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Getting Started with Family History - Uncharted Territory |
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Copyright © 2001-2008
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CLUTCHING AT STRAWS
If you have been delving into your Family History for any length of time, you will by now have realised that there is a certain pattern to family events, often more predictable before the 20th century. Except for the "landed gentry", girls were born to go into service about 13 or 14, get married, often in their late teens or early twenties, and produce a child every year or second year, and too often died in or just after childbirth. Boys were born to work as soon as they were able, working hours were long, and looked for a wife either to look after them when they came home, or to look after a parent, particularly a widowed father. If his wife died in childbirth it was a practical necessity to find a second wife as soon as possible to look after his young child or children. This also applied to a widow with young children. There was no Social Security, home helps, or such.
Thus, it is possible to make a reasonable guess at certain dates. A couple would normally marry between the ages of 20 and 25, usually before 30, and their first child would usually be born within two years. So, if you know the date of birth of a first child it is reasonable to assume that its parents were born within the previous 20 to 30 years. If there is a string of children, you can make a similar calculation by allowing about 2 years between births.
While nowadays it is more usual for the husband to be a year or two older than his wife, in the 18th and 19th centuries it was quite commonplace for the wife to be some years older than her husband, (even though she would not always admit it to census enumerators,) possibly as a means of reducing the potential number of pregnancies. However, because contraception was unknown and medical knowledge cost money, many women bore children well into their 40s, occasionally with a big gap between their earlier family, and it is not uncommon to find that mother's last child is younger than her daughter's first. It was also possible to conceal an unmarried daughter's pregnancy by naming her mother as the child's mother at the baptism.
Two other practices can also be guides. Whenever possible, a child was baptised in the parish in which the parents were working at the time to establish its right to parish relief, should this become necessary later in life. However, it was also quite common for wives to "go home to mother" for the actual birth, a useful 'straw' when seeking the wife's forebears.
While the further back you can trace, the more likely you are to find a limited number of first names used in a family. If you can establish the correct generation this can often be a help. In particular, there was a strong practice of continuing to name the first boy after his father and the first girl after her mother. What can cause great confusion is that with child mortality being high, the second or third boy or girl would be given the same first name and was looked upon as a replacement for the deceased child. If you find this put (I) or (II) after the name.
In the second half of the 19th century it became very popular to inflict the names of events on children as first names. How many boys must have cursed being named Kitchener, or girls called Pretoria, I don't know, but this can be a "straw" to guess the year of birth. Take the name Alma for example - even if you don't know the birthdate, you will know that she was born in or after 1854, when this name first came into use during the Crimean War. Another example is Wendy, created by J.M.Barrie when writing Peter Pan in 1904.
SORTING OUT THE STRAWS
In family history there are three sorts of dead ends.
Ignoring the first group, the best way to look at the second and third is probably by giving you actual examples from Bill's research.
ROSANNA & THE JUG
He had the following "straws":
Not a lot to go on!
Linking straws, he thought that "Rosana" was an unusual name and there wouldn't be many girls with that name in a small village. Second, what was Snape Feast, and third, was Eliza Alma's Mother Jane the same Jane that had worked one of the samplers?
By calculation, if Jane was about 10 to 12 when she did the sampler (the sort of thing young ladies did at that age in those days!) she must have been born around 1820/22, and if Rosana was her mother, she in turn must have been born about 1790/1800. Writing to the Rector at Snape brought a very helpful response confirming that Rosanna had been baptised on 26 June 1796, the daughter of William and Anne Lynn, butcher of Well. Also, Jane Webster had married William Gale in 1846, his father being John Gale and Jane's father being George Webster. The Websters lived at Watlass Moor farm, and the Rector provided a list of 7 children who were thought to be siblings of Jane, though he could find no trace of Elizabeth. In addition he gave Bill the name of someone to contact about the jug. A very good response to a few straws!
Bill wrote to the contact about the jug, who advised him that the Local History Group had typed out the Parish Registers from 1558 to 1812, and the 5 census returns. These were available to examine at Snape. He also put Bill in touch with someone who had done the Webster family history. That person supplied the information that there were in fact TWO Webster families, both living at Watlass Moor farm at the same time! However his researches eliminated all the 7 children as being "his" Websters whose parents had employed "Bill's" George and Rosanna. (A reminder that much research can be done on a shoestring budget - expenses so far had been just over £1 in postage stamps!)
Bill then received a letter from his Webster contact saying he had seen an old neighbour in a village near Harrogate who he thought might help. On impulse Bill set off next day, saw him, was given a 3-generation list of about 25 relations, went to see other contacts, where (a) he was told that Watlass Moor farm was like a double house (another straw) and (b) he bought copies of the census returns and borrowed the copies of the parish registers. On visiting the farm, it was obvious as you entered the gate that there were two houses, a single windowed one on the left and a double windowed one on the right. One family of Websters had lived in the big one as owners, and "Bill's" had lived in the smaller one attached. No wonder the Parish Records were confusing.
Bill returned home with all this information. It took a month to sort it all out, because with large families and marriages, Bill's wife was related to 10% of the village! He had broken through two dead ends and now had about 20!
