At last I was making advances in my Norfolk ancestry. In regard to the Bane's-Beans-Beanes I had never got further back than Thomas Bean of Thorpe Market having a father Richard Bane from Northrepps. From various documents I now sussed Richard was born in Trunch in 1677. Trunch, yes, so many Banes and Beans had lived there, there had to be a connection really; all are related somehow. So, Richards son, Thomas, my ancestor of Thorpe Market, it was he who had begun the tailoring trend in our family, carried on down through the generations, but as for his own father, Richard, he was a maltster. A maltster is master of the beginning of the brewing process, soaking in general barley in water to make malt. This barley would be raked on the ground for a few days until germination began, by which the starches were converting into sugar, at which point all was roasted; the longer it was roasted then the darker the malt, lightly for a pale ale. This was big business, as just about everyone drank beer, making for the maltster a great deal of money. Richard Bane had two wives, firstly Mary Cubitt, and then my ancestress Rachel Bayfield, also from Trunch, but lately living with her family in Gunton. Rachel was from a non-conformist family, following a Christianity separate from the established church, for which she was baptised in an independent chapel in a countryside barn near Bradfield. In accordance with the marriage license details she and Richard intended to marry at Norwich Cathedral, in the chapel of St Luke. I've always loved Norwich cathedral and its grounds leading down to the river. The marriage record itself seems to suggest another church was the venue, St Mary in the Marsh, which was in the Cathedral Close nearer to the river. There is no contradiction there, as I discovered. St Mary in the Marsh was pulled down in 1564, the parishioners taking their font with them into that very St Lukes chapel within the cathedral, now being permitted their worship there. St Luke's chapel was one of several chapels radiating out from the apse of the cathedral, and was quite small. So my ancestors did marry in Norwich cathedral; how amazing. I would have to visit this at some point; hopefully. And Richard and his wives graves, I'd discovered to be in Trunch, seeing transcriptions of the writing on their monuments. Richard's two wives, Mary and Rachel, were buried together. Ah, I love family and love my ancestors, hence why I'm so fascinated with the detective work of getting to know something of who they were. This is ancestral worship, part of my spirituality. In connecting with them they become present for me and I honour them. I continued to make so much progress with my Bane's of Trunch, finding the 1680 will of Richard the maltster's grandfather, Robert Bane, who was a worsted weaver. This was thanks to another weebly site dedicated specifically to the history of Trunch, so helpful, and such a kindness to have shared. Some sources reckoned the Bane surname to be of the Huguenots, but as I saw my Banes were in Trunch even prior to the infamous Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre. The first Trunch baptism for my family which I'd found was intriguingly far back for a typical parish register, for John and Marjorie's son Richard in 1560. The Bartholomews Day massacre was in 1572, and it was only in 1560 that the first French Huguenot church was established in a private property by followers of John Calvin, the same year our first recorded Trunch Bane was baptised. Flemish settlers, on the other hand, had been coming to Norfolk since medieval times, bringing along their pet canaries, and notably their skills to do with the wool trade, which brought immense prosperity to the land. It can be seen that my ancestors were indeed involved in the cloth trade. As a worsted weaver Robert would have at least benefitted from the skills brought by the Flemish settlers, 'strangers' as they were known, if not also having their blood within his veins. Not that my mother and I had Dutch DNA. We had plenty of Viking though, for which one would accord more to the theory that the Bane surname derived from the language of Pictish tribes in their description of blonde and fair skinned people. Robert Bane, the worsted weaver, he was born in 1603 and died in 1680, his body infirm, but his mind still sound, offering his soul into the hands of God Almighty. He made sure to give monies to all his grandchildren, who at that time were still teenagers. The mention of all beneficiaries within the will was so helpful for understanding more the Bane family at that time, as it was so with the other wills of the Bane family. I was thrilled with the discoveries I was making. Like, I had got back with them to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and that fascinated me, as it seems such a vastly distant time and yet really was not so long ago, in consideration of the family generations. I'd got back that far before, on my Shetland line, to the royal Scottish King James V, cousin to Elizabeth Tudor, both sharing the same grandfather, Henry VII. Royal connections get dismissed as being too distant, for which they are considered to be irrelevant, but they may be closer than one realises, and really all are relevant; all are family. Of my mothers parents therefore, both the lineages I have traced back to Tudor times; not so with any of the other lineages. Because most record keeping fails to take one that far back. As Tudor history was so very compelling this was great to for the second time connect my people back to such times, firstly to the royals and now to the