charani <>
Subject: Re: [Lon] Off-Topic
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 20:44:47 +0000
References: <001501c60726$c4bb9fe0$0300a8c0@S0029130613> <43AB0984.5090209@pedleynets.net>
In-Reply-To: <43AB0984.5090209@pedleynets.net>


Diane wrote:

> I too am enjoying the conversation. I don't have anything to add to it;
> but I'm enjoying it.
> Right now there isn't much going on "genealogically" speaking. I'm very
> fortunate to live 1.9 miles from one of only 14 of the large US LDS
> libraries. But they are closed this week. They should actually stay
> closed an additional week as they work so hard.

You're right, there isn't much going on, nor that could since it's now
only 3 days to the celebration of Christ's birth
>
> I have a question that maybe everyone else would know, but I don't. And
> that is, the British accents that my ancestors would have had.
>
> My GGG Grandfather was born in London (this is what I'm trying to prove)
> 1766ish. Is it possible to figure out what kind of accent he might have
> spoken with? I haven't proven yet, my GGG Grandmothers' birth, but I
> think it was also London. Judging from his will I think it's very safe
> to say he was well off. One of the homes he had (in London) was Grove
> Road - Mile End. I don't know how to interpret that as an address. I
> don't know if it would refer to one house, or a road where there were
> many houses. But I saw a copy of a notice to sell it a few years after
> he had died. I think he had that house for some time. So anyway, that
> would be the area he lived in.
> And I guess if anyone wants to take a guess, they'll have to give me a
> movie star example; because if you said, for instance, that he would
> have a "suchandsuch" accent; it wouldn't mean anything to me.

Grove Road, Mile End would have been a road with a number of houses in
it. He would have owned one of them, maybe more than one.

If your GGG Grandfather was born in Mile End, which is the East End,
that's the kind of accent he would have had, an East End one. Rather
like Michael Caine possibly. It's possible that he could have been a
Cockney as well.

Don't think that East End = Cockney and vice versa because that's not
entirely true. Most East Enders are Cockneys and most Cockneys are
East Enders. Anyone who was born within the sound of Bow Bells is a
Cockney irrespective of whether they are East Enders. I'm a Cockney
because I was born within the sound of Bow Bells, but I'm not an East
Ender although that's where some of my family were in the 1880s :))

Arguably there are no Cockneys now since the bells of St Mary le Bow
were silenced during the War but you try telling a Cockney that!! :))

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