#52Ancestors - Week 31 - Help

For many of our ancestors, there would have been times when they needed help.  For many who fell on hard times, help from family, friends and neighbors may have been a necessity.  For some help could be obtained from charities, guilds and other sources.  For many, the workhouse was the place of last resort when they were in need of help and unable to find it anywhere else.

The origins of parochial poor relief extend back at least as far as the fifteenth century.  With the decline of the monasteries, care for the poor gradually moved from its traditional voluntary framework to become a compulsory tax administered at the parish level.  Over several centuries the enactment of the Poor Laws saw the rise of the Workhouse, with few other sources of help available.

Stories about the Workhouse abound.  People ended up in the workhouse for a variety of reasons, usually because they were too poor, old or ill to support themselves. This may have resulted from a lack of work during periods of high unemployment, or someone having no family willing or able to provide care for them when they became elderly or sick. Unmarried pregnant women were often disowned by their families and the workhouse was the only place they could go during and after the birth of their child. Prior to the establishment of public mental asylums in the mid-nineteenth century (and in some cases even after that), the mentally ill and mentally handicapped poor were often consigned to the workhouse. Workhouses, though, were never prisons, and entry into them was generally a voluntary although often painful decision for those in need of help.

Admission into the workhouse first required an interview to establish the applicant's circumstances. This was most often undertaken by a Relieving Officer who would visit each part of the Workhouse union on a regular basis. Formal admission into the workhouse proper was authorised by the Board of Guardians at their weekly meetings, where an applicant could summoned to justify their application - an intimidating experience for those in need of help.

 

#52Ancestors - Week 30 - Teams

The prompt of 'Teams' immediately turns my thoughts to sport, to ancestors who played as part of a sporting team, especially as I watch the Commonwealth Games on TV each evening. 

During precious leisure hours, our ancestors may have played - or been involved in - a variety sports, many involving teams.  Cricket, various forms of football and other team sports may have been played by our ancestors.  Some of the sports our ancestors played have survived almost unchanged, while others have evolved greatly over the years and others still are rarely if ever played today.

Finding the evidence of our ancestors involvement in sporting teams and be challenging.  Newspapers are a great source of information, with match reports, player profiles and statistics often included, especially in local newspapers.  Administration records and meeting minutes may still exist, and long-standing sporting teams which still exist today often have many old records, rolls, trophies and memorabilia on display or stored in archives.

Even if they were not themselves players on a team, our ancestors may still have been involved.  Were they part of the administration of a team or involved in umpiring, scoring, grounds-keeping or maintenance?  Or were they supporters, attending matches when they could, cheering on the players? 

Discovering information about any teams our ancestors belonged to or supported helps us to flesh out their lives, adding detail to their likes and dislikes, giving colour to our knowledge of their daily lives.

#52Ancestors - Week 29 - Fun Fact

Misspeld Knames are a commun probblem for reeserchors.

It constantly surprises me how often I hear fellow family history researchers say "That can't be MY ancestor - the spelling of the name is wrong."  It invariably launches me into a speech about how common spelling variations are and how much we need to be aware of them.  Fun Fact - there is not a single surname in my family tree - and not many first names either - that do not have multiple spelling variations.  That includes Green (Greene, Gren, Grene), Clark (Clarke, Clerk, Clerke) and Pike (Pyke, Peck, Pack).

In times when literacy levels were low, how a name sounded was far more important then how it was spelled.  Generally your ancestor was not the person who actually recorded their name.  You can bet that those who actually did the recording — the census takers, clerks, tax collectors, etc — didn’t stop to ask about spelling, or check they had heard a name correctly.

People also changed their names for a variety of reasons.  We need to consider Anglicization of names – especially non-British names.  First names as well as surnames often changed, especially around the time a person moved from one area to another.  Local dialects and foreign accents also often made a significant difference, especially if the person recording the name wasn't familiar with the accent or dialect.  How our ancestors were known by those around them may not match earlier records.

Many first names were truncated or written in short form.  William recorded as Wm, Patrick as Pat or Patk, James as Js and so on.  You also have common shortened names – William as Bill, James as Jimmy, Elizabeth as Eliza or Liz or Beth or Betty. 

