Whitsome & Hilton URL changed

[LezleyR]

Several of the threads on this board have kindly mentioned my website about the parish of Whitsome & Hilton.
Please note that I've changed provider, and the new URL is http://tudl1375.home.xs4all.nl/.

[trystan]

Hiya,

Thank you for letting us know of the new home for Whitsome 1 place study.

Could you please give us a link to one of the postings here on RootsChat that refers to your old site so that we can start mending the broken links.

Also, please feel free to provide a link to RootsChat under your family history sources page. RootsChat is the largest free family history forum site in the UK:
For RootsChat itself, it's www.RootsChat.com
For Scotland, it's www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?board=84.0


Many thanks,
Trystan
RootsChat Caretaker

[LezleyR]

The sticky at the top of the page about useful links has a link under Miscellaneous

Also http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=111255.0

[colinskene]

My great grandfather was born at Leetside, just outside Whitsome. He was William Spark born in 1882.

I don't suppose you have any info / photos from Leetside?

[LezleyR]

Firstly, Colin, thanks to your query, I've managed to finally sort out the Nelsons! Thanks.

At the time that William was there, Leetside was part of the Blackadder Estate, owned by Sir George L.H. Boswall. The tenant had been James Herriot for a long time, by the mid 1880s it's shown as tenanted by "the heirs of the late James Herriot". As JH died in 1872, they were certainly taking their time about sorting out the estate! It was a middle-sized farm at that time, with a farmhouse and cottages for 5 workmen and their families (only Heads of Household shown on the Valuation Rolls, none of them were called Spark). Alison (William's mother) must have been fairly new to Leetside when he was born as the 1881 census shows her as being in Foulden.

[colinskene]

I've also found Alison's marriage to George Johnstone at Whitsome Hill in 1885

[LezleyR]

Many families seem to have moved annually, presumably as agricultural periods of employment expired. When you find an ag lab on the same farm for a while, it's obvious that the worker and farmer suited each other.