country folk. Looking at the world my first recorded Banes would have been familiar with, it is likely that John and Marjorie were children when Henry VIII forcibly shut down the monasteries, shrines, friaries and convents, places the general folk would have made pilgrimages to and been greatly inspired by; thus the folk love of communing with sacred relics and seeking of miracles in holy settings was now denied to them. I myself feel my ancestors old fascination for such things; it has revived a little in me. And so I studied up about the dissolving of the monasteries and of sleeping sickness outbreaks, of priors who resisted the dissolution being hung, drawn and quartered as 'traitors', and of many monks and nuns being given pensions. In Henry VIII's time the ex monks and nuns were forbidden to marry, in Edward VI's time they were permitted to marry, in Mary I's time those marriages were annulled and the pensions ended, and in Elizabeth I's time the marriages were once more legitimised and the pensions restored. The destruction of relics, holy crosses, saintly icons and Mother Mary statuettes was brutal; surely this deeply hurt the people. The deities of Mother Mary, such as at holy Walsingham, also in Norfolk, which all would have visited on pilgrimages, Walsingham being the most venerated site in Britain (I've been there and loved the place), were taken in a cart to London and destroyed, reckoned to have been burnt in Thomas Cromwell's garden, with no witnesses attending. One of those Mary's, also destroyed, was a black Madonna of Willesden, in London. Some stories profess the Mary's were hidden and substituted, one (the Mother Mary of Ipswich priory) being smuggled into Italy. The people, who'd had their Mary's everywhere, in chapels, churches, and pilgrimage places, who ever chanted 'Our Lady of Walsingham pray for me; Our Lady of Ipswich pray for me; Our Lady of Willesden pray for me', now had the divine feminine with its ancient links to goddess worship, always on a folk level in the hearts of the people, denied to them; her healing, her mercies, miracles, the protection of old and sick, the feeding of the poor, the vast sacred communities which were like villages unto themselves; all gone. Priories were burnt to obtain the lead, stones and paving slabs were pilfered for new projects, ancient books were used for toilet paper, or roofs simply fell in due to neglect. Walsingham was close to where my Norfolk ancestors lived and they would have gone on pilgrimage there, maybe on horseback, maybe walking, as had thousands of others, including royals and aristocrats; even Henry VIII visited there twice with his Spanish Queen Catherine. That which at one time Henry revered he later destroyed, his wives, the sacred places of Britain, even his very pal Cromwell who directed the dissolution of the monasteries on his behalf, this being in anger at Cromwell having encouraged him to marry the repulsive Ann of Cleaves. And our ancestors would have observed such madness and to survive would adapt again and again and again. The old ways would not be passed onto their children. All would be forgotten.
0 Comments
It was in beginning to read a book passed onto me by a neighbour 'Revelation' by C J Sansom, a thriller set in Tudor times, that I came upon a reference to a barber surgeon of Cheapside who fashioned false teeth, recycled from dead people, and set into wood, detachable and quite the French fashion. Ok, now this was interesting, as I had just been, in my genealogy research, noting this very profession of barber surgeon to be in my own London based Aylward family and with my Bunney lineage too. I'd assumed this to be olden terminology for a hairdresser and not looked more into that. But now, as I realised, caring for ones hair and shaving off stubble was but one part of a barber surgeons role. Indeed they did dentistry too, as the book had referenced, and more than that, as the very word surgeon suggested they also performed surgery, and bloodletting, either with leeches or the cut of a razor, and they were called upon to care for soldiers wounds in battle. And where were the actual doctors in such times; well, they were more about providing intellectual insight rather than hands on practicalities. This was a fascinating subject really, although somewhat gory and demanding of ones trust, as maybe it still is with medical matters today, and anyway, when one is desperate one surrenders regardless, even if it is ones limb being sawn off to avert gangrene. Body snatchers, such as the resurrectionists, would raid graveyards and in this way provide corpses for surgeons to practise on. Such a profession was surely not for the faint hearted. The Aylwards of London did appear to have a penchant for this, at least as far back as a Thomas Aylward of the late 1600's. My ancestress Ann Aylward had a brother, John Godson Aylward, who apprenticed in 1768 to their uncle Robert Aylward, although at such a late date the surgeon aspect had finally been separated from the work of a barber. Uncle Robert himself though, born in 1720 in Bermondsey, trained to be a traditional barber surgeon from the young age of 13, in 1733. And what I found most interesting was the discovery that Ann Aylwards husband, Robert Bunney, my direct ancestor, had himself begun an apprenticeship as a barber surgeon when a teenager, even though he later changed course and became a cooper instead. The apprentice information matched up to him entirely, the correct place, time, name of father (William Bunney), all revealing this was indeed his earliest career choice. He would have been 14 when beginning