Lots of family history bits and pieces on the agenda lately. My article on Surviving the Seventeenth Century has appeared in Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine – full of handy tips about how not to die from the various hazards that beset our seventeenth century ancestors. I’ve chatted to Radio Devon about family history. You can catch this here at about one hour ten minutes in. I’ve helped to set up a VE Day commemorations exhibition. I’ve written up and published the story of my father’s wartime experiences, which you could read here. It is a bit of a different account as he started the war by continuing in his civilian job as a cinema operator. He worked for the small south London Granada chain and as luck would have it, Guy Morgan wrote a history of that chain in 1948. This book now retails for silly money but I borrowed it from the library twenty five years ago and it was just what I needed to understand what my dad was up to. Then he joined the RAF Regiment, serving in southern Italy and Sicily. Towards the end of the war he was one of the RAF personnel who was transferred to the army and he peeled a lot of potatoes in Ireland. Then he agreed to sign on for a further term of service, this time attached to ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association). In this capacity, he returned to Italy as a cinema operator. If you are interested in writing family stories my Are you Sitting Comfortably?: writing and telling your family history course starts this month. It is online so you can join in from anywhere.
I’ve got ready for this weekend’s one-name family reunion, as the Braund clan make their annual pilgrimage to North Devon. I’ve done lots of behind the scenes preparation for next year’s residential family history conference in North Devon, with a few more speakers announced and more lined up to reveal. It is going to be a great weekend in such a beautiful part of the world. I’ve taken advantage of said beautiful part of the world with early morning walks. Now I really do need to unearth the hoover.
My Seear brick wall has been around for decades. Seear is a nightmare to research because it has so many variants and not all are picked up by ticking FindmyPast’s ‘include name variants’ box. Seear, Sear and Seer are the obvious ones but then you need to add an e, or an s, or an es, to all of those. The name is sometimes mis-transcribed as Secar(e/s/es) or Scear(e/s/es). In addition, mis-transcriptions of the initial letter lead to indexing as Teear, Leear etc.. I have used Seear here for consistency here unless the spelling is relevant to the argument.
I have ‘always’ known that my great great grandfather was Frederick Seear from East London , as I have my great grandparents’ original marriage certificate which names him and very early on in my family history journey, I discovered that Frederick’s grandparents were William and Mary Seear. In fact, as my great grandparents, Herbert Havet Smith and Catherine Seear, were first cousins, as were Herbert’s parents, William Joseph Smith and Eliza Seear, William and Mary are my 4x great grandparents twice over, making the brick wall doubly frustrating.
I built up a detailed picture of William’s life. I quickly found nine children born in the 1780s and 1790s. There was a strong suspicion of an earlier son for whom there was no baptism and thanks to marriage witness signatures, amongst other evidence, he later took his place in the family, as did a short-lived daughter, who became the eldest known child of what was now eleven in the family. I still think I may be missing a child, as it seems unusual that there was no son called William after his father.
There were clear connections with the Seear family of St. Albans, with intermarriage and members of both families together in the census. The only clue I have for William’s date of birth is his age at burial, notoriously unreliable, particularly as his wife had predeceased him. This suggested that he was born between February 1753 and February 1754. There was a William Sears baptised in St Albans in January 1755, close but I needed more evidence. I could find no obvious alternative future for the St Albans William unless he became my William. I mined this family for all I was worth but they yielded very little. I could only confirm one marriage and one infant death for the five siblings of the St Albans William. There was almost certainly another sibling, again missing a baptism (they really have an aversion to baptising their Thomases) and here I was more successful but there was still not enough evidence to claim these ancestors.
I was also missing ‘my’ William’s marriage to Mary ?. The world and his wife on Ancestry are convinced she was a Mary Stone. I am definitely not convinced. I have ‘my’ William’s signature as a witness on three of his children’s marriages and even allowing for the passage of years, it looks very different. He signs consistently Seear, whereas the marriage to Mary Stone is William Sears.
Although I found out more about William’s descendants, as far as William’s ancestry was concerned, this is how the situation remained for nearly forty years. Then a few years ago I discovered a will for a Joseph Seear, a grocer in Ham, near Kingston. I should mention that three generations of the Seear family intermarry with the Smiths, who originate from Ham, whilst my Seears were in Stoke Newington and Hackney. Joseph appears in Land Tax Records and Freeholders’ Lists in Ham between 1791 and 1806. It is also important to note that Ham at this time was very small, with only a dozen or so householders.
