Author Archives: thehistoryinterpreter

Heading South

by thehistoryinterpreter

A last minute change of plan meant that we were left with a few free days. I wonder what they are? The weather had finally decided that it was no longer winter, could we find the one caravan site in the country with vacancies? It turned out that we could, so we decided to head south to recommence our walk round the South West Coastal Path. We began this seventeen years ago when we were a lot younger and fitter. Even then, not for us the twenty-five mile a day stretches, complete with tents to our backs. No, this is supposed to be pleasure. Over the course of ten years, we completed the Somerset coast, north Devon, the whole of Cornwall and got as far as Dartmouth. It took us 73 walking sessions to cover 477½ (don’t forget the half) miles. Then the grandchildren arrived and we found better places to go when we have days to spare. We had also reached an off putting stretch where there is no public transport to get us back to the start. The options being, walk 10½ miles described as ‘strenuous’ and get an expensive taxi back. Or cover this in three sections walking about 3½ miles in both directions in order to get back to the car. It really is very dispiriting to have to walk twenty miles to end up only ten miles further on. If we were ever going to finish the remaining 153 miles however now was the time. 10½ ‘strenuous’ miles is probably just within our capabilities but given that I have spent a year barely walking further than the front gate, it didn’t seem sensible. So the bullet needed to be bitten, three lots of there and back it was to be.

Day 1 consisted of arriving at the caravan site and completing a warm up stroll round the beautiful neighbouring country park, when the wildlife actually played ball. There was also a lengthy conversation with the caravan site wifi help line. I wasn’t going to be caught in an internet black hole again. It turns out that it was a ‘no help at all’ line but I solved the problem by reregistering with another of my many email addresses. I just have to remember who they now think I am.

DNA Detective Work and the story of a secretive agent

by thehistoryinterpreter

I decided that it was high time that I looked at some of my closer DNA matches, where I am unable to identify a common ancestor. I should explain that ‘closer’ in my case means not very close at all. My lack of cousins means that I only have three matches above 70cM and one of those is my daughter. My attention turned to a 48cM match with no tree. From shared matches, I had placed this person on the Smith/Seear side of my family tree. The Smith/Seears are tricky DNA wise because three generations of Smiths marry Seears, so I am often related to people on this line more than once. This means that suggested relationships are distorted. Without my pedigree collapse, the amount of shared cM with the mystery match might suggest that the relationship was in the region of a 3rd or 4th cousin, maybe with a removed or two.

The profile indicated that the user had joined Ancestry in 2016 and hadn’t signed in for over a year. I don’t want to give the actual name for privacy reasons but the user name looked like it could be the first half of an unusual female christian name and a surname run into one. This isn’t it but think constabolt might be Constance Bolt. I guessed at the name, Googled it and up came an obituary for the husband of someone with that name. This indicated that the person I was searching for was born in a particular smallish town in the south of England. Further internet searches revealed a maiden name and a middle christian name. To make this story easier to follow, yet still anonymise it, I am going to tell it with a fictitious maiden name. Let us say it was ‘Forester’, which probably has a similar rarity value as the actual name. This with the other information was unusual enough for me to locate a birth entry and discover that the lady, if she was still alive, would be in her nineties. Better still, her mother’s maiden name was Seear. Not only did it look as if I was on the right track but a great advantage over Smith. Yay! Eureka and all that. Now all I had to do was find a marriage for a Seear and a ‘Forester’ and I was away. This was going to be easy. Err, no. Not a marriage in sight. I searched for any other ‘Forester’- Seear children. None. Given that the marriage was likely to be not long after the first world war, it seemed probable that Miss Seear had married x before she was married to Mr ‘Forester’.

The Seears’ normal stomping ground is east London. There couldn’t be many in this small southern English town could there? There weren’t. I tried the 1911 census and the 1939 register for that area. I found a family in 1911 with two daughters who were potential wives for Mr ‘Forester’. They both married other people and died with those surnames; no second marriages to Mr ‘Forester’. The 1911 census indicated that there were other children who were not in the household, maybe I could find another daughter. According to the census there had been nine children, three had died and three more needed to be found. The family was headed by a married Emily Seear, no husband in sight. I found her in 1901, still in London, still married and still no husband, this gave me three more children. The children had unusual christian names but I couldn’t identify birth registrations for them all. Checking the births I could find on the GRO site gave me Emily’s maiden name but searching with Seear and the maiden name did not reveal the missing children, nor were they registered under Emily’s maiden name. I had her year of marriage from the 1911 census. This meant that I could find her marriage entry and the name of Mr Seear, who was potentially the grandfather of my DNA match. It was a name I recognised and suggested that the match and I were third cousins once removed twice over. I will continue to refer to him as Mr Seear, although, from this point, I was searching under his full name.

I was left with a gap and some questions. Which daughter of Emily Seear was the mother of my match, why weren’t all the children registered and where the heck was Mr Seear, who died in the 1920s but is elusive between his marriage and that point? He was clearly around to father nine children on Emily, at least one of whom really was his biological child, or there would be no DNA match.

