Foottit family

[Lin Fisher]

This isn't really a research I need but thought someone might be interested in what I have found.

Elston Chapel a little village in Nottinghamshire. This is where my Foottit family lived for may years. Got around to looking at my notes etc yesterday and the parish records on Ancestry. I knew Richard and Anthony my direct ancestors were parish clerks but went to the front of the book and they are mentioned and their signatures are there but very feint.

Then looking at notes I had made at the archives years ago about Richard Foottit being up before the council, offence was unlicenced School Teacher

Also had notes about Alice Foottit, wife of Richard. Have now found here and she was Alice Alderidge. In 1727 was up before the council for 'fornication before marriage'. Found a son Richard Alderidge baptised 17 Jan 1726 and she married Richard 8 Feb 1726.

How can so much happen in a small village and still have records from all these years ago. I heard of the village gossips but this in extreme.

So nice to put all these facts together.

[cbcarolyn]

This isn't really a research I need but thought someone might be interested in what I have found.

Elston Chapel a little village in Nottinghamshire. This is where my Foottit family lived for may years. Got around to looking at my notes etc yesterday and the parish records on Ancestry. I knew Richard and Anthony my direct ancestors were parish clerks but went to the front of the book and they are mentioned and their signatures are there but very feint.

Then looking at notes I had made at the archives years ago about Richard Foottit being up before the council, offence was unlicenced School Teacher

Also had notes about Alice Foottit, wife of Richard. Have now found here and she was Alice Alderidge. In 1727 was up before the council for 'fornication before marriage'. Found a son Richard Alderidge baptised 17 Jan 1726 and she married Richard 8 Feb 1726.

How can so much happen in a small village and still have records from all these years ago. I heard of the village gossips but this in extreme.

So nice to put all these facts together.

great stories, like you say fantastic that records were made and survived. in the next village a publican kept a diary, which was gossip of who married who, and generally what they got up to, local history society have transcribed it. from about 1870 for 40 years I think. shame I have no local connections!

[Lin Fisher]

Thanks Carolyn, Some of the notes I have had for years but couldn't tie them together. Love looking at parish records and going from page to page, that way nothing is missed.

[kylejustin]

I find the burials of "strangers" sad. They sometimes tell a story of the circunstance. But makes you wonder if any of your ancestors are these people. Unclaimed and forgotten.

[Lin Fisher]

I agree Kyle, just been going through another set of parish records and found a stranger dead in the forest. They must be people trying to do a little labouring or farm work and be ill.

[Janet in Yorkshire]

All too common in the burial registers of some of the East & North Yorkshire coastal villages "Unknown man washed up on the beach," "woman from a ship wrecked in the storm yesterday." I came across a newspaper reference for one of my rellies - last seen walking along the promenade, believed to have been washed away by a large wave. No corresponding burial for someone of her name.

[teasie]

Its the burials of unknown infants that get me, and I find it incredibly sad just how many bodies of newborns were found in places like the canal or in a privvy.

This is perhaps the oddest one though, from a municipal cemetery in Leicester, 1872: "An unknown female infant was sent from London in a hamper to Mrs Martin, High Street".

I was intrigued so looked for a newspaper report, which said that a hamper had been sent from London on 14th Sept (Saturday), arriving in Leicester almost 4-hours later and then sent out for delivery. No-one called 'Mrs Martin' could be located at the address, so the carrier returned the hamper to the train station. It remained there until the Wednesday, when it began to smell, so the Railway Agent cut the string & opened it, and found the body of a new born baby in an advanced state of decomposition. The post-mortem concluded that it had been born alive about a week earlier, and probably smothered. The umbilical cord had been torn and left untied, indicating no proper assistance had been given at the birth.

Makes you think about just how desperate some of these poor women/girls must have been.

[Lin Fisher]

That is so sad Teasie, but like you say people must have been desperate. I'm sure if a lot of the single girls kept their babies they would have ended up in the workhouse.