CENSUS RETURNS
These produce a variety of straws - these are just a few
CHRISTOPHER GALE, 1861/113
Christopher Gale Head Widr 79 Plush Weaver Snape Robert Chappelow Neph Mar 23 Tailor Snape Mary J Chappelow Niece Mar 22 Leeds
Not much to go on - 56 years between uncle and nephew/niece is a big gap. As the couple were married which was the blood relation? Looking back to the1851 census, we find:
1851/18
Robert Chappelow H M 47 Master Tailor West Tanfield Mary Chappelow W M 50 Tailor's wife Snape Samuel Chappelow S 15 Tailor's son Snape Robert Chappelow S 13 Scholar Snape
This suggested that the nephew was the blood relative, which was confirmed because in the Parish Registers, Christopher had only one sister Mary who had survived to marrying age, hence Mary Chappelow in 1851 was formerly Mary Gale. While she was baptised in 1798 and was actually 5 years older than her husband, it appears that she only admitted to him to 3 - a lie which persists right through the census returns until she admits to her true age when she is a widow! The fact that Christopher is shown as a widower in the 1851 census indicates that his wife Elizabeth died between 1841 and 1851.
MARY ANNE OYSTON. 1851/83
Robert Oyston H M 33 Ag lab Snape Mary Anne Oyston W M 31 Ag lab's wife Farnley Robert Hudson S 7 Scholar Farnley Mary Oyston D 3 Snape William Hudson Vis Wid 58 Butcher Kirby Malzeard
If Robert Hudson is the son he must be Mary Anne's son which suggests that she was a widow, and William Hudson was her first father-in-law. By calculation, if Robert was born in 1844 and Mary in 1848 then Robert senior and Mary Anne must have married between those dates.
ROBERT GALE 1871/99
In this entry, Robert Gale, age 3, from Bainbridge, is shown as the grandson of Robert & Mary Anne Oyston above. Christopher Gale's father had a brother Ralph who moved away from Snape while his children were still young. As Mary Oyston would now be 23 and the only daughter of marriageable age, is she Robert's mother, and has she married one of Ralph's grandchildren, and does this indicate that Ralph moved to the Bainbridge area? These are straws that sadly, Bill did not get to follow before he died.
ELIZABETH WEBSTER
The most intriguing set of straws concern the Elizabeth Webster mentioned earlier. In 1841 she is aged (rounded) 15, in 1851 she is 27 and shown as the village midwife. In 1861 is an Elizabeth Gale, 37, midwife, wife of Thomas Gale 60, of Snape, who appears for the first time. By calculation, he was born in 1801, but there is no baptism entry. However, in 1801 is the burial of a Dorothy Gale, but the entry does not say whether this is mother or daughter, Could it be that the mother died in childbirth, that Thomas was her son, and that as a consequence of her death he was never baptised? This trail will only be solved when we find where Ralph moved to. (Note: again, this was not to be for Bill). Incidentally, this also solved the "mystery" as to where that midwifery book came from!
TRYING THE "COUNTRY LANES"
When the line is blocked, look sideways. While Rosanna and all her 9 siblings were shown In the Parish Registers as baptised in Well and her father and mother were married there, the census returns show her as born in Dumfries, Scotland! In the Parish Registers her mother is shown as Anne Gillet, living in Well, while her father had married his first wife before moving into the village. So, where to go from there?
There are three straws.
First there is a John Gillet working in the village whose place of birth is Scotland.
Second, there are about half-a-dozen non-related people whose place of birth is also somewhere in Scotland.
Third, there is a John Lynn (Rosanna's half-brother) who married a Jane Askwith whose father is shown as coming from Bedale.
These suggest that there was a regular movement of young Scots coming to work at the big houses in the area, and also the possibility by the date of John Lynn's marriage that he knew Jane before his father moved into Well. This suggests that the first place to look is to try to find John's and Rosanna's father's first marriage in the Bedale registers. The practice of wives going home to mother for the birth suggests that Anne may have been in Dumfries when Rosanna was born. Clutching at this straw Bill wrote to the Dumfries and Galloway FHS who confirmed that there was a Gillet in Annan in 1826. This is a signpost that he may be on the right trail. Interestingly, the local schoolmaster did a census in 1811, and on the same page is a neighbour with the first name of Rosanna!
A SHOT IN THE DARK
Bill answered a request for information in the "Family Tree Magazine". As a footnote to the thanks note he received he was asked, as he lived in the same town if he could help with an enquiry she had received from a lady seeking information about her grandfather who died about 1920. Bill had a contact who put a couple of tines in a local paper, without much hope. You can imagine his surprise when three days later a lady rang to say she was a great-granddaughter of the man sought, and she only knew about it because her great-uncle had been in hospital and read it. Bill put both sides in touch with each other - the great-uncle must be a cousin of the enquirer.
GENERAL
From this you can see that there is a vast field you can explore before you get to the "needles in haystacks" stage. We will not make any comment on this phase as the purpose of this is to get you started. However, by the time you need to start thinking about buying birth certificates, etc, you can also decide whether it is important enough to spend that sort of money. Some of this later searching does produce a "Catch 22" situation, in that sometimes you need to know so much before you can start that you don't really need to start because you already know!
However, you can see that you can do a great deal for a small outlay. The important thing is that it doesn't stop you getting a great deal of interest and pleasure for very little cost. What is even more important is that while you are doing a very useful task for future generations you are also making many new friends.
Happy Hunting!
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