A MAN has researched his family tree for the last seven centuries but is still not related to a single aristocrat, highwayman or war hero.
Accountant Norman Steele’s tireless trawl of the archives has taken him years, and has yet to uncover anyone but historical no-marks who achieved neither greatness nor tragedy.
He said: “When I started tracing back I assumed I’d find either a bastard son of a king or a black-hearted pirate within the first few branches, but instead it was all clerical work or basket-weaving.
“My great-great-grandfather was in WW1, but he didn’t get the Victoria Cross for rescuing a comrade from No Man’s Land. He worked in the Army Service Corps in Swindon, keeping track of horse feed and rubber johnnies.
“Nobody was exiled to Australia. Nobody sought their fortunes in the New World. Most of them never bothered to leave Nuneaton.
“Apparently they sat out the Civil War, although in 1649 Alice Steele wrote in her diary, ‘A passinge Cavalier did startleth me and I dropped my turnippe down a well.’
“The final insult was when I discovered I’ve got a distant relative in Edinburgh who’s duplicated all my research, so I may as well not have fucking bothered.”
