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What do you think is the most likely ?

  • The Ripper was a Freemason?

    Votes: 7 9.7%
  • The Ripper had medical knowledge?

    Votes: 10 13.9%
  • It was Maybrick?

    Votes: 4 5.6%
  • The Ripper was 'of the same class' as his victims?

    Votes: 9 12.5%
  • The Ripper was foreign?

    Votes: 2 2.8%
  • It was Druitt?

    Votes: 2 2.8%
  • None of the suspects yet put forward?

    Votes: 17 23.6%
  • It was a woman?

    Votes: 2 2.8%
  • Another?

    Votes: 19 26.4%

  • Total voters
    72
I think a genealogist would be able to help, at least a little? If you decide to go down that route I can recommend one who won't rip you off, overcharge, invent stuff or whatever :) No relation and I'm not on commission!
 
I think a genealogist would be able to help, at least a little? If you decide to go down that route I can recommend one who won't rip you off, overcharge, invent stuff or whatever :) No relation and I'm not on commission!

Thanks Frides

My eldest Brother went down the genealogy route a few years back and drew a blank.

The issue being is that the old girls’ (we always referred to the great aunt as the old girl) family were Yiddish, we believe that the family came to England and settled in the Eastend at some time in the 1870’s, and it’s probable that in keeping with the common practice of the time, they angelized their names, so to find out anymore we would need to know the angelized name, and that we don’t.

In any case the above is only what my eldest brother (he’s 10 years older than me) could remember of the old girl telling him back in the 1960’ when he was a kid, so any information we do have is coming from a memory from 50 years ago..
 
The issue being is that the old girls’ (we always referred to the great aunt as the old girl) family were Yiddish, we believe that the family came to England and settled in the Eastend at some time in the 1870’s, and it’s probable that in keeping with the common practice of the time, they angelized their names, so to find out anymore we would need to know the angelized name, and that we don’t.

Part of mine arrived in Hull in about 1913 - the name is/was "Colbeck" but we have no idea what they were before :)
 
Part of mine arrived in Hull in about 1913 - the name is/was "Colbeck" but we have no idea what they were before :)

Quite often frides, the name was changed to a more English sounding name, but still had some elements of the original.

For example, the family name of Lew and Michael Grade (of ITV and Channel 4 fame) was originally Winogradsky, they were also Eastend Jews, who originated from Russia, and later settled in the Bethnal Green slum of the Old Nichol (where both my wife and myself are originally from)
 
any ideas for "Colbeck"? I wondered about Cohen; european jewish friends have suggested that it may be a translation of something...
 
That's interesting. Lincolnshire....
 
Quite often frides, the name was changed to a more English sounding name, but still had some elements of the original.

For example, the family name of Lew and Michael Grade (of ITV and Channel 4 fame) was originally Winogradsky, they were also Eastend Jews, who originated from Russia, and later settled in the Bethnal Green slum of the Old Nichol (where both my wife and myself are originally from)

Do you know the address, what number Brady Street?
Might be some information on a census?
Your family sound unusual immigrating in the 1870's...most Jews in that area had been there since early 1700's (Sephardim), early 1800's (a few from Germany) or after 1881 (from Eastern Europe.)

Part of family also come from the site of the Old Nichol rookery, or more accurately the Boundary Estate as it became.
 
Do you know the address, what number Brady Street?
Might be some information on a census?
Your family sound unusual immigrating in the 1870's...most Jews in that area had been there since early 1700's (Sephardim), early 1800's (a few from Germany) or after 1881 (from Eastern Europe.)

Part of family also come from the site of the Old Nichol rookery, or more accurately the Boundary Estate as it became.

Then I’m in good company Victory, as kids we always referred to the Boundary estate as the Nichol, the flat I grew up in (Abingdon House) was on old Nichol Street, and the future wife, lived in the flat below – mother in law is still in the area, although now just round the corner from the Nichol in Colombia Road, bless her.

How far back did your family live there, perhaps I knew them.

And no sadly we know nothing of the original family name or the assumed Anglian one it changed to, or any house numbers in Brady St that they may have lived in – we always assumed they were fleeing the pogroms.
 
How far back did your family live there, perhaps I knew them.

Way back in 1911 Dick!

By the 30's they had moved further East to Bow.

They left Eastern Europe after Jack The Ripper's time.

I was round Old Nichol Street a couple of weeks ago, and Colombia Road.
When I am there I often wonder what my great-grandparents would have made of the organic vegan cafes and pop-up clothes stores around there now.
Probably would have tried to get a job in them.
 
Way back in 1911 Dick!

By the 30's they had moved further East to Bow.

They left Eastern Europe after Jack The Ripper's time.

I was round Old Nichol Street a couple of weeks ago, and Colombia Road.
When I am there I often wonder what my great-grandparents would have made of the organic vegan cafes and pop-up clothes stores around there now.
Probably would have tried to get a job in them.

1911, I’m not that old Vic lol. Ha ha

I don’t like going back to be honest with you, although it’s changed for the better, it just doesn’t seem like a place I recognise any more.

The last time I was in Colombia road was the 5th February 2006, I was in the Royal Oak, (of Goodnight sweetheart fame, and lock stock and the final One foot in the grave and many others ) and the wife rung my mobile and told me she was in Labour.

OMG I said, shall I call an ambulance, and she said no it’ll be hours before we need to go to the hospital, so I ordered another pint of Guinness…lol

Anyway back on topic – I think I’ve asked this question before on this board, so sorry if I have but - has the diary 100% been exposed as a fake, and if so any details as to who exposed it and how it was exposed…?
 
