How Did People Move Around???

[rich23434565]

Hi all

I'm stuck at the moment with one branch of the family  I'm researching the Cripps family in Gloucestershire. I've got them in the 19th century and have followed them back through the 18th century, from Brimspfield to Colesbourne and then to Winson, a tiny little hamlet near Bibury in the Cotswolds. But then I've hit a brick wall. The problem is that they just appear in the parish register, Giles Cripps and his wife, Ann, having kids! The first one in the Winson register is for 1665 and the baptism of Mary. This is the first entry of the Cripps in the register. Giles Cripps was a blacksmith. I've looked in the surrounding parishes for their marriage (c1660s) but haven't found anything. I don't understand how they got to Winson in the first place? Why would someone, in the mid-17th century, just decide that they're going to set up shop there? Was there a usual process or set of circumstances that made people move around?

Rich

[ev]

hi rich

war , famine , better prospects , religion   ?                                                                                                                       would you move if family were well fed , earning a good living , and
were respected locally ?
i think it would take something major to make you move even
if it was lack of opportunity in your birth area

ev

[rich23434565]

I just don't know. I can understand if, for example, you got married to a woman from a different parish and then moved to her parish to live. But it doesn't look like Giles or Ann Cripps had anything to do with Bibury or Winson, and Winson is such a tiny place: just a small church, formerly a chapelry, and a scattering of cottages. I just wish I knew what their motivation was. It's annoying how such things are nearly always lost in the passage of time!

[ShaunJ]

1665 was the year of the Great Plague. I imagine a lot of people were on the move trying to keep away from it. And the plague would have created a lot of job openings...

[rich23434565]

1665 was the year of the Great Plague. I imagine a lot of people were on the move trying to keep away from it. And the plague would have created a lot of job openings...

Oh yes. That's true. Perhaps that's why chose such an out-of-the-way location!

[wheeldon]

Hi Rich, well at least you know what you are looking for...their motivation.

If I were you, as Ev suggested, research what was going on in their town before they moved, perhaps they had no choice but to leave???  Or perhaps they were following family that had moved there?

At the very least you will become an expert about your ancestors town and social history 

I do hope you solve the mystery 

[rich23434565]

Hi Wheeldon

Problem is I don't know where they came from originally.  They just appear at Winson in the PR in 1665. Pesky ancestors! 

[ev]

hi all

shaunJ well done i knew this but the year just didn't click
lots of opportunities , major change
next great fire of london
imagine if something like that happened today
small quite village here i come

ev

[celia]

Rich

Was there a usual process or set of circumstances that made people move around?

He was a Blacksmith so would have been in demand,don't forget people traveled for miles by horse and cart to get to jobs. Horses worked the farmers fields and needed shodding
so blacksmiths would have been kept busy in the country side.Thats just another good reason

Celia