- Greensleeves, our Bridges family hop over the border around 1500 and appear in Norfolk, need to get back up to the NRO and do some more research. I know the feeling of being stuck in that cul-de-sac.
I have been visiting daughter, son in law and 9 months old grandson Henry for a few days - in Nottingham, where I have recently begun researching on Henry's behalf, as he has so much information on his maternal family roots, but nothing on his paternal Nottinghamshire roots.
As for your area of research Coombs, still rural and how it has been for so many years, not so much infil building in those villages and with only Letheringham Water Mill open on some weekends in the summer, Easton Farm Park and Hach Fest just once a year - they all remain pretty quiet.
A few years ago I did some research for a friend's father who had been a Barnardo's boy.
I discovered that his mother had been a Barnardo's girl and her brothers had been sent to Canada.
When the three children lost their mother, their father was desperate and left the children with Barnardo's fully intending to collect them as soon as he could cope. When he did remarry and try to get them back, the daughter was in London and the boys across the Atlantic.
I think that 'informal adoptions' in rural areas were not uncommon. More often than not the adoptees were relations of some sort, but not always.
I suppose checking out the Bedwell family would be a good idea to see if any links?
Perhaps the father of Annie's children was considered 'above her station'.
With the family I researched, the daughter sent to London ended up in service in the home counties and had a child - the chap that I was carrying out the research for - and she gave him up for adoption to Barnardo's!!!
However, we were able to work out who his father was, the young master of the house where she was in service (middle name - inherited pocket watch etc etc).
In tracking down today's descendants of that family they welcomed my chap with open arms and said that they feel certain that he must have half-brothers and sisters as his mother was not the first young girl who had been taken advantage of by the young master
Their great-great uncle had a reputation
It was a great deal of information for a chap in his late 80s to take in - but he now has cousins in Canada that he telephones regularly and despite his own large family, he now has cousins and their families too.
Sorry to ramble on, but who knows what you might find eventually
I'll take a trowel and see if I can come up with any ideas too
Pat ...
Hope I gave you enough smileys