By diligent searching I found one of the daughters marrying under a variant of Seear and then a subsequent marriage, under the surname of her first husband, to Mr ‘Forester’, which proved my link to my DNA match.

I did find the baptism of one of the children whose birth wasn’t registered but I couldn’t find the three who had died by 1911; perhaps Emily was counting still-births. There are some large gaps in the children but given what appears to be a rather odd relationship between Emily and Mr Seear that isn’t surprising.

So what do we know about Mr Seear? Given that he is my first cousin three times removed and not a close relative, I hadn’t researched him beyond his name and appearance with his parents in the 1861 and 1871 censuses before. He married in his home area in East London in August 1881, claiming to be a banker’s clerk, yet he can’t be found in the 1881 census, despite my knowing his address just four months later. Seear is a bit of a nightmare to search. Apart from the variants (Seer, Sear, Seeare and many more), it is often mis-transcribed as Leear or Teear, or indeed it seems something else entirely.

I did find a listing for Mr Seear going to Baltimore in 1883. His occupation was ‘agent’. Much as I’d love to think this was some kind of secret agent, I am quite sure it was as the representative of a company or organisation. Perhaps this is why there is an apparent gap between the first child in 1882 and the second in 1886. I totally failed to find Emily or Mr Seear in the 1891 census. I know they were in east London when a child was born at the end of 1891. I tried every technique I know, including search for christian names and dates of birth, without a surname. I tried the 1890 US census in case they all went to America; they were not there either.

I can’t find any children born between 1886 and 1891 when suddenly there were three children born in as many years, perhaps the relationship was re-kindled. There is then another gap before the final child in 1899. I have a baptism for this child on which Mr Seear calls himself a Dining Room Proprietor.

So we reach 1901 and no surprise that Mr Seear is conspicuous by his absence. Sadly, he seems to have kept his name out of the newspapers as well. Emily, describing herself as a married coffee house keeper, is still in the London area, with six children, including the mother of my DNA match but who is using a different christian name (I suspect an enumerator copying error as the names, although very different, have the same number of letters and shape).

Fast forward to 1911 when Emily and three children are in the south of England. Lo and behold Mr Seear turns up, living in London with his brother, claiming to be unmarried and working as a caterer for a licensed victualler. Two final sad entries, which show that Mr Seear spent time in the workhouse before he died.

This has taken me all morning but I am pleased to be able to untangle the tale. Shame about the other 16,000 unidentified DNA matches!

Image copyright R B

Of Swing Riots, Slander and Seriously Neglected Family History

by thehistoryinterpreter

We are still, it seems, in the depths of winter here in darkest Devon. Time for some family history. That’s nonsense, it is always  time for some family history. I am now in my 44th year of research, so it isn’t always easy to find anything new but every now and again I get out a long untouched branch, dust it down, check that I am happy with the conclusions I drew when record access was poorer and see if anything can be added.

Recently, at the request of my descendants, it was the turn of the Few family, hence the jaunt to the Hampshire/Wiltshire/Berkshire borders. Two issues with this family. Firstly, it is always a nightmare tracing a surname that is also a word, especially when looking at things like newspaper archives. I once had to look for a teacher called Mr Head (I had no forename) up popped every Headteacher in the world but I digress. Secondly, the Fews lived at a point where very short distance moves took them to another country, or another other county, giving me three to consider.

I hadn’t done much on this family for a while (translated to ‘not touched it for decades’) so as I usually do in these cases, I pretended I was starting from scratch. This involves reviewing each generation in turn, writing down my evidence for linking to the next generation and deciding if I am satisfied that I have made a correct link. I don’t use a formal ‘method’ or genealogical proof standard, although what I do amounts to the same thing. I just call it good genealogy. Having reassured myself that what I did thirty plus years ago was sound and that I really couldn’t, with confidence, add a further generation, although others have done so, I looked at the collateral lines. Here there were new generations to add, always a pleasure having been searching for so long.

I have already mentioned the revealing of the prosaically named Fish Coppinger and the four sisters with ten illegitimate children between them ‘but wait’, as my friend would say, ‘there’s more’. I am currently feeding back on pieces sent to me by students on my Pharos online Writing and Telling your Family History course. As an aside, one of these mentioned someone from my one-name study but that’s another digression. Said students are encouraged to enliven the begats and begats with plenty of context. To be fair it is more a case of ‘do as I say’, rather than ‘do as I do’. My own ‘writing up’ is primarily a way of presenting my findings in a relatively (see what I did there?) coherent way. I certainly don’t claim that mine are beautifully crafted, riveting narratives but I do like to throw in a bit of context now and again. I also have students who are currently working on a course about agricultural labouring ancestors, so I thought I should utilise some of the techniques that I have been advocating for them too.

