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Topics - Andrew Tarr

Pages: 1 ... 3 4 5 [6] 7 8
46
The Lighter Side / What's in a name?
« on: Wednesday 14 September 16 10:07 BST (UK)  »
Still transcribing parish records for rural Lancashire, which include about 10% (at a guess) of infant baptisms without a named father (I guess that some of the parents were cohabiting, but a minister was not permitted to name an unmarried father - though once or twice he did, but crossed it out when he realised).  One such baptism yesterday, of a child born to Prudence.  Well, that's one intention that didn't work out ....  ;)

47
The Common Room / What will be meant by 'Abode' ?
« on: Monday 15 August 16 15:48 BST (UK)  »
I have been transcribing burials for Turton Chapel in Lancashire from 1830 to 1840.  This largely rural district was dominated by 12 to 15 family surnames, most of them occupied in weaving, bleaching or fabric printing.  Something like two-thirds of the records come from six local neighbourhoods, and most of the remainder from adjacent parishes.

Occasionally names appear, apparently from the same limited number of families, from more distant parts like Salford, Manchester, Dukinfield or Stalybridge.  What are RootsChatters' opinions on what this indicates?  Were they relatives unlucky enough to expire while visiting, or had they migrated to find work and come home to be buried ?

Quite a number of residents lived into their 70s, 80s and even 90s, but there are occasional sad examples of infants dying aged 2 days or even 3½ hours ....

48
The Common Room / Abbreviations on old maps
« on: Sunday 07 August 16 15:07 BST (UK)  »
Early editions of the English Ordnance Survey (mid-1800s) are peppered with labels such as '4 ft. R.H.' alongside boundaries between parishes or other local subdivisions.  I can't work out what this might mean - any ideas?

49
The Common Room / What is/was a Droyster ?
« on: Tuesday 02 August 16 15:43 BST (UK)  »
.... or possibly Drogster ?  I can't find any mention of this occupation.  This is a 1798 burial record for a parish populated with weavers and their dependent trades of bleacher (whitster), dyer and printer.  Or could it be Drayster ?

50
The Common Room / Trends in naming children
« on: Monday 18 July 16 17:09 BST (UK)  »
I am transcribing baptisms for a rural parish in mid-Lancashire from 1770 to 1810, where there seem to have been about 15 indigenous surnames.  At the start of this period most names are the usual 'formal' ones we are familiar with, but by 1800 a large proportion have become pet names, most, but by no means all, for the girls.  In about 100 records I have collected

Peggy, Mally, Betty (very common), Ally, Jenny, Harry, Griffy (!), Nelly, Sally (common), Jemmy, Nanny, Kitty, Tommy, Dolly, Patty, Fanny, Lissy and Matty.

Most of us know of the later Victorian habit of using close relatives' names, but was there a similar trend in pet names a bit earlier?

51
The Common Room / 18th-century Clerical Bureaucracy
« on: Friday 01 July 16 11:35 BST (UK)  »
The curate at Turton (north of Bolton Lancashire) clearly enjoyed his calligraphy, but it seems that he resented the arrival of a tax on baptisms.

After transcribing about 15 years of baptism records it is clear to me that this moorland parish supports about a dozen different surnames, most of whom were weavers.  There are Entwisles from Entwisle and from Edgworth, and Bradshaws from Turton and Bradshaw.  And an apparent outbreak of illegitimacy in 1784.  A 'whitster' was a whitener, i.e. a bleacher.

52
The Common Room / George Cromptons of Turton
« on: Wednesday 29 June 16 09:36 BST (UK)  »
Among 188 pages of baptism and burial records I am transcribing for Turton parish (4 miles north of Bolton, Lancs) is one (dated 1848) recording some George Cromptons starting with 1684-1745, and listing one or two families.  If any RootsChatters are interested, I can forward this page on request (PM).

53
The Lighter Side / When the mind wanders ....
« on: Monday 30 May 16 15:41 BST (UK)  »
I am in the middle of transcribing Manchester baptisms at a church in Ancoats for 1872.  On a typical Sunday there may be 12 to 20 children presented, so it may not be too surprising to find a bit of backtracking - or maybe the cleric was hard of hearing.  A couple of recent examples:

Child:  Hadley (crossed out) Adelaide
Parents:  Thomas and Arthur (crossed out) Martha

Perhaps these days the latter partnership may be unexceptionable ...  :D

54
The Common Room / what was a Relieving Officer as an occupation?
« on: Thursday 25 February 16 15:57 GMT (UK)  »
Quote from: stanmapstone on Thursday 25 February 16 12:10 GMT (UK)
Surfaceman (railway), see underman; obsolescent.
Underman (railways, not in signal box); a worker in a permanent way gang supervised by ganger (railway). "A Dictionary of Occupational Terms"

Going off railways for a moment, what was a Relieving Officer as an occupation?  I have come across two of those in Victorian Manchester - unless I am misinterpreting some fairly dreadful handwriting ....

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