History of a family in ten objects

[Malcolm33]

   
   What a great idea.   Can we include items that we would have known and cherished in a past life?   Probably not as those were mostly different families and all over the place.

   I could pick so much from my own life and that of parents and grandparents and great aunts etc., but I think I'll look around and see what I have that represents some part of an ancestor's life.  So far I've put aside a Miners Lamp, A Weaver's shuttle, a figure of a Miner kneeling made out of Welsh Coal, an Austrian Beer mug with hinged lid, a Candle Stick and Thimble.

    However I can't help but think about some ancestors who owned little more than ten objects and thought reminded me of everything that my 6 x Great grandmother Eleanor Grant owned after her husband my 6 x great grandfather John Grant died in or before 1722.
  Imprimis – means ‘Firstly’
   'His purse & apparel',  '2 cows & 2 calfs, & sheep,
   'In Hay & Straw',
   'One Plow, & Harrow, & Blades,'
   'One Shovel & Mattock & Crow Axe & fork & Iron..'  But what is the last word on that line?   
   'One wheelbarrow, scythe, rakes, & pick fork'.
House 
   'One Chest, One Cupbord, One Cheese Press, & wooden ware
   'One Brass Pan & Pewter, 2 Iron kettles',
   'One fire = Iron tongs, Crow frying pan, pottery?, bread bin'.
   ‘One Lead Blackstone Smoothing Iron & heaters.’
Parlour
    '2 beds, bedding & Chest'
Chamber,
    'One coffer, 2 spinning wheels, 2 chairs?, 2 ....?, 2 stools
    'In meal & Corn sacks', 
    'In earthen pots, bottles, wiskatter,  & all other Husliemonts.

From Veeblevort on Rootschat:
“The OED provides wiskett as being a northern dialect word with a
Scandinavian root, for basket.

Huslement is provided as tools, or utensils, or equipment or furniture
of a household nature.”

  Malcolm

[panda40]

1. Miners lamp for three generations of miners
2. My great grandmother wedding ring
3. Two white dog ornaments that have been passed down the generations and I have full history of who has owned them
4. My great grandmother dressing table set
5. My grandmother's aunt's dressing table set
6. My grandfathers Second World War pictures from Palestine
7. Pictures from the family bible entries
8. My grandmother written account of her childhood and that of her family and her husband's
9. All of my family photos
10. My children's photos and memorabilia as they are the next generation.

Apart from the actual family bible which is in Australia with the eldest son of that family line either my sister or I still have every object listed. They are on display as they represent our family history
Regards panda

[Mowsehowse]

I am so glad I found this thread.

I really enjoy reading the lists that pop up from time to time.
 

[Mowsehowse]

DavidG02
I am curious to know why the piece of  Monterey pine? [Pinus radiata.] 

Malcolm33
How fabulous to have found a will from that long ago!!

[CarolA3]

DavidG02
I am curious to know why the piece of  Monterey pine? [Pinus radiata.] 

I wondered about that too.  P. radiata has had a role in my life, but a souvenir piece wouldn't be very welcome as I seem to be allergic to just about every part of it!  Otherwise it's a pretty ordinary conifer.

Carol

[Malcolm33]

Malcolm33
How fabulous to have found a will from that long ago!!

   Yes that administration on behalf of my 6 times greats was a fantastic find and not just because of the age but it really gives us all a good look at what it must have been like in a home so soon after the Stewarts, and best of all we can more or less read it.

    I've got other Wills from the 1600's by Draffan's who may be related but almost impossible to read as they are not just in Secretariat hand but Scots English Secretariat writing.   There are lessons for reading it on line, but still difficult.   I was very fortunate in getting help from an expert in reading Scots Secretariat but even he couldn't make out some words.

    As for Eleanor Grant and her son William they are both mentioned a number of times in Clegg's diary and listed in Chinley Chapel Seating payments from 1734 onwards.

     Malcolm

[Malcolm33]

    What we are seeing in this discussion are objects mostly related to one's own immediate family and rarely including something farther back than a great grandparent.