DNA aside, isn't the provenance of the shawl questionable?

ARTICLE:

According to the new study, a silk shawl was found by the body of Catherine Eddowes, a victim killed by Jack the Ripper during the early morning hours of Sept. 30, 1888.
Acting Sgt. Amos Simpson reportedly took this 8-foot-long (2.4 meters) shawl from the crime scene; the shawl was reportedly passed down through his family for generations until it was sold in 2007 to amateur sleuth Russell Edwards, who made it available to scientists for study.
Did the analysis [of the] shawl just provide a major clue in one of London's coldest cases, the identity of Jack the Ripper?
No. It doesn't. Not at all. That's according to two experts, a geneticist and a Ripperologist (a Jack the Ripper historian), who spoke with Live Science about the new study.
In fact, this study has so many holes in it — including the provenance of the shawl, contamination of genetic material on the shawl, and the methods used to analyze this genetic material — that it's a wonder it was published at all, said Turi King, a reader in genetics and archaeology at the University of Leicester, who was not involved in the study.
First and foremost, it's doubtful that the shawl belonged to Eddowes, Jack the Ripper's fourth victim.
London has two police forces. Most of the Jack the Ripper murders happened under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police Service, a force that operates out of Scotland Yard. But Eddowes was killed in an area overseen by the City of London Police.
Acting Sgt. Simpson worked for Scotland Yard, so it's unclear why he would have been working on Eddowes' case, given that it was a City of London Police case, said Paul Begg, a U.K.-based author who has written six historical books about Jack the Ripper, and was not involved with the new study. What's more, Simpson's patrolling area wasn't anywhere near the spot where Eddowes was murdered, so it's strange he would have gone out of his way to travel to the scene of the crime and take the shawl, Begg said.
On top of that, "there's no evidence that a shawl was connected with Catherine Eddowes' murder anyway," Begg told Live Science. "Effectively, the provenance of the shawl is extremely bad."

maximus otter
 
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Oops sorry will do Frideswide.

A new BBC One documentary hosted by Silent Witness star Emilia Fox has applied cutting-edge forensic techniques to re-examine the murders and finally solve them.

Working with criminologists, she believes Polish barber Aaron Kosminski was Jack the Ripper after fresh DNA tests were taken from a blood-stained shawl.

The programme also found evidence that the Ripper had six victims, not five, with Martha Tabram murdered on August 6, 1888 - before the other women.

===

Fox also uses cold case technology such as the world's first virtual reality dissection table and a bespoke computer system to analyse criminal activity patterns.

She is joined by criminology expert David Wilson to investigate who the killer could have been, what motivated his crimes and how he avoided justice.

Fox said: 'Having worked on crime drama for many years this project has been a truly fascinating insight into how current real police procedure, forensics and technology can be applied to the most famous of unsolved historical crimes.
 
Oops sorry will do Frideswide.

A new BBC One documentary hosted by Silent Witness star Emilia Fox has applied cutting-edge forensic techniques to re-examine the murders and finally solve them.

Working with criminologists, she believes Polish barber Aaron Kosminski was Jack the Ripper after fresh DNA tests were taken from a blood-stained shawl.

The programme also found evidence that the Ripper had six victims, not five, with Martha Tabram murdered on August 6, 1888 - before the other women.

===

Fox also uses cold case technology such as the world's first virtual reality dissection table and a bespoke computer system to analyse criminal activity patterns.

She is joined by criminology expert David Wilson to investigate who the killer could have been, what motivated his crimes and how he avoided justice.

Fox said: 'Having worked on crime drama for many years this project has been a truly fascinating insight into how current real police procedure, forensics and technology can be applied to the most famous of unsolved historical crimes.


That's fine, except Aaron Kosminski isn't JtR. The alleged shawl isn't even a shawl.

If he is JtR you have to explain why he was never arrested, why his hospital notes state he was non violent, and what he was doing during the 18 months between the last murder and his final commitment to an asylum.
 
I should repeat what I have previously posted - there is simply not enough evidence to accuse someone of the crimes. Sure, like every other 'ripperologist' I have my favourite suspects but the fact is that there is not, and never will be, enough evidence to resolve the perpetrator.

I would say it's 50/50 whether the real JtR is one of the alleged suspects or someone that no-one has ever heard of.
 
I honestly think we haven't a clue who JtR was and never will. Like any otter 'Ripperologist' I have my favourite suspects but there is minimal credible evidence against anyone .

My suspects in no particular order:

William Bury
James Kelly
David Cohen

And a wild card :

Francis Thompson

But above all I suspect the actual killer is some anonymous east end dweller we know nothing about.
 
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It's a tablecloth as several people have pointed out.

For me, it rather depends on whether it was worn, not the purpose of its design.

If I kill you with a fire poker, it's a weapon. And my headgear is made of tinfoil, but it's still a hat.

So back to fishy provenance.
 
For me, it rather depends on whether it was worn, not the purpose of its design.

If I kill you with a fire poker, it's a weapon. And my headgear is made of tinfoil, but it's still a hat.

So back to fishy provenance.

Well, that's part of the fishy provenance. Yes, someone could have used a tablecloth as a shawl - but it's unlikely.
 
Morning, saw the trailer for the BBC documentary, which looked good,but it didn't say when it was going to be shown. Even looked on their website but no joy!!!!
 
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