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  • Recently retired...

    ....I guess this is maybe a daft question


    I now have some time to look into my family tree (in between sewing and taking my husband to many hospital visits), and can have some days out looking at records. But I really don't know what I could look at, I have traced family back to Harlow, Essex and villages near Towcester in Northamptonshire and Hertfordshire) that are easy day trips for me.


    I am fairly sure that there are no gravestones remaining at St Mary and St Hugh in Harlow, as I looked years ago and did email.


    Anyone recommend any interesting things to research?


    Harlow intrigues me as I was born there and no one realised that family had lived there in the 1800s and left to go to London, with my parents returning in the 1950s!
    Carolyn
    Family Tree site

    Researching: Luggs, Freeman - Cornwall; Dayman, Hobbs, Heard - Devon; Wilson, Miles - Northants; Brett, Everett, Clark, Allum - Herts/Essex
    Also interested in Proctor, Woodruff

  • #2
    Pop some of the surnames into the essex records office website and see if there are any records. They have land records, wills, some court records. Try newspapers.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by cbcarolyn View Post
      ....I guess this is maybe a daft question


      I now have some time to look into my family tree (in between sewing and taking my husband to many hospital visits), and can have some days out looking at records. But I really don't know what I could look at, I have traced family back to Harlow, Essex and villages near Towcester in Northamptonshire and Hertfordshire) that are easy day trips for me.


      I am fairly sure that there are no gravestones remaining at St Mary and St Hugh in Harlow, as I looked years ago and did email.


      Anyone recommend any interesting things to research?


      Harlow intrigues me as I was born there and no one realised that family had lived there in the 1800s and left to go to London, with my parents returning in the 1950s!
      I have no idea about interesting things to research as my tree seems to keep throwing up spanners! Did your ancestors have any particular job that you could research? what about houses they lived in? [sorry not very good at putting 'flesh on the bones' so to speak]

      many of my ancestors were framework knitters, and I have a passion for working with textiles/needlework/knitting/crochet and wool spinning. I'm a firm believer that our past can influence our present and that we have inherited memories of places we once lived.

      I hope that you have all the correct tools now so you can edit/quote?

      :smilee:
      Julie
      They're coming to take me away haha hee hee..........

      .......I find dead people

      Comment


      • #4
        If you are wanting to flesh out the bones of people you already know are on your tree, then you might care to look in the local studies department of some of the relevant libraries. You might find old OS maps showing where your folks lived, old copies of local newspapers on film, information on local firms (their employers) old photographs and postcards (where they walked and what they saw.) In my experience, the contents of county record offices AND central libraries often complement, rather than duplicate, each other. Libraries often have more location specific information than record offices.
        It's a good idea to sit down from time to time and do blanket searches of the online catalogues of libraries as well as record offices - both acquire new materials from time to time - and I have found really good leads by searching for a specific surname or village name.
        If you don't have an Ancestry sub, then you can usually access it for free from libraries.
        You should also be able to peruse books on the local history of the area the library serves.

        Jay
        Last edited by Janet in Yorkshire; 13-02-19, 07:52.
        Janet in Yorkshire



        Genealogists never die - they just swap places in the family tree

        Comment


        • #5
          Thank you, great ideas. Never thought about the library even though I do it here - doh. It might be worth joining, will look into it. I know Harlow has a museum with some records, the county records office is further away from here.

          Sadly have not found any interesting jobs, if not ag labourers, they were horsekeepers or painters.

          I have a framework knitter in my tree so was looking at that only the other day, a sibling of an ancestor

          (yes can edit and see images now, the lack of images must be frustrating for newbies if someone post a picture for them)
          Last edited by cbcarolyn; 13-02-19, 09:29.
          Carolyn
          Family Tree site

          Researching: Luggs, Freeman - Cornwall; Dayman, Hobbs, Heard - Devon; Wilson, Miles - Northants; Brett, Everett, Clark, Allum - Herts/Essex
          Also interested in Proctor, Woodruff

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by cbcarolyn View Post
            Thank you, great ideas. Never thought about the library even though I do it here - doh. It might be worth joining, will look into it. I know Harlow has a museum with some records, the county records office is further away from here.

