Australian Local and Family History Bloggers. Family History Month August 2022. Part One.

 

MONTHLY CHALLENGE

WEEK 2: Travel, Part One — England.

(We will return to England for Part Four)

In 2015 my husband John and I went on a family history trail of the United Kingdom. After listing all the direct line families on both our sides, we realized that we had to cover just about all of England, some of Wales, go up into Scotland, over to Northern Ireland, and see quite a bit of territory in the Republic of Ireland for John's convicts. A little daunting, but we worked out where the relevant archives/record offices/churches /cemeteries were, to help us out and emailed some beforehand. We had responses from a few of the offices which helped us when we arrived at their location. All the little villages to visit would turn out to be a delight.

We headed off on the 30th of July and didn't get back home until the 6th of November. We took a slow trip over with three stopovers for a few nights each, (Kuala Lumpur, New Delhi, and Istanbul), before arriving at Venice. My favourite place. Then train to Paris (John's favourite place) for 6 days and another train to England via the Chunnel. 

Our ancestral trail started in earnest on the 18th of August -- with great weather for 95% of the way. Only rained in a few places. During the trip, in the evenings, I kept a diary and we entered as much as we could on computer, whilst fresh in our minds. After our family history adventure, we eventually returned to France and hired another car to Barcelona for the end of September to join the cruises home -- 2 weeks to Dubai and 2 weeks to Singapore, then flew the last bit home to Australia. Of course, by now we were loaded with masses of photos, documents, etc., some on our laptops and others in hard copy. 

A rough map following our journey showing the four parts of the story.
Orange highlight black is England Part One. Includes the lower red marking on Scotland 
Blue is Ireland Part Two
Red is Scotland Part Three
Plain black is England Part Four.

In ENGLAND we visited
Sussex: 
The Church of the Parish, St Albans, in Frant where my GGGrandparents Thomas Wells and Eleanor Fry were married. There we found history information sheets and a wonderful list of all gravestones, helping us find relatives.

St Albans Church, Frant Sussex.

Helpful list of churchyard grave, Frant.

Kent: Locations of East Peckham, Speldhurst, Lyghe, Tunbridge Wells, Pembury, and Sutten Valance for my ancestors Pearce, Haysman, Towner, Fry, Nye, Sales, Welfear, Simmons, Barton, France, Putland.

St Mary's Speldhurst, Kent

Entrance to St Mary's, Speldhursp/f0.t

'Here lyeth the Body of Mary Fry daughter of Robert and Mary Fry'

So many graves for the Nye family, some illegible

We drove up to the now-closed St Michael's Church at East Peckham, sitting romantically atop the hill amongst ancient beech trees. What glorious views over the Medway valley to the Weald. A worker was doing some maintenance, so we were able to go inside and photograph, whilst it was open. Graves were found for Barton, Towner, Welfear, Fry and Simmons families.

St Michael's East Peckham, Kent

In Tunbridge Wells at the library, we copied some pertinent pages in books. Given a referral for Atlas of Tunbridge Wells, a very large-sized book, beautifully pictured, which we bought at a bookstore. Inside some of my families were mentioned in the feast of local information.

The great Tunbridge Wells book we managed to purchase.

Travelling north we deviated to see the enormous Newmarket Racecourse. In the villages, thatched rooves were now visible on the cottages.

Huntingdonshire:
In Ramsay, we registered for a CARN card (County Archives Research Network) and found the archives very helpful for Edgley and Clarke families, using the Red books. There were numerous graves for Edgley and Unwin families in the churchyard.

In Loving Memory of Rebekah Edgeley

Cambridgeshire:
At St Mary's Church in Doddington, we discovered family graves to photograph. Also, a row of old townhouses in Blenheim St. (as number of the relevant house unknown).

St Mary's Church, Doddington

Leicestershire:
We stayed at an enormous Best Western Hotel (a change from the old Air BNBs and hotels). There were hundreds of rooms and fire safety doors in the long passages. Accommodation addresses to find are given as postcode, and map coordinates at Junction Number. Unfortunately, our Sat. Nav. couldn’t cope with this.
At the Records Office, we signed for temporary ID cards. All were very helpful and other Australians were there busy researching. Found parents of Jane Pratt and Henry Castings, John’s direct line. Yay! The city was full of football fans and Bobbies -- chaotic.

Took a lovely trip on through the wolds and dales passing the 'Archery Centre' in Nottingham!

Lincolnshire: 
In Scartho/Grimsby we visited the local history library. Helpful volunteers at the Family History centre, where we found Susan Ashley's (John’s direct line) baptism and marriage records. They were to email us more information later. At Scartho St Giles Church cemetery we used alfoil to copy the grave inscriptions for Ashley and Croft. Worked well. 

Foil was a good way to read difficult inscriptions, 
although difficult in bad weather conditions!

We learnt that Grimsby was a village founded by Vikings in the 9th Century. A Danish fisherman named Grim supposedly named the place after himself and added the suffix 'by' meaning village, in old Norse. 

As the weather had been unusually hot so far, we drove to the beach nearby at Cleethorpes to cool off. It was cloudy with a slight breeze as we walked in the evening and were introduced to the fun parlours and English pier. Apparently the ubiquitous fish and chip shop was originally a ballroom.

