|
Pages: 1 2 3 [4]
|
 |
|
Author
|
Topic: What is your most amazing (personal) family history discovery? (Read 2654 times)
|
|
|
IrishOrigins
RootsChat Extra
 Offline
Posts: 42
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
|
Stubbsy, you are giving me goosebumps. An original will, written on calf skin vellum and dated 1500? Did you actually see the document, touch it, feel it - did you have to wear those white gloves, or did you see a transcription? How on earth did you feel? It seems absolutely incredible to me.
Here in Australia with European settlement commencing in 1788, those of us descending from either the convicts or free settlers in that period give "old" a definition which is somewhat different from that in other parts of the world. We do know that the "other" old really exists, but it is a little outside our ken.
Earlier this week I was completely overcome to see a microfilm of a letter sent from Whitehall in 1835 concerning the movement of my Irish convict's family to "the colony of New South Wales"  . I know there are other documents out there about my family and these are probably carefully archived in records offices in various parts of the UK, but the idea of actually seeing them "in the flesh" so to speak, is something I cannot imagine.
I am completely green with envy  .
Philippa
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Byrnes, Wexford.
O'Brien, Hannigan, Waterford & Tipperary
|
|
|
|
|
Aulus
RootsChat Veteran
Offline
Posts: 730
The black sheep: Florence Stevenson née Hampson
|
But quite by chance I found the original will of Edmund Milner, written on calf skin vellum in Latin and dated 1500 in a dusty archive just a few miles from where I live in Leeds.
What a great find!
May we ask which dusty archive?
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Lancashire: Stevenson, Wild, Holden, Jepson Worcs/Staffs: Steventon, Smith East London & Suffolk: Guest, Scrutton East London: Palfreman (prev Tyneside), Bissell, Collis, Dearlove, Ettridge Herts: Camac, Collis, Mason, Dorrington, Siggens Marylebone & Sussex: Cole London & Huntingdonshire: Freeman Bowland: Marsden, Noble Shropshire: Guest Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk |
|
|
Stubbsy
RootsChat Extra
Offline
Posts: 3
Old genealogists never die; just lose our census
|
The wills are in the West Yorkshire County Archives and I have no idea how that happens when Swaledale is in North Yorkshire and the wills come under the Diocese of Chester.
Also, they are not in the main archives in Wakefield but in a small, anonymous redbrick depository in Chapel Town, Sheepscar, Leeds. You have to make an appointment and the staff have to go to find them and bring them to you in the reading room. Then you have to wear the cotton gloves but the staff will make photocopies for you for a fee.
If you already know the documents are there you can have the staff do a search and order photocopies online. Click the address below and follow the Leeds link.
http://www.archives.wyjs.org.uk/index.asp?pg=indexhome.htm
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Stubbs, Milner, Hopps, Watson, Alton, Hume-Cookson - Durham, North Yorkshire
Pile/Pyle - Northumberland
Cookson - Cheshire
Hume - Suffolk
|
|
|
Stubbsy
RootsChat Extra
Offline
Posts: 3
Old genealogists never die; just lose our census
|
I don't want to overload this thread with my personal posts, and this is not a recent discovery, but I have had passed down to me a soldier's rolled leather pack that belonged to my 8 x gt grandfather who fought in the English Civil War with Cromwell's Parliamentary Army in the 1640's and 50's.
The leather roll contained a razor and a whetting stone for sharpening his razor, knife and sword. This was important as they cut their hair short and were clean shaven, and so became known as Roundheads, as distinct from the King's forces who favoured the aristocratic flowing locks and goatee beards of the Cavaliers.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Stubbs, Milner, Hopps, Watson, Alton, Hume-Cookson - Durham, North Yorkshire
Pile/Pyle - Northumberland
Cookson - Cheshire
Hume - Suffolk
|
|
|
|
|
MarieC
RootsChat Marquessate
Offline
Posts: 3058
In Queensland, Oz
|
I have had passed down to me a soldier's rolled leather pack that belonged to my 8 x gt grandfather who fought in the English Civil War with Cromwell's Parliamentary Army in the 1640's and 50's.
Wow!!  Stubbsy, that's amazing! That may be the oldest family heirloom I've seen mentioned on here. What a treasure!
