It has been a while since I did a round up of my ridiculous busyness so here is what my life has looked like since visiting four counties in four weekends in September. Take a deep breath and dive on in.
First, a lovely chat with my Few Good Women family, with one of us practicing an (excellent) talk. Next, because exercise seems to have slipped from the agenda, a bird-watching stroll on the nearby country park, organised by the rangers. Then the first zoom chat for my Pharos Putting your Female Ancestors into Context course. Away from family history, it was time for the annual flu jab. I returned at 10.30am to a series of urgent messages asking if I could fill in for a speaker in 4 1/2 hours’ time at Devon FHS after AGM talk. Fallen Women filled the void. October’s Society of Genealogists‘ Biography Club topic was toys and childhood and we had fun reminiscing. I have even done some work on my own and I am pretty much still on track to be finished in time for next year’s big birthday. Then a two talks Tuesday; Marginalised Ancestors in the morning and Barefoot on the Cobbles live in the evening. Copies of my Barefoot novel are now almost sold out.
In no particular order, there has also been another Pharos chat, a talk about prostitution (the history of) then a 6am start to speak to the Genealogical Society of Queensland on seventeenth century crime and punishment. This was International Day of the Girl but the Few Forgotten Women had already sorted their online offerings so nothing was needed for the day. Plenty of socialising and eating with visiting friends this week amidst finally doing some work on what is planned to be my next book; some excellent case studies are emerging. I took part in the Society of Genealogist’s Devon research showcase. This should be freely available on the SOG YouTube channel shortly. I’ve been virtually in Oxfordshire to talk about home industries and then in Buckinghamshire for the Impoverished and Insane. Listening to a talk for once on Wednesday then a two talks Thursday, Forgotten Women and the 1838 Fishing Disaster this time. Yesterday was Forgotten Women Friday, having fun researching women who worked in the Ulster linen industry.
Then it was now and yes things will soon start to get a little less hectic as family time beckons, though I am not entirely sure that time with my lovely family isn’t equally exhausting but in a rather different way.
Today’s picture is of County Down, in honour of yesterday’s Forgotten Women research.
The last of our four consecutive weekends of family history took us to the Isle of Wight, to celebrate forty years of Isle of Wight Family History Society. As two very early members (membership numbers 19 and 50), we had to be there. Apart from anything else, I was due to give a talk, so that would have been awkward if I decided not to go. The Saturday was a conference with a pubs and brewing theme, as well as a chance to promote the ongoing pubs and publicans project. I know from experience what is involved in organising these events and thanks go to those who worked hard to put the weekend together.
That same experience shows that it is the things that you can’t control that cause the issues on occasions such as this, not that any of this spoiled the day. It was a little cool in the hall but we had been forewarned to dress warmly. We had also been advised to bring cushions, another wise move. Despite careful preparations, the faulty HDMI cable, causing one or two slight technical delays could not have been foreseen, nor could the flooded toilet, necessitating very loud hoovering up of flood water during one presentation. By the time it got to my turn to speak, it was only what seemed to be a shouty protestor outside in the square to contend with; or maybe, in line with our theme, he’d been overindulging at a local licenced premises. My session was a departure from the theme. Instead, my remit was to talk about changes in the family history world over the last forty years and suggest thoughts about where we might go in the future, with some Isle of Wight anecdotes throw in. I was able to spend a self-indulgent hour reminiscing and trying not to reveal too many well kept secrets from the past.
There was a second enjoyable day on the Sunday with an anniversary lunch. It was lovely to see so many friends of longstanding once again and catch up as if we’d seen each other only yesterday.
So am I home to indulge in rest and relaxation? It seems not. I’ve already given one talk and there are five more in the diary next week. I’ve been preparing an online course for those who are new or newish to family history, which will be delivered next month. There are still a few spaces if you know anyone who’d like to embark on a family history journey. You can book here. Just a warning though, that it will take over your life and I am taking no responsibility for that.