When we are researching we need to consider how well the search engine of any database might cope with alternate spelling, truncation and so on.  Several searches may be necessary to ensure you don’t miss potential matches.

Another fun fact I have been caught by in my research.  In some areas, particularly around Germany, two names were often given to a child at birth or baptism.  The first name - what we often refer to as the given name - was a spiritual name, usually to honour a favourite saint, and it was often used repeatedly in families.  It was the second name – or middle name - by which the person was actually known.  That's how I ended up with 4 brothers - August Wilhelm, August Carl, August Friedrich and August Johanne.

 

#52Ancestors - Week 28 - Characters

 Every family has its stand-out characters, be they black sheep or lovable larrikins.  Sometimes we find out about them through family stories handed down, sometimes we see them acting out in photos, sometimes it is through newspaper reports and other records left behind.

One of my favourite family characters is my uncle Ernest Green, known to all as Squib.  Stories about his exploits abound.  In World War 2 he was stationed in Egypt and was frequently disciplined for practical jokes, drinking and going AWOL.  He was fond of telling the story of how at the end of the war he and a mate volunteered on a ship transporting soldiers home that was calling for bakers.  As they used to work for a baker they were accepted - until they were taken to the kitchens and asked to bake bread, at which point they had to admit that they just drove the horse and delivered the bread, they didn't bake it.

 
Squib was second oldest of the 10 Green siblings, and I have only one precious photo of all ten siblings together.  Somewhat blurry, it was taken on the day of their mother's funeral, and has the siblings gathered around their father.  It is not hard to work out which sibling is Squib - he is the one with the beer bottle balanced on his head!

 

#52Ancestors - Week 27 - Extended Family

In researching our family history, how far along each branch do we research the extended family?  Do we research just our direct ancestors?  Our direct ancestors and their siblings?  Do we branch out into cousins and second cousins and so on?  How far into the extended family do we want or need to extend our valuable research time?

For each researcher, making a judgement call on extended family is something we all have to do.  Our research time is not unlimited, so where do we draw the line and how far down the rabbit hole are we prepared to go?

We generally focus most on those people from whom we descend. But what about their siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins? They played a role in our ancestors' lives, just like those people play a role in our own lives.  How much do  we want to research their lives.

Clearly there is a limit on how much we need to know about extended family, and how much time and effort we can put into researching them.  The bulk of my own research efforts go into my direct ancestors and their siblings.  I rarely extend my research further.  Not because I am not interested in extended family, but because my research time is limited, my family is quite large, and I have to limit the spread of my tree somehow.  However fascinating the life of my third cousin twice might be.

#52Ancestors - Week 26 - Identity

From people who are known by nicknames to those who use their middle names, from people with the same names to those who change their names completely, sometimes proving the identity of a particular relative can be a challenge that is almost impossible.

Several of my relatives have commonly used nicknames or middle names, even in official records.  One of my uncles was always known as David - it wasn't until I went looking for his military records that I discovered he was actually named William David, but always called David by the family because his father was William.  When looking for official records, he sometimes appears under each name, and they appear to be interchangeable.  In less formal records he always appears as David.

My father's older brother Ernest was always known in the family as Squib, and in some records he is actually recorded by this nickname.  I have learned that if I cannot find him in any records by his proper name, it is a good idea to check under his nickname as well.

Another time it is challenging to establish someone's identity is when there are multiple individuals with the same name.  I've written in Week 24 - Popular name about my Irish ancestors.  In my Mulholland family four brothers all named their first son James, after their father.  One child died at 2 days old and the name was reused 18 months later.  This meant there were five children named James Mulholland, born within five years and a few miles of each other. Determining the identity of each individual is a challenge, especially when two of these men (including my direct ancestor) married women named Mary.  They create quite a tangle of records.

Finding an ancestor who changes their name completely is a much greater challenge.  We all have a few who disappear from the records completely, some reappearing years later and others who vanish, never to return.  Some do not seem to want to be found and completely disappear.  Did they die?  Emigrate?  End up in a goal or asylum?  Sometimes the individual simply cannot be found.

Establishing the identity of our ancestors is fundamental to our task as family historians - and sometimes it simply isn't that easy to do!