The Pier, Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire
Image from BBC News Friday, 20th May 2022

On much of our travels the beautiful golden paddocks surrounding us had been given a ‘haircut’ -- hay cutting and baling season. Enormous tractors and harvesters on most lanes, making driving a challenge, and we were to find them all over the UK. Rows and rows of wind turbines stretched to eternity. In Lincoln, we stopped at the Cathedral and Tennyson's statue. Signed for another ID card at the archives. Again great assistants. Used the fiches, Green and Red Books for district marriage indexes. Photocopied ten pages.

        Lincoln Cathedral with Tennyson's statue

 On our way to Lancashire we just had to stop in Bakewell and try their well known Bakewell tarts.  Couldn't make up our minds i we liked them or not. But another new experience to add to the diary.

Bakewell Tart, Derbyshire

Lancashire:
Family ancestors: Cottam, Johnson, Dixon, Towner, Partington, Munkes at Croft, Culcheth, Winwick, Warrington, Risely, Leigh, and Bedford. 
Culcheth: Found the Newchurch church next to a little pub, the 'Pack Horse Inn'. The church bells rang every quarter-hour, keeping us on our toes. Tragic to see piles of old gravestones stacked up higgledy-piggledy and many used as fences. Most had inscriptions hidden or broken. 

Newchurch church

A fence of unreadable gravestones

Some of the Partington family were interred near the entrance, so easy to find. Had to clear embedded moss and later purchase a nail brush to clean my dirty, mossy nails! 

Grave for one of the Partington family

Into the pub for lunch, discovered a list of owners over the years displayed on the wall, and John Dixon ran it from 1914-1918 (so not at war) May be a Dixon relative. Also an old picture in the passage showed a George Towner in the cricket team. Could be another relative.

It is always a good idea to visit the local pubs for wall photos and chat with the publican and locals re: surnames.

We viewed St Oswald's Church in Winwick, the main church for the family BDMs (Births, Deaths and Marriages). Then we had a special time meeting up with Christine, originator of the Facebook site Genealogy Time Travellers UK and Worldwide. She showed us Lewis Carroll's Church at Daresbury with its stained-glass Biblical figures and Alice in Wonderland figures below.

Alice in Wonderland figures at base of stained glass windows, Daresbury, Winwick

Drove through Croft where my GGGrandfather farmed, a lovely agricultural area but no church there. Lovely to follow the lush green carpets of verdant farmland.  

In Preston Archives Office, we scrolled through Microfilms having some success with the Cottam family. They are to post some wills to us. 

Cumbria: Carlisle. It is England nowadays, but John’s ancestors -- Grahams and Bells were raised as Scottish here. The library in Carlisle was open, and we had luck finding Graham records in the local family history section. Thousands of Graham families, with so many sons named William. 

The old family naming pattern for children can be a blessing and a bind in Genealogy, can't it?

And so we journeyed to Scotland on north through the lovely landscapes with some bare hills and purple heather, deep green grass and wildflowers. A mixture of yellow, pink, mauve and white.

We decided to leave our Scottish family trail till after Ireland. Instead we had a quick tourist visit about for a bit of a break.

Drove through Dumfries where Rabbie Burns was born.  Checked out some ruined abbeys and on to our Air BNB out in the hills driving between the roadside stone walls. Enjoyed a Scottish 'Tattoo' in a nearby town, listening to the swirl of the pipes. The next morning the usual enormous full English/Scottish breakfast was served, even when we said no. Far too much for us. Our host suggested we go north to Glasgow via the coast road. 

Leaving Solway Firth, a little way along the road, we received a shock. A gigantic alien looked above the green hedges peering down upon us. We had no idea what it was. 

A Straw Man who had survived one year standing tall, frightening the tourists. 

Next we sought out the ancient 'Sweetheart Abbey' at Newabbey village. It has such a sad romantic history to it. Lady Devorgilla of Galloway, the widow of a powerful nobleman, John Balliol, loved him so much, that when he died in 1268, she had his heart embalmed. She always carried it with her in an ornate ivory casket, until her death nearly 22 years later. Because she had fulfilled many charitable acts including funding the Cistercian abbey, the monks named the monastery after her, 'Dulce Cor' = 'Sweet Heart'. She was buried before the high altar with her husband's heart clutched to her bosom.

'Dulce Cor' Abbey, Newabbey

Glasgow: 

As we returned the hire car here, we utilised the 'Hop on Hop off' red bus to see the sights. Hours were spent in the beautiful Botanic Gardens, they even had some Australian Manferns. 

Glasgow Botanic Gardens

The bus took us along to the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, where we caught a curator's talk on 'The Glasgow Boys and 'The Colourists' artists.  We also took in some of the amazing museum specimens, especially the animals. 

Art Gallery, Kelvin Grove

Deer at the Glasgow Museum

The Glasgow Archives were expensive to visit, 15 pounds plus photocopy charges. As we would probably be able to get our info' at local societies, etc, we, instead splurged on dinner at the Jamie Oliver Italian city restaurant. Naughty but bonny. 

The next day we bussed over to the west coast of Scotland, passing by the Ayr Racecourse and Troon Golf course and onto the ferry. We were in for a wave lashing time to Ireland.

You can check out our Irish trail in Part Two, then soon Scotland Part Three and down to continue England for Part Four.