This was the weekend of the Secrets and Lies conference run by the Halstead Trust. I’ve been to a good many of these residential family history conferences over the years (and I do mean years, my first was over forty years ago) and this rated as one of the best. We’d travelled up to Peterborough the previous day and were ensconced in a caravan site half a mile away from the conference venue. Half a mile that is if you were prepared to cross a river and a railway line; it was actually two miles away by road. We were there for everything except bed and breakfast however so weren’t going to miss out.
Having had a quick recce in the morning, we arrived at the venue in the early afternoon to meet many friends. This was our first post-covid residential conference, so this was a first meeting in person for several years for some of us. It was also lovely to meet people who I was used to seeing in a rectangular box on a screen and discover how tall they were! There were also several of our lovely A Few Forgotten Women volunteers present; most appropriate given the conference theme of secrets and lies.
Lectures kicked off with Maggie Gaffney talking about a transportee, followed by Paul Blake illustrating just how the visual image, or our perception of that image, can lie. We were then treated to tales of bigamy and adulterine births in Scotland by Stewart Stevenson. The evening meal followed and Else Churchill rounded off the day with post watershed accounts of the bawdy courts.
Saturday dawned and I was first up, chatting about prostitution. I was glad that both my sessions were early on in the day as my capacity for being alert for a whole day at events like this is clearly waning. There was a choice of talks for Saturday’s lectures, so sadly I had to miss some I’d would have liked to hear. My first choice was Margaret’s ’Auntie Jo’s lost on the Family Tree’, which included the fascinating story of Agnes Beckwith’s life of secrets and lies, alongside a notable swimming career. After a buffet lunch of sandwiches and chips, which struck me as a rather odd but most acceptable combination I went to help Chris, who had been personning my bookstall all day. One of the advantages of in-person talks is that you do tend to sell a few books.
My choices for the afternoon were Alan Moorhouse’s tales of bigamy, Donna Rutherford’s detective story, cracking a coded message on the back of a postcard and Sarah Wise, with an account of her research into those incarcerated under the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. Then a quick trip back to the caravan to get what passes for glammed up in our world. I was proud to receive a certificate of achievement from the Society of Genealogists. I’d actually been awarded this during Covid but this was the first opportunity for it to be handed over. Then to the food, to be frank, we aren’t a great fan of gala dinner food, preferring hearty platefuls of plainer fare over artfully arranged sprigs of not much surrounded by bits of drizzle. It is often a case of choosing the least worst menu options. This was not too bad by comparison. The soup was tasty, my aubergine something or other and Chris’ chicken something else were acceptable and puddings always go down well. A word about the dining room staff, who were just incredible in their efficiency. The woman in charge was managing them with a series of hand signals that made her look like she was a race-course bookie. She really should be in a top-class restaurant not a motel on a roundabout.
Then Sunday and by this time, I am realising that it takes stamina I am not sure I have to get through these events intact. The first talk by Calista Williams about the staff in Cottage Homes dovetailed well with the premier of my talk on Fallen Women. Judie McCourt then told us about Emma Costello’s life and divorce, including an encounter with a mystery Italian on a sofa. After more sandwiches and chips for lunch, Debbie Kennet treated us to a DNA case study, uncovering a paternity mystery.
Then it was all over. I know from experience just how difficult and exhausting these conferences are to organise and the team did a great job. I don’t know how many crises they were fielding under the surface, I am sure there were some but it didn’t show. I think I have persuaded a few people to come to our conference next year and I have a lot to live up to but I am confident of our excellent programme and beautiful location, so we do it all again then, although I have another bite of the conference cherry in between at the Guild of One-Name Studies conference in April and stand by for more family history next weekend.