            Sadly have not found any interesting jobs, if not ag labourers, they were horsekeepers or painters.

            My husband has a framework knitter in his tree so was looking at that only the other day.

            (yes can edit and see images now, the lack of images must be frustrating for newbies if someone post a picture for them)
            ohhh framework knitter.. so either they came from Nottingham/Derbyshire/Leicestershire, there IS a framework knitting museum here in Nottingham, I keep saying I will go, but never quite get there!.. though they also have Frames at Wollaton Hall too [in the little museum there]

            i'll mention about the photo/newbie thing to admin [they might be able to suggest something]
            Julie
            They're coming to take me away haha hee hee..........

            .......I find dead people

            Comment


            • #7
              Leicestershire, he seemed to be the only one, his brother my direct line went to London, and seemed to make some money for himself by running a pub and owning a pub, and left him money in his will. sadly all money distributed and gone by the next generation! I did wonder what te parents did, but have reached a brickwall with them.

              They were Thornloe or Thornelow and other various spellings John married Ellen Atkins in 1769, and one child was a knitter that i found.
              Last edited by cbcarolyn; 13-02-19, 09:58.
              Carolyn
              Family Tree site

              Researching: Luggs, Freeman - Cornwall; Dayman, Hobbs, Heard - Devon; Wilson, Miles - Northants; Brett, Everett, Clark, Allum - Herts/Essex
              Also interested in Proctor, Woodruff

              Comment


              • #8
                Even Ag Labs can have an interesting life. Local newspapers can sometimes throw up consistent prizes for agricultural events, I even found one of my ancestors being given a few shillings at several shows for... having a large family but not receiving any help from parish relief. My 2x GreatGrandfather (Ag Lab) turned out to be a well known Morris man in his area, which in turn opened a wealth of information and photo's in relation to his and his family which had been documented within the local archive and later in a published book.
                Of course you also have to be prepared for the poaching reports or stealing faggots, which in one case showed that a 12 year old boy in my tree had been killed when shot by the gamekeeper for poaching rabbits.
                However for newspapers in the first part it probably be easier to look online (FMP or Newspaper Archive) to see if there are any hits for your family before trawling through the local archives newspaper records because that would be a very long drawn out process.
                Bubblebelle x

                FAMILY INTERESTS: Pitts of Sherborne Gloucs. Deaney (Bucks). Pye of Kent. Randolph of Lydd, Kent. Youell of Norfolk and Suffolk. Howe of Lampton. Carden of Bucks.

                Comment


                • #9
                  I have done a lot of searching through the papers, and turned up very little, other than an assault :(

                  There are no 'local' papers for Harlow, nearest is Chelmsford and Essex Chronicle, so maybe there are other papers nearer that may come on line one day.
                  Carolyn
                  Family Tree site

                  Researching: Luggs, Freeman - Cornwall; Dayman, Hobbs, Heard - Devon; Wilson, Miles - Northants; Brett, Everett, Clark, Allum - Herts/Essex
                  Also interested in Proctor, Woodruff

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Ag labs can definitely have very interesting lives! My ag lab came from a family of ag labs and did nothing of note, other than to disappear from the local records. The rest of the family was buried in the local churchyard but not him. In desperation I googled his name which fortunately was slightly unusual - and discovered that his unmarried godfather/uncle had left him a vast plantation on the Turks and Caicos islands! This was very well documented in the island records.

                    Another good resource for me was parish magazines which I found in the local, not county, archives. Deemed of little interest to posterity but they had a huge amount of gossipy detail about my family which I could never have found anywhere else.

                    Good hunting!

