RootsChat.Com
Some Special Interests => Travelling People => Topic started by: hiyamarra on Sunday 23 April 17 12:56 BST (UK)
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I've been researching my family history for a number of years, and found that 25% of my ancestors belonged to the Traveller/Gypsy community. This has given loads of fun but huge difficulty in following them. Places of baptism doesn't mean the same place as birth, as they often baptised children in favourite churches, or churches close to where they wintered up, or close to markets or fairs they were attending. I've noticed a lot of my ancestors and other Travelling families were baptised at Holme Cultram, but I can't see any particular reason why. I've tried to find any info there is, but nothing crops up. Does anyone know if there was a particular reason for this very high number of Traveller baptisms at Holme Cultram.
Thanks
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Hello hiyamarra,
I have just moved your post to the travelling people section of RootsChat.
Regards
Sarah
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Thanks Sarah
I thought things were quiet :)
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To the east, there's the gypsy horse fair at Appleby. Another thought is that travellers historically mended and sold pans, etc. If you google for Holme Cultram and "Iron mining" you'll have several results. There's mention of visible rocks and the ore being hammered out of them. There's also mention of simple bloom forges which I've seen on the TV programme "Time Team" and it seems to me that tavellers would also have that skill.
The link is to a film showing how ancient Britons smelted ore found in rocks to produce copper:-
https://wn.com/prehistoric_copper_smelting_in_a_pit
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Hi
Thanks for your thoughts
My reason for asking, is quite a few of my Travelling ancestors had children baptised there. I have followed my ancestors all over the north of England and can almost plot the routes they followed visiting fairs and markets but I can't see a reason for Home Cultram
McKenzie's/McKinsey's were one of these families
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Hi
Thanks for your thoughts
My reason for asking, is quite a few of my Travelling ancestors had children baptised there. I have followed my ancestors all over the north of England and can almost plot the routes they followed visiting fairs and markets but I can't see a reason for Home Cultram
McKenzie's/McKinsey's were one of these families
It's Border Country which means that it was easy to cross over from Scotland and England and there were no mountains to hike over. When travelling you had to calculate walking distance to water and they probably headed for water and a nearby church. You say you have Scottish ancestors. Looking at a map - What better place than to have a family gathering of all nationalities in the family. There's water to drink and fish from, a coal field for fuel to light a fire and several churches. There's also the Abbey and I'm guessing that there'd be plenty of rabbits to snare for supper.
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I've actually studied Drover routes and general Travellers routes, as they didn't just wander aimlessly and Holme Cultram just isn't on any of these routes. I've also researched markets and fairs in the area and nothing ties up, hence my query. I was wondering if there was any religious or superstitious reason for going out of their way for baptisms. Hmmmm
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I've actually studied Drover routes and general Travellers routes, as they didn't just wander aimlessly and Holme Cultram just isn't on any of these routes. I've also researched markets and fairs in the area and nothing ties up, hence my query. I was wondering if there was any religious or superstitious reason for going out of their way for baptisms. Hmmmm
I know what you mean - but that's why I initially thought of something they might have used to trade with. Why buy tin to mend pans, etc. when you can freely collect ore and make it yourself? Additinally, the Mackenzie lands are on the Scottish west coast (also moving inland towards the east) - so that's the reason I mentioned the family meeting. Maybe they liked the local vicar - did all churches agree to baptise traveller children?
Have you checked court/assize records for fines, etc? :-
https://esmeraldamac.wordpress.com/category/history-of-cumbria/history-19th-century/
By the nineteenth century, the days of the reivers had passed but we were still a distance from the newly-established ‘police’ in London and Edinburgh. The hue and cry was still technically in force but local inclination to engage had deteriorated to the extent that local parishes, rather than fining the populace for not helping, were now offering enormous financial rewards to get their help. In Holm Cultram in 1814, the following policy was drawn up and published in the Carlisle Journal:
Whereas divers felonies and other Misdemeanors have lately been committed within the Parish of Holm Cultram in the County of Cumberland, the offenders having frequently escaped Justice NOTICE IS THEREFORE GIVEN That for the prevention thereof an ASSOCIATION is entered into amongst the Inhabitants of the said Parish for the Prosecution of all future offenders and that the most effectual means will be used to discover all suspected persons and bring the delinquents to condign punishment. Signed the 4th day of December, 1812 by the Committee appointed by the said Association… it was resolved and agree that the following rewards should be paid by the Treasurer out of the public fund to any person of persons not being a Member of the Association who shall apprehend any person or persons guilty of the following offences against any Member of the Society on conviction of such offender or offenders.