Post conference, we arrived back at the van to find that it was three foot further back than we’d left it. Next door but one with huge new-to-them caravan and an automatic Volvo had been trying to move off site to go home. They’d left the motor movers on (which move the van into place a bit like a remote control car). Husband driving leaves engine running and car in drive mode and gets out to turn said motor movers off, as they are acting as a break. He turns them off – car then takes off on its own with the caravan, heading for our van. Wife in the passenger seat tries to steer car away from our van. Guy in nearby camper van tries to push their van away from ours and gets knocked down. At least this is the rather garbled story we came back to. Minor cosmetic damage to the tow hitch of our van and two broken feet where it was pushed back a metre. Site owners had been trying to ring but we had turned phones off in the conference. We were met by very apologetic damage-causers who were clearly still in shock five hours later. We ran checks to ensure we could still wind our legs up (that’s the caravan’s legs – not so sure about our own) and connect the car to the van, which were the concerns. Then to recover from the weekend.
Before we get to weekend three of family history this month, I ought to report back on last Saturday, weekend two. We headed across the border to Bridgerule. I say across the border but the River Tamar divides Bridgerule, so some parts are in Devon and some in Cornwall. We were heading for the church, where there was to be a local history display and we were booked to give family history advice. We had a postcode. The sat-nav didn’t recognise the postcode. Never fear thinks I, we will get to Bridgerule and if we can’t see the church, we will use What Three Words, which I also have. Bridgerule is tiny but there was no obvious church. Sadly there was no obvious phone signal either so the what three words option was out. We found the community shop and asked for directions. In fact we asked for directions twice more after that. It seems that some people can’t distinguish between a parish church and a non-conformist church. Eventually we find the church and the organisers had put on a great display, with equally great cake on offer.
I’ll be honest, in a place the size of Bridgerule, we were expecting one man and a dog if we were lucky but no. There was a steady stream of visitors and they didn’t just glance and pass by, they stayed and engaged. There was someone sat at our stall, asking for family history advice almost all day. In all, we fielded seventeen detailed enquiries. Partly I think because most of the visitors weren’t experienced family historians, we were able to help every single one. They all left with new information and delighted smiles. It is a long time since I have felt quite so much like a magician.
There was an interesting incident with Amazon in the middle of trying to record a talk ready for next month. Not sure if it was just because the order included an electrical item but I was asked for a tracking number. Unfortunately the driver’s only two words of English appeared to be ‘tracking number’. Where was this tracking number? I always delete all the emails that say ‘your order is out for delivery’ his engine is running while I look through the 200 or so delete emails of the past two or three days (searching didn’t seem to work, nothing in junk). Then he finds the third word in his English vocabulary ‘app’, nope, no app; I do all my stuff on the laptop not the phone. Finally found a teeny tiny tracking number when I went to the Amazon website. The whole palaver must have taken about fifteen minutes all told. By the time we’d finished, the noise of the pouring rain on the conservatory roof made recording tricky.
What else has been going on? A meeting with a new family member for Chris, who also has a Buckland Brewer connection and an excuse to eat cake. A talk to give and some work on a Cornish family. I’ve also been giving my talks for the coming weekend a final once-over. One was a little lacking in illustrations, as everything I wanted to use was copyright. As a consequence, I’ve been having a play with ChatGPT. I don’t have a paid account so there’s only so much you can do each day. Nonetheless, it has livened up the presentation. Really looking forward to chatting about the history of prostitution and fallen women this weekend, as you do – well, as I do anyway.
The Malvern trip continued with Gloucester Family History Society’s open day at the Heritage Hub. It was lovely to be able to see people in real life and chat about family history. I listened to Simon from WeAre.xyz, talking about his software (quick resolution to do more with my site), then gave my A to Z talk. After that, it was out for a meal and a catch up with family history friends. This is the first of four in person family history weekends in four different counties this month. A bit like buses, you wait for ever, then they all come at once,
Sunday was rainy. I mean seriously rainy, so rather than head off early, as we prefer to do, we sat it out, while I looked at the Withenbury family goodies I’d found at the Worcestershire archives. Note, I did not look back at earlier notes, a big mistake. The rain cleared up eventually, giving us just time to visit Hanbury Hall, a nearish by National Trust property and former home of the Vernon family. The most outstanding features are the wall and ceiling paintings by James Thornhill, which, unusually, were painted on dry, not wet, plaster. There are also traditional, knot-garden style gardens, with plenty of topiary, which I photographed for use in my seventeenth century gardens talk. I was also quite taken with a 1715 election ‘poster’, when Thomas Vernon was standing for the Whig cause. This, I thought was about all Hanbury Hall had to offer, how wrong I was.
