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 was 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

Did your ancestors have green fingers?

I spent this morning working in my garden and while I was out there, my mind wandered and I began to think about allotments. For the uninitiated, an allotment is an area of land which is subdivided into smaller sections which are then rented out to members of the public to use to grow fruit and vegetables, or even keep a few chickens. Most allotments are owned by the local council, but some are in private hands.

Now you may be wondering what all this has to do with genealogy. Well, the provision of allotments goes back a very long way. In their present form they date from the 19th century when land was set aside in towns and cities for the use of working class people who lived in back to back housing with no gardens. They could rent an allotment and use it to grow fresh food to supplement what was probably quite a basic diet. However, the roots (no pun intended) of allotments go back to the days of common land. You can read more about the history here.

I wasn’t sure if any records of allotment holders would exist, but a quick search of the National Archives for the term ‘allotment holders‘ has revealed that, in some cases, they do. Glancing at the results they do seem to be mostly for the early to mid 20th century, but even so, they may help to fill in some gaps in your knowledge of the more recent generations of your family and provide some interesting background information.

Why one should never wee in the dining room

If you enjoyed my recent post about the Middles Ages, you might like to read about the work of Daniel of Beccles. In about* the 13th century, Daniel wrote Book of the Civilised Man, the first English book of social etiquette. Within it’s pages he went into great detail about the standard of behaviour expected of a chap who hope to make his way in society – I say chap because Daniel’s advice does not seem to be aimed at women. In fact, I suspect he wasn’t keen on anyone who didn’t wee standing up**, but, I digress.

While some of the advice on offer seems quite obvious: don’t pee in the dining room; some of it is in use today, for example: not talking with your mouth full. The original work was written in Latin, but there is an online translation along with an interesting accompanying essay on the website of The Foxearth and District Local History Society***.

* Contemporary accounts which coincide with references in the book suggest that it was written in the 13th century.

** Just realised, that should be people who wee standing up outside the dining room

*** The site also contains church records from Pentlow.

Presentment Bills of the Archdeaconry of Nottingham

I have posted about the Presentment Bills of the Archdeaconry of Nottingham before, but only in passing. They are such a fascinating resource that I thought they really deserved a post of their own.

What are they: The presentment bills are a collection of documents created by church wardens in the 16th and 17th centuries detailing the names (and often other information) of people who had broken church law. Typical ‘offences’ would be such things as failing to attend church, failing to have a new baby baptised or indulging in immoral behaviour. As far as I know, all parishes maintained such records, but only Nottingham has created an online catalogue.

Which areas do they cover: The bills cover the Bingham, Retford, Newark and Nottingham deaneries. To find out which area your ancestors lived in try the table on this page.

How can they help: If you happen to have ancestors from Nottinghamshire, there is a good chance you will find some reference to them in these bills. Or, if not your direct ancestors, then members of their extended family. Some entries are quite detailed and will provide more than just a name. I have found spouses and occupations in entries pertaining to my relatives.

Furthermore, they can tell you a little about the kind of people your ancestors were. I discovered one branch of my family were regularly penalised for not attending church. This makes sense. The family were Anabaptist therefore they did not recognise the authority of the Anglican church and were classed as non-Conformists. Another branch received similar penalties, they were recusant Catholics. Of course, if your ancestors were penalised for non-attendance, that does not mean they followed a non-conformist religion. It could simply mean they were not particularly religious at all. Then as now, many people only really felt the need to attend church for ‘hatches, matches and dispatches’ and would have resisted attempts to force them to attend every Sunday.

You can find a longer and more detailed description of the bills here.

Examples: The easiest way to search, is to open the page you want to view and use your computers built in search tool. I clicked on the link for the Bingham Deanery for Easter 1608 and didn’t find any of my relatives listed – they must have been behaving themselves LOL However, there a few interesting entries.

AN/PB 293/2/47 24.9.1603 Wilford
Summer and winter 1603/4
Churchwardens present the following: Joan Stafford, widow, a railer, a scold and an uncharitable liver.
Bound together with other documents from the same series, AN/PB 293/2.

Thankfully I’m not related to Joan – although I do wonder if she really was as unpleasant as that description suggests.

AN/PB 293/2/49 24.9.1603 Shelford
Summer and winter 1603/4
One churchwarden presents the following: Wm Smyth for detaining the surplice from the parish, and for using very uncomely words as ‘turd in the churchwardens teeth’, which was spoken in the church porch.
Bound together with other documents from the same series, AN/PB 293/2.

Not much to add there except to say Mr Smith sounds like a very rude man.

AN/PB 293/2/56 1603 (c) Barnby in the Willows
Summer and winter 1603/4?
Churchwardens present the following: John Burt and Alse Nealer for a common fame that John Burt said that he lay on the bed with the said Alse in the night time; Robert England for a slandering of his neighbour Edmund Ward, saying that he lived upon ’sheefts’ and made a benefit of cavilling with other men, and the said Robert said with slanderous speeches on 10 July last that Edmund Ward had practised this two years to take his house on his head; the said Robert was slandered by Roger Richardson’s wife that he came to her bed and would have lain with her, and that he brought her some plums in his hat.
No place name given; identified as Barnby in the Willows from names of churchwardens.
No date given; found in series of presentment bills from 1603 and 1604.
Bound together with other documents from the same series, AN/PB 293/2.

