Reflections

 The light was so beautiful around the lake at Trentham yesterday.

It's been a week for reflections as we entered the second week of January.  We started the New Year with a funeral and now there will be another.  Our neighbour who had suffered from Multiple Sclerosis for many years had been bed bound for the last year and in and out of hospital.  She lost her partner of many years to Motor Neurone Disease in February 2020, just before the first lock down.  On Christmas Eve she was taken into hospital with Flu and another infection I think they said Sepsis.  Anyway, she lived through all that until last Thursday evening.  Her brother rang us on Friday morning with the news.  We had been looking after her cat and dog whilst she was in hospital.  Both animals have now found homes, not with us as we didn't want to take on any more animals at our age.  The cat is just a few houses down the road so we will see her around. The little dog has gone to a young couple who already have a pomeranian, I'm sure he will be happy in his new home.

We will have to wait and see what new neighbours will move in when the house is sold.  We have been so lucky to have wonderful neighbours on both sides over the last twenty eight years, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it may continue.

I've also been delving into the 1921 census now it is free on Ancestry.  I've been looking for siblings of my grandparents and found quite a few of them.  I later followed up on a link and found two very sad stories in the Hodgetts family.  My paternal great grandmother was a Hodgetts. I found her brother's  death due to a pit roof collapsing and the marriage of his daughter followed a year later by her death, probably in childbirth and the deaths of the twin boys within days of each other. 

Oh dear this post has got a bit maudlin.  

Here is a photo of a female pheasant taken as we walked around the lake yesterday.  There are three of them and they can usually be spotted in the trees between the lakeside walk and the monkey park.

I have registered to participate in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch again this year.  Goodness knows how many years we have been doing this but it always something to look forward to.  We've had some different bird visitors to the garden during the cold and icy weather including Siskins and Long-Tailed Tits.  There have also been Starlings about again.

All for now.  Take care. 

A Bit of Family History

 I've been taking advantage of the free access to the 1921 census offered by Find My Past over last weekend.  I'd already paid for the copies of returns for both my sets of grandparents and found my parents listed along with some of their brothers and sisters.  This time I was looking for great grandparents.  On my father's side three of the four great grandparents were still alive.  On my mother's side all four were no longer alive.  Three of those great grandparents are buried in the same cemetry as my maternal grandparents and my father.  My mother is buried with my step-father in a nearby village churchyard.

I've also found my father's elder sister Millicent Mabel (always known as Millie) on the 1921 census.  She was in service with a retired land agent and his wife.  Edwin Henry and Emily Ada Story lived at  Brownhill House in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire.  Millie was one of three girls working for them and they were cook, housemaid and under housemaid.  There was also a butler called William Lionel Graves and he came from Tewksbury in Gloucestershire.  Two of the girls were from Upper Midway near Burton-on-Trent and one of them was my Granny's younger sister Clara so an aunt to Millie.  The other girl, had the wonderful name of Eveline Modwina Staley and she came from Ashby-de-la-Zouche, Leicestershire.

All this is quite fascinating, probably only to me but I'm enjoying myself with family history again.  

Granny Rose

 For years I've wanted to do something about my father's grave as it was rapidly deteriorating.  It had been there since 1955, although the stone surround was added by my Granny Rose in 1961.  I applied to the local council and was recommened a memorial stonemason and then had to apply to take over the management of the grave from my Granny who'd died in 1963.  It entailed a visit to a solicitor to get a witness signature. 

My father, middle back, his cousin and uncle both called Tom and a couple of pals.

 All done quite quickly and the replacement stone is now in place.  I've been sent photos but have yet to go and see it. 

Blogtober - Day Four

On this day in 1955 my father died.  He was forty five.  I was  five.  Although I'm not going to talk about him today as this story is about his little sister.  One of my strong childhood memories is of when my Granny Rose took me to see my father's grave in the local cemetery.  As we walked up towards the chapel in the middle of the cemetery she stopped at a small grave on which sat a glass dome filled with faded wax flowers.  'That's little Nell,' she said 'She died young.'  I don't think I asked any more at that time being too overwhelmed by the recent events of my father's death and our moving house.  Also the dome with its wax flowers was a bit eerie for a young child.