We returned home. This involved me driving through storm and tempest, with torrential rain meaning that I could barely see the road. Fortunately that was just the last couple of miles, as I am chauffeured most of the way. I then continued to look at the Withenburys. Something I had noted before, when I was trying to prove that they are actually my ancestors, rather than probably my ancestors, was that a James Withenbury was an architect and sculptor. This chap is likely to be my 6x great grandfather’s brother, or maybe a half-brother. ‘That close’, I hear you cry. He is at least on the family tree of the ‘almost my ancestors’. He also, said my notes, which I was viewing from 150 miles away from Hanbury Hall, designed the frontage of the hall in 1718. It is likely that I walked past his architectural sketch while we were at the Hall! Another trip is on the cards.
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.
Time to take a deep breath as I launch in to the next few weeks. Not only is the job I must not mention about to hit with a vengeance but at some point long ago, I decided that it would be a good idea to cram the next few weeks full of presentations. So in the calendar for the next two weeks I have, Women’s Life on Farms, the story behind my novel Barefoot on the Cobbles, Mistress Agnes talking about life in the seventeenth century and Researching in the Twentieth Century, swiftly followed by looking at cottage industries. If you want to know more about straw-plaiting, lace-making, glove-making or button-making, as well as home working in general, you can book for that one here. All those topics get chapters of their own in my new book A History of Women’s Work and straw-plaiting and gloving are two of the sections that are accompanied by case studies. It is currently at its introductory price of 20% off, which means you can get a hardback for a paperback price and not have to wait two years for the paperback to be issue. The ebook will follow at the end of next month. I am humbled by the lovely reviews that have been coming in.
Today is also the final Zoom for my Pharos ‘Writing and Telling your Family History’ course. What a lovely cohort of students and such fascinating stories to be told. If you are sorry you missed it, it runs again in April, or you can sign up to research and tell the story of a female ancestor in September.
As this post in in danger of sounding like an advert, on to other things. In the interests of writing and telling my own family history I have been getting my pick axe out and working at my own genealogical brick walls. I have two stories to share with you when I get the time to draw breath and write them up for public consumption. Having decided that Mary Newlands is indeed my 3x great grandmother (see previous post), I am now pushing back to try to confirm that her family are of Scottish origin, as seems almost certain. So one brick wall crumbles and another looms.
News too on the second of my three ‘big’ brick walls. I’ve been working on the family of a different ‘almost certainly my 3x great grandmother’; oh wow, what a story. At the moment the ‘proof’ is based on rigorous documentary research but a missing baptism means two of the jigsaw pieces are DNA matches that are so small even I am reluctant to entertain them and hereditary large ears – yes, best not to ask. In a quest for more evidence, I launched into researching the wider family. I am back to the sixteenth century in Gloucester and Upton on Severn and have had plenty of palaeography practice. I do realise my missing link won’t be found in Tudor times but the rabbit warren (too big to be called a rabbit hole) sucked me in and there I was, head first in the throes of a virtual one-name study. It is an unusual name but beset with spelling variations and the use of contractions to add spice to my journey. There may be a connection to a seventeenth century barber surgeon. An added excitement is that my children also have paternal ancestry in Upton on Severn. I just may have to revisit that branch in search of a link. I am in the area in September. Do I wait patiently, or do I spend a small fortune ordering copies of wills? So many ancestors, so little time.
Sadly now back to the day job and three meetings Monday.
This post should have gone live on 1 June, the 217th anniversary of the death of Mary Hogg née Newlands. It has taken four solid days to put together (much longer than I anticipated), so it is late – sorry Mary but better late than never. For nearly five decades, the earliest ancestor in my grandmother’s Northumbrian paternal line has been great great grandfather John Hogg. For almost as long, I have been fairly sure that I know who John’s parents are but I have been waiting for an additional piece of evidence before ‘inking them in’. All brick walls are annoying but this is definitely in my top three that I really want to crack, not least because I love the area where I believe they came from; so much so that I embarked on a one-place study of the parish.