I set to work. Newspapers are always a great source of interesting snippets. I was excited to find that the agricultural labourers that I was researching were living in a parish where Swing Rioters were out in force in the 1830s. Add to the mix the ancestress who dropped dead walking home from working in the fields, the ancestor who narrowly escaped prosecution for slander and the one whose foot was run over by a wagon and I felt that I was starting to get to know these people who had previously just been names on a family tree. If you are very bored and want to see the fruits of my labours, the draft narrative is here. This has not yet been run through the eyes of my ace proof-reader. There will be typos!

In the course of this research, I came across a very sad newspaper account about a child whose name was shared by a family member but who was no connection that I can find. Apologies for the poor reproduction – that’s as god as it gets. Although typical of the time, the callous attitude of the reporter was shocking and I am now tempted down the rabbit hole that is shouting ‘research this child’.

Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser 27 June 1874

I did get as far as finding the child in 1881, listed as a scholar with no disability mentioned and there is a burial at age nineteen. Do I invest in the death certificate? They won’t be forgotten as I will be working this in to one or two of my talks.

I now have, by design, a two-week lull in talks, although I am podcasting (I think that’s the word) this afternoon. With ‘winter’ continuing I shall move to Worcestershire (in the virtual family history sense), to see what I can uncover about another long-neglected twig on the tree. See you on the other side.

The Expedition Continues

by thehistoryinterpreter

Two more days of shower dodging and ancestral parish visiting were planned. Firstly, I returned to the hotspot for the next deluge of emails. Ah the hotspot was no longer hot. I failed to connect to the internet. Fortunately, during the previous day’s foray online I thought I had better send the next  lesson to my online students whilst I could, even though it was a few days early. That would have worked well except I had inadvertently sent lesson five masquerading as lesson four. There was nothing for it but to try to do things on my fairly new to me phone, beyond making a phone call. This, dear reader, was a learning curve. I managed to use up my miniscule data allowance (miniscule because this is not how I normally use my phone) and work out how to access some of my emails. I even manage to send replies and an s.o.s to my boss who could send my poor students the correct lesson on my behalf. I tried again to book our National Trust tickets. Still no email confirmation but a booking number appears on the website so I was hopeful that that it was indicative of a booking.

The parish visiting took us through several picturesque villages on the Hampshire/Wiltshire borders and I discovered that, in the 1840s, the family lived on a farm that had been targeted by 300 Swing Rioters, ten years earlier. Driving from parish to parish, punctuated by shower-dodging photography, is not very conducive to accomplishing my three miles a day of walking, that I have managed to keep up all year so far. My solution at home is to jog up and down on the spot to make up the steps. My travelling companion doubts that the caravan floor will cope with this. Walking round the caravan site proved to be the only option. On day three the weather did not play fair and although I set off in the dry to complete an estimated ten circuits of the site, before I got to the end of circuit two, it began to rain. By circuit three it was torrential and as I was wearing wellies, I had developed blisters. Did I give up? Well it was very tempting, especially as I kept passing the warm and dry van but no, I soldiered on.

No family history for our last day. Instead a drive out past Stonehenge to Stourhead Gardens. These are beautifully landscaped grounds that were laid out in the eighteenth century, complete with numerous classical follies. It turns out that my initial booking had gone through, as had my attempt to book using the phone, so we could in theory have gone twice!

My only previous visit to Stourhead was forty years ago. We walked round the path that meanders round the lake, amongst mature trees and rhododenrons that were at their best. There were swans, coots, mallards and Canada geese on the lake. A double bonus. This was the best day weather-wise so we stayed dry and the designated, strictly one-way only, walk round the grounds was more than enough for my daily step-count, so no circulations of the campsite were required.

All in all this wasn’t quite the relaxing break we had planned but better luck next time. I am not looking forward to catching up with 600 or so emails on a borrowed computer. I am hoping that my own was curable and will be ready soon, although I am aware that I may have to bite the new machine bullet before too long.

A ‘Restful’ Break

by thehistoryinterpreter

Things started so well for our planned few days away. My second vaccination appointment was potentially due to coincide with the dates that we had chosen but fortuitously, the call came through for day 77 and not days 79-84. We even managed to finally get Chris’ second vaccination, which was nearly three weeks overdue, for the same day. Beyond that, matters began to go downhill a little. On the morning of departure, my laptop developed a probably terminal blue screen of death. Bother (or similar sentiment). I had things I needed to do both before leaving and while I was away. Frantic appeals went out for Chris to pack his, which uses different software making it less than ideal. I also looked out my ancient ‘on-its-last-legs’ net book, which has the right programmes but an irritatingly tiny typo-engendering keyboard. It also experiences periodic blue screen of deathness but fortunately it limps on.