#52Ancestors - Week 25 - Broken Branch

The theme for Week 25 is broken branch.  For some this might mean a branch of the family tree that they can search no further, that they have hit a brick wall and nothing seems to help.  I have a few branches in my family tree that have been much more difficult to trace than others, that I revisit time and again searching for that elusive clue that will allow me to finally make some progress in my research.  

These hidden branches are a source of frequent frustration along with occasional bursts of elation as I make a new discovery.  Today a broken branch, however, means something a little different for me. 

Today the 'broken branch' is the discovery that somewhere, somehow I have made a research mistake, gone researching along the wrong branch only to discover my mistake and have to break off an entire branch of my tree because it is not actually directly connected to me.

It happens to us all.  Mistakes happen.  Everything seems to be correct but then we find out we have missed one little fact that invalidates hours (days, weeks.....) of research and entire branch of our tree breaks off.  This happened to me this week.

My initial error was in some ways understandable.  Two male cousins, both named Henry Pike, born within 12 months and 2 miles of each other both married women named Sarah - in the same year!  One is my direct ancestor, the other is not.  

Everything seemed to match.  Parents names - Henry Pike and Sarah - on the birth certificate of my ancestor (James, born in 1824) match the 1821 marriage I thought was correct.  I had only discovered one of the marriages initially and mistakenly assume it to be correct.  No mother's maiden name on James' death certificate (nor on any of his siblings).  Then this week I received a copy of Henry Pike's will - in which a brother-in-law James Hart is mentioned.  A brother-in-law whose surname did not match the woman I thought was my Henry's wife.

Further investigation has revealed my error.  And broken a branch off my family tree that goes back three generations who I thought were my direct ancestors but are not.  I now have to remove the broken branch - and all the detail, certificates, and records attached - and start growing that branch anew.  At least I have the correct marriage to the correct wife now.  

And yes, I have checked.  No, there is not a third Henry Pike who married a woman named Sarah - not anywhere in Suffolk within 10 years of 1821.

#52Ancestors - Week 24 - Popular Name

Every family has their popular names - names that appear generation after generation regardless of fashion.  There were, of course, always fads among names - copying that of the current Monarch and their family, for example, as well as using a traditional name common amongst ancestors.

Naming patterns were also frequent in many families, although they are by no means a reliable way of predicting the names of children.  Traditionally, the first son would be named for the paternal grandfather, the second son for the maternal grandfather and the third son for the father.  For females, the first daughter would be named for the maternal grandmother, the second daughter for the paternal grandmother and the third daughter for the mother.  Providing, of course, these names were not the same.  

Then, there are the families that seemed to delight in using unusual names for their children, and those who followed popular fads.  Horatio, for example, made a brief surge in popularity after Nelson's victory at Trafalgar.  Similarly, Adolf disappeared from German communities after World War 2.

In the 1700s the top five names for each gender were :
Boys - John, William, Thomas, Richard and James
Girls - Mary, Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah and Jane

In the 1800s the top five names for each gender were :
Boys - John, William, James, George and Charles
Girls - Mary, Anna, Emma, Elizabeth and Margaret

There was also the tendency, unusual as it may seem to us today, of reusing the name of a child who had died.  In the 1700's and 1800's this occurs frequently in my family tree, with the name of a child who has died in infancy being reused for the next child of the same gender born to the family.  

This can make research quite tricky, especially when a popular name has been used by several branches of a family.  In my Irish Mulholland family, for example, four brothers all named their first son James, after their father.  One child died at 2 days old and the name was reused 18 months later.  This meant there were five children named James Mulholland, born within five years and a few miles of each other.  Sorting out which records belong with which child is quite a challenge.

Then two of them married women named Mary.

#52Ancestors - Week 23 - Mistake

The discussion in Week 23 of #52Ancestors is Mistakes, and they are oh so easy to make.  As discussed in Week 14 - Check it out, one of the biggest mistakes we can make as researchers is to blindly accept as fact anything we see in someone else's online family tree or in a database or archive.  Any new piece of information needs to be checked and confirmed.  Mistakes WILL be made - by researchers, by transcribers and digitizing projects, even by those who originally created records.

