It has taken all the time I could spare and some that I couldn’t, for the past seven weeks but the seafarers and shoemakers story of some of my children’s ancestors is finished. In the end there were sone coopers, a baker and a housemaid thrown in for good measure. It covers sixteen couples or individuals and eight generations. There’s 16,000 words, 62 pages and 160 footnotes and at times I really wished I could stop finding new people to add. I can’t imagine anyone will want to read it but it is at least preserved for posterity. Just in case anyone reading this is connected to the same Hampshire families, the surnames are: Sweetingham, Denham, Emery, Fox, Grace, Hooker, Markes, Newman, Renouf, Strugnell and Wade and you can download the pdf over on my Granny’s Taleswebsite.
Now I need to turn my attention to the things that I should have been doing. Mind you, it may well be that my planned archive trip next week will open up a whole new avenue for research, as if there aren’t enough families still to write about anyway.
Where I am at is 10,000 words, 40 pages and 100+ footnotes deep in my seamen and shoemakers, thinking it is almost done, only to find that I can take one twiglet back a further two, or three, or maybe more, generations. Great news in one way but instead of having two more couples to do, that gives me a whole load more folk to write about. This isn’t even on the (daunting) to do list, from which I have removed all the low hanging fruit, in the interests of deluding myself that there isn’t much left. Sadly, it is all the ‘this will take several days’ jobs not the ‘this will take ten minutes’ ones that are left.
Where I’ve been, includes a trip to Buckland Brewer to look at the VJ Day display and listen to a fascinating talk about the women of Appledore, including those who spent decades hauling limestone for the limekilns. Unusually, this required me to drive. It is August, the nights are drawing in (sorry but they are). I don’t do driving at night. Not so much fear of vampires but the inability to cope with other people’s headlights. Could I chair the meeting, skip the refreshments and get home before dark? It seems that after doing a Cinderella act and dashing out as the words of the last question were still dying on the audience’s lips, that I could. Why was I driving? Because himself has been involved in a week of street drama set in one of my one-places. For him, this mostly seems to involve helping to launch a boat off a tricky beach in the pitch dark and then get it safely back in after someone else has rowed it out and back. I am hoping to watch the whole presentation tonight.
In the past eight days, I’ve eaten cake at my favourite café. I’ve swum, yes actually swum, albeit only for about thirty seconds, in the sea. I’ve recreated a photograph from 1969 on the exact anniversary of the day it was taken. I’ve spent seven hours in A & E to be told, as usual, that I am not about to collapse and yes, I did the right thing coming in but no, they don’t know what is wrong with me, so as you were. I’ve had a chat with the lovely Helen Tovey of Family Tree Magazine about my presentations for the Secrets and Lies conference, along with two of the other presenters; I am so looking forward to this. I’ve led a brick wall busting session for Devon Family History Society and listened to an excellent Zoom talk about the occupants of a north Devon house.
Despite how the above sounds, August had been comparatively quiet but whoa September, I am looking at you. Before I even get there, there’s my workshop to give as part of a whole day of presentations on researching agricultural labourers and rural life bookings are open here. Then September hits like a train. Only six talks to give but unusually, four are in person. In addition, there is the second presentation of my ‘Putting your Female Ancestors into Context’ online course for Pharos. We had great fun the first time round and it is such an important topic. There are still spaces if you are interested.
As for where I will be, that revolves round the talks. First up will be the monthly Biography Club session for the Society of Genealogists, which I do from the comfort of my own home. I am clinging on by my fingernails attempting to keep pace with the group, in the hope of finally finishing mine by next year’s ‘big’ birthday. Then I am presenting a webinar for Legacy webinars on 3 September, also from home. It will be a version of my Ancestors on the Margins talk and you can book to listen here. Then I am off to Gloucester to give a talk there and staying a few days to allow me to pick up some wills relating to a family that I hope I can one day confirm is mine, as well as have a look round.
Next is the Secrets and Lies Conference in Peterborough followed by the 40th anniversary of the Isle of Wight Family History Society and boy have I got some memories to share. I am currently accepting financial inducements to delete parts of my text. Then summer will be over and where has this year gone?
I thought that it was about time I wrote something, so that people didn’t start enquiring after my welfare. It’s been the season for the descendants to descend; typically, they were here during the few days of less good weather. Plenty of board game opportunities, with Taverns of Tiefenthal being the current favourite, alongside the obligatory visits to the pick and mix sweet shop, the ice-cream shop, the rock pools and the playground. We also watched people attempting to paddle cardboard boats across the river and some of us acted like ninjas (best not to ask) and that was summer fun done for another year. There then followed what passes for a spring clean, as I removed buckets of sand from various corners of the house, washed a million sheets and towels and returned things to their rightful places. Though, to be fair, the visitors were pretty good and setting things to rights.