Having left just a little later than planned in order to take the laptop to computer hospital we set off in torrential rain for the caravan site. On arrival, whilst enjoying a welcome cup of coffee, I struggled with the teeny tiny laptop and discovered, to my alarm, that I had booked a site that doesn’t have wifi. That’s not strictly true, wifi is advertised; it is just that to access it you have to stand on one leg under a tree in the rain by the car park. This means that all the map checking and itinerary planning I was intending to do on arrival had to be achieved by guesswork. We contented ourselves with a wander along a local footpath. The beech trees were sporting their new-minted leaves and there were bluebells, cowslips and wild strawberries in flower.

The next day dawned and the forecast rain was not in evidence. I investigated the hotspot from the safety of the car. This was not without its challenges. The worn out teeny tiny laptop has a battery life of several milliseconds, it also has a ‘battery-saving,’ almost unreadably dull, screen when not plugged in. Seventy odd emails, that had been sent in the preceding twenty four hours, came hurtling in. We attempted to book tickets to visit a National Trust property, which only became available today. Despite it appearing to be successful, no confirmatory email arrived.

Next, we set off to investigate some villages once inhabited by the Fews and associated families. A combination of pandemic restrictions and the ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ nature of the places on the itinerary, meant that the duration of our explorations had to be directly related to bladder capacity. We were in the chalk vales of Wiltshire, a land of ancient earthworks and army camps. There were some very picturesque and probably incredibly expensive, houses, with many more retaining their thatched roofs than you find further west. There were also several thatched cob walls.

We took a look at the fields in the area, where an ancestress was working at harvest-time when she was taken ill and died, then moved on to the small village of Wootton Rivers. Next up was the Savernake Forest, allegedly a nature reserve with potential for a walk. We spectacularly failed to find any car park or way in that was not accompanied by signs reading ‘private’. We decided that we might try again another day. We drove through Marlborough. By co-incidence, I was there virtually just two days previously. Then a quick look at Devizes, a much larger settlement, before heading back to the van via the spread out village of Woodborough. Just time to stop off at Woodhenge as we passed by. Although this was once a prehistoric site, with large wooden uprights arranged in concentric circles, it is now concrete henge as the wood, unsurprisingly, does not survive, so short concrete bollards indicate where the pillars once stood.

Back at the van and footpath walk done, I returned on foot to the ‘hotspot’ to send the replies to the morning’s emails. Ironically, the sun put in a weak appearance at this point. Without the shelter of the car, the screen was completely illegible. My helpful companion suggested that I put my coat over my head and the computer. I will own that this did solve the problem but I looked like a total idiot in a public place. I was reassured that ‘there’s nobody about’ but the sound of footsteps belied this. I suppose at least hiding under my coat meant I was anonymous. For reasons that will become apparent, you will be reading this once I have returned to the comfort of my internet enabled home.

Freedom

by thehistoryinterpreter

As many will know, I have been content to stay at home over the past months, only passing through the front gate four or five times since October. In April, I decided that if I didn’t leave home soon it would become increasingly difficult. The sun was shining, I was getting fed up with trying to walk three miles a day (something I have kept up all year) in a tiny house so, dear reader, I WENT OUT. We had a few lovely walks along the coastal footpath, enjoying the beautiful scenery and getting the required step count up in a painless way.

Obviously seeing the family after six/seven months was a priority. Finding a gap in my ridiculous talk schedule and more to the point a caravan site with vacancies, was a problem. Eventually we managed to book into a site fifty miles from where we wanted to be and not on the ideal weekend. The plan was to see each of my descendants’ families in turn, as there are too many of us to meet altogether. We did the ‘risk assessment’. It seemed low risk, even to my ridiculously risk adverse brain. Virus rates were very low in the area we were coming from and those we were going to. All three bubbles had been minimising social contact. Three of the six adults had had a first vaccine. The news was saying ‘this may be as good as it gets for the foreseeable future’. If I was ever going to see my family in person again now was a good time. We took lateral flow tests – negative. We were socially distantish. With the sort of bad luck that explains why I am so risk adverse, one family member tested positive the day after we saw him. Not, I hasten to add, because he had been rashly heading maskless into crowded places but because he works in a school; the only contact he has had outside his own family. Ironically, his call to be vaccinated came on the same day as his confirmation of his positive status.

Chris and I broke our bubble in order to self-isolate apart, in case one of us had been infected and not the other but our ten days are now up, we’ve both tested negative and we can re-bubble. I have spent the past days cooking for myself. I am genetically programmed to be a non-cook. In my defence I have only burnt two saucepans this week, that’s probably a win with my level of ‘skill’. Who enjoys watching a saucepan to see if there is still water in it? Yes, I do I have a timer on the oven. I might even have been able to dig out the instructions in order to see if I could make it work but saucepans don’t always reach the point of no return at the same rate. I can do the science and realise that it will depend on the temperature on the dial and the amount of water – kind of makes the timer thing a bit hit and miss – in my case usually miss. I must admit that I did resort to salad yesterday – no danger of burning that. So un-carbonised proper cooked food tonight – hurrah!