Here is a brief summary of the in-depth research that I have done to try to confirm John Hogg’s parentage. I should say at the outset, that this is the only branch of the family that come from anywhere near the north of England, next best are the Bulleys from Norfolk.
The story starts with my great grandfather, also John Hogg. I have his original 1885 marriage certificate, to Caroline Howe, naming his father as John Hogg, a gardener. The marriage took place in south London but census returns for my grandmother, Elizabeth Ann Hogg and her parents, confirm that great grandfather John junior was born in Morpeth, Northumberland. Family stories linked the Hoggs to Morpeth and to Russell ‘cousins’. I have a card that Elizabeth Ann wrote but never posted, addressed to Mr B. Russell, 3 Dacre Street, Morpeth. She referred to him as ‘Bertie’ and signed herself ‘Cousin Bessie’.
From census returns, we can deduce that John Hogg knew where he was born (Morpeth) but was a little vague as to when (April 1855 – March 1858). He was 28 when he married in 1885, so that fits within that date range. John’s death certificate shows that he died, in December 1926, at 3 Dacre Street and the informant was Bertie Russell ‘nephew’. John’s age was 71 (so born between December 1854 and December 1855). The births of four John Hoggs were registered in Morpeth registration district between 1853 and 1859 inclusive. There were no ‘male’ (i.e. no forename) Hoggs registered in Morpeth in this period. I followed up all four. Only one fitted the criteria of being born in Morpeth itself, having a father called John and not having a future that precluded him from being my ancestor. In addition, this family had a daughter who was the mother of Bertie Russell of Dacre Street.
Fully satisfied with my proof argument thus far, I turned to my great great grandfather John senior. He made life difficult by providing three different birthplaces in the census returns, being vague about his age and on one occasion, calling himself George instead of John. Over many years, I obtained copies of every document that I could and built up a detailed timeline of this man’s life, his two wives and nine children. It seemed clear that he was called John; there is just one census return where he is George. He was born somewhere between 1799 and 1809, probably in Bavington or adjacent Kirkheaton, which are about twenty miles west of Morpeth; although one census says Kirknewton, which is on the Scottish borders. He was an agricultural labourer, for the most part specifically a shepherd and he made many short-distance moves in the area during his life.
John’s first wife was buried in 1849, although no death certificate has been found. His first, apparently legitimate, child by his second wife Elizabeth Pearson, my great great grandmother, was in 1854. I could find no marriage either side of the English/Scottish border, within or outwith that date span, using every spelling variant of the names. This was particularly frustrating as a certificate would hopefully have included a father’s name. Comparatively recently, a newspaper announcement came to light, which revealed that they married, in 1853, at Lamberton Toll, a venue for clandestine marriages that is less well-known than Gretna Green. No records survive for this date.
I followed up all John and George Hoggs born 1797-1808 in Northumberland who appear in the 1851 census and looked for them in both the 1841 and succeeding censuses, to see which one could be the ‘George’ Hogg in Newgate Street, Morpeth in 1861 and John Hogg of Well Way, Morpeth in 1871. It was clear by the family members that these two were one and the same. After a great deal of careful research, I came to the conclusion that my great great grandfather John Hogg was almost certainly the son of Robert and Mary Hogg of Hallington, St. John’s Lee and that he was born in 1804 and baptised in Thockrington, which was adjacent to St. John’s Lee. This was the only baptism in the area around the birthplaces that John/George gave in the census and I could find no plausible alternative future for the John baptised at Thockrington, unless he became my great great grandfather.