Me with my Mum and Dad

I've never forgotten though and did eventually find out that my father and his siblings had a sister.  Imagine my surprise then when I had a 'hint' from Ancestry which took me to a family tree which showed Nellie had lived and married.     I started to do a bit of research and eventually found a baptism for Nellie on 3rd May 1916.  The person who's tree I was looking at had the baptism of a Nellie of the same surname in 1912.  I emailed the local town council who sent me details of Nellie's burial  on 16th October 1920.  She was four years old.  I don't know what caused her death but my memory of her grave was correct. I looked up the Nellie born in 1912 and her parents had different names to my grandparents.  So not the same direct line but there could be some sort of connection further back.

Granny Rose just as I remember her.

 

 

Now I have a quandry. Do I tell this person they have perhaps inadvertently attached their ancestor to my family?  You see this has happened before when someone attached their family to mine and when I mentioned it I got short shrift and was told I knew nothing even though the people in question were my grandparents.  I have put all the information on my family tree (even the grave plot number) and made it available in the hopes that he or she finds it and hopefully looks at their research and sources again.

This and That

I've found my Mum and Dad on the 1921 Census available on Find My Past. I've just realised that makes me sound very old and perhaps I am at 71 (a month away from 72) although I don't feel it, well perhaps I have just a little recently. I was a late baby for them.  My father was born in 1909 and my mother in 1916.  My father would have been a young child of 5 or 6 when WWI broke out and my mother was born in the middle year of the conflict.  Two world wars in their lifetime.

On Ancestry UK they have refined and advanced DNA results so that we are now able to see which parent may have given us our genetic background.

As you can see from the above I have 85% Western Europe - English East Midlands and Potteries,  8% Scotland, 3% Sweden and Denmark, 2% Norway and 2% Wales in my genetic make up.

A new feature of the DNA survey is the breakdown of the ethnicity inherited from each parent. 

From this they can determine which parent gave you which regions in their genes if you know of ancestors from these regions.  I know I have a 3 x great grandfather from Scotland on my mother's side so I think parent one in the diagram above is my mother.  I find it all quite fascinating.

Talking of the Potteries, where we have lived for around twenty five years, I read in a recent copy of 'Amateur Gardening' magazine that this year Stoke-on-Trent is one of the top five 'wildlife rich' cities in the UK. How wonderful.  The others are Bristol, Leicester, Reading and Edinburgh. The data is from the National Biodiversity Network Atlas.  

Also in Stoke-on-Trent, Hanley Park in the city centre has been given a Green Flag Award since its refurbishment over the last few years.  We visited the park a couple of weeks ago to see the changes and I took a few photos. 

It was a very hot Saturday morning so we didn't linger out in the open for too long choosing to head back into the cool of the trees.

The Pavilion which now houses a popular cafe.

The Bandstand and behind it the bridge over the Caldon Canal.  The Caldon Canal meets with the Trent and Mersey Canal at Etruria near the Industrial Museum.  You can walk from the park up the canal towpath to the Museum.

Flower borders along the Terrace.

More details - here - about the award.

 
I've been reading quite a lot recently.  I've listed them on the blog pages above.  My last read was another Bill Slider novel by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles.  I enjoy these as they are always amusing as well as interesting.  I've also found a couple of interesting new series of books.  A series called The Kipper Cottage Mysteries set in Whitby by Jan Durham which are classed a 'cosy' mysteries on the library website.  I've also read the first three of a series set in coastal Lincolnshire by Jack Cartwright.  A little further south in Lincolnshire is where Joy Ellis sets her novels and I've just read the latest of her Matt Ballard series.

A Muder of Crows by Sarah Yarwood Lovett is the first of a new series feauturing ecologist Dr Nell Ward.  These are also classed as 'cosy' mysteries.

I have five books reserved at the library 'Serpent's Point' by Kate Ellis, 'Godmersham Park' by Gill Hornby, 'Thrown' by Sara Cox, 'Murder before Evensong' by The Rev Richard Coles and 'The Ink Black Heart' by Robert Galbraith.

I can see by the number of people waiting for each book which one will be available first.  I'll let you know.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

What to do on a Rainy Day

I’ve been looking at some old photos that were sent to me from Canada, many years ago, by my mother’s cousin Violet Marsh who lived in Ottawa, Ontario.   Many of the photos are of the Stubbs family of Hose and Long Clawson in Leicestershire.    There were eight children, six girls and two boys born to William Stubbs and his wife Martha (nee Matthews.)  According to the 1891 census William was a farmer of 63 acres.   Violet’s mother Gertrude Ellen always known as Nell emigrated to Canada with her husband  and twin daughters about 1912, certainly before WWI.  One of the other sisters, the eldest, intrigued me.  My Mum often used to talk about her aunts and cousins and once said that her Aunt Edith used to work in a restaurant at the House of Commons.  I’ve often wondered about this and over the years have found little snippets about Mum’s Aunt, Edith Emma Stubbs. 