Trying to seduce a woman with a hat full of plums – it sounds like a scene from a Carry On film LOL I suppose this was the pre-chocolate era so the poor chap would have had to make do with whatever was at hand.

And finally, my favourite entry . . .

AN/PB 294/2/66 7.5.1607 East Markham
Easter 1607
Churchwardens present the following: Elizabeth Cowper for fornication with Thomas Browne, as she says; Nicholas Storke for being absent from church on the Sabbath day and being at bowls; we asked him a reason for his absence and he answered ‘he can reade as much at hoam & that he knoweth our reder for no lawfull minister’, but we know our reader has a licence by one Mr Dodsworth of York for Mr Field’s absence.
Written in another hand above each of the names: ‘emt’.
Written in another hand at side of page: ‘R’.

If I were in Mr Storke’s shoes I think I would have gone bowling rather than spend my Sundays with a bunch of people who felt the need to police my morals LOL

The Middle Ages – not as smelly as you might think

Leonardo da Vinci – Self Portrait

If you have been using the internet for any length of time, the chances are you have come across the email forward listing all sorts of horrible indignities our ancestors lived with and (in some versions) suggesting that these are the origins of modern sayings. To give you an example of what I mean here is one version of the essay:

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500’s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, Don’t throw the baby out with the Bath water..

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof When i t rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying .. It’s raining cats and dogs.

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That’s how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, Dirt poor. The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying a thresh hold.

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old..

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, bring home the bacon. They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat..

Those with money had plates! made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer..

And that’s the truth…Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! !

It’s an interesting read. However, it is completely untrue. While some of it does sound plausible, there are a few clues that give it away, for example the inclusion of American sayings which are either not used in England, or which only became commonplace here in the 19th and 20th centuries. Furthermore, the period the essay is said to cover varies from sender to sender. Sometimes, specific centuries are mentioned, in other versions the essay is alleged to be a description of the whole medieval period.

The Middle Ages lasted from the 5th century to the early 16th. During that period society was not static and life in the 5th century was dramatically different to that in the 16th. Enormous advances were made in the fields of science and technology, which may seem quite basic to our modern eyes, but which did provide great improvements to the lives of those who were around at the time. It’s easy to look back and assume people were smelly, primitive barbarians, but really they weren’t. Remember Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 15th century, not long after this, Copernicus developed a formula to prove that the earth was not the centre of the universe, and glasses (spectacles) and water mills had been invented. It was also a period of great literary and artistic works, both Leonardo da Vinci and Chaucer were Medieval folk.

If you want to know more about medieval life, try the following links:

• Snopes: Life in the 1500s – detailed debunking of the essay.
• Top 10 Lists: Top 10 Medieval Inventions – list of the most useful or important inventions from the Medieval period.
• About.com: Medieval Science – a selection of articles about science in the Middle Ages.
• Epact: Scientific Instruments of Medieval and Renaissance Europe – Online museum of Medieval instruments and equipment.
• Wikipedia: Medieval Art – Article and further reading about Medieval art.
• Wikipedia: Medieval Literature – Article and further reading about Medieval literature.
• Internet Medieval Source Book: Intellectual Life – List of sources for discovering more about the thinkers, philosophers and intellectuals of the Medieval world.
• Internet Medieval Source Book: Social History – List of sources to help you learn more about life in Medieval society.

Resources for finding your witches

In my post yesterday, I included a reference to a trial for witchcraft. Of course, the people who were executed on that occasion were not the only ones who were accused of such a crime and many people living today are descended from those who came to the attention of witch hunters. I have an alleged witch in my tree – a very long way back, you’ll find her in one of the sources linked below – if you think you also have a witchy ancestor here are a few resources you might find useful.

• About.com: Hunting for witches in the family tree – A list of resources covering both Europe and the US.
• Historical Witchcraft Trials in England, The Channel Islands, Ireland and Scotland – Details of trials held in the British Isles.
• Essex Witch Trials – Focuses mainly on Essex which was almost the epicentre of witch hunting, but there is also some information about trials elsewhere in England. Also a lot of fascinating background information.
• The Pendle Witches – Probably the most famous English witches, this site provides background and history as well as details of the witches confessions. I visited Pendle in the early 80s and while I don’t think it is in the grip of evil forces, it certainly has an atmosphere.
• The Witch Hunts – Lots of historical information about European witch hunts between 1400 and 1800.
• The Old Bailey Online – The online database of London’s central criminal court includes details of some witchcraft trials.
• Fortean Times: Witchfinders – Malcolm Gaskill takes a look at witch finders including the most infamous, Matthew Hopkins.

It is important to remember that those who were accused of witchcraft were unlikely to actually be witches and would not have described themselves as such. The reasons for the witch hunting phenomena are varied, but those accused tended to be people who for some reason were outside mainstream society, those who followed non-conformist religions or those who were perceived to be getting above their allotted station in life or who fell out with the wrong people.

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.

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.