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Freely collect ore to make Tin is a bit more difficult than that. You would need a smelter for the tin then a furnace to produce the steel that the tin is plated onto. Thats a major piece of industry. Good thought thanks but a bit off key
My McKenzie's seem to have travelled mainly in North Cumberland and just over the border into S.W. Scotland. The earliest trades I know the worked at was Razor Grinding, but some time around 1830's/40's they became Potters, buying their pots from the Jubilee Pottery at Dearham and selling around the area. They wintered at Ratten Row Dearham. Yet they and other families I descend from seemed to prefer Holme Cultram for baptisms.
Yes I've checked newspapers and local assizes records and typically of most travelling families there are quite a few petty offences.
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Hard luck - I'm back ;D
People usually travel to work & earn money. Having seen the description of the area I can see there were many farms. I got to thinking about the only travellers that I knew about back in the 1950s on the east coast of Yorkshire and they were Irishmen who only went home to their families in Ireland in the winter. They worked on farms and followed the farming seasons starting in the south of England and working their way up north where the seasons start later.
You mentioned Potters and I think that might be the clue we've been looking for. You need CLAY to make pottery and to make the pottery shine you need SALT. I've found a paper that mentions the salt. Thus your relatives could have bagged up salt and sold it to various potteries and/or he could have made himself an ancient simple kiln covering it with local peat and made his own pottery.
Here's the link to the information:-
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/mol/archaeology/arf/documents/MEDIEVALASSESSMENT.pdf
" There are references to salt-making around the Solway and Morecambe Bay, and in west Cumberland, largely associated with monastic houses, notably Holme Cultram Abbey, where peat was used as fuel (Martin 1975). Production was likely to have been through the process known as sleeching or sand-washing, where salt-impregnated sands and silts were filtered through a bed of turf or peat, and the resulting brine was boiled in small pans. The waste sand from the process often remains in large distinctive mounds. On rocky coasts, seawater may have been directly boiled, without prior concentration, using large cast-iron pans fuelled with coal (Wilkinson
et al 1998). The direct boiling process developed from sleeching in the later Middle Ages, and it has been suggested that salt was possibly produced by direct boiling in the thirteenth century at Saltom on the West Cumberland coalfield (Walsh 1991, 39). "
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When you've looked into the possibilities of a connection between pottery and Holme Cultram, I'd love to hear the outcome.
When my daughter was 18 she took up pottery and when I started researching our family history, I discovered my grandmother's maternal family were all engaged in the Yorkshire pottery industry. I was surprised to see her grandfather crushed flint for the Rockingham & Bramall pottery. Flint? That set me off doing a bit more pottery research I can tell you lol
When I first saw your posting I found an image that showed a coal field in the vicinity and as I have both coal miners and iron/steel workers in my families I know that coal mines were usually near metal ore fields. The nearby rivers will bring clay deposits and thus the clay could possibly be coloured red from the iron ore. Apparently early red shades of pottery are made from this type of clay. If you've seen the TV programmes that I have you'll know that potters crushed coloured stones using a pestle and mortar to obtain the coloured dyes that they needed.
Best Wishes,
Rena
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Hi. Just saw your post. My ancestors were all romany families./travellers. called Miller. Donahue. They lived/ camped.were born and baptized in holme cultrame. Abbey town. Horse Traders. Pot selling. Hawkers.etc..They also stayed in wigton. Which is a market town. And has a horse fair still.my Miller said camped in ratten row. There used to be a traveller fair there. Stopped in the thirties. Don't know what's around the area but it seems to attract travellers. Regards rob
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Hi Rob, good to hear from you
My bunch were Travellers too also pot dealers and married in to Millers
I also have family who lived at Ratten Row. Did you mean there was a Travellers fair at Ratten Row ??
PM me your e-mail and we can share info there
It would be great to talk to you, perhaps we are related