That Was A Year That Was

The online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, receives a lot of criticism for inaccuracy. To an extent this criticism is warranted, there are some bogus entries. However, Wikipedia is a good starting point for further research. It is particularly useful for adding background to your research because of it’s pages devoted to the events of specific years, or even specific days.

I’m one of those people who like to add background to the lists of dates and names I compile. I don’t think I’m unusual in this, most family historians do like to study local and national history, culture, etc. in an attempt to bring some colour to the basic details which are all many of us have about our ancestors. Even if we know more, it is useful to know what was going on in the society our ancestors lived in, often this information can help to explain why they did certain things, for example: moving to a new town. This is where a comprehensive encyclopaedia is extremely handy.

So, if you are curious about the world your ancestors were born into, pop over to Wikipedia, type a date into the search box, and browse the resulting page. To give you an example of what you might find, I did a search for 1682, the year my 8 x great grandmother, Elizabeth Holmes was born in Rolleston, Nottinghamshire. The page for that year includes a few interesting entries.

• March 11 – Chelsea hospital for soldiers is founded in England.
• September 14 – Bishop Gore School in Swansea, Wales is founded.
• October 27 – The city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded by William Penn.
• October 31 – The city of Bideford, England two men and one woman were some of the last to be executed for witchcraft in England. They were accused of speaking in unknown languages as well as practicing knowledge beyond their natural abilities, and acting in peculiar manners. The woman, Guenevere Damascus, as well as her lover (name unknown) and their spiritual mentor were burned at the stake.

The latter entry tells me it was still quite a brutal and superstitious society, but the first two hint that it was becoming more enlightened. The third entry is interesting because it shows that even at that early date, the New World was growing and thriving.

While none of these incidents directly affected my grandmother they were, in a small way, indicative of the way her society functioned and what it was becoming.

Some Weekend Muzak

This song will be familiar to anyone who was around during World War 2. It was a favourite of my maternal grandmother and she played it so often my younger brother became quite taken with it. As soon as he heard the opening bars he would jig about in time (or so he thought) to the music, while singing merrily along. Anyhoo, it is said brother’s birthday on Monday, so I’ll dedicate it to him. Happy Birthday Will! Have a wonderful day – and remember, stay one step ahead of Dragon Lady

Isles of Scilly – a place my ancestors called home

My great, great, great, great grandfather, James Thomas Shipley was born on the island of St Marys in the Isles of Scilly in 1805. Like his father John Shipley, James worked as a gig pilot, a perilous job which involved rowing out to sea to meet incoming ships, climbing aboard – often using nothing more substantial than a rope – and navigating through hidden, underwater obstacles to steer the ship to the safety of the harbour where it could be unloaded. As a young adult James left his home and travelled north to Liverpool where he used his navigation skills on the River Mersey. To anyone who is familiar with the beautiful Cornish islands he left behind this might seem like a strange move. However, in the times James lived it would have been an eminently sensible one.

The Isles of Scilly lie in the Atlantic ocean about 28 miles off the south-west coast of Cornwall and consist of five inhabited islands: St Marys, St Agnes, St Martins, Bryher and Tresco, along with numerous, smaller uninhabited islands. They were named by the Romans who called them Sully, meaning The Sun Islands. It is easy to see why. They are blessed with a moderate climate – at least in the spring and summer months – so much so, that in the 19th century the flower growing industry emerged, and thousands of blooms were exported to the mainland every year. In the 1841 and 1851 censuses James’ mother, Elizabeth, gives her occupation as ‘farmer’. It is likely that even if flowers were not her main crop, they were an important one. This industry has taken second place to tourism in recent decades, but is still significant. Although people commonly refer to the islands as the Scillys, the correct terms are either the Isles of Scilly, or just Scilly. Local people are known as Scillonians.

The islands may have been named by the Romans, but they have been inhabited since the Stone Age, and the remains of Stone and Bronze Age houses and burial mounds can still be seen. Those Stone Age people lived by farming, fishing and kelp harvesting, and this way of life continued for many, many centuries. It must have been hard, especially during the winter months when the islands would be lashed by violent Atlantic storms. Bearing that in mind, it isn’t really surprising that many people took advantage of the opportunity to smuggle as a way to supplement a rather basic existence and possibly buy a few luxuries. Their location so far out in the ocean meant that the islands were the first port of call (literally) for many cargo ships, and the illicit trade became a hugely important part of the economy of the islands. One can see how important when one considers that a successful attempt to stamp it out in the early 19th century brought the islanders to the brink of starvation and measures were put in place to provide financial support to the fishing industry as a means of bolstering the economy.

