Most family history relates to people, but I found a story in the newspaper about an ancestor’s cat. It’s quite a curious one, which is probably why it made the news. The paper only refers to “Mr. King”, however the man concerned is believed to be my 4x great-grandfather George King’s brother, Thomas King (1791-1866). Both brothers were millers in Devon, one at Woodleigh and the other at Loddiswell.

It seems that after Thomas’ cat gave birth to kittens in 1857, the cat family adopted a mouse. The cat, whose name is unknown, even fed the mouse with her own milk! It’s not unheard of for animals to adopt a different species, but it is unusual, especially when the two species are not normally friends. This cat and the “country mouse” story is an intriguing one to know about.