I was so nearly there but still I hesitated to add Robert and Mary to my family tree. I was after that elusive ‘one more piece of evidence’. I investigated Robert and Mary’s families to see if this might support my hypothesis. Initially, the Hogg family were not very forthcoming. Robert and Mary only had three children and two died without issue, so there was no hope of tracing descendants for a possible DNA match. Going back yet one more generation, was a bit of a stretch but I tried anyway. This didn’t seem helpful. This family were rural agricultural labourers. They do not appear in the newspapers (as per the British Newspaper Library index). There are no surviving poor law records for the relevant parishes at the appropriate times. They do not appear to have owned land or left wills (Northumberland Archives, Prerogative Court of York and The National Archives indexes checked, as well as the excellent North East Inheritance Database). They do not feature in electoral rolls, nor did they serve in the army or navy. There is nothing in the catalogue at Northumberland Archives that relates to the family, leaving me with very little to go on.
I turned to the brides. Robert’s wife had been Mary Newlands; was she my 3x great grandmother?
The Newlands family, despite their reluctance to baptise children in churches or chapels whose records survive, had more potential. Robert Hogg died in 1805 and his wife Mary née Newlands, just three years later. This would have left John and his surviving sister, Mary, orphaned at a very young age, which might account for John’s later confusion regarding his place and date of birth. There is no age at burial for Robert or Mary Hogg ‘relict of Robt’. Mary and Robert were married in 1799, in Chollerton about five miles west of where their children were baptised. A family of Newlands emerged in Elsdon, some ten miles to the north. In 1773, a Mary Newlins had been baptised in Falstone, the daughter of John Newlins, or Newlands, whose wife was an Ann, or Nanny, née Corbitt. The Corbitts were a little more obliging, with a couple of useful wills and some gravestones. I began to build up a picture of the Corbett and Newlands families but were they my ancestors?
I was contacted by a descendant of Sarah Milburn née Newlands, believed to be Mary’s sister. I’ll call the contact SS. If our trees were right we would be fifth cousins once removed. I am used to playing with very small DNA matches. Yes, I know all the caveats but to put this in perspective, I only have a total of thirty matches that are 40cM or higher and anything over 20cM is ‘high’ by my standards. I do treat these with extreme caution but it is all I have. As fifth cousins once removed there was no certainty that SS and I would match and we don’t. This led me to look again at the matches that I do have. It turned out that, although we don’t match each other, SS and I had at least four shared, albeit very tiny, matches, all of whom descended from Sarah Milburn née Newlands. Two were my fifth cousins once removed, one a fifth cousin three times removed and I am unsure of the exact relationship of the fourth. The largest of these is a new match that arrived this week, leading to more delay in getting this posted.
Twenty year old Mary Hogg, almost certainly Robert and Mary’s daughter, died at Smiddywell Ridge, in the parish of Bellingham. in 1827. This was the home of SS’s ancestor, Sarah Milburn née Newlands. My John Hogg married in Netherwitton, the home of another Newlands sister. Were John and Mary each brought up by a different aunt?
In addition, I have an almost respectable 22cM match to a Corbitt descendant. She would be my sixth cousin once removed and yes I have checked that we don’t appear to share any other ancestry.
I am now going to claim Mary Newlands as my 3x great grandmother. To be clear, the weight of the evidence lies in my 48 years of exhaustive research. What I have outlined here barely scratches the surface. I am not basing this on DNA connections that all the DNA experts would tell me are too small to be significant. Every genealogist has to make decisions about how much evidence is enough. For me, I was 97% there with the documentary evidence, the DNA was just a final pieces of a very large jigsaw. If you want to read a fifteen page proof argument, describing in detail why I believe Mary Newlands is my three time great grandmother, you can access it through my Granny’s Tales page. All serious family historians should be setting out why x is the parent of y for all generations of their family tree (and no of course I haven’t done this for all lines yet but I can aim – how long do I have?).
Next step, who were the parents of John Newlands? This is particularly exciting as it will take my direct ancestry out of England for the first time and yes there is one of those tiny DNA matches to the Newlands of Kelso, who are almost certainly John’s family – the question is which John is which?
The view from the churchyard where Mary is buried and one of my favourite places in the world
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.
The History Interpreter - Janet Few 