                    OC

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Agree with OC - don't simply write off the agricultural labourers as of no interest.. Most of my ancestors were ag labs, The ones who were honest and hard working left very little in the way of a paper trail, but I have managed to find out interesting things about some of the others. A 3xgt godfather was found guilty of theft and sentenced to transportation. However over 20 farmers in the area supported his plea for leniency and he spent six years on a hulk on the Thames instead. A random blanket newspaper search for the surname brought up that little gem.
                      A son of another ag lab disappeared after the census in which he was recorded as a scholar and reappeared a couple of decades later in the village where he'd grown up. By then he was a married man, with a wife who'd been born in India and a son who'd been born in the Falklands - they then all disappeared from subsequent census returns. Turns out he'd served in the navy, married in Port Stanley and then returned home to Norfolk with his wife and child. Before the next census, he'd managed to get himself a job managing a sheep ranch in Chile and they'd all gone to live in Patagonia, where the descendants still live. (I had to do a bit of geography research on Patagonia and Punta Arenas!)
                      Jay
                      Last edited by Janet in Yorkshire; 13-02-19, 14:23.
                      Janet in Yorkshire



                      Genealogists never die - they just swap places in the family tree

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        A lot of the Hertfordshire records are online at FindMyPast.
                        Elizabeth
                        Research Interests:
                        England:Purkis, Stilwell, Quintrell, White (Surrey - Guildford), Jeffcoat, Bond, Alexander, Lamb, Newton (Lincolnshire, Stalybridge, London)
                        Scotland:Richardson (Banffshire), Wishart (Kincardineshire), Johnston (Kincardineshire)

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Records that generally are not online are local wills. For example Carlisle and Bedford Archives have copies of wills on microfilm with indexes in files. You can check through your surnames of interest and read the actual wills (not just the probate note). I also found some interesting mental hospital records relating to one of my family at Bedford. The Archive staff are knowledgeable and might know of stuff they have pertaining to a family or village. Many Archives have online catalogues so you can make a list of potential records before you go. Bear in mind that the contents of Archives vary depending on what people (in the past and today) thought worth preserving. Who knows what got chucked out in the past? You never know until you go!

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Another fruitful area was looking at the actual (filmed) parish registers. Comments in the margins are rarely transcribed, such as "a great and incontinent whore" "a very tall man" "aged 144, a very great age" and the heartbreaking "found dead in a field, of childbed and her bastard stillborn infant". At the back of this register, never transcribed to my knowledge, was a list of sunday school classes and attendances, fines for not attending church, confirmations and a sort of mini census of church members.

                            In short, look at anything you can get your hands on! You don't know what is there till you look. An old researcher once said to me that family history is 10% luck and 90% look! So true.

                            OC

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              wow that is an amazing story - what happened to it - clearly you don't have it now

                              Sounds like a trip to the local library is in order. I can join it on line and see the catalogue, so will see what they have catalogued.
                              Carolyn
                              Family Tree site

                              Researching: Luggs, Freeman - Cornwall; Dayman, Hobbs, Heard - Devon; Wilson, Miles - Northants; Brett, Everett, Clark, Allum - Herts/Essex
                              Also interested in Proctor, Woodruff

                              Comment


                              • #16
                                oops was looking on my phone and didnt turn the page! You have some great stories, the essex archives are a little further away in Chelmsford, that may have to wait a bit longer before I go.

                                Maybe i should try the Northampton archives, as they are nearer.
                                Carolyn
                                Family Tree site

                                Researching: Luggs, Freeman - Cornwall; Dayman, Hobbs, Heard - Devon; Wilson, Miles - Northants; Brett, Everett, Clark, Allum - Herts/Essex
                                Also interested in Proctor, Woodruff

                                Comment


                                • #17
                                  Don't forget to check wills. My GG Grandfather was always listed as an Ag Lab but his will stated he was a Yeoman and his list of possessions was very interesting! It also proved that he was the father of my G Grandfather as there was some dispute due to the fact the Vicar has put down the wrong name for his mother on his baptism.

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