In his will, Joseph mentioned his brother John Seear, a shoemaker of South Mimms and his brother William Seear, a gardener of Stoke Newington. Thirty years before this, my William had been a shoemaker, not a gardener but there is no sign of any other William Seear in Stoke Newington. In addition, the will mentions Joseph’s niece Charlotte Seear, who was my William’s daughter and also Charlotte’s future husband, my 3x great grandfather, (John) Jeremiah Smith. Furthermore, one of John of South Mimms’ daughters and one of ‘my’ William’s daughters married brothers, suggesting a connection. After much investigation, I was happy that this was the right family.
I now had a group of three siblings to look for instead of just one, I also had burials and therefore approximate dates of birth for each brother. There was a John in the St Albans family who tied up beautifully with John of South Mimms but no Joseph. If Joseph’s age was right, he would have been born before the parents’ marriage in the family that I was hoping was mine. I checked for illegitimate baptisms but there were none. There was no alternative Seear family with a Joseph, William and John of the right sort of ages.
In his will, Joseph’s first bequest is to his ‘brother’ John Steel, a ropemaker of Sunbury and John Steel’s son, also John. He also mentions a ‘sister’ Sarah Treakell, a clergyman’s widow, who turned out to be a Sarah Steel. John Steel senior was and remains elusive, with no obvious marriage or burial and John junior was no better. I did track Sarah Treakell down and found an age at burial for her, leading to a possible baptism for a Sarah Steel in Putney, very close to Ham. She came from a large family, which did include a John. I assumed the Steels might be Joseph’s brother and sister in law or possibly half siblings but there was no marriage for a Joseph Seear to a Steel, or to someone who might have been a widow, formerly Steel. I couldn’t unearth any suggestion of half-siblings. Another roadblock.
I revisit this problem every year or so ‘just in case’ and this time round found that Sarah Treakell née Steel had left a will. In this she mentions a sister Ann Birch of Somers Town. I can’t trace Ann, nor can I find a Steel/Birch marriage, although there is an Ann in the Putney Steel family. Sarah also refers to a nephew George Day. Joseph made George Day ‘maltster of Barnes’ his executor but didn’t specify a relationship. He also listed George’s wife Mary Ann and her daughter Anne Marie. Hurrah, I thought, a breakthrough; except George Day is even more elusive than everyone else. No Steel/Day marriages, no Seear/Day marriages. Apart from some land tax lists, no sign of a George Day anywhere remotely close to Barnes. There is a press reference to an Anne Marie Day of Isleworth in April 1841 but is she in the 1841 census? No of course she isn’t.
None of this helped with finding or confirming William’s parentage. Sarah Treakell, bless her, did mention a “ten pounds a legacy left me by my late brother Joseph Steel of Ham near Richmond with the aforesaid sum being in the hands of Mr Day my nephew at Barnes Terrace near Putney”. Ten pounds was the sum left to Sarah by Joseph Seear.
Could Joseph Seear actually be Joseph Steel? In which case, it could be the Seears who were Joseph’s in-laws not the Steels. A Joseph Steel married Sarah in Stepney in 1781. The clerk has written Sears but Sarah’s signature looks much more like Seear. The witnesses were not helpful; Robert Vaughan is a regular witness and I can’t trace Sarah Bradley. No children have been found for this couple as Steel, or Seear in the area surrounding Ham or Stepney.
There is a possible burial of a Sarah Steel, aged 40, in Wandsworth in 1785 and a Sarah Sears in Mortlake in the same year. There is also a marriage of a Joseph Seares widower and Sarah Leach in Wandsworth in 1794. These entries may or may not be relevant.
The Sarah Steel who was baptised in Putney had a brother John, who could be John the ropemaker, a sister Ann, who could become Ann Birch, despite Ancestry trees wanting to marry her off to someone else with no evidence whatsoever of a marriage record. This family also includes a brother Joseph. The age at burial for Joseph Seear who made the will, isn’t quite what I’d like it to be, as it suggests a birth between March 1743 and March 1744 and Joseph Steel, Sarah’s brother, was six years older but he was a widower with no children, who would have provided the details of his age at the time of his death?
