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Thanks again Panished. Very helpfull

Thanks for all the great information richarde1979 inow have them back a further generation didn't know moses parents. I will try the websites you gave see if anything on him there. Goof luck with the book. Bob

I think the Romany and Traveller Family History Society may have published some books on Smiths, if you check their website. The late Terence Lee also published two books on the Smiths but they are difficult to get hold of. He built up an impressive database of Romani parish register entries, which he made available through record offices, and complimented with several self-published works. In my own small way I’m following his example. I had some interaction with him, shortly before he passed, where he expressed satisfaction at the standards I had put in place for my sources and evidence, which he evidently felt was lacking in some researchers. Gordon Boswell who owned and run the Romany Museum in Lincolnshire, was similarly supportive when I visited him with my family, and expressed interest in writing his own autobiography with help, but sadly this did not come to fruition, as he too unexpectedly passed just months later. I regret that neither man, who each did so much in their own way to record, share and preserve Romany heritage in the U.K, will see the finished work, but their support and encouragement was appreciated and is not forgotten. Once published I intend to share my own database of more than a thousand early sources, many original discoveries, with the Anglo-Romani Heritage Project, a great free online resource. There’s already much useful information on the Smiths there, so worth checking for your family on there if you havn’t already.

Whether your grandad would have been considered a Gypsy or not is difficult to say one way or another. I have Romani ancestry and genes, and close Romani family, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, nieces and nephews, but I don’t call or consider myself a Gypsy, so wouldn’t presume to judge who are, or are not, so called ‘Real Gypsies’, from a ‘Real Gyspy background’, (whatever that might mean). I can only say in my experience an upbringing among the community is more important than blood lines, the importance of which tends to be overstated. My brother in law’s family is a good example of that. They originate in the union between a non-Gypsy man, and a Romany female [Ayres] in the late 1890’s. The next generation, his great grandparents, who married in 1916, was also a mixed marriage, his great grandfather marrying a local non-Gypsy girl. The family lived on fixed sites travelling seasonally after WWI, and from the late 1950’s moved permanently into houses, but have never been thought of anything other than fully Gypsy within and without their community.

The idea of unmixed bloodlines is a myth, and probably always has been. The conclusion to the same DNA study quoted before reflects a similar reality, where lifestyle and upbringing trumps genes:

We contest the common idea that Gypsies in general are an extremely closed group. The minimum estimate of around 37% as the proportion of male admixture that had already occurred in Iberia is in clear contradiction with the stereotype. This high rate of lineage assimilation means that through adoption of a socio-cultural style of life, many people became and are becoming Gypsy (and vice-versa). More than reflecting a biological/linguistic entity, the term “Gypsy” must be perceived as a social construct in a continually changing environment.


Thanks for the interest in the books Bobmills6, and best of luck with your own research.

Interesting reading. My greatgranfarther married outside Gypsy communitey. Would my grandad have been a Gypsy we thought so but I never meet him died young wud he be excepted by them ? is dad Ambrose Mills is on 1881 census with granfarther Moses Smith, norn 1816 in Hertford. Is moses in any of your book richaerde79??

Thank you for the help every body I carnt find the marriage certificate either. Will wait and see what that birth certificate has to say

Looking to find a record for my great grandad Ambrose Mills, he on 1881.census Woodford Essex. No other record of him birth baptism. Thanks