    It would be good if we knew more about ancestors living in say the 18th, 17th, 16th centuries and even much farther back.   So what I would like to do myself is separate immediate family objects from ancestral objects going back in time.    At my late age I can't see myself jetting off to search out such items in Antique shops but at least I can throw the idea out to everyone else who might be so fortunate.

    Most families will have ancestors who were agricultural labourers or being part of the Industrial Revolution and all that entailed.    So Sickles, Scythes, Mining implements, weaving tools and tenter hooks could all be on many a list.   What makes it interesting is when we seek out objects that meant a lot at one time, but are scarcely known or thought about today.

    In my own childhood as I think back there were all kinds of things in every house that we never see today - like coal scuttles, the old roller mangles for the weekly washing and the wooden dolly's to turn and twist the washing.   Even an old iron where you could put hot coals inside, bed warmers, candle sticks.    I do have a cast iron boot cleaner which I suppose is quite a relic these days.  Another common household necessity was a shoe and boot Last for everyone had to mend their own boots.    I had one until only recently.

     Great Grandad was a Game Keeper as well as an agricultural labourer - if only I had that gamekeepers hat he is holding, or one or two of the symbols of his calling attached to his uniform.

     We don't have to look far back into the past to find objects that a modern generation would find quite strange today.    Dad was an electrician but times were hard in the early 1930's and he had to go to Norfolk to find work with the East Anglian Supply Company.  That meant putting up poles and fixing the power lines.   So he had to use irons to climb the poles and then a blow torch to do cable jointing below ground.   During the war he was considered essential to the war effort and so had to work with industrial electricity at Acton Bolt.   But after the War he got work first of all in the film studios, and then on airfield lighting.  That meant pole climbing again and he took me with him one day, so I saw him use the iron spikes and how he used them to get a foothold as he went up, helped by a big leather belt that went around the pole and himself.   Now where would one find iron spikes and such climbing belts today?

     Gas Mask, Fire Watching Helmet and a lady's helmet for duty at Air Raid Posts which were quite different.   We had those for years but eventually they got tossed out.

     Grandad was a Marker at Consett Iron Company.   His job was to mark out sheets of hot steel plates for cutting according to orders being met.    He had to walk on to the Plates still extremely hot and out of the Rolling Mills and chalk where they had to be cut.    He couldn't have worn ordinary clogs or steel tipped boots.  They must have had special clogs for that work.   Someone on the Consett Heritage facebook pages may know.

     But what would one keep to remember gt.grandparents who were Pudlers?   Possibly Slag?

     One gt.gt.grandfather had a Pub and that would mean getting hold of brew tub - that could be a very happy exercise.

     So such a second list of ancestral objects would be something if it had a number of items that invited questions and then painting a picture of the way we once lived.
     

[Malcolm33]

  Just thought of something else that was so important when I was young, a Stone Hot Water Bottle.   On a freezing cold winters night, high up on the edge of the northern Pennines where the Wind coming in from the North Sea and Arctic is made of ice that stone bottle freshly filled with boiling water from the kettle standing on a hob over the open fire was so essential.

    So had a search on the net and there must be thousands still around.   How I remember that knob on the end to save getting burnt from the hot stone.   But there are some among the images I've never seen before - https://www.google.com.au/search?q=stone+hot+water+bottles&rls=com.microsoft:en-GB:IE-Address&rlz=1I7PLXB_enAU652&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwju2-71parUAhUJhbwKHToeDJ0QsAQIJA&biw=1239&bih=575

[DavidG02]

DavidG02
I am curious to know why the piece of  Monterey pine? [Pinus radiata.] 

I wondered about that too.  P. radiata has had a role in my life, but a souvenir piece wouldn't be very welcome as I seem to be allergic to just about every part of it!  Otherwise it's a pretty ordinary conifer.

Carol

Pinus Radiata is the tree of the South East of South Australia. Wherever I see a Pine Tree , and especially Radiata , I am taken back to school holidays. I think of a cricket bat made from a chunk, I think of kitchen fires started by me carrying in blocks of pine , the clink of the blocks as they are stacked, the weight and the smell.

I think of my maternal grandparents, and all my uncles and aunts and their stories. I think of friends.

My objects are about invoking memory.