So where does that leave me? I know what I think is correct. Thomas Sear and Mary Phillips married in St. Albans, Hertfordshire in 1746. Baptisms for six of the children are recorded in St. Albans: Sarah 1747, Mary, 1753, William 1755, Susannah 1757, Ann, 1759 and John 1762. I believe that in the gap between Sarah and Mary fits Thomas who, according to his age at burial, was born about 1749 and who spent his life in St Albans. He was a shoemaker. His grandson married ‘my’ William’s granddaughter and Thomas’ great grandson, a fruiter’s foreman, was to live in Islington next door to William’s grandson, a fruiterer. Of the other children of Thomas senior and Mary, Ann died young and Susannah married and remained in St. Albans. I believe that William became a shoemaker in Stoke Newington and my ancestor, that John also became a shoemaker and went to South Mimms and that Sarah married Joseph Steel, who changed his name to Seear and was a grocer in Ham.
The same Christian names do recur, although none of them are particularly unusual. Thomas junior of St Albans has Thomas, Elizabeth, Charles Robert (names from his wife’s family), John and William. John of South Mimms has Mary, William, Sarah, Elizabeth, Susanna, Emma, Catherine and Ann. ‘My’ William has Sarah, Thomas, John, Samuel, Mary, James, Susanna Maria, Elizabeth Ann, Frances, Charlotte and Ann. Do I consider that all this is enough to break down the brick wall? No, no quite. There are missing marriages and burials that would help. Locating Ann Birch and even more importantly George Day would be useful. The Putney Steel family does have some unaccounted for daughters who might have married a Day. I guess that, for now, I have to be content with the fact that the brick wall has fewer bricks in it than it did a few days ago. In the meantime, if anyone has a sledge hammer or two to take to the remaining bricks out of my wall I’d be grateful.
There’s been quite a bit going on garden wise. First was the plan to cover the unsightly tarmac in front of the back gate by the new water butt, which leads to the ‘not actually a garage anymore’. This involved creating a barrier to stop any chippings escaping through the back gate. That was the easy bit. Next, to order chippings. The received wisdom was that online would be cheapest. After some research, I discovered a website that indicated how much stone you needed to cover an area of particular dimensions. I measured carefully, more than once. This was not as easy as it sounds as the area to be covered is wedge-shaped. I was reasonably good at geometry and I over estimated, which led to a figure of 362kg. I ordered 450kg, confident that that would be plenty. There’s a huge but coming; I did not order from the same website as the one that provided this figure, as I preferred a slightly different stone.
Next, the non-delivery of said chippings on the day they were due. In the end they were delayed long enough to arrive on a day when I was back from my weekend away. Unfortunately though, it was my birthday and a day out was planned. My kind neighbour signed for the large bag of chippings and all seemed well. Next some shovelling and raking, which actually didn’t take as long as I thought it would. In theory, there should have been chippings to spare but no. I can only presume that the chippings on the measuring website were a different weight to those I actually ordered. There were not enough. We raked them a little thinner, still not enough.
A trip round local builders’ merchants armed with a sample of the stones ensued. Absolutely nothing that looked vaguely similar. I could have ordered more from the original supplier but the delivery charge was punishing and supposing I still didn’t have enough? I wondered if I could put a few raised beds on the area to eke out the stone, as they would not need stones underneath. I decided to think about the best course of action. We then realised that walking on said stones coated the soles of our shoes with a chalky residue. Clearly the adults who were likely to be walking in my garden are perfectly capable of efficiently using a door mat, the three imminently arriving small people, not so much and one of those small people sleeps in the ‘not a garage’.
From the outset, I had considered putting stepping stones on the chippings, this now seemed like an essential requirement. Ideally, I wanted to match the rope-like stones in another part of the garden. I looked online for a nearby supplier. Good news, a large retailer near me sold what I wanted but only if I purchased twenty-five stepping stones at about £350, not an option. The small people were due the next day, it was already close to closing time. Cue a hasty trip to a nearby, normally expensive, garden centre, where lo and behold, I could get the nine stepping stones that I required for a much more reasonable figure and as a bonus, the postman had delivered a 25% off voucher for said garden centre, which I had not only saved but found and remembered to take with me. Nine stepping stones purchased for a seventh of the price of twenty-five. Next to lay the stepping stones. Lining them up was not without incident but moving chippings from underneath the stepping stones meant the chippings covered the whole area – result.
Then there was the birthday visit to a large and economical garden centre to splash quite a lot of cash. The haul included a wisteria, a standard azalea, that I regretted not buying last year, a lupin, a replacement alchemilla mollis, the previous one having drowned as I accidentally planted it in a pot with no drainage hole, a lemon tree, an evergreen clematis, which I hope will grow to cover the tiny gap, which is the only place where the garden is overlooked, some bedding plants and probably more that I am not going to admit to.