 

From five on-line documents I’ve found the following information:-

She was born in Hose, Leicestershire in 1875 and died on 1^st January 1922 at Pembridge Square, Paddington.  At that time she was, according to her will, living at 20 Crowndale Road, in the St Pancras area of London.   She never married and her estate of £896. 6s 10d was left between her brother George Edward Stubbs and Edward Allen her brother-in-law.

I found her listed on the Electoral Register for 1921 living at 20 Crowndale Road with her brother George Edward Stubbs (always known as Ted), his wife Mary Ellen and two others, Thomas and Rose Valiant. 

I went back to the 1901 census and found Edith living in a boarding house at 73 Portland Road, Nottingham.  The head of the household Jane Sagebiel age 52 was the boarding house keeper and she has one other boarder Amelia Lydall who worked as a telephone operator.  Edith’s occupation is waitress.   This ties in with the restaurant work later in her life.  I wonder what kind of establishment she worked for in Nottingham?  Perhaps a tea shop, restaurant or hotel?  Portland Road in Nottingham is quite central and runs from the Arboretum behind what is now the Trent University building and past the Nottingham Cemetery.

At the time of the 1911 Census Edith is visiting her sister Catherine Anne, always known as Annie and her brother-in-law Edward Allen a farmer at Gibsmere, Bleasby in Nottinghamshire.  Also in the household are Edward and Annie’s four children, their 16 year old housemaid and another family visitor Harriet Allen.  Again Edith gives her occupation as waitress.  I wonder if she was still working in Nottingham then or if she had already moved to London.

I found another reference to Edith dated 1921   She had sailed to Canada to visit her sister Nell in August 1921 and she left a couple of months later to return to England.  She left  Montreal, Quebec on a Canadian Pacific Line ship called the Minnedosa and arrived in Liverpool on 5^th November 1921. She had only a couple of months left to live.  Did she know she was ill when  she travelled all that way?  Had she intended to stay longer but came home because she was ill? Did she take a last chance to see her sister?  We will never know. 

Edith Emma Stubbs

Edith Emma Stubbs taken October 1921 in Canada.

George Edward Stubbs with his wife Mary Ellen and two children

Edward and Annie Allen at Bleasby, Nottinghamshire with their four children.

Gertrude Ellen (Nell) Marsh (nee Stubbs) with twins Violet and Olive.

Just as a matter of interest and to add flesh to the bones the Prime Ministers at the time Edith probably worked at the House of Commons were David Lloyd George and before him Herbert H Asquith.  I've no idea what years she worked at the House of Commons but she was certainly living in London in 1918 with her brother and sister-in-law.  She may have been there during the years of WW1, the Spanish flu epidemic which followed and been aware of the 1918 Act of Representation of the People which gave property owning women over the age of thirty the vote and also to all men over the age of twenty one.

I've found this little journey quite fascinating and a good way to pass the time on a very wet day.

Monday Musings

When we received our DNA results courtesy of Ancestry a couple of Christmases ago (it was our present from each other for that year)  I was intrigued to find 2% Scandinavian in the expected mix of England, Wales and Western European and English Midlands in my analysis. Since then things have been refined and it is now 2% Norwegian.  
 

Baptism record for John Young 21 August 1803

I have one Scottish ancestor on my maternal side in John Young, son of Alexander Young and Anne Brash, who left his birthplace of Kirkcaldy in Fife to move to Loughborough in Leicestershire.  John Young was born 16th August 1803 and baptised on 21st August the same year.  He married Maria Parkinson of Loughborough on 9th April 1826 at All Saint's Church, Loughborough.  Later the whole family were baptised into the Dead Lane Primitive Methodist Church in Loughborough, including my great great grandfather Alexander Young, who moved from Loughborough to Nottingham and then to Ilkeston in Derbyshire.  He was a tailor by profession just like his father and grandfather.  

I'd assumed that the Norwegian heritage came from Scotland but I'm beginning to wonder now as on my father's side I have ancestors, the Edwards family, who came from the South Derbyshire villages of Ingleby and Foremark which are very close to the small historic town of Repton.

Pages from an article written by Roly Smith in the January 2019 issue of  Archaeology and Conservation in Derbyshire and the Peak District.