his apprenticeship in 1743, his guide and teacher being Samuel Hucks, who was also a skilled cooper, reverting to that trade himself. Why did they both change tack? I imagined the dissecting of animals and human cadavers to be somewhat off-putting for young Robert, but in reality times were changing, doctors pressuring for the prestige of surgery for themselves, such as that in 1745, just two years into Robert's apprenticeship, the barber surgeon combination was rent asunder, from which date barbers were no longer to exercise their medical skills; all was ended. Hence why Robert would have switched to learning of Samuels barrel and cask constructing skills instead. What would Robert have been learning in those two years of his youth. the apprenticeship should have lasted for seven years. During that time he would have sutured wounds, set broken bones, assisted in surgical care, bloodletting and other medical procedures, along with pulling teeth, shaving and hair dressing. Human dissections would take place in the company of other barber surgeons at the official Barber Surgeons Hall on Monkwell Street, the only company building to survive the Great Fire of London in 1666 due to a buffer zone created by the surrounding herb garden, the herbs from which would be used in their medicines. Doctors would class this old profession as quackery in time, although actually they were highly trained, their origin having been as assistants to monks in the earliest days of monastic Christianity, seen as pioneers of medical healing and surgery, which anyway would have preserved and advanced centuries of accumulated folk healing and care for the sick. So many days I had been trawling through genealogy records, getting no joy, wondering if there was anything more to learn of my family at all, and then *boom*, there it is, my Robert Bunney had as a teenager begun training in the understood medical care of his time, in the curious profession of the barber surgeon; only for his course to be thwarted by a historical change of roles, by which he instead became a cooper, taking on a different set of his teachers skills, which in turn he would teach to his son Robert the Younger, whose daughter was Hannah Aylward Bunney, who interestingly herself became a nurse at the Sailors Hospital in Greenwich. And a friend wanted me to come out for the day, but I was making too great a discovery in my genealogy. Looking to old newspapers I found some interesting stories in relation to the barber surgeons. The barber surgeons were ever busy and were regarded as important persons. They shaved, dressed hair, drew teeth and bled most of the people at regular intervals. In time past the letting of blood was regarded as a cure-all for any ailment, phlebotomy as it was called, and the people had great faith in this. One article talks of live music being provided for waiting customers, whether lute, violin or even bagpipes, reckoned to be so that the groans of those being seen to would be drowned out. And while ladies would be bled they were soothed and diverted by story telling. Tooth drawing was a painful affair with the crude instruments of the time (it's scary enough even now). In the ballad of the death of Robin Hood it is said that when he took ill he was bled by a prioress who so hated him for his crimes that she bled him to death: 'And hers was the deadliest sin, For she blooded him in the vein of the arm, And locked him up in the room, There he did bleed all the live long day, Until the next day at noon' In 1765 one poor woman of Petticoat Lane was indeed bled to death by a barber surgeon (of little skill) who did a blood letting on one of her arms, cutting into her artery. Before proper assistance could be secured she died. It became kind of a threat to be 'shaved, blooded and have your teeth drawn by a barber surgeon'. In 1738 when the trade was still commonplace and respectable, a story was published about a barber surgeon in Bermondsey who fell foul of the law, no name given, but that was where the Aylwards lived and worked. This barber surgeon and his wife were locked up for two months in the Southwark Bridewell, this being a house of correction, all due to a scam. An 'artful slut' had one day come into their shop complaining of sickness and desiring to be relieved by bleeding. Scarcely had she been punctured when she 'shammed a fainting fit' and upon recovery desired a 'dram' to support her spirits, which they naively fetched for her. And she demanded a second drink, upon declaring the great benefit she had received by the first. She then informed on them to the authorities, the husband having received money from her for one dram and the wife for the other. Thus they were convicted of selling spirit liquors contrary to an act of parliament, and were ordered to the Bridewell to receive their punishment. One job placement for a barber surgeon was put out by a 'nervous invalid' requesting someone of good education and cheerful manners, to eat and ride with him, and to shave and dress him. The payment was high for the time at £50 a year. As it was commented 'the medical profession is looking up'. In one story of 1756 a man among a drunken group of butchers in a pub, for them having found themselves in the company of a notable barber surgeon, proposed all of them should be blooded, which was soon agreed to, sixpence a piece collected from the butchers. The barber surgeon took from each a good quantity of blood, after which the same man to have proposed the blood letting suggested each should next have a tooth drawn. None other agreed to this; their courage had by now left them.