In my earlier post I listed some of the things to keep in mind to help spot obvious errors - and I have seen all of these in online trees : 

• Children cannot be born before their parents. 
• Children cannot be born to a mother who is 6 years old.  Or 94 years old.  
• Children are highly unlikely to be born to a father who is 89 years old.  While this MAY be biologically possible, it is unlikely and deserves a bit of fact checking. 
• A child cannot be christened 2 months before they are born. 
• A woman cannot marry 3 years after she has died. 
• A man cannot enlist in the army 5 years after he has died.
  

Recently I discovered a transcribed record in an online database that illustrated the mistakes that can occur.  The record for the baptism of Hannah May below leapt out at me when I first located it.  Why??  Check the birth and baptism dates again.  According to this record Hannah was born 17 August 1796 but baptised6 weeks earlier on 9 July 1796.

Something has been transcribed incorrectly in this record.  Possibly the dates are transposed and Hannah was born in July and baptised in August.  Possibly one of the months was transcribed incorrectly.  With no original image to check, I will need to dig further to find out.  It is clear, however, that a mistake has been made somewhere.

#52Ancestors - Week 22 - Conflict

Russell Nicholas Clark, WW2

The prompt for Week 22 is conflict, and as the world watches the devastation of war in Ukraine, the tragic reality of conflict is right in front of our eyes.  Living in Australia, so relatively isolated and seeing so little major conflict strike our shores, it truely hits home how fortunate we have been.

 

My family was extremely lucky, in both world wars and other conflicts, to have most of those who served not only come home, but come home fairly unscathed.  Once second cousin was killed in France in World War 1 ; one uncle died in the Merchant Navy in World War 2.  All the other relatives who served – my father, uncles and great-uncles and more recently several cousins - returned safely to their loved ones.  While they all had to live with the memories of the conflicts, they were mostly uninjured by their experiences and able to rebuild their civilian lives. 

Leonard Clark, WW2

 

So many others were not so fortunate.  Numerous Australian families endured the loss of loved ones on foreign soil, or the return of family members forever scarred by their service.  So many who returned faced a lifetime of ruined health or years of recovery and rehabilitation.  My family has been lucky indeed.

 

ANZAC has very much become a part of our national vocabulary.  Many of the people who lived though that campaign were ordinary volunteers, just as Australia’s current veterans were ordinary volunteers.  They put their daily lives on hold to serve and protect us all, most with very little clear idea of just what they were volunteering for.  Even as a young child I was taught the significance of ANZAC Day, attended services, and spent my pocket money on ANZAC Day badges, many of which I still have in a container at home, which I still add to annually.

Ernest Green, WW2 postcard from Egypt

Through the National Archives of Australia I have downloaded several family WW1 records and ordered those from WW2 -  the NAA has indexed and digitised Boer War and World War 1 dossiers, which you can search and view online for free. World War II dossiers have been indexed but will only be digitised if a family member has requested it.  Other websites include Discovering Anzacs Whichallows you to add your stories and images, and the Australian War Memorial, which has databases like the WW1 Embarkation Rolls and WW1 Red Cross files.  Researching  newspaper reports in Trove has also been a gold mine, with news of enlistments, farewells, news from the front, even a few letters home were published in local papers.

#52Ancestors - Week 21 - Yearbook

This week's prompt 'Yearbook' had me fossicking through storage in my garage to try to locate my old High School yearbooks - where had I stored them??  After a short search I located them in a box, safely stored away.

When had I last glanced at them?  I don't remember.  I probably had a quick look as I packed them in their box over 5 years ago as I prepared to move to my current home.  Prior to that, I probably haven't even thought about them in years.  Having found them now, I settled down to relive my High School days, laugh at some of the hairstyles and fashions, recall great teachers and some not so great, and reflect on how few of my High School yearmates still live locally.

Those old yearbooks - from the 1980's - certainly brought back memories.  Participating in school plays, playing flute in the school band, reading long forgotten short stories and poems I had written, seeing how many classmates I could name from school photos - the yearbooks were quite a blast from my past and I am so glad I have kept them.

The next job on my list - to scan my personal contributions to the yearbooks into my family history archives, along with any casual photos in which I appeared.  I have already scanned all my class and individual photos, and once I have digitised the relevant parts of the yearbooks I will find them a better storage place to keep them preserved for the future.