MarieC
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Martins in London and Wales, Lockwoods in Yorkshire, Hartleys in London, Lichfield and Brighton, Hubands and Smiths in Ireland, Bentleys in London and Yorkshire, Denhams in Somerset, Scoles in London, Meyers in London, Cooks in Northumberland
|
|
|
sougher
RootsChat Pioneer
Offline
Posts: 1
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
|
I have a number of amazing coincidences. Married twice and having four children from my second marriage my first three were boys and finally my fourth was a daughter. I had always wanted to call a daughter Jane I don't know why, no other name but that, so finally I had a Jane Margaret Howard. Many years later when researching my family history at the Derbyshire Record Office, Matlock, I was looking at a film of parish records which included the one for Ashford-in-the-Water, Derbyshire, I was looking for my KEELING ancestors (who lived and worked at the Ashford Marble works as masons) and I discovered that my 2 x gt. grandfather Benjam KEELING had married a Jane HOWARD! She was my 2 x gt. grandmother - explain that. Shivers crept up my spine. Not only that but a short time later the same film fast forwarded, abrupty stopped and I was looking at the marriage registers for St. Michael's church, Derby and there in front of me were the details of my maternal grandparents ie. William Henry BROWN to Mary TURNER in November, 1889. I couldn't remember my maternal grandparents wedding date, and this seemed to be my granny saying "look, we're here". Very strange.
In my youth I took up caving in the Peak District and was strongly attracted to the exploration of the old lead mines and drainage levels called soughs, very dangerous places, specially the soughs, the earlier ones being small narrow passages, full of mud, water and often gas. There is not a lot known about the Derbyshire leadmining industry these days but I have lots of information about them, and I was very interested about the stories of the driving of the first sough to dewater a mine at Cromford, the sough was Longhead and was driven in the early 1600's by the Dutchman Sir Cornelius Vermuyden (who carried out a lot of other drainage work in England) to dewater lead mines on the top of Cromford Hill called the Dove Gang mines. There was a lot of trouble at these mines, fighting, lawsuits etc. I've always been very interested in these stories. Well after my second divorce, along with my four children I moved back to live in Derbyshire, at Bonsall very close to Cromford and Wirksworth. Recently I left Derbyshire and have more time for family research and on the internet I have found through my maternal grandmother (Mary TURNER) I am descended from the COATES family of Ashover, Cromford and Wirksworth. This family were involved in the driving of Longhead sough and the strife on the Dove Gang mines, they were yeoman farmers, lead miners and smelters (ore burners or "brenners") and they can be traced back to the mid 1500's in Wirksworth. Not only that but one of the COATES wedding took place at Bonsall church in 1701. Why, I often wonder of all the places to choose to explore and then move to did I pick Bonsall, Cromford and Wirksworth? Very strange.
Margaret
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Aulus
RootsChat Veteran
Offline
Posts: 730
The black sheep: Florence Stevenson née Hampson
|
That's a bit spooky!
I've always loved the Trough of Bowland (on the edges of the old or 'proper' Lancashire/Yorkshire counties). Anyone who's visited the area and driven through the Trough will know it's a beautiful part of the country, but it's always - unconsciously - been a bit more than that. If out for a drive, I've always wanted to try to work the Trough road into the trip, and I would never dream of taking the motorway or A6 down to Preston and then to go inland to the Ribble Valley when going from Lancaster to Clitheroe or elsewhere in the Ribble Valley. And I've always liked Whitewell and the peacefulness of the little chapel and the churchyard.
It was, however, only when I re-started doing my family tree a couple of years ago and with easy access to censuses on the internet that I found that my great-great grandmother, Isabella Noble, was born in Sykes, slap bang in the middle of the Trough of Bowland. A little later, going through the Whitewell registers, I found that the Nobles farmed just outside Whitewell at a farm called Fence Wood, and that my greatx4 grandparents are buried right outside the Whitewell chapel door.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Lancashire: Stevenson, Wild, Holden, Jepson Worcs/Staffs: Steventon, Smith East London & Suffolk: Guest, Scrutton East London: Palfreman (prev Tyneside), Bissell, Collis, Dearlove, Ettridge Herts: Camac, Collis, Mason, Dorrington, Siggens Marylebone & Sussex: Cole London & Huntingdonshire: Freeman Bowland: Marsden, Noble Shropshire: Guest Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk |
|
|
|
|
|
Pages: 1 2 3 [4]
|
|
|
|
|