Spring has certainly sprung and the recent sunny weather has set many things in bloom. Bluebells are showing colour, the wall flowers are glorious and the clematis are in bloom. There is plenty of blossom on my two apple trees, the olive and the pear are looking healthy. I also have two new trees in pots. These started as bare twigs about nine inches long and were free from the Woodland Trust. To be honest, I didn’t hold out much hope of them ever becoming tree like, especially as the resident magpie was eyeing them up for their nest but they too are shooting. One is a dogwood and I’ve forgotten what the other one is going to be so watch this space.
This past week has been recovering from the Really Useful Family History Fair in Dorset where there was a really friendly vibe and a chance to catch up with long-standing friends. I was multi-tasking with two stands, giving two talks and offering advice. The weekend also involved eating far too much. This was rapidly followed by birthday celebrations, more eating too much and also some serious garden centre spending (of which more in a later post) and a lovely walk round a country park, which hopefully negated a little of the too much eating.
On the 1 April I received a letter from my old school. When I attended, my school was what was known as a direct grant school; basically a private school that took pupils who had achieved a certain level in the 11 plus exam, whose fees were paid by the council. I was one of those pupils. So a ‘posh’ school for me then and loads of properly famous people went there, there’s even a Wikipedia List for notable previous pupils, on which I understandably do not feature. The school is 150 years old this year and they are creating a mural of 150 former pupils who ‘have left an indelible mark on our school’s history and whose achievements inspire future generations’. Weirdly one is me! I have no idea how or why and I assume someone must have nominated me. If that was you, thank you and wow, just wow. I am dumfounded. I do feel as if they may not have had many nominations and I have no idea how I got chosen. The phrase ‘scraping the barrel’ comes to mind. Maybe my ‘indelible mark’ was for all the wrong reasons.
My lovely daughter did point out the date on which the letter arrived and suggest it might be an April Fool but the letter was dated March and the project has a webpage, so it looks genuine. It seems some pupils are working on the chosen women to create their images as art work, embroideries and graffiti. I am placing bets on which I will be! I can only assume that the information is coming from this website, so goodness knows what the poor 12 year old who has been allocated me is thinking. If you are reading this dear pupil, all I can say is, ‘Good Luck’ and I am sorry you got the short straw. I wonder if I will be depicted as Mistress Agnes.
In other news. With more family visiting than I have bed space a whizzy new inflatable mattress thing was ordered. It arrived a few weeks ago in a huge heavy box and I shoved it in the garage until a couple of hours before their arrival. On taking it out of the box and removing the shrink wrapped plastic, it said ‘leave for 72 hours before using’ ooops. In fact it did say that on the outside of the box – bigger writing was obviously required, or maybe instructions on the advertising. If we haven’t totally and permanently ***** it up by sleeping on it a few hours after removing it from the packaging it is supposed to be much more comfortable than an airbed – I await the verdict with trepidation.
Now for some days of beach, arcades, sweetshops, cafes (more excessive eating) and board games. I have already lost at the new dumbed down version of Cluedo; I knew the strategy for the old one.
Forget Bell, Book and Candle, this week has been more about Blind, Book and Stone. First of all though, there were more utilities to deal with, as my internet provider sent an engineer to try to work out why my once stable internet had become decidedly flaky. A new router was installed and not wishing to tempt fate, I won’t say much but fingers crossed. This of course meant that all my devices that were connected to the wifi had to be reconnected using the excessively long and totally unmemorable password. I long for the days when the password was ‘hop-think-lazy’ and not a garbled string of two dozen letters and numbers. At least two people in my family will have memorised it after being told it once but as for me, no chance.
Next, having lived here a year, I treated myself to a new kitchen blind to replace the slightly manky and unattractive one that came with the house. Then came the learning curve known as ‘how to install a blind’. To make life more difficult, the kitchen window is over the sink so there wasn’t even easy access. The fisherman of my acquaintance personfully attempted to install said blind. This was accomplished and I didn’t even hear any swearing, ok so I was six miles away at the time but hey. The process did involve the complete disappearance of a dropped screw, which I suspect probably ended up down the plughole. Despite the liberal use of a spirit level, said blind did look just a tad on the wonk. I was just grateful that it was on the wall and not thrown in the bin in frustration, so was going to let this pass. I treated the harassed workman to celebratory cake in the best café in the world, which meant I got to eat cake too – win! Bless him, he arrived next day, determined to correct the list to starboard. To be honest, I was all for letting sleeping blinds lie but no, it was removed from the wall and after a certain degree of exasperation, it is now parallel to the ceiling. I did wonder if he was angling for another portion of cake.