I decided yesterday that I would resume the near impossible task of seeing what I could find out about the family of my mum’s world war 2 fiancé, an American airman who was killed in action. I have seen and can picture, a photograph of this man, although said photo is no longer in the family album. I have had some wonderful helpers from across the globe but no real results so far. I have very little to go on. He was known as Jimmy Kirby but Jimmy was probably short for James, which could have been his first name, a middle name or Jimmy might have been a nickname. He was likely to have been stationed in south-east England, possibly Warminster. He had an identical twin brother Curtis, or Curt and Jimmy was killed in I think 1944. You have no idea how many potential James Kirby’s there are to choose from. To say nothing of the Kirbys with J as a middle initial. One promising looking Curtis was identified, who had a younger brother James but a photograph of James was enough for me to know that this was not the one I wanted. If there is anyone out there that thinks this rings a bell please get in touch, stranger things have happened.

Mistress Agnes is off to entertain merchants next week, she needs to mind her manners. Guests are welcome if you want to learn about her times.

The great loft clearance has been on hold because crawling around lofts when you live alone and no one is likely to find you for a week if things go horribly wrong is not a great idea (risk adverse see) but it has reached the old toys stage. There are toys from the 1930s, the 1960s and the 1990s to be enjoyed. I may be some time.

A Surfeit of Mead: a family history tale

by thehistoryinterpreter

Yes, it has been a bit quiet here lately. A whole nine days without giving a Zoom talk, although I have attended a few. I deliberately left a gap, thinking that family might be able to visit. Sadly not to be. I have had some family Zoom time including joining in with the construction of a mega Harry Potter Lego set, with the participants kindly holding up the board to the camera, so that I could witness every step. I have also forced myself off the laptop and have begun the mammoth task that is turning out the loft, of which more later as this is a family history story.

I had reached a bit of a halt whilst re-examining my children’s paternal line. This did include the excitement, mentioned previously, of discovering four sisters who had ten illegitimate children between them and also an ancestor who dropped dead on her way back from working in the fields but I digress. I felt that I was getting a little bogged down with this story so, prompted by the imminent visit of my daughter to Whitby, I turned to look again at her Mead ancestors who came from that area. This was a real case of restart, revisit, review, as all I had done on this line in the past twenty five years was to add on the 1901 and 1911 census entries. Almost all the research had been done pre-computer, using certificates, censuses and the IGI (the forerunner of family search). I had never had the opportunity to visit a Yorkshire record office.

So, with new eyes, access to images of original registers and online indexes, I was gratified to confirm my previous research, which stretched back to my children’s 4x great grandparents. Fairly swiftly, four further generations were added. These solidly respectable (glossing over a few very short pregnancies for eldest children) and comparatively prosperous Yorkshire yeoman farmers did lack imagination when it came to naming their children. Seven generations in the direct line and every blessed one was called John or Francis. All the Francises had brothers called John and you’ve guessed it, all the John’s have brothers called Francis. Ok, I’ll concede, one was called John Edward but really.

Then I started on the families of the brides. This is still ongoing but it is fascinating, well to me anyway. I am back to the seventeenth century here so the contextual social history is not a problem. Remember though that I am a soft southerner. One with strong emotional and familial links to Northumberland but definitely a southerner. I am now immersing myself in the local history, which is new territory for me. I skim read the relevant General View of Agriculture, being very grateful that I can still speed read as it is 392 pages. Now I am dredging the depths of my knowledge of sixteenth and seventeenth religious history and giving it a new application. I am currently embroiled in tales of priest’s holes and recusancy, as it turns out that one of the brides came from a staunchly Catholic parish and that her very unusual surname appears on lists of those whose estates were sequestered. It is also a surname that seems to now be extinct, just nine English/Welsh births (in all three spelling variants) and only one, a female, in the last ninety years, another fascination. Today I may be doing a mini-one name study of the name in the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries. I am forcing myself to put this research aside in order to tick at least one thing off the to do list every day and also to incorporate some loft-sorting but I am enjoying this immensely. Just keeping everything crossed that the Borthwick Institute restart their coping service soon and there isn’t some massive backlog as almost every generation of Meads left a will. I have zero desire to rush to a hairdresser or a café when lockdown eases but I need those wills!!

And the loft-sorting you ask. That was going well. I was able to sort through my ‘souvenirs’. This was particularly helpful as, in company with the lovely ladies of my online memories group, I am filling in the gaps in my auto-biography. I have now opened the suitcase containing my diaries (daily entries since 1 January 1971 and a few isolated entries prior to that). It turns out that in 1968 (which I abandoned in September) I not only noted the weather but also all the books I read and more bizarrely what I wore, ‘wore school uniform, changed into kipper tie dress’ etc.. What with that and the Meads and associated families, I may be some time. Oh, I have twelve Zoom presentations to give this month, ah well, I foresee some early morning starts.

