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Hi Everyone

Below are 3 photos (copyright is with Staffordshire Past Track). I am hoping to be able to put family names to these rather than them just being labelled ‘a Gypsy’. Does anyone recognise them or see any family resemblance? They are all taken somewhere in Staffordshire or on the Staffordshire/Derbyshire border 🙂
Many thanks once again

Good morning all,
I was wondering whether anyone has any stories or memories of Traveller families, specific people or stopping places that they would like to contribute to a research project I am currently involved in. There are a number of documents and old photographs which show that Romany Gypsy and Irish Travellers travelled across the Staffordshire Moorlands area. I am collecting these together on a new website that will hopefully help others who, like me, are researching their Traveller families. The research is funded by a group called Support Staffordshire and it's a way of celebrating the Traveller heritage of the area. I have the task of gathering stories or memories to display alongside the photographs and memories. So if any of your family were travelling in or through this area and you have a story, or 2 or 3, to tell, please let me know. You can have your name displayed on the website if you choose or it can go on there anonymously if you prefer. I am finding a lot of Boswells, but there are other surnames such as Sheriff, Locke, Cooper, Gregory, Blewit, Sayles, Bailey, Smith and Holland to name just a few.
Many thanks in advance

Hi

Sorry for the delay. Ancestry literally wiped most of this side of my family tree including all the attached documents so I have had to start again! I have found William Goodwin in the 1841 census. He is 46, living at Twenty Row in Burslem and is listed as a Carter, with the rest of his family all potters. In 1851 he is at Norton le Moors and is a labourer at the colliery, but his daughter is still a potter. His son (my GGG Grandfather) Isaac Goodwin is a pot packer in 1861 + 1871, but in Mexborough. Not sure how or why he ends up here, as there is no family connection to the place before this. His children are born in Wales, London, Staffordshire and Mexborough. The there is John Charles Goodwin, who is my GG Grandfather, born 1858 in Burslem, but living in Denaby (near Mexborough) He is in the army for a while, but is a coal miner on all the census entries. He gets around a bit as he is recorded on the census in Ashton under Lyne in 1891, 1901 he is in Denaby, but can't find him yet in 1881. He is in prison a lot though so that might be where he is during that census. I have 7 prison records for him being drunk and disorderly, assault, deserting the Manchester militia and also abandoning his family. He meets my GG Gran in Dublin, (I think she was from Kildare) and they marry in Manchester where she is staying in a hotel and the publican is a witness so maybe they eloped? Their children are born in Ashton under Lyne, Denaby and Castleford.
Many thanks,
Amanda

Hi

I am really interested in your research and wonder whether you have completed your book yet? I am a classical violinist and we thought there was no-one else in my family who had ever played, but I recently discovered that I have Romany Gypsy heritage so maybe it is in the genes after all. I would love to purchase a copy of your book. Where would I find it?

Hi all

I am researching my ancestors, who were potters around Stoke-on-Trent. Their birthplaces include Burslem, Tunstall and Wolstanton. The family name is Goodwin and I suspect they are Romany Gypsy travellers but cannot be certain as they are listed as potters, pot sellers, pot packers, pot transferers etc. I wondered if the Goodwin name rang a bell for anyone with family from around that area?

Many thanks,