One of my ancestresses, Jane Harding née Young, of Camberwell, was a 'monthly nurse', which referred to a live in helper for young mothers and their newborns, generally being for affluent families. Both Jane and her spinster daughter Sarah worked for rich families, both in consequence living in grand homes in the distinguished Grove Lane. The old lady Sarah cared for, Caroline Hilton, was so grateful that upon dying she even left Sarah her home, at 22 Queens Row, Grove Lane, and enough means by which to no longer need to work. It can be seen that serving the trés riche got one out of the slums and into elegant environments. One ancestress, Elizabeth Moulds alias Moules, I discovered to have been born in Wapping in 1774, her mother being Elizabeth née King and her father John Moulds being a mariner, the family living at Milk Alley, near to the infamous execution block, at the rivers edge, where mutineers were regularly hung, all to large audiences which would crowd along the riverside and upon boats in the river to view the morbid spectacle. As for Jane the monthly nurses father, Nathaniel Young of Lambeth, I now found out he had been a waterman on the Thames river, who had apprenticed three of his sons to also be watermen. Not only therefore did I have watermen and lightermen in my family further along at Greenwich, but also at Lambeth too. Nathaniel had done his own apprenticeship in Fulham, from the ages of 10 till 18 under the tutorage of his uncle Robert Lewis (married to Nathaniel aunt Mary), who in all those years would have provided training in boating skills, food, clothes and lodging, according to the contract dates from 1768 to 1776. Generally lads would be apprenticed at the age of 18, unless a father or uncle was the tutor, in which case the apprentice could be taken on at a younger age. Robert Lewis himself had done his own apprenticeship in Fulham with his father, also called Robert Lewis. Another find, at last, something I'd never been able to suss before, was the 1830 baptism in Windsor for my ancestress Sarah Green. Like wow, what a super find (even though the record was merely a transcription and not the original). This gave an address in Windsor, Sheet Street, and what's more I discovered another Green, an older Henry, had been living at the same address, dying there just two years earlier. This may well have been Sarah's grandfather, or even great grandfather, for him having born as far back as 1747. Maybe Sarah's parents, Henry Green and Elizabeth née Harding, had inherited the house, or had taken over the rental, staying a couple of years before returning to Lambeth. So many Greens there were from way back in Windsor, a place I myself had once enjoyed to visit, swimming in the river there.
In genealogy I was back to looking at the 1921 censuses, seeing as I had Findmypast membership which had a monopoly on this, focusing on my Maxteds and their extended family members. And why did William Maxted's Irish wife Mary Dolan, on the 1921 census, say she was born in Cork, rather than Westmeath? Those parts of Ireland were so far apart. Notes online about this giving of different birthplaces suggest that this information gets more accurate as one gets older. Had Mary sought to hide her origins? Skeletons in the cupboard? Could there have been a single mother born babe at a convent, she being either the mother of the babe? This remained a mystery. But, yes, babes out of wedlock were there in her family, with her granddaughters Norah and seemingly my nanny Eileen. So this looking at various 1921 census for Maxted descendants was my own personal detective challenge of the moment. My Maxteds had originated in the apparently haunted Kent village of Pluckley, at some point relocating into London, and then ending up in the Hampshire town of Eastleigh. That was where William Maxted and his Irish wife Mary Dolan were living in 1921, where William worked as a boiler maker for the railway. The families married daughter who lived on the same road, Market Street, Mary Green, had begun by 1921 naming all her daughters after flowers. Another married daughter, Florence, my own ancestress, was far away in Parkestone, Essex, at 2 Bridge Cottages, for which I found a picture and recalled in this even having been there as a child when my nanny friend Nina (?) lived there, a time I'd been made to sing for everyone, where pigeons were kept at the end of the garden and all manner of home made wines were being created from fruits, barks and flowers. For all such censuses I thereafter tracked down I sourced if possible accompanying pictures of where these families had lived or pictures connected to their occupations. Some of the Maxted family had remained in London, such as William Maxteds brother and sister, Matilda and Henry, still in Nine Elms where they'd all been born. Henry worked there as a crane attendant for the railway. Other family members had moved to Brighton, Luton, Plymouth and the Isle of Wight, one of Williams brothers Frederick Maxted being an armourer of rifles, pistols and machine guns at the Admiralty supply depot in Plymouth. Back in London, at Islington, two of William's cousins, the Arnell sisters Molly and Minnie, who never married, worked worked for the animal food business of Joseph Thorley Limited at Kings Cross, specifically for the cattle foods department. And two brothers John and William Maxted, who were nephews of our own William Maxted, being sons of his deceased brother John, worked in Fulham, London, for the biscuit manufacturer Marfalane as dispatcher and packer. Of those who had moved to Luton, one cousin, Henry Pratt, the grandson of William's deceased sister Sarah, worked as a painter of the cars of the famed Vauxhall Motors long situated there.