Mastering the Art of Talking in my Sleep or Continuing my Campaign to do Two Things at Once

by thehistoryinterpreter

This week has seen me enter my 45th year of serious family history research, although I drew up my first family tree at the age my oldest grandchildren are now. It is the obsession (hobby really doesn’t cut it) that keeps on giving and I can still find something new. This last week or so it has been a potpourri of discoveries. An exciting new one-place source, of which more another time. The story of the interesting four Gilbert sisters who had ten illegitimate children between them, plus a niece with one and an aunt with three more. After that I thought I’d better stop looking. Filling in my census and trying not to die between the day I submitted it and actual census day and creating an account of my own census day memories. I have recorded a video of a family history story for my grandchildren, well I had fun with it anyway. I have half written one talk and recorded another, so a fair bit achieved this week.

A few weeks ago, I managed to be in two places at once. Now I have mastered the art of accomplishing tasks whilst sleeping. This is going to be sooo useful. I appeared as a speaker for the Family History Down Under conference, which went live in Australian time. Hence, I was able to give a talk whilst I was asleep and wake up to a raft of lovely comments and questions. My final session on Embarrassing Ancestors is due to go live any minute and as it was a brand new talk, written with audience discussion in mind, I am keen to know what others think. You can still register for this conference and listen to all the sessions, or register for just one of four streams.

I have also made a possibly rash decision about how to spend my time over the next academic year and if am successful, stand by for accounts of my latest adventure. Only one life and all that. It might mean delaying novel number three, which wasn’t really happening anyway and I might start being a bit more hard hearted when asked to give talks; I have twelve booked for April and that pace really isn’t sustainable.

In non-historical matters, I was asked to complete a random Covid test, to assess levels of asymptomatic disease. Assembling the accompanying box to return the test was a challenge. The instructions were on the underside of the box I was trying to reconstruct. Do I hold it above my head? Do I try to assemble it upside down? Do I look, memorise and then assemble? Then there was the stick it down your throat and up your nose (ideally in that order) thing. The next challenge was putting the swab in the tiny transparent tube. This was a bit of a fail. Having taken my glasses off so I could see my tonsils in the mirror (my close sight is better without glasses), the tube was beyond my clear sight range and it took a few goes to get the stick in. I know, I know, I should have moved it closer. What a wonderful thing hindsight (or indeed just sight) is. Next step to put the test in the fridge and await to see if the courier who was, I was told, going to arrive between 15.03 and 17.03, could find my house. What’s with the .03 business? With a two hour window you’d think it would just be 15.00. Should I refuse him entry if he arrives at 15.02? Unsurprisingly, since apart from the empty next door chapel and the mobile post van fifty yards away, I have only left the house three times since October, it was negative. Or at least my hand which accidently touched the swab with all the getting it in the tube malarky is uninfected.

The excavation of the office continues. I have sorted out and sent three sacks full of paper to recycling. No, I really don’t need all the rough scribbles for my PhD. There are a few more files to cull and I have to decide if I am ever likely to read photocopies of umpteen academic articles. Oh and if anyone local wants a huge pile of House Beautiful Magazines dating back four years you are welcome. At least I can say they come from a Covid free home.

Spring is on the way and just to prove it here are some catkins from my newly pruned trees.

My Life in Seven Censuses #Census2021 #Censusdayphoto

by thehistoryinterpreter

Fresh from filling in my census form in last week and then keeping my fingers crossed that I would live until census day to avoid confusing my descendants, I decided to look back at my appearances in censuses past. I have found the forms that I saved in 2011, 2001 and 1991, so I know exactly what I put then and I have copied the latest one too. I am sure I have the 1981 return somewhere but unearthing that may involve a trip into the uncharted territory of the loft. I have tried to pick photographs that were taken as near to census day as possible. It was difficult to find later pictures for years ending in 1 as I am the photographer, so appear in very few. 1991 was a total fail – I don’t seem to have anything between 1989 and 1993. So here is my offering; please do likewise and create your own census day stories.

23 April 1961

This is one of only two censuses where I appear as part of a complete family unit. I have just had my fifth birthday. I am living in a three-bedroomed terraced house at 28 Sundridge Road, Addiscombe, Croydon with my parents. Recent censuses ask about central heating and I believe past ones have included questions about radio ownership. At this point, we do not have central heating, although we do have both radio and television, as well as a fridge. I am about to start my second term at Tenterden School. I am a little hazy about when my father moved from job to job but he is working as a projectionist and I think, has just started working for Associated Electrical Industries. My mother is probably doing freelance book-keeping at home. I will shortly be going for a week’s holiday to Bognor. I have just been given my second tortoise, Emma.

25 April 1971

I am a stroppy teenager and am just about to return to Croydon High School after a term off having broken my wrist and ankle. Breaking both at once means that I haven’t been able to use crutches. School is two bus rides away and involves many flights of stairs, so attendance isn’t practical whilst I am in plaster. At least, that’s what I am claiming. I am studying for eight O levels (this will reduce to seven after my absence, although actually I learn better at home than I do at school). Whilst I am home from school, I am volunteering at the nursery school up the road; the first of many voluntary jobs involving children that I will take on. I am also recovering from a severe bout of flu, leading to my weight dropping to under six stone. I have just met my first ‘proper’ long-term boyfriend.