In 1834, life on the islands changed dramatically, and not necessarily for the better. Scilly came under the control of Augustus Smith, self-styled Lord Proprietor. Smith made numerous changes to the islands. Some were for the good, for example; he built new schools (and attendance was compulsory), and a new harbour at St Marys. Other measures were less popular, particularly the eviction of residents to make way for a deer park.

It was around this time that James made the move to Liverpool. Of course, I can not know why he chose to do so, leaving behind his family and the place his ancestors had called home for so many centuries. Maybe, he saw his father risking his life to battle against the Atlantic on a daily basis, and opted for the steady ebb and flow of the Mersey. Maybe, he found life in Scilly too slow, too predictable, and wished to experience the bustle of a busy, prosperous city. Maybe, he saw no place for him in the new Scilly. However, I suspect that James – like so many young people from rural areas today, – realised his future lay elsewhere. The determination and ingenuity that had helped his forefathers (and mothers) survive such a rigorous lifestyle gave him the courage to sail away and travel to a strange (and relatively exotic) city hundreds of miles to the north to seek a more stable and financially secure future. And I’m glad he did, because it was in Liverpool that he met his wife, a young Welsh lass called Margaret Evans, and if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t be writing this today.

Photographs courtesy of Wikipedia

This post has been submitted to the Carnival of Genealogy.

Family History Mystery – Can You Help?

Are you familiar with old (17th century) Dutch, or old English place names? If the answer to either question is yes, please pop over to this thread on the Ancestry message boards and share your wisdom about the meaning of the sentence “van Absin in Engelt”. It appears to mean ‘from Absin in England’. If that is true, where on earth was/is Absin? Or maybe it means something else.

5 Reasons why a family historian needs a blog or website

There are numerous websites which offer members the facility to upload a gedcom file and create an online family tree, so some might ask whether there is any point to creating and maintaining a stand alone blog or website. I say yes, and this is why:

1) Visibility: It’s more likely to be found. I’ve noticed some of the places I have stored copies of my tree do not turn up on the results page of search engines. Your own site or blog probably will, which means long lost cousins are more likely to find you – and maybe share some valuable info!

2) Customisation: It’s an obvious point, but an important one for some people. You can make your own site fit your taste and preferences more easily, and also decide what kind of material or content you wish to display.

3) Community: You can build up a community consisting of family members, friends and others who are interested in your research. And if many hands make light work, many historians make lighter research. Well, that’s the theory anyway LOL

4) Sharing: You can share all the advice, tips and resources you have gathered on your journey. I often find the most useful information on a personal blog rather than a mainstream site.

5) Background: This fits into a couple of other categories, but it’s important, so I’ll mention it separately. Having your own site or blog means you can add information which would not fit into a standard online tree. Subjects such as; folklore, history and culture provide fascinating background information which will help you create a more vivid and colourful picture of the kind of lives your ancestors lived.

So, over to you. Do you have a blog or website? What kind of information do you publish? Do you have any tips for anyone who is about to start their own?

Don’t laugh, someone lives there

The Genealogue published an interesting post yesterday about the origin of the name of the Christmas Mountains in the US. The ironic thing about the theories is that one sounds quite reasonable, the other like the opening scenes of a horror film, but the latter is most likely to be true!

Here in the UK, we too have unusually named places. I grew up not far from the Worcestershire village of Wyre Piddle, which sounds awfully painful. However, the name actually comes from the nearby stream. Over in Gloucestershire, you can find the villages of Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaughter. As you can see from the photos on the page I linked to, they are chocolate box pretty, and don’t look as though they could be the scene of a massacre. They weren’t. The name probably comes from an Old English word, slohtre which means inferior – possibly a reference to boggy land.

I now live in Yorkshire, and the Tykes are not immune to funny names either. They have a Blubberhouses – there are several suggestions for the origins of that name. I thought it may be connected with whaling because of it’s proximity to Whitby, but apparently not. There is also a Spacey Houses – I can’t find anything about how the village got it’s name. Perhaps it was founded by Kevin. If you know, do leave a comment.

If you are wondering about the name of an English town or village, try this site.

So what about your part of the world? Why not share your strange, interesting, funny or downright odd place names.