I focused once more on my genealogy, for my Forest of Dean people, the presentation I'd already worked on for them delighting me. The Forest calls to me, to see the places I never went to previously, like the red ochre caves of Clearwell, mined by the ancients of the Forest and associated with my own ancestors. Despite the locals having been treated as 'squatters', frequently being evicted from the Forest, I just know they were anciently of the land, because my archeogenetic dna has considerable tribalism connected to this area. So what more was I finding out about my Forest of Dean ancestors. Specifically I focused on my Foxes, Aston's and Dobbs. John Aston, one of my ancestors, was a 'squarrer', and I know not what that was, and as was indicated in the 1851 census he was also blind, and it was by looking in old newspapers for any information about him that I found out why. Back in 1830, on a summers day in July, John and a work colleague, Thomas Phipps, were preparing to blast part of a rock near Coleford. Thomas was holding a bag of gunpowder for the job, equalling 3lbs of the explosive, while smoking on his pipe, oh dear, and a spark from that pipe fell among the powder, which exploded, throwing the men to a distance of several yards. Naturally they were severely injured and although they recovered well they were left blind. Not John's error then, but rather the carelessness of his friend. As for John's wife, Elizabeth Smith, I'd not sussed her ancestors before, but now was discovering them, three generations of Henry Smith's of Newland, with their wives Jane Evans, Susannah and Anna. Continuing with this genealogy a day or so later, I was looking at the plague, which my ancestor Benjamin Aston died from back in 1613. Plagues, they were many since the 1300's, and were far more deadly than our covid pandemic, for which many of our ancestors would have sickened from this. Obviously some were survivors, for which we are thankfully here now. Recent research has shown that a genetic mutation helped our people to survive, one for which we'd since had to cope with autoimmune diseases or at the very least over-active immune systems. Likely this mutation helped with covid too, but anyway could also explain why I have so many sensitivities to foods and smells; at last something to make sense of it all; my wonderful plague survivors. Benjamin, born in 1563, and his father John Aston, his sister and brothers, lived at Whitecliff, and its interesting that the surname Aston was given to people who lived at rocks or by ash trees, as Whitecliff was indeed a place of a rock cliff. In my imagination I see them even further back as cave dwellers; that does appeal to me. Far enough back it is so that we were all cave dwellers. Back to my genealogy, I was marking on a map areas of the Forest of Dean associated with my ancestors. And as for those Smiths I was descended from, in accordance with such a surname they were likely of the original metal working communities thereabouts. One such ancient blacksmith community even got a mention from the Romans, being at Ariconium and many coins and fibula brooches, which they likely fashioned, were still being found by treasure seekers, as well as a dancing goddess figurine made from brass and found in one of the old cinder piles. One of Britains oldest fibula brooches found as yet came from a ditch near Cirencester, upon which was a snake design, a face and those spirals I love. Again I absorbed myself in my Forest of Dean genealogy, finding some remarriages I'd not noted before and finding out that these ancestors of mine were freeminers, that is locals, born of the Forest, being aged over 21, and having worked a year and a day already in the forest mines; now by rights (from time immemorial) permitted to dig anywhere their own 'gales' by which to mine for coal, iron and rocks. I worked on a write-up on my site about my Aston's, Dobb's and Foxes of the Forest of Dean, my people of the forests, which started off quite patchy, as I researched more and more, but slowly began to flow and become an interesting read. In 1846, just as in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, and indeed in much of Northern Europe, the potato crops failed, the people having forsaken their traditional diversity of foods for the foreign potatoes that used less land while feeding more people. For such reliance on one food the blight upon the potatoes was disastrous. And yet the foresters coped well at such a time, because they were capable foragers of all that the forest naturally yielded, such as chestnuts, crab apples and blackberries, a tradition my family continued with and which still I did to this day, all those chestnuts we'd roasted and the gathering of blackberries for bramble jelly. Even as a child I remember collecting winberries in the Welsh hills. Always testing times would now and again arise, like in 1814, in the Forest, when there was a plague of mice. All attempts to eradicate the mice, with cats, traps and poisons, made little impact, until one of the freeminers, named Simmons, pointed out that the mice died when they fell into the wells and pits, for not being able to get back out again. Hence, now, many holes, two feet deep, were dug, and the mice fell into them in great numbers. Simmons and the other men were paid for the amount of 'tails' they brought from those pits, amounting in all to 100,000 perished mice. In 1795 the Foresters rioted, women and children joining in, in what were known as the Bread Riots. There had always been an honourable exchange between foresters and farmers of the surrounding pastures, fuel from the forest in return for flour for bread. This was disrupted when Britain, as a nation, engaged in wars against revolutionary France, with our government redirecting that corn into feeding the army and navy. For which, in consequence, the foresters, in need of their daily bread, took to raiding passing carts of corn, forcefully taking the food to be divided among their own people. The authorities sent in the calvary to stop their interests being sabotaged. And again, when boats were transporting corn along the river Severn, the locals raided them too, and again the calvary was sent in and the ringleaders caught and executed. It was thereafter, at last, taken heed of by the authorities that they had put these people into a state of famine and that they must therefore help them, for which the Crown acquiesced and distributed £1,000 worth of grain to the poor distressed locals.
