Anyone Speak Latin?

This might prove to be a bit of a longshot, but if anyone can read the following I’ll be extremely grateful. I’ve tried the translation sites but the results made very little sense:

Ad pedem Parietis huic lapidi vicini jacet, Rebecca Lovering, mater Thomœ Lovering, Quæ cum annos Octoginta & unum implessit, morti cessit,
Sic gravidis onerata seges, subit horrea Culmis
Sic Matura suo tempore poma cadunt.

Obijt autem Junij 26, A. D. 1644.

Huic à Latere accumbit Blancia Lovering Uxor ejusdem Thomœ prima, quæ cum Sexaginta plus minus annos numerâsset tunc ablata: Sub hoc Lapide jacet Margeria ejusdem Thomœ Uxor secunda, de quâ, ut de Priore, dum vixerunt meritò affirmetur.

Utraque grata uni, vicinis grata et egenis, At nunc Cœlesti est Utraque juncta choro.

Obijt harum Prior Maij 12, 1658.

Posterior Aprilis 26, 1663.

I can see that the first paragraph refers to a Rebecca Lovering who is the mother of Thomas and died around the age of eighty, and also that further down it refers to two wives of Thomas, Blancia and Margeria, one of whom was about sixty, but the rest is a mystery so if you can fill in the gaps please share in the comments!

Quick Update and Some New Lines

Well, moving elsewhere wasn’t a great success; people continued to use this blog instead, and I kept forgetting to update the new one, so it looks like I’ll just have to move back here lol

It’s lovely to see how much use the blog has had even during it’s hiatus, especially the GILBY thread which is turning into a really useful resource with a number of people posting details of their Gilby family and meeting up with others who are researching the same lines, plus the useful input of Michael who is something of a Gilby family historian.

I haven’t done a huge amount of genealogy over the last year or so – hit a lot of brickwalls which was frustrating – but I’ve been dipping my toe in the waters again on the last few months, and made a few break-throughs! With the help of the great people at rootschat.com I’ve made quite a lot of headway with my PUGH line, I’ll post more about that in the future when I’ve compiled everything.

I’ve also had a breakthrough in my COLLEDGE line (I haven’t added their details yet), discovering a link to Wendover in Buckinghamshire. William COLLEDGE, my great, great, great, great grandfather, was a boatman who carried cargo from Stratford on Avon to London. En route he would stop at Wendover, and there he met Edith MEAD, the daughter of the harbour master. They married in 1837 and their son, my direct ancestor, Thomas was born in Stratford in 1843.

I’ve also discovered a bit about Edith’s ancestry which includes the names LIPTRAP, GOWER/GOWEN, CAUDERY and DURRANT. The DURRANTs are particularly interesting: I’ve gone back as far as an Allim DURRANT – I’m very, very curious about how he came to have such an unusual forename. More digging needed!

Eek! Has it really been that long?

It’s eons since I updated this blog, sorry about that I’ve also noticed a teensy pile of comments, so if you’re waiting for a response, I’ll be with you asap.

I’ll try to update more often …

Who’s my 1000th?

I saw this game over at Jasia’s Creative Gene blog, and thought I’d play along. The idea is you open up your database, find the 1000th person you entered and tell us more about them.

My 1000th was Bridget Basket who was the wife of my 11th great-uncle, Colonel Thomas Phelips. Bridget and Thomas married on 2nd November, 1657. Unfortunately, it was a short marriage because Bridget died less than 4 years later and was buried in Corfe Mullen, Somerset on 8th September, 1661. I’m afraid that is all I know about poor Bridget.

Over to you, who’s your 1000th?

Changing things a bit

I’ve been publishing this blog for a while now, and although, I really like the set up here at WordPress, there are a couple of things that make life a bit difficult. One, the lack of javascript support – I know there is a good reason why we can’t use it here, but it’s frustrating none the less. The other problem I have is with uploading videos. It’s supposed to be easy, but I’m not finding it so. Both problems are quite minor, but I do feel that this blog lacks something because I can’t easily use the same tools as other bloggers. So, I’ve decided to split it into two blogs.

I’ll still update this one with information pertaining to my family – a lot of cousins have found me here, so it’s definitely worth keeping that going. However, I’ll be posting general genealogy advice at a new blog I’ve set up at Blogger, where I’ll be able to use the same bells and whistles all the other bloggers use. I hope you’ll join me there

Carnival of Irish Heritage and Culture, 10th Edition

Fingers crossed, there should be a video above.

This post is my entry into the Carnival of Irish Heritage and Culture which this time invites participants to share what they most love about Irish culture. My contribution (assuming the video appears) is Parisienne Walkways by Phil Lynott and Gary Moore for no other reasons than that they are Irish and it’s a great song. Saying that, they did make an enormous contribution to Irish popular music and certainly enhanced it’s reputation around the world, destroying the misconception that it was all middle-of-the-road pop, and bearded men trilling away in hairy jumpers.

Bloggers Unite: Because everybody has the right to know where their family is

I was going to write about this subject on my other blog but, on reflection, it fits better here.

“There have been refugees coming to this country for as long as records have been kept: Huguenots, Jews, French Catholics, Russians, Poles, Hungarians, Ugandan Asians… If you can’t find any in your family you’re probably not looking hard enough.”
Mark Haddon

This month, Bloggers Unite is raising awareness of the plight of refugees with special emphasis on reuniting those who have lost contact with their families.