Meet the Family – Mary Anne Renham

The lady in the photo above is my great, great, great grandmother, Mary Anne Renham who was born in Cambridgeshire in 1820. I think this photo was taken sometime in the 1860s by which point she had been married to my great, great, great grandfather, Charles Gilby for over 20 years.

Mary had quite a sad life in many respects. She outlived all but 3 of her 12 children and I would guess that by the time this photo was taken at least 4 of them had already died. Maybe that explains the slight sadness in her eyes. In later life she suffered 2 extremely nasty fractures which left her confined to bed, and in a great deal of pain. Charles wrote about this in his memoirs saying;

“She enjoyed good health all through life, until Dec. 23^rd 1877, when she had a severe fall, and dislocated her hip, at the same time fracturing her leg. She was compelled to keep to her bed for about six months, when she fell down again, this time fracturing the other leg. From this time forward she had to lie upon a water bed.”

Having said all that, it does sound as though she was very well loved, and although she looks very serious in her picture – who wouldn’t when you were expected to sit still for ages to have one taken – she does have a kind face and I can imagine it was one which lit up when she smiled.

Money, then and now

I’ve just added a really useful link to the sidebar, Current Value of Old Money contains a wealth (sorry, bad pun) of useful information and resources for calculating the value of old money in modern terms. The resources provided include such things as average wages for specific jobs, prices of food and other essential items and one site I found particularly useful, Measuring Worth, which features a calculator you can use to automatically translate an old value into a modern one, or vice versa.

In 1638, my 10 x great grandmother, Sabina Worsley (mother of Anna Wigmore) was left a legacy of £1300 in her step father’s will. She received this money when she married in 1640. Even today, £1300 would be a worthwhile amount, but back then it would have been equivalent to receiving £175, 768 in modern values. A very generous gift which must have given the newly married couple a great start to their marriage. But what about people who weren’t so fortunate?

Most of my ancestors would have been lucky to see that kind of money in a lifetime, but how much, or little, would they have earned? In an article at the website of The International Institute of Social History, Jan Luiten van Zanden estimates labourers earned about 10 pence a day in the period between 1580 and 1626. In today’s world, 10 pence a day would be worth about £5.57. Not a great amount, especially when you consider that the minimum hourly wage is currently £5.52. Of course, prices have also gone up, but just how far would that 10 pence go?

In an account taken at Southampton in 1625, we can see that 1lb of cheese cost 2 1/2 pence, and two lean chickens were 6 pence. Ale is also mentioned with the good stuff selling for 3 shillings for 18 gallons. The amounts shown on the page are often for large orders and the total costs reflect this. To get an idea of how much an individual, or family would spend you will need to convert the archaic measures into the standard ones used to day. And if you aren’t sure how much a bushel is, or how many gallons are in a hogshead try this page.

Genealogy Needs You!

Everyone likes to get something for nothing, and that goes for family historians too. Amongst the UK genealogy community websites such as Freecen, Free BMD and Freereg are incredibly popular, and why not? They offer a great starting point for further research and, speaking personally, they have broken down more than one brickwall by providing me with the information to finally locate an elusive ancestor.

While the sites mentioned above do not cost the user anything to use and they are staffed by volunteers, they do cost a lot in terms of time. Each and every entry in a free database was submitted by a volunteer who took the time to transcribe the available documents – which were often hard to read. In my opinion these people are the heroes of genealogy and each and every one of them deserve our thanks. However, we can give them a little more than that. We can help them in their efforts.

All the free online transcription services are calling for volunteers. I suppose it is a case of so many records, so few volunteers. But it doesn’t have to be that way – you can help out. Transcribers aren’t a special breed, they don’t have super powers. They are ordinary people who spend a little time each week transcribing records for the benefit of others. Transcribing isn’t difficult, it is simply a matter of typing the information you see in an entry and uploading. You will be given comprehensive instructions by the project coordinator who will be happy to answer any questions. You won’t be paid, but you will have the satisfaction of knowing you have given a little back for the help you have received.

If you would like to help out, try some of the following links:

• Online Parish Clerks – UK: the home site of the UK OPC project which includes links to all the current county sites.
• Freecen: the volunteer transcription page for the free census project
• Freereg: the volunteer page for the free parish records project
• Free BMD: the volunteer page for the free births, marriage and death records project

If you know of another project which is calling for volunteers please leave a message in the comments.