Week 45: My ancestor was a landowner

[Jill on the A272]

Week 45: Landowner



Did someone in your tree own land? From a few acres to an entire estate, this is an opportunity to showcase a landowner from your family tree, you might want to offer a short biography and speak about their life eg
Name
Birth location/date
Family background
Where you've found them on the census
Where their land was located and how they came by it
Any tips on researching this occupation?

Trades and Occupations - Family Tree Forum

[Next week: Agricultural labourer]

[Lin Fisher]

Robert Styleman born 1580 in Field Dalling Norfolk, my 11 x G Grandfather, brought Snettisham Hall in Norfolk and 3 of his sons died there but he didn't seem to ever live there and he was buried on 12 December 1645 At St Andrews Church Field Dalling.

[Jill on the A272]

Most of my people had copyhold land and were tenant farmers, but my 3x great grandfather Joseph Pilsworth Burnip sold some land Epworth, Lincolnshire, it was advertised in the Epworth Bells, Crowle and Isle of Axholme Messenger on 27 August 1887 as a selion of land (an archaic measurement of land in the pre-enclosure system of open field agricultural system) and was described as "South field, middle furlong 3r 3p" which I take to be rods and poles (each measured 16.5 feet)

[Lin Fisher]

Jill, I looked at one of my ancestors thinking they had land as the farm was all auctioned off but looking again yesterday at the newspaper there was no mention of land so obviously tenant farmers.

[Jill on the A272]

Jill, I looked at one of my ancestors thinking they had land as the farm was all auctioned off but looking again yesterday at the newspaper there was no mention of land so obviously tenant farmers.

It seems to be the way with mine too, lots of copyhold land.

[PhotoFamily]

I think landowning was a common thing for farmers in North America - at least, that's what I see among my peeps who lived in New England and the Midwest. Also Ontario.

I was surprised to find the will for my g'g'uncle by marriage. He immigrated from Co Derry in the latter 1800s, worked on the Chicago transit system. He left his two daughters property and stock when he died in the early 1930s.