In the new subject of epigenetics it is noted that our maternal grannies were the ones to create the eggs we ourselves came from, so which, as it is posited, the experiences of the granny closely tie in to who we ourselves become. This naturally interests me, and yes, I've borne my own spiritual genealogy ideas and contemplated already how we are impacted by the experiences of our ancestors. So this becomes more of a subject nowadays, gets discussed and becomes a scientific study; slowly, slowly. It is so that I am more like my granny Isabelle than my mother is, and that my mother is more like her granny, at least in some regards. My granny Isabelle was schizophrenic and never wished to leave her house, not once she developed an anxiety about the outside world. Although, this had not developed in her when she created my egg within my mother in the womb. At those times she was so very much in love with her dashing romantic Scottish husband. This was during war time, during which he sometimes had leave to be with her, and when not would write romantic letters and poems. We were first borns, me and my mother, not my granny Isabelle though, although her own mother was a first born, when experiences are fresher. My granny Isabell ended up so wounded by love, her dear Lyall leaving her for another woman. But, yes, when my egg was created their love was blooming, along with plenty of separation due to the war. My granny Isabelle's own granny, Maria Harrison, for sure had a tough childhood, seeing her mother die too young from tuberculosis, her father being in prison, and she herself in the workhouse. Those trauma's would have been passed to my granny Isabelle, and they ultimately broke her; whereas for all my own trauma's in life I have been a survivor. Still, I have some of the traits of my granny, which my mother cannot bear, the messy chaos for one, which itself was born out of Maria Harrison's very tragic and difficult life in London poverty. Anxiety too I had inherited, socially; nevertheless I could go out into the world, which my granny could not. We ourselves heal the past and adapt. My granny travelled with her imagination in books about other lands; I travelled in reality. It is in recognising the vestiges of genealogical trauma that I have come to accept more my own impracticality and messiness. Ancestrally, the lineage of my grandmotherly journeying, versus the grandmotherly journeying of my mother and daughters, always skipping a generation, does throw up in some ways an intense story of similar scenarios. My granny Isabelle and her granny Maria, both of whom my influence is from; well in regard to Maria there was a certain dynamic with her own daughter, Mary Ann Seagrove, who would be my mothers granny. Maria was the messy impractical one, getting into an awful muddle, and Mary Ann had to herself play a more adult role, working hard and with great practicality, to basically stop the authorities removing her younger siblings into the workhouse and casting Maria into prison, all for her laziness and inefficient ways. Those siblings, ran about barefoot and scruffy, but happy, with no bother for school, everyone free to be who they are. All was put onto Mary Ann to salvage this situation, her father being away at sea, she cleaning her brothers shoes daily, and going off young into the workplace with her hair in a bun to look older, trudging miles through snow back and forth. Maria's inactivity was surely for her own traumas, seeing her mother die before her very eyes and being put into the workhouse. Such energies, and I believe this for all the work I have done with research of the family, simply fits so neatly, having still some reckoning with us, so that all my family have been hard on me, as I represent Maria, and they are all Mary Ann, who herself was a fireball and full of resentment. In knowing all of this, can one not then understand that what happens now is not just to do with present day concerns, but is borrowed from the past. In all current dramas one should entertain that this has seeded from a real life scenario that has been most traumatic in our ancestry and which in some way gets replayed. And yes, I muddle through life often enough, but I am a survivor and I am happy. I often like to be alone, so others shall not trouble me and create needless drama. This was my granny Isabelle's way indeed, but she was crazy and I am not. We adapt; we find wiser perspectives. My own daughters are so reluctant themselves to be mothers, and it is they who carry the eggs I created, deeply connected to who I am. I so wish they will not end our matriarchal lineage. Like please, please, have babies; but all rests with them.