There have recently been reports and a television programme on more recent findings at Repton and it being the site of a great Viking Army overwintering nearby 873 to 874 AD now CE.  A mass burial site was found in the vicarage garden which seems to prove this theory first mentioned in the Anglo Saxon Chronicles. 

Modern tests on bones found seem to back up this theory dating them to the time mentioned.  It seems that the overwintering site was slightly away from the burial site and evidence of metal working as well as other fragments of Viking habitation have been found.  

It's not beyond the realms of belief that some of the army could have stayed behind when the main army moved on.  Could they have lived and worked alongside the local people and finally settled there?  If so is this where my 2% Norwegian heritage comes from?  Maybe, but Scotland still seems the more obvious answer as probably the Repton Vikings were Danes rather than Norse.

Record of the marriage of John Edwards and Ann Lilley  both of the parish of Ingleby who married at Foremark church 3rd Novmber 1779.

I'll never know but it is intriguing and worth musing over on this dark, wet, windy and dismal day. 

Below some photos of Repton taken in October 2010 when we visited after looking at the villages mentioned above.

Arch from the old Priory with Repton School behind

St Wystan's Church

Repton Cross or Market Cross

A Christmas Past

It's Christmas Eve!

Shall we sit and have a mug of coffee and a mince pie whilst I tell you about the photo below? 

Recently I came across this photograph on the wonderfully named Magic Attic's facebook page.  I visited The Magic Attic in Swadlincote in Derbyshire a number of years ago to follow up some family history enquiries and to donate a manuscript that had been given to me about the history of the nearby village of Newhall.  When I first visited the archives were kept in an attic above a snooker club, hence its name.  It is now housed in the Sharpes Pottery Museum in Swadlincote town centre.  Apparently the photo above was taken from a Magic Lantern slide which was entitled 'Christmas'. It is dated 1911.  A little research had been done to find out who the people were in the photo and imagine my delight when it was found that they were part of my ancestry.  Not a direct line but the man in the photo above was the son of a younger brother of my great great grandfather.   I looked the family up on the 1911 Census and they lived at 59 James Street, Upper Midway which is on the outskirts of Swadlincote. The adults are William Gough, his wife Frances Davies Williams and the older lady to the right could be her mother Jane Williams.  The little girl is Muriel Williams Gough. What a delightful photo it is and Muriel has some lovely toys to play with. I have done further research into the Davies Williams family who seem to come from Monmouthshire and Shropshire but more of that another day.

This year we decided that we didn't want a sugary iced Christmas cake so have made a Dundee cake instead.  I say we as I weighed out the ingredients, washed the dried fruit and started creaming the butter and sugar but in the middle of mixing the ingredients got a phone call about one of our neighbours who is in hospital so Paul finished it, lined the tin and put it in the oven.  It took over four hours to cook.  I hope it tastes okay.  Paul, with his Yorkshire background, will eat a slice with a piece of cheese.

As I get older Christmas seems to me to be a time of reflection when we remember those we used to share it with and think of those less fortunate than us who may be lonely or ill or struggling through troubled times.

I'd like to wish everyone who visits me here a very Happy Christmas and to say thank you for your visits, wonderful comments and special blogging friendship throughout the year.

Winster

I've been getting into Family History again recently and have found out that some of my ancestors came from the village of Elton before moving to South Derbyshire. I'm going back here to the early to mid 18th century. I found a lot of early memorial inscriptions in the churchyard so I'll write about that soon on my family history blog. After we'd finished in Elton we set off to the lovely nearby village of Winster.

Winster is one of the oldest villages in the Peak district. It's wealth and success in its early years came from the nearby lead mining industry. There are still rows of miners' cottages weaving up the streets to the top of the hill.

As the streets in Winster are so narrow and parking is difficult we parked in the free car park at the top of the village and walked down East Bank towards the village centre.

Which ever way you look there are very old, interesting buildings.

Above are some of the small cottages on the way down to Main Street. Across the road is the village shop - below.

The most intriguing building is the old market hall which is administered by the National Trust.

I love the little cobbled alleyway or gitty down the side of the market hall building.

The market hall stands in the middle of Main Street and inside is a small exhibition/information area and model of the village.

This shop front is a hairdressers' shop - I wonder what it is like inside?

This lovely house on the corner is called the Dower House.

We set off back up the hill this time on West Bank and stopped halfway up to look at the church.

There is a public footpath through the churchyard to Elton - I'd love to go back one day and walk it - if it is an old, established footpath I may be following the footsteps of my ancestors.

