![]() I got into looking once more at my friend Annette's genealogy, who knows she has gypsy ancestry on her fathers side, and yet even on her mothers side I find what appears to be some gypsy lineage. A description of one of her families sons, Percy Barrs, says he has dark skin, grey eyes and black hair and on Percy's marriage certificate his father is recorded as being a 'traveller'. There are newspaper reports about the exploits of gypsy Barrs, who further back were called Barres. The family held labourers jobs, one being a lamplighter, and another part time working in a card manufacturing shop, that latter being Mark Barrs, who, in a desperation to support his family, stole from his employers, and hence came a prison sentence. The Barrs were from Elstree, but moved into London, rented here and there, and there is no outward signs of a gypsy connection, until you start digging. Another day I spent on Annette's genealogy, this time her fathers so far mysterious side, the Dorset gypsies. And there's no sign at all, as yet, as far as I can see, that they even were gypsies, but what I do discover is that these Philips and Phelps (the names being interchangeable), of Broadwindsor, are also the ancestors of a famous personality, Kate WInslett. I haven't found the exact link, as such, by the end of the day, which I had been working so ardently to find, but it surely is there. My Netti Netti is related to Kate Winslett! AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees.
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![]() I looked at the point where friends Jeremy's and Ian's families converged, and that still amazes me, that they are cousins and would never have known but for me, and they wish they so did not know. And it's amazing how intellectual and refined some of Ian's ancestors were, in comparison to his present poverty and own non pursuit of higher education. From Cambridge educated to trouble maker at a comprehensive. This merging of Jeremy and Ian's family histories is all in the area around Pluckley, which I loved to visit not so long back and would like to visit again, as that is where I too have ancestors. So, I'm still in the compulsive world of genealogy research. Jeremy's family have a story about one ancestress having been a gypsy baby who was sold on the door step. She was dark so it made sense. But, I'm not sure. The spacing of the children's births in that family she well fitted into. So I have another possible angle, that really there was already darker ancestry in that family which they wished to distance themselves from, but those darker genes had come back up in her, for which the story had been created. I began looking into this family, the Washford's, from which she came. Humble railway workers, living in a railway cottage... Researching more Jeremy's genealogy, looking at his Washford line and those other families marrying into them, they being a big Wesleyan bunch centered around Shadoxhurst village. A few Jeremiahs were in there, this being what I sometimes like to call Jeremy. One of the Jeremiah's, who was Jeremy's many times great uncles, was victim to a highway hold-up, robbed at gunpoint, for which his assailants were hung. It had been a violent attack, in which he'd been shot many times in the mouth by a group of men known as the Tenterden Gang who had been terrorising the area. As they met their fate, hanging from the gallows, local women who had tumours came to touch their hands, the belief of old being this would cure their ailment. And another find of interest, those Washford's were friends of a clergyman writer, Richard Harris Barham, who published a book of passed down old Kent stories, the Ingoldsby Legends, at one time widely popular in Britain. One of the stories was inspired by an ancestor of the Washford's, Joseph Washford, who was a humble good fellow, a gardener of Appeldore, close to Shadoxhurst, who gardened for a lawyer Jerry Jarvis. To cover Joseph's bald head Jerry gave him a wig which he no longer had use of. But the wig was evil and transformed Joseph into a baddy, first with him lying, then stealing, and ultimately murdering, his victim being none other than Jerry Jarvis, and for this he was hung. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. |
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