I focused on unravelling for Michaela of the crystal bowls some of her family tree. She had given me all the details she knew of, her people being entirely Irish, for which this was rather a challenge for me. Michaela's parents, who were both Irish, had met in London, her father Michael O'Driscoll being a doctor and her mother Ethna Sweeney a pharmacist. Michaela herself was raised in London. It was Ethna's side of the family she was more curious to know about. They came from 'The Abbey', near to Ballyshannon in County Donegal. Ethna's father, David Sweeney, was a farmer who drove a horse and trap, and her mother, Bridget, had tuberculosis of the spine since her early 30's, for which she was bedridden. Somewhere in that ancestry were the English 'Blacks'. Tuberculosis of the spine would normally have spread there from the lungs and was called Potts Disease. This was a rare form, but certain notables were known to have had it, such as Saint Gemma of Luca, the poet Alexander Pope, and Louis XVI's (and Marie Antoinette's) son, Louis Joseph, the dauphin of France. It was his wet nurse, Genevieve Poitrine who was accused of hiving him tuberculosis. He had to wear metal corsets to support his deteriorating spine and died aged seven. I found Michaela's parents engagement and marriage announcements in the Irish newspapers, and the death of Ethna's brother from pleurisy at the age of 21. The 1911 census showed David Sweeney to be a farmer of Abbeylands, there was a dog license he applied for, for a male black collie in 1900, and his marriage in 1916, by which I found out that Bridget's maiden name was Mullen. In both the 1901 and 1911 census's, Bridget was living with nuns, serving them in their domestic needs. In 1911 it was specified that these nuns were the Sisters of Mercy. These nuns would educate and take in poor girls, look after the sick, and in the same manner as the Magdalene laundries would take in pregnant unmarried girls. In 1901, when Bridget was waiting on the nuns, aged 18, her younger brother, Michael Mullen, aged 16, was working for the same nuns as their messenger and gardener. It is for young Michaels return to the family home, by 1911, that I found their widowed mother, Bridget Mullen of Rockhill, and in then sourcing her 1901 details learnt that her husband was John Mullen, by which I then found their marriage in 1877, she being Bridget Walsh. This aligned with an old widow living with the family in 1901, Catherine Walsh, who as I had guessed correctly was her mother. The Catholic marriage details were a good find, both bride and groom being of Rockhill, John Mullin's parents being Michael Mullins and Ellen McKay, and Bridget's parents being James Walsh and Catherine Kennaugh. Well, all had seemed challenging upon setting out on this quest, and yet here I was passing on lots of information to Michaela, so that she likened this experience to being on Who Do You Think You Are, especially when I came up with a newspaper report about her grandad David Sweeney winning second prize in the local best cows competition, in the category of cows which have already been pregnant. The Walsh family of Rockhill looked to have been a rough fighting sort; a big feud developing in 1856 with the local Likely family, the Likely lads having threatened the Walsh' at their home, challenging them to a fight, two of the Walsh women being assaulted, one of them, Una Walsh being struck by an iron bar by Francis Likely. Ann Walsh, the other assaulted lady, took up stones and threatened to knock out Margaret Likely's brains with them. I carried on with Michaela's research the next day, thinking I was at a loss to find more, but then more I indeed found. There were only two Irish census's, so that avenue was not so promising. But one found instead Roman Catholic records, court details and dog license records, and this and that here and there. Yes, her people got into trouble, there being many records of drunkenness and fighting. This seemed to be often the way with the Irish, not just with travellers, but in general. As Michaela said her brother suspected there was alcoholism in the family. So the Walsh's were fighters, and as I saw it, it was so with the Sweeney's too. There was a long list of their battles with their neighbours at 'The Abbey' and with the locals in the town of Ballyshannon. I found the English 'Blacks', maybe not so English, as just over the border into Northern Ireland and being of protestant derivation, David Sweeney's parents being Frances Black and Patrick Sweeney. Patrick Sweeney was surely a drinker and a fighter. These were the kind of fights that would be surrounded by riotous crowds. David's parents, James and Bridget Sweeney, were likewise of that nature. Whole families would be warring, the women included. They were farmers, for long at the Abbey. Old Bridget had cows; as I saw, in 1847, her neighbour, Bernard Grimes, was making issue about her cows repeatedly trespassing on his crop of plants. On yet another day I looked at Michaela's genealogy, and noted that the original James Sweeney had married two Bridget's, and he had needed special dispensation for the second being related to the first. The Grimes's, who had fought with the Sweeney's, Michaela had met their current descendants still at the Abbey and said they appeared to be an inbred lot, as maybe anyway were her own Sweeney's, so she remarked.
At market, one Texan enthusiast of our French mysteries hereabouts was saying to others that the local language of Occitan was from Aramaic, the 'pure language of Jesus'. Actually though, as I interjected, Occitan has Latin origins. I expanded into my late thoughts that there was an original language here before Occitan, far more ancient, because as I have seen it the local goddess of Bugarach, Noor, is not an Occitan word. It occurred to me that the most ancient language here would have aligned with cave dwelling and the standing stones and would more have resembled Basque, which in itself has always been mysterious. Yes, I know it, that Noor also means in Arabic 'light', as one of the men remarked on, but likely this was also an ancient local word. I did look more into this once back home. And yes, Occitan was a language introduced by the Romans, and therefore this had covered what was in existence before. And as for that old language having more resembled Basque, indeed, on my looking into this it was understood by linguists and historians that the language spoken by cave people, as I had myself deduced, would have been a proto-Basque, there being evidence dating this back to the Neolithic times and even beyond. Basque words alike to Noor, as I now saw, written as 'nur' translated to 'water' and also to 'hazelnuts'. A water goddess them, maybe, for the magical springs and rivers of this sacred landscape. Basque, also known as Euskara, was unique and always somewhat of a mystery. I had traces of Basque dna, as did my mother, which may well be in us from way back in Palaeolithic times, when the Welsh, Irish and Scots were of the same family groups as those of the Basque, and likewise with ancient Sardinians, also dna I carried. All was so very interesting.
