Tip: Could they have met?

[De Tails]

Hi

I thought this tip might be useful for other "out of towners". When I was trying to figure out whether it was likely that an ancestor from Tring, Hertsfordshire could have met another potential ancestor from Watford, Hertsfordshire in the mid-1800s (given they were poor-ish folk), I considered ideas such as Hiring Fairs, Church outings, etc. Given there are no records of this, I decided to use Google maps <not an advertisement>  to check out distances.

I was delighted to find the UK site has a beta-feature for walking and bicycling routes and times. Given that our ancestors were used to "shanks pony" for most travel it was easy to establish whether they *could* have walked the distance. (Whether they did or not is another matter, of course!)

This works in Canada - a rather large country as you'll know - as well. 

To use - just go to maps.google.co.uk (or your country's version) and "Get Directions". Put in your two places, then select the walk or bicycle link.

Hope others find this as useful as I have from New Zealand!

De

[Billiegirl]

That's a good tip De Tails. That site has come in very handy for me too to get a picture of areas where my ancestors lived that I'm totally unfamiliar with. Its a great tool for family research, thanks for sharing it with everyone.

[KGarrad]

Also, don't forget that our ancestors were hardy folk and thought nothing of walking 10 or 20 miles!

Back in my youth, when sponsored walks were all the rage, I used to do the Bristol to Weston-super-Mare walk at an average 4 miles per hour (17 miles took 4h 15m).
That was a fairly normal, fast-ish, walking pace., Certainly not racing speed!

So I always calculate a group travelling at 3 mph - covering 25 miles per day?

[De Tails]

F'sure re hardy! I decided the base-line would be three days' walk, since that would seem to fit hiring fairs etc.

The Tring-Watford walk is 16.8 miles and 5 hrs 33 mins according to GM, so modern folks seem to be walking at around 3 mph, so that works, too. 

We have a family photo dated July 1929 of the local Sunday School outing by horse-drawn wagon. They traveled from Watford to Bricket Wood for their treat, and that's an hour and a half walking-equivalent just for fun. (I'm presuming they didn't gallop the horses!!)

Best -
De

[youngtug]

You have to think of the different states of the roads/tracks in different times. Earlier than the toll roads the state of the "roads" was very poor, even after the toll roads came about the condition of these roads was variable and non toll roads more so. It is a different thing to walk on tarmac than to plough through knee deep mud. Even if you could travel a couple of miles in an hour it would have been physically demanding.

[Marmalady]

Don't forget also, that hitch-hiking -- ie begging lifts from passing farm carts would be common-place.
Plus "carriers" --people who had regular routes taking cart-loads of stuff between towns would also sometimes take a passenger or two for minimal cost

Plus theres also waterways. I have several Northampton ancestors that married people from Birmingham -- more than a few days walk --but handily served by the same canal!

[youngtug]

Canal towpaths where privately owned and not public right,s of way. Although when my grandfather was young the local canal, when frozen over in winter was used to skate along by workers, etc; getting to work, mainly the railway works. Distances of 10 miles that I know of.
  Canals of course apart from some early [Roman] ones and river systems, where mostly built and improved during the 1800s like the roads.

[Greensleeves]

And don't forget travelling by ship.  I've found that a lot of my ancestors started out in the south of England and ended up in Durham, thanks to hitching lifts on boats.

[youngtug]

Transport of goods by land was expensive, if you read Jane Austen you will see mentioned in one of her book,s that the furniture was sent round by water. The packet boat was a boat used mainly for coastal and river transport of people and packages.