Now it is back to the computer, interspersed with occasional paddles and even a very quick swim. A quiet month for talks this month but I am gearing up for a hectic September. I’ve done some brick wall busting. Well more of a chipping away, as Devon FHS members have got too good at solving their own, so we tend to only get almost impossible ones sent in now. I have practiced my ag labs workshop for the end of the month and am very excited to launch that on the unsuspecting public at the end of a whole day of exploring agricultural labouring ancestors.
Biography club was concentrating on household tasks this month. This must be at least the eighth time I’ve run courses to help people write their life stories and this time (like all the other times) I am determined to keep up with the participants and finish mine. On the strength of having done quite a bit already, I am just about on schedule. The plan is to finish in time for next year’s ‘big’ birthday. No one will want to read it of course but it is fun to write, if an exercise in self-indulgence. Seriously though, everyone has a story to tell and everyone’s story is important. Of the planned fourteen chapters, eight are done, two are almost done and four are figments of my imagination. One of these will be about voluntary work and that’s going to take some time. I’ve got as far as making a list and have come up with twenty different things I’ve done over the past fifty-five years that come under this category. Some were short-lived, most were fun and almost all are chocked full of memories. The trouble is that voluntary work and hobbies, another chapter that is as yet a blank page, overlap so I am going to need to distinguish between then somehow. The first three chapters alone are 40,000 words and run to 145 pages including illustrations. I told you it was self-indulgent – I may not be printing this out! The expurgated versions of some of the chapters are over on Granny’s Tales, just in case anyone is curious.
Related to all this looking back, I’ve been preparing a talk for the 40th anniversary of Isle of Wight Family History Society, which is one of three big live performances scheduled for next month. As well as what I hope will be some thought-provoking comments on the family history community’s past and future, there’s plenty more self-indulgence in the shape of ‘do you remember?’s. Family history has been and still is an enormous part of 70% of my life. Most of my friends are those I’ve made through family history. It has been a blast and it isn’t over yet.
In between all this, I am still plugging away at my seafarers and shoemakers in Southampton – see I didn’t even have to try to create the alliteration. This too is growing like topsy. What I should be doing is more to the next book. It is on the, rather dauntingly long, to do list! By way of encouragement, reviews have been coming in for Women’s Work. I am particularly chuffed with Julia Packman’s review in this month’s, Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine ‘a creation to be reckoned with’. Oh and it is currently on offer at 30% off from Pen & Sword, that’s a hardback at paperback price (ebooks also available). So if you want a creation to be reckoned with you know where to go.
The title of this blog illustrates the wonderful variety that is family history, also known as, how many rabbit warrens can you plunge down head-first in a short space of time? Some lovely news first. I have had the huge honour of being made an honorary life member of the Society for One-Place Studies. I am always very unsure what I’ve done when these tributes come my way, except for having been around for a very long time but I am very grateful. I will continue to champion the cause of one-place studies, as there is so much that you can learn by focusing in on a small area and for family historians, it is important to understand the environment in which they lived.
I’ve also had great fun creating an interactive workshop about researching rural communities and their workers. This is due for its premier on 30 August and you can book for a whole day of fascinating presentations with an agricultural history theme here. I shall be persuading some friends to practice this workshop first but I think we are going to enjoy ourselves.
I’ve decided to take a step across to look again at a branch of my children’s ancestry, which is also the family for which I have an, admittedly pretty much dormant, one-name study. So a few days have been spent with the Sweetingham family who include generations of seafarers and shoemakers who settled in the Hamble estuary near Southampton. An area with an interesting history, ripe for a one-place study I’d say but emphatically not undertaken by me. Repeats to self ‘you do not need any more projects’. Once you untangle the Hughs who like to call themselves Luke and the Henrys who call themselves Hugh, because they can, you are on a roll with this lot, helped by several wills. Mind you, two family members were in court for destroying a will but the odd criminal adds to the story. Although I set up Granny’s Tales for my own ancestry, I am tempted to start uploading stories of ‘the other side’ because they too need preserving. The Sweetinghams are currently a series of notes so don’t hold your breath.
I’ve also been sent a book by a fellow genealogist from the US, Cheri Hudson Passey. This is on the important topic of tracing forward and finding living relatives; what Cheri calls ‘Genealogy in Reverse’. This has always been a key part of family history research; who knows what nuggets of information, memorabilia or photographs those distant cousins may have? With the advent of DNA testing, we have another reason to trace forwards to try to identify those DNA matches that come our way, or maybe to find people to persuade to test. Although we live in an era when there is a whole plethora of documentation about every individual, it is also a world of privacy laws, mobile populations and an awful lot of people. Tracking down distant living relatives, especially those who want to remain hidden, is an art. Although Cheri’s slim volume (54 pages), entitled Genealogy in Reverse: finding the living, is written for the US market, much of it is applicable across the English-speaking world and in any case, some of our living relatives may well be outside the UK. I don’t have a price but it is obtainable from the Genealogical Publishing Company in Baltimore, Maryland, if you are interested.
Another picture to remind you that I live somewhere beautiful.
The History Interpreter - Janet Few 