Tonight we are going to the New Vic to see The Canterbury Tales so I'll do a review of that later. In the meantime don't forget my giveaway is still open (see previous post) just leave a comment on that post if you want to enter the draw.

Where did the Time Go?

I've just realised it is over a week since I last did a post on here and I've no idea where the time has gone, except that it has probably gone by in a haze of going to work and getting home too tired to achieve much of anything except washing and ironing and a little cooking and cleaning.

I've been enjoying bits and pieces on TV and for once I sat and watched television on a Saturday night which is quite unusual for me. I've become engrossed by the wonderful John Adams on Channel 4. This is a brilliant series so far and I'm really enjoying it. This was followed by a new series on BBC 2, The Victorian Farm, made by the creators of the wonderful Tales from the Green Valley which I thoroughly enjoyed. This one looks as if it will be just as good - and I find that I'm interested in this series and relating it to my family history as it is fascinating to learn how people would have lived and worked through those times. Thirdly and again with family history in mind, having found out in the last couple of years that I have ancestors who moved from Fife and West Lothian into England in the early 19th century, is The History of Scotland again on BBC 2. This is fast moving and presented in a slightly frenetic way by Neil Oliver but it is completely captivating.

I've also been reading; in particular the last two Sunday Philosophy Club novels by Alexander McCall Smith, I loved the first three and ordered the two new ones from the library and have just enjoyed the first one of these 'The Careful Use of Compliments' - I love the gentle thoughfulness of these books and the wonderful descriptions of Edinburgh and in the one just read, of the scottish islands of Islay and Jura.

On Sunday we had a lovely visit from the son of a friend of old and his fiancee who stayed for lunch and told us of their wedding plans.

Last but not least I've been climbing in my family tree again and searching the newly released 1911 Census on line. I've found some interesting things which I'll no doubt report on later on Family Matters but for now I'm still assessing the information I've found.

For some reason I have been thinking a lot about the sea and the sand and walking on the beach and wondering if we will be able to get there this year - I hope we can.

The Beach at Nefyn, Lleyn Peninsula, North Wales, August 2006

So, all in all, it has been a quiet week of pottering with this and that, no walks or visits to speak of but hopefully, weather permitting, we will be able to rectify that this coming weekend.

More about the 'Old House'

As so many of you were interested in the last post I've been trying to find out more about Dovleys Manor and especially about the people who lived there. As you know from my Family Matters blog I've been 'doing' Family History for a very long time - since before the internet provided so much information, in fact in some cases even before parish registers had been put on microfiche. In those days you looked at the actual registers sitting at a desk with the manuscript on a book-rest or cushion and in some cases wearing white cotton gloves. In the last few years it has become quite easy to find lots of information from your home PC or laptop instead of making appointments and travelling miles to record offices. So it has been quite a simple task to find out a bit more of the Heywood family of Doveleys using the on-line resources I use when researching my own family history.

When I wrote the last post I'd looked up the family on the 1871 census and found what a big household it was. For those who were interested in the friend of the family her name was Maria Roberts, age 29 and her birthplace was given as Landau, Germany; her occupation was governess. I think this is really interesting! Was she a friend staying with them who was a governess? Or was she a governess to the children of the family and considered as a friend rather than an employee?

I moved on to 1881 and the household is even grander - obviously in it's heyday. There is now a french lady's maid in the house called Irina Landreux, age 30, her birthplace, Paris. There are more servants including a maid called Sarah Tortoishell who was born locally in Rocester - what a lovely name! The girls are Isabella, Etheldred, Hilda and Mary, aged 29, 24, 22 and 18 respectively- the boys, Bertam and Gerald were not at home on census day - probably at boarding school or university. In fact I found a Bertam Heywood a boarder and scholar in Winchester so perhaps the boys went to the famous boarding school there. Thomas Heywood is recorded as being a Baronet, Magistrate and Farmer of 100 acres of his own land. Of course, only the household servants lived in the house, many of the farm labourers and estate workers would live locally possibly in estate property or tied cottages.

By 1891 the household had decreased in size and only Etheldred is at home on census day with some of the servants. Thomas, Margaret, Isabella and Mary are at their London home, 39 Lourdes Square, Chelsea, Hilda isn't at Doveleys or in Chelsea and Bertam and Gerald were probably at University or living elsewhere.

I hope you have enjoyed this 'snapshot' of a wealthy family in the late 19th century.