Like most people who had the good fortune to be born in a rich, western democracy I have no idea how it feels to be a refugee. My life has not been torn apart by war or famine. No one has ever persecuted me for my beliefs, ethnicity or gender. I have never lain awake at night wondering (literally) where on earth my children where.

Two branches of my family were refugees though. They came to England to escape religious and racial persecution. The Clesters were Anabaptists who arrived from Holland in the 16th century. A century later, the Jewish Toders made the journey, also from Holland. Both families set up home in Nottinghamshire, initially making a living from farming.

The England they arrived in was not an overtly tolerant and liberal one. Religious conflict was rife, but does not appear to have been as widespread as that found elsewhere. In rural areas particularly, people do seem to have adopted a ‘live and let live’ attitude. Both the Todors and the Clesters became part of their local communities, and married into local families. From the information I have gleaned about them, I think it is safe to say their lives improved dramatically, not least because they had been able to come here as almost complete families. Unfortunately, that is not the case for many modern refugees.

Sadly, conflict causes chaos which leads to people becoming separated and lost. Parents will often find a way to remove their child from danger – as seen during the famous Kindertransport in World War 2 – only for that child to end up thousands of miles away and, effectively, lost forever. For most people, losing contact with family is terrible in the best of circumstances. For it to happen at a time when you most need the support of the people who love you must be heartbreaking, and terribly frightening. To find yourself alone in a strange country, surrounded by people who can’t understand anything you say, whilst worried sick about the fate of your loved ones truly is the stuff of nightmares. Fortunately, there is a service which helps to reunite scattered families.

Refugees Reunited works in much the same way as the social networks most of us use everyday, giving people the tools to reconnect with family and friends they have lost contact with, but with one difference: It’s designed for use by refugees. The site is free to use, available in a number of languages and, most importantly, anonymous, therefore giving any displaced person a safe way of reconnecting with their loved ones, and, no doubt, providing much-needed peace of mind. It’s a wonderful example of the power of the internet which, underneath all the bells and whistles, is about bringing people together.

“Refugees United is an innovative tool to assist refugees around the world in finding family members. In a pioneering way the innovators of Refugees United have used modern technology to alleviate the terrible pain that separation from and uncertainty about family members bring. Our toolbox has been expanded with a very important new instrument”
Morten Kjærum, Director of Fundamental Rights Agency

Further Reading:

• British Red Cross Refugee Service
• United Nations Refugee Agency
• The Road to Refugee
• What is a Refugee?
• Life as a Refugee in Modern Britain – I think the Toders and the Clesters would be shocked and disappointed if they knew others were not receiving the warm(ish) welcome they received.

Pro Patria Mori

Poppies

Image courtesy of foxypar4

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!– An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.–
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen

Tagged for a meme

Image via Wikipedia

I was tagged for a meme by the California Genealogical Society and Library blog, and it seemed like a good way of breaking the ice on this blog, because I haven’t posted for so long.

Ten years ago I was:

1) Newly arrived in the village I now live in (this may even be the anniversary of my arrival) and not quite sure if it was a good idea. I didn’t know anyone apart from my DH and his parents, and it was all very strange and new.

2) Working in sales and marketing and hating every minute. I don’t do that any more, thank God!

3) Totally unaware of the wonders of the internet, but that was about to change.

4) Undisputed Bubble Bobble champion of the whole house!

5) Feeling quite old, because I was 31 and my son had started secondary school, what little I knew LOL

Five things on today’s “to-do” list:

(I’ll do tomorrows because it’s Sunday evening and I don’t have a to-do list on Sunday)

1) Sort some bills out I’d be ever so rich if I didn’t have to pay any.

2) Give the kitchen a good going-over, it always looks like a tornado blew through by Monday morning.

3) Finish an article I’ve been working on for the past week – it doesn’t usually take that long, and I’ve no idea why this one has because it’s very basic and covers a topic I’m very familiar with.

4) Buy some pasta, it’s spag bol night, but it won’t be if we don’t have pasta.

5) Find a map of Cheshire from around 1790 – 1800.

Five snacks I enjoy [the healthy version]:

1) Marmite on crackers
2) Raisins
3) Bananas
4) Hummus on anything – love hummus
5) Tuna and tomato sandwiches made with wholegrain, seeded bread.

Five places I have lived:

I’ve only ever lived in Warwickshire or Yorkshire, apart from a brief spell in County Durham, but I was only there for a few months so I’m not sure it counts.

Five jobs I have had:

1) Various hotel and restaurant jobs – I was very, very bad at all of them.
2) Data input personage for a computer dating agency, which was both interesting and depressing.
3) Sales rep, I was good at that, but I came to loathe it.
4. PA, enjoyed this and have been thinking of setting up a virtual PA business.
5. Mum (the toughest, by far!)

Schelly included two more categories:

Five places to visit again:

1) Cologne in Germany
2) Oxford, England
3) Stratford on Avon, my home town
4) Malvern, Worcestershire (I think), it’s really lovely
5) Barry Island, Wales

Five places I want to visit for the first time:

1) Greece
2) Norway
3) New Orleans, USA
4) Edinburgh, Scotland
5) Rome, Italy

All the genealogy bloggers I know seem to have already been tagged, so I’ll just say if you read this, you’re tagged! If you have a go, don’t forget to leave a link in the comments so I can come over and have a read.