#52Ancestors - Week 20 - Textile

The prompt for Week 20 of #52 Ancestors is Textile, and it brings to mind my mother sewing clothes for the family when I was a child.  

Mum did a lot of sewing, with most of our clothes when I was a child being home made.  She had an old Singer treadle sewing machine that she used for all her sewing, which stood proudly in a corner of the main bedroom.  It only did straight stitches so buttonholes were sewn by hand, and took a fair degree of coordination to operate the foot treadle as she sewed.

As a small child I remember being fascinated by this machine, and would sit and watch as my mother sewed shirts, jackets, trousers and more.  Even many of our school uniforms were made by mum, and costumes for school plays and special events were a favorite.

As I grew older my mother gave me sewing lessons on the machine, but I never really got the hang of it and preferred to help lay out material, pin and cut using her assortment of paper patterns.  A regular treat would be to accompany mum to visit fabric shops and choose the material for my own clothes, and many an evening was spent hand stitching button holes and buttons to complete the garments she had made.

As mum grew older the treadle sewing machine was used less and less, and it has now been several years since it was last used, but I still have the machine at home, its cast iron frame a familiar memory.

#52Ancestors - Week 19 - Food & Drink

Thinking about food and drink brings me to the family recipe book, primarily created by my sister.  One of the more fun jobs while we were cleaning out the family home was emptying out Mum's recipe drawer.  While the drawer contained a few proper cooking books, and some complete magazines, it was primarily a combination of loose snippets torn or photocopied from old magazines and books, and hand-written recipes from who-knows-where.  Many had notes written on them - things like substitutions of ingredients and notes on who particularly liked the dish.  There were also a number of recipes written out by others and given to Mum - by several different friends and relatives, judging by the assorted handwriting.  She even had a little A5 folder with hand-written favourites stored inside.

Included in that recipe drawer were the details of so many dishes we remembered from our childhoods - some with fondness and some with a shudder!  My sister and I spent an entire afternoon sorting through these scraps of paper, reading them out to each other and sharing our memories.  Do you remember Mum's spaghetti and mince casserole?  And yes, there really WAS a recipe for Dixon Street Chicken! Dixon Street Chicken was a favourite of Mum's and was never the same twice.  My sister and I called it Chicken a la cupboard as it was often produced late in the week to use up leftovers.  We also covered a few memorable kitchen disasters, like the time I set fire to the kitchen cooking toast - the pop-up toaster didn't pop and I had stuck my nose in a book, and didn't notice the flames climbing up the kitchen wall.  I have since been forbidden to touch printed material while cooking.  Then there was the time Dad put some eggs on to boil and got distracted by an unfinished project in the garden.  By the time he came inside the pot had long boiled dry and almost burned through the bottom - who knew exploding eggs could travel so far?

Food, cooking and mealtimes are such an important part of our families, and so often discounted.  What was your favourite home-cooked meal as a child?  Do you have the recipe, and do you ever cook it for yourself as an adult??  Do you remember any cooking disasters - either your own or that of another family member?  Having them written down with all our memories and stories attached to each recipe is something I treasure, and can be such a simple thing to create.  If you a looking for a Family History project, maybe a family recipe book is something to consider.

#52Ancestors - Week 18 - Social

Finding out about the social lives of our ancestors can be immensely challenging.  While work and home often generated official records, leisure activities and social gatherings were less likely to be recorded in official documents.

While our ancestors' social lives are a challenge to uncover, there are resources available that can help you in your research.  Memberships of sporting teams, clubs and associations, church groups, societies and boards can provide valuable information.  For the wealthier class, social events were often reported in local newspapers, as were sporting results.  Newspapers can also provide context on the social activities available to our ancestors, even is they are not named in reports.

The following newspaper article reports on an amateur concert held in the town of West Bergholt, where some of my ancestors lived.  Chair J. T. Argent (John Thompson Argent) is one of my direct ancestors, and the pianiste of the evening, Miss Ada E, Argent was one of his daughters.

Another insight into the social lives of my forebears was in an article from the Essex Standard from Saturday 21 June 1884, reporting on a pigeon shooting match in which my Great Great Grandfather Walter Green took part.

So check out what is available to flesh out the lives of those we are researching.  The details of social lives provide so much more insight than simply dates and places - they bring our ancestors to life in so many ways.