By this time, my father has died and my mum and I are living in a two bedroomed maisonette at 3 Parkfields, Shirley, Surrey. Thus, the census shows no record of my living at what I regard as being my childhood home, 57 Firsby Avenue, Shirley. We had solid fuel central heating at Firsby Avenue but now have electric, oil-filled radiators.

Mum is working both at home and in the office as a book-keeper for the instrument makers Negretti and Zambra. Around this time I am working in the restaurant at Crystal Palace Athletics Stadium at weekends. An important member of our family is our dog, Sparky but she won’t appear on any official document.

5 April 1981

I have been married for nearly eight months and I am living in my first home of my own; a three-bedroomed Victorian terrace, 31 Cross Street, Sandown, Isle of Wight. We have gas central heating. Although I have had a colour television for nine years, we have reverted to black and white to save the license fee. I am working as a school secretary and my husband is a civil servant for the Customs and Excise Department. Censuses are keen on asking about qualifications, so I will record that, at this point, I have seven O levels, three indifferent A levels and a Diploma of Higher Education in history and sociology (DipHE was a short-lived and fairly meaningless qualification that was the equivalent to two years of degree level study). I am working to convert this into a full degree through the Open University. I am looking forward to starting a family and I am just about to go on holiday to Guernsey.

21 April 1991

My second and last census as a complete family unit and a short stay in Aston Clinton, Buckinghamshire has slipped between the enumerators’ nets. Now I am in the ‘forever’ home at 12 Ranelagh Road, Lake, Isle of Wight. This is a detached three-bedroomed house with a two-bedroomed flat in the basement. We now have gas central heating, a washing machine and a freezer but the television is still black and white. Both my daughters feature in this census as school children. I have completed my honours degree and also have a Further & Adult Education Teachers’ Certificate Parts I & 2 (City & Guilds).

I am teaching genealogy evening classes and doing free-lance research. My husband is still with the Customs and Excise but is now commuting daily to Portsmouth to do so. My mum has moved to a bungalow round the corner.

I have learned to drive so the household has a car to record in the census for the first time (my dad’s short spell as a car owner fell between two censuses).

I am actively involved with Isle of Wight Family History Society, running their bookstall and library. I am also the Honorary Education Liaison Officer for the Federation of Family History Societies, traveling to Birmingham for the meetings. I am a governor at my daughters’ primary school.

29 April 2001

I am still at the same address, the first home to appear on two censuses. We finally have a coloured television. I am now a widow; one daughter is at university and the other is on the roll at the local High School.

My short stints as a lecturer for The Open University and a school dinner lady have come and gone. I am working part time teaching history in a private faith school, with a handful of pupils. I will later also teach geography and law, as well as taking on a role as school bursar. I am also working as a relief special needs classroom assistant, which I love.

I have added to my qualifications with a Part 2 certificate in Genealogy and Heraldry from the Institute of Heraldic & Genealogical Studies.

I am still involved with Isle of Wight Family History Society and also the Braund one-name Society as their historian and editor.

27 March 2011

Now I have relocated to Devon and downsized drastically to live alone in my current seventeenth century cottage. It has three bedrooms but two are little more than box rooms, a tiny garden compared to the 250 foot that I have left being and central heating fed by an oil-powered Rayburn.

The intended early retirement has certainly not happened. I have now spent nearly ten years with the job I must not mention and have been promoted to a position of responsibility. I work occasionally as a traffic census enumerator. I am also enjoying working as a seventeenth century historical interpreter for a local tourist attraction. Living where I do, my lecturing opportunities have greatly expanded. I volunteer for Devon Family History Society and the Braund Society. I have also completed my PhD. Both my children are now married. I have begun to travel abroad regularly; later this year I will visit Australia.

My daughters and sons in law are staying at my house on census night, in preparation for my mum’s funeral the following day. [Although I have put a note to this effect with my form, I didn’t include them as visitors. I have no idea why, perhaps I had already filled it in.]

21 March 2021

Again a home appears in two censuses, although this one is now sporting an additional conservatory, giving me 35% more downstairs space. I am still living here by myself, although due to COVID, I have a ‘bubble’. I have not seen my family, which now includes three grandchildren, for six or seven months. There are no holidays on the horizon.

I have had two more promotions in the job I must not mention but this is currently greatly reduced due to the pandemic. I am still giving family and social history lectures to a worldwide audience, although this is being accomplished virtually at present and this is keeping me busier than ever. Following the closing of the tourist attraction for which I was working, five years ago, I went free-lance as an historical interpreter but my colleagues and I haven’t been able to present in person for over a year.

I am now chairman of Devon Family History Society and also of my local history group and I continue to work for the Braund Society. I am a published author of both fiction and non-fiction.

What will 2031 bring?