Stones then. This should probably be a garden make-over post but I will write about their installation there. I decided, as it seemed to be the week for spending ridiculous amounts of money (I’d also booked three expensive holidays), I would buy some chippings to cover some unsightly tarmac. I ordered the chippings, carefully calculating that their ‘delivery in 3-5 working days’ would fall on a day when I was home. Day 5 has come and gone and I am still waiting and according to the tracking, they will now arrive on a day when I am out. I just hope that they don’t deposit them in front of the outward opening back gate. Watch this space for the next episode.
Family history has not be forgotten. I am enjoying leading my Pharos Female Ancestors course. It is quite an intensive course but the students are lovely and seem to be enjoying it. I had visions of working alongside them to get on with a biography of my mother but I am also trying, for the sixth time, to finish my biography with my Society of Genealogists’ biography club members and it just isn’t going to happen. Still, female ancestors runs again in September so maybe I will have better luck then. On the subject of women’s history, my blog for women’s history month has appeared on the Pen and Sword website. In more book news, my publisher has now brought out the second and much revised edition of Putting your Ancestors in their Place in paperback. This weekend will see more family history fun as I multi task at the Really Useful Family History Show in Kinson, near Poole. I am speaking, personning an advice desk and dividing my time between Devon Family History Society and A Few Forgotten Women stands.
Another of this week’s adventures involved a nighttime (well, it was after 9pm) drive out to some nearby countryside in order to look for a forecast aurora, where there wasn’t much light pollution. The only other cars in sight probably contained courting couples – I didn’t look too closely and I spent the time worrying that the gate to the area would be shut early and we, or at least the car, would be stuck until morning. I am not convinced that the vague light in the sky that my phone picked up was anything remotely aurora-like but we tried.
Pretty manic so far anyway. We’ve had Rootstech. I still haven’t found time to listen to the sessions on my watch list, thank goodness for recordings. My own #Rootstech short recorded session ‘Where am I? Are you searching in the right place?‘ is now available – along with my sessions from 2024.
I seem to have wasted hours of my life on the phone to ‘utilities’ this week. First trying to understand why my normally stable internet has become decidedly flaky, randomly particularly in the morning. An engineer is booked. Then a utility company I won’t name want to change the smart meters I didn’t want in the first place (they were already installed when I moved in). Trying to arrange an appointment was not without issue. I was asked all the same questions by two different people, ‘Is there a dog?’ ‘Are the meters accessible?’ etc. Having said I had no long term disabilities the first time I was soooooo tempted to say when asked the second time ‘well only the ones I’ve developed in the last two minutes’. I did get a rant in about how I felt smart meters were of zero use to me whatsoever! Watching the meter whirl round won’t make me turn things off, if I don’t need the appliance on it won’t be on in the first place. I quite like to read my own meters so I know what to expect. Hey Ho – old school I guess. Having arranged said appointment by phone, I am still getting texts asking why I haven’t responded to make an appointment. That would be because I already have one – left hand right hand. After all that I felt in need of a lie down in a darkened room.
Then on Friday it was off ‘up north’ – well at least ‘up north’ from here, I had to de-ice the car – ever tried getting the lid off new de-icer? De-icer canisters are by definition are chilly to grasp – the solution involved a knife. The journey was in order to attend the Midland Family History Show in Malvern where I was personing the Devon Family History Society stand, chatting to friends and eating a lot. In-person get togethers are fewer and further between these days, so it made a change and in two weeks’ time we will be doing it all again in Dorset for the Really Useful Show. Now I am safely home. Mostly unpacked and still eating.
Today would have been my mum’s 100th birthday. It therefore seems very appropriate that I have just sent out the first lesson of my online course for Pharos about Putting your Female Ancestors into context. This is the first presentation of this course and I am planning to work alongside the students to tell my mother’s story. Who am I kidding? The course lasts five weeks. It took me three years to finish my grandmother’s story but at least I can have aspirations and make a start. I will get a second chance in September, as the course will be repeated then. There are still spaces on the September course, if you would like to join in.
