Many people are curious to look into their family trees, but sometimes you end up uncovering more than you bargained for. One person knows all to well how this can play out
We’re all interested in what makes us who we are.
What’s our family history? What were our ancestors like? Did we embody any particular traits from our distant relatives?
One person recently decided to dig out their family tree, and do a little research into their DNA. The only thing is, they were handed a lot more than they bargained for.
It turns out, their great-grandmother worked as a prostitute, but they were a bit confused by the job description the internet provided for her. Naturally, they took to Reddit to see if anyone could fill in the blanks in the story.
The social media user wrote: “I found this of my 3rd great grandmother!! What does prostitute infesting the phoenix park mean?” According to the picture, the details appeared in an old prison register, and it looks as though she was arrested in Ireland.
It’s the offence that grabbed the person’s attention, as the description left them chuckling. According to the website, the grandmother was arrested as she was a “prostitute infesting the phoenix park”.
Since the post was shared, it’s got hundreds of people talking, and they have been suggesting all sorts of theories. Many admitted it was quite a “funny” read, but there seems to be an explanation behind the description.
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One person replied, saying: “I’m Irish and this is quite funny to read. It just means she was caught while working as a prostitute in Phoenix Park.
“Phoenix Park is quite a large green space that sometimes holds different events like marathons etc, and it’s known for it’s wild deer that roam freely on the grounds in herds and it’s home to the house of the President of Ireland.”
Another wrote: “It doesn’t mean for fact that she was a prostitute. Sometimes homeless women if they were loitering would be picked up for ‘prostitution’. It was a way of ‘cleaning up the streets’. A lot of the women who got shipped off to the colonies for prostitution were not sex workers….just unfortunate people.”
A third replied: “My 5th great grandmother has this registered on the baptism entry of my 4th great grandfather – complete with exclamation point: Jonah B****ard Child of Susannah Smeeton a W***e! I guess they pulled no punches those days.”
Meanwhile, a fourth commented: “During this time period, many considered women prostitutes merely because they were poor and homeless, without any other evidence. Maybe your ggg grandmother was a prostitute, maybe she wasn’t.
“Honestly, I’d be skeptical. Very possible she was just homeless and living in the park.”
So, it turns out there may be more than one reason for the odd description, as times were so different back in the 1800s. The thread read like a history lesson in some parts, as so many people offered different knowledge as to what life was like at the time.
People did have a little laugh at some people’s stories though, as many seem to have been presented with similar documentation describing their ancestors. When it came to wording these things, it’s fair to say the writers didn’t hold back.
One more chimed in with: “She could have been but it’s also very likely she was a prostitute or both. Dublin had plenty back in them times and extreme poverty was rife.
“Bearing in mind there was massive flood that had hit Dublin a year before she was arrested. It had damaged almost a quarter of all homes.
“OP shouldn’t be ashamed but proud of the toughness her grandmother showed in the face of extreme poverty even if she was a prostitute.”