One of those Weeks – mostly about yoghurt and family history

by thehistoryinterpreter

It has been one of those weeks. First there was yoghurt-gate. I volunteered to manage the T***o delivery without the aid of my trusty bubble companion. I’ve done this before. It does involve military style pre-planning because I am one of those who anti-bac wipes the milk cartons, hides the non-perishables away for three days and decants frozen stuff into clean bags but it can be done. Well, usually it can. For some reason I totally failed on separating out the non-perishable stuff into one bag as I unloaded the green basket that Mr Delivery Man rested in my porch. Then one of the yogurts found its way on to the quarry-tiled kitchen floor. Just take it from me this is NOT A GOOD THING. I suppose I should be grateful that it wasn’t carpet. I kid you not, yoghurt found its way out of the open kitchen door, three feet from where it fell, it spanned the three foot hallway to the door of the living room and such was the projectile quality of said yoghurt that it was still at a height to land on top of a table a further three foot away. I then had to clean up the worst of the yoghurt, which seemed to be enough to fill ten yoghurt cartons, despite the fact that the yoghurt pot was still three-quarters full. There were also quantities of yoghurt over me. The dilemma, should I abandon slowly defrosting shopping in order to get changed? Should I continue to unpack clad only in my underwear? In the end I carried on in my yoghurty garb, trying not to step in residue on the floor. At least I had decided against mopping the kitchen floor earlier in the day, as that would have been a total waste of time.

The upside to all this was that it bumped up my daily step count a treat. I am still trying to do at least three miles a day and as I am not going out this involves a great deal of jogging on the spot. This worked well during the weekend’s indoor athletics championships. Every time there was a decent length track event, up I sprang and jogged along. It really wasn’t worth getting up for the seven seconds of the 60m races but the 800m heats were ideal. I am quite thankful that there wasn’t a 10,000m event though.

Males, 3D Model, Isolated, 3D, Model, Full Body, White
Free image via Pixabay

I have also managed to lose the plot a couple of times this week, involving being a little late to one meeting and failing to realise until very late in the day that two meetings I thought would be consecutive, actually overlapped. This involved letting other people down, so caused me some sleepless nights but I guess we are only human.

Spurred on by the amount of dust revealed by the recent sunshine, I began to do some spring-cleaning/decluttering. I am now up to 2007’s spring clean. I am sure my offspring will be grateful to have a little less to sort out when the time comes. First, to rediscover the ‘office’, which I rarely actually use for anything other than storing officey things, as I prefer to sit by the wood-burner, or in the conservatory, according to the season. I am determined not to have more books than will fit on the seven six foot high bookcases (and that’s just half the collection – there are another six full height book cases in the spare bedroom.) So far, I have managed to part with some 1980s guides to record offices, the over-head projector acetates that I used to use for talks and today 30mm slides that were used for the same purpose. I have also jettisoned a whole load of old computer discs ‘how to recover Windows 98’ and the like and some random bits of computer wires that don’t seem to fit anything. Unless you looked at the bin and recycling box, I’m not sure you’d know I’d done anything but it is a start. I am now debating whether I can dispose of the large microfiche reader that hasn’t been used for about three years. I considered replacing it with a hand-held one but £100 for something I may never use seemed rather steep. I think I may go for adding it to the ridiculous amount of stuff in my loft ‘just in case’.

I am still Zooming left right and centre; it is a quieter week this week with only fifteen meetings. There are a couple of major events coming up, where I am virtually speaking. These are recorded sessions and somehow I always sounds as if I am reading a script (which I am not). It is more difficult to sound spontaneous in a recording and I have noticed that it is similar for other speakers. So you can join me for Family History Down Under in a couple of weeks’ time, including the premiere of my Embarrassing Ancestors talk and at the Family History Federation’s The Really Useful Show in April. Looking further ahead, the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottowa have just published the programme for their September conference and I will be there with another new presentation. In between, there is THE Genealogy Show in June, so it is going to be a busy year.

On the back of all this Zooming, I offered to run a Zoom of Zooms, so that other family history groups can benefit from the steep learning curve that I have gone through with Devon Family History Society and other groups in the last eleven months. This is not really me being philanthropic, it is self-defence, as I have already advised several groups and I thought it would be easier to do one meeting for a number of groups. If you know of anyone who is thinking of using Zoom, or would like to use it more proficiently, let me know and I will pass on the link. Believe me, virtual meetings are here to stay, even when face-to-face meetings are possible as well. It is not ‘too late now it is all almost over’.

I am excited begin another presentation of my Writing up your Family History online course for Pharos Tutors on Monday. Last time I looked there was still room for a couple more so why not begin to create order from the chaos of your family history notes.

Talking of which, I have now cracked open the new version of Family Tree Maker without too many hitches. I’ve also been revisiting one of my brick walls for the nth time. I still think I know who the parents of my 4x great grandfather (3 times over – best not to ask) are but I just don’t feel confident enough to ink them in. There may be a blog post!!