hi, ninian, i am a romany traveller, so may be able to help you a little, first there is a good site at liverpool uni archives, lots of photos etc, sorry i forgotten the web site but you will find it easily. as to the difference, between gypsy travellers etc. it is too big a story to tell, but i will give you some basics, first it was a crime to be born a gypsy! and punishable by death! in parts of europe. in 16/1700s we came as a kind of refugees to england.lots setteling in the epping forrest and london ares, but spreading out all over britain as the years past. bringing metel woodworking and other skills with us. at that time you had to have a type of ticket to work in a parish, given by a warden of of the parish. this was punched with a spike, like a old but pass. and it gave you the right to work in the area. without this you could be locked up/fined, hence pikey, for spikey any one working in the parish with a spiked(punched ticket) these could be hawkers, or gypsy, or travelling salesmen. as good sites to camp were rare, they all tended to use the same camps, lane roadsides, woods etc, so eventully they inter married. and the term gypsy became generic, because of the predudice if asked were they gypsies. most said no just travelling. i,e travellers. but there are some really old romany names, that go all the way back and still travel today. and we know the real romany folki. some settle but still call themselfs romany and live by our codes.we tend to be secretive because we need to be. try living in a world where you have no rights at all? and are constantly hounded, you will tend to keep to yourself. any way things got a bit worse when new age travellers/ hippie types began calling themselfs travellers, so to differenciate we began calling our self romany travellers. and as we have gained a bit of pride we can now once again call our selfs gypsy with out fear of any prosocutions. there are far to many other things to tell and it would take ages, surffice to say we are a bit like asians in that we are all one, but there are castes within the romany gypsy people, and only we know who is really romany. by the way as a bit of intrest, in this country we are nearly all of the clan of rom, in western europe. they are sinte, in eastern europe they are roma, darker skinned, than rom or sinte in general, so as you can see it is a very mixed bunch, theres lots to learn such as language traditions dress and moral codes. but i hope this as given you a taste to start with. as to the going from gypsy to hawker, it was probebly to hide his roots still happens today! also romany folk did/ do change name many resones, and will try to avoid censuses etc and sometimes did not register a birth, my own mother born 1928 in a romany wagon was not registerd til her wedding in 1949? this may explain why its hard to find your family, but i do think you have the blood in you. as there was and are lots of romany travellers in warwickshire. pardon my spelling, and grammer self taught to read and write, so not that good. custy bok, (good luck in romany) with your search. rob..g
