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

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.