I was excitedly finding out things about my Welsh ancestors that I'd not been able to suss before. Like who were the parents and other family members of Margaret Jones (my great great great grandmother)? This had always been a mystery. And who was the young boy Jeffrey Jones seen to be living with her and her husband George Harrison in Llanthony back in 1841? But, oh wonder of wonders, all comes together, and that one name Jeffrey Jones is a big clue, because although Jones was a maddeningly common surname, Jeffrey was not, for which Jeffrey had to be a name which was in some way specifically connected with our family, one of those names that gets passed down through the generations, as was always the way of our ancestors. Little Jeffrey Jones was surely a nephew of Margarets, it also being the way of our ancestors to pass around ones children amongst various relatives. What really led me to big discoveries here was my checking out the famed Welsh rugby player, Kenneth Jones, who I'd always been told we were related to. It's one thing to be told you're related and it's quite another to find out how. I was determined to find this out, by working back through his ancestry. Kenneth Jones was born in Blaenavon on 30th December 1921 to John Jones and Ella Caroline Burland. John's father was Jeffrey Jones (note the name), a coal miner of Blaenavon, born there in 1868, who married in Abergavenny to Harriet Morgan. Harriet's family, interestingly, were from the mountain hamlet of Pwlldu where my Harrison's had also lived. The relevance in all this is the name of Kenneth's grandfather, Jeffrey Jones, as therein lies a clue. And its not that Jeffrey's own father was born to that little Jeffrey who'd stayed as a youngster with our family in Llanthony, no, and I don't know if that little Jeffrey even made it into adulthood, there there being a death of one by this name in Crickhowell a few years later. The father of Kenneths grandfather, Jeffery, was John Jones, originally of Crickhowell where he had been born in 1842, later becoming a haulier of Blaenavon, his wife being Abigail Wilson of Redwick. I drew a close at this for now, finding nothing more and still not quite understanding the connection. Later, on renewing the research, this was on my now understanding just how relevant the name Jeffrey was, for which I looked up a Jeffrey Jones of the same area Kenneths's great grandad John Jones was from, around and about Crickhowell, and I found him and more clues besides to link this newly found individual up with my own family. In 1861, there is to be seen a Jeffery Jones of Llanelly, who was at this time deaf, born in in 1802. And how did I know this was our own relative, with his age qualifying him be the brother of my own Margaret Jones? Well, he was a miller, as was my Margaret's Llanthony based husband George Harrison, and what's more he was born in Llanbedr, a village associated with our family. Margaret and George Harrison had lived in Llanbedr before arriving in Llanthony, and I'd already worked out that this village was the biggest likelihood for Margarets own place of origin. Llanbedr, as a birth place for Jeffrey Jones, hadn't even shown up on the census transcription, and on seeing the original it was written quite illegibly, and yet I could make it out, for being familiar with the name already. Finding this Jeffrey Jones in another census, the previous one of 1851, was the icing on the cake in regard to Kenneth Jones's ancestry, because there was Kenneth's great grandfather, John Jones, living with him, aged 10, listed as Jeffrey's nephew, born in Crickhowell in 1842. Thus it was that I had linked up our families. I now found the miller Jeffery Jones's baptism in Llanbedr (lucky to find this as so many Welsh baptisms are unfindable, none of George and Margaret Harrisons children's baptisms ever having been traced and neither George's or Margaret's themselves). It was in finding Jeffrey Jones's baptism, in Llanbedr (Ystrad Yw), Breconshire, that I at last solved the long standing mystery of who were Margaret's own parents, and they were Jeffrey Jones (yet again) and Elizabeth, and this older Jeffrey Jones was yet again a miller. And then I even found the marriage of Jeffrey Jones Senior and Elizabeth on June 3rd 1792 in Llanbedr, which gave Elizabeths maiden name as Evans, she being a local of Llanbedr, and he being from Llangenny, which was near to there. The witnesses were a friend, James Pitt, and a regular wedding signer Edward Herbert. This meant so much to me, to have pushed back into the realms of that which had seemed impossible, finding parents for Margaret; Jeffrey Jones the miller of Llangenny and Elizabeth Evans of Llanbedr. Being a genealogy researcher is alike to being a detective. Years ago I'd begun seeking my roots and only now had learnt who were Margarets parents. One follows clues. Kenneth Jones, the rugby player, known by family to be one of our people; therein lay the biggest clue, and yet one which needed some deep looking into. Looking at Margaret's brother, Jeffrey Jones the younger miller, his mill was for years the Upper Mill at Govilon, as recorded regularly in the electoral registers of the 1830's and 40's. And another brother, William Jones, was the miller at the Lower Mill, Govilon. His baptism I had now found as well, William