Anyway, I have begun and today will be spent adding to a timeline, which will become the framework for my story and scanning in photographs that I haven’t yet scanned. I will keep you posted with my progress, or I fear lack of it.
It has been about ten weeks since my last update and as I am a fair-weather gardener and the weather hasn’t exactly been fair, there’s not a lot to report. The main addition is the new water butt, which was a very extravagant Christmas present. As I have much of my garden in pots, plenty of watering is required in dry spells. Strangely, the two existing, unattractive, plastic water butts, that came with the house, collect water from the tiny summerhouse and the garage respectively. It seemed strange that nothing was gathering what fell on the, much larger, roof of the bungalow itself. This led to my new acquisition, which is a former whisky barrel and believe me you could get seriously hungover just breathing in the fumes that emanate from it. The first job was to manoeuvre it into position once it had been deposited on the door step. Fortunately its arrival coincided with some visiting muscle, so with a bit of an effort, it was moved to where it needed to be. Next, it needed to be attached to the downpipe, also not totally straightforward or without incident. A couple of heavy downpours later and it was filling up nicely. The water butt is situated between the house and garage, on some unexciting tarmac. The next stage is to put some battening by the back gate and cover the mossy tarmac with chippings to match another part of the garden.
I am still waiting for temperature, health and strength and lack of rain to all align, so that I can get outside and start tidying up after winter. Most things are now showing signs of sprouting and the garden is fulfilling it’s promise from last year, with something in flower all year round. Things do however seem to be later than they were last year. The quince is barely budding but was in full flower this time last year. The camellias have been lovely and two that were behind the now moved shed can be seen this year. The snowdrops seem to have disappeared but miniature daffodils, a solitary crocus, hyacinths and grape hyacinths are all showing colour. The standard sized daffodils have flowered but are providing a meal for something. Hellebores and pansies are flowering with some wallflowers and forget-me-nots showing colour.
I am sad that the bluetits and great-tits have deserted the garden but I am hoping they may return. Robins, sparrows and blackbirds look likely to nest and I can usually spot woodpigeons, magpies, jackdaws and herring gulls. I leave you with some signs that spring is round the corner.
Life has been full of presentations, both online and in person. Every routeway in Devon seems to be fraught with road closures at the moment, so some of the in person ones have involved ‘interesting’ journeys. On one occasion, we were foiled in both directions by signs that said ‘Road closed follow the diversion’. This on a road that had had no turnings for a mile or so and not a diversion arrow in sight. We are used to narrow twisty lanes but I swear some of the places we ended up weren’t roads – no visible signs of tarmac at any rate. Then, about a mile up a road that was barely wide enough for the car, a sign that said ‘Danger no Entry’ and a firmly barred farm gate. Cue a million point turn. The joys of presenting in out of the way areas.
I have just started delivering a monthly ‘Biography Club’ for the Society of Genealogists. The first session was met with plenty of enthusiasm and yet again, I have vowed to keep up with the attendees and fill in the gaps in my own biography. I’ve made a good start but some sections still need to be tackled. I am also coming to the end of a full Pharos course for those wanting to find out more about their agricultural labouring ancestors. As one course closes another begins and it will soon be time for the first presentation of my online course for Pharos about putting female ancestors into context. I am really looking forward to this and have deluded myself that I might keep up with the students for this one too, looking at my mother’s story. The course is full to capacity and beyond but it will run again later in the year and if you are interested, you can book a place now.
Next on the horizon is Rootstech from 6-9 March and I look forward to learning from colleagues across the world. I just have one short recorded presentation this time. ‘Where am I? Are you searching in the right place?’ My pre-recorded sessions from last year are also available.
8 March is International Women’s Day and I am presenting for the Alfred Gillett Trust. My own presentation is to be followed by telling the stories of working women, with my A Few Forgotten Women friends. You can book for this free event here. Then March is crowded with the Three Counties Fair at Malvern, which is just for fun and then the Really Useful Show in Kinson near Poole, where I am speaking.
Advance notice too that I will be giving two presentations at theSecrets and Lies conference in Peterborough in September, organised by the Halstead Trust. Early bird bookings are now being taken.
On the writing front, I have done a couple of articles for Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine. The first, on researching female ancestors, should be in the next issue. My next book, ‘A History of Women’s Work‘, due for publication in May, is now available to pre-order if you want a hardback. Paperbacks and ebooks will also be available.
Some months ago, because I teach ‘Writing and Sharing your Family History’ courses, I was given access to the, then brand new, WeAre family and local history sharing platform. I need to say first of all that this came without any strings. I am not obliged to review it, mention it, or recommend it and I have zero financial interest in the software. Platforms with similar aims have come and in some cases, gone but I was keen to give this a try. I can say that it is definitely the best sharing platform of its kind that I have seen.
When it first arrived, I had a little play. I had recently set up my own Granny’s Tales website. I do wonder if WeAre had come first, whether I would have used that instead but I was not going to abandon Granny’s Tales. What could I do with WeAre that was different/complementary to my other ways of publicising my research? One of the main features of WeAre is the ability to share your research with relatives and if you wish, allow them to collaborate. This is always a tricky one – what relatives? Lacking siblings or first cousins and second cousins numbering just six, it is pretty stony ground for me. That left my children and grandchildren. I have used Family Tree Maker software for my family trees since it was on 3½” floppy disks but I don’t have a single tree; I could never control that. This meant that I didn’t have a GedCom that I could upload containing all the family members that I have gathered in nearly fifty years of research. I did however have a ‘tree’ which just included all my children’s direct ancestors, so I uploaded that. I added my father’s brothers and a few photos and pretty much forgot about it.
Then WeAre added features that were geared towards One-Place Studies, so I decided I would dust off my One Place Study for Thockrington and use it for that. I uploaded about forty people, wrote an introduction, added a little general stuff and promptly returned it to the back burner. Then my lovely Forgotten Womencoven friends, several of whom were also using WeAre, decided that we would Zoom and all work on our sites on a specific day. This worked really well, both in terms of mutual encouragement and also technical assistance. What one person hadn’t worked out how to do, another had. This reignited my enthusiasm for my one place study and firmed my resolve to get on and add more. We are definitely going to have more mutual help sessions to encourage us to actually get things done to our sites.
I decided to begin with Thockrington’s graveyard, adding those commemorated on the surviving stones. This will not be quick; it took me two days to do ten stones. There are fifty four. Then of course there are parish registers, censuses, wills, tax lists and all the other sources I have used, so I will need to live until I am 150 but baby steps. I can’t even say the site is still in its infancy, more like still in the womb but maybe it is entering its second trimester. I have made it live, so the others from the mutual encouragement group can see it but there’s so much to be done, that it is probably best to say that it is a soft launch!
Then, out of the blue, Edward, aged ten, asked some family history questions. I have been trying to interest young people, including my grandchildren, in family history and heritage since forever, so I grasped this straw with both hands. I was reminded that his direct ancestry was all there on WeAre. He started by looking for houses that he and his parents had lived in to add to the map. Then he wanted to chat about family history on Zoom. He was interested in ‘the medieval period, famous people who aren’t you Granny, funny names and weird jobs.’ Hmm this was something of a challenge. I quickly exhausted the possibilities of the founder of Smith’s crisps, who was my great grandfather’s cousin. I do still have Anne Balls Bulley up my sleeve but where to go next?
Then a friend reminded me that Family Search has an activity that tells you how you are related to ‘famous people’. Unfortunately, this is based on the Family Search ‘one tree’, which is stuffed full of what we will call kindly ‘creative genealogy’ aka total garbage. Last time I looked at my famous relatives, I firmly removed my connection to Princess Diana for the nth time. Fortunately Princess Di no longer features, leaving me with Benjamin Franklin, Winston Churchill, Lucille Ball, Elvis Presley and Helen Keller. Edward had heard of Winston Churchill and Elvis at least. He happily went away and found out about Helen Keller, although I have to say that the link is ‘speculative’. Of the five, the most convincing is the connection to Churchill. At least here my own line does go back to the alleged mutual ancestor. If Edward wants to add Churchill to our tree he is welcome. He can add Helen Keller if he chooses. This is not my main ‘correct’ tree, it is not public. If it sparks his interest that’s what matters. The ‘what is the evidence for this, are we sure?’ conversation can come later. The key to encouraging young people is to let them do things their way. Edward added his cats to the tree; I will take being grandparent to two cats. I am anticipating Edward’s cousin may want to add her tankful of tropical fish one by one, right down to the snails that inhabit her tank but it doesn’t matter. Give birth to fifteen guinea pigs if you have to, do whatever it takes to ignite that curiosity about the past. WeAre having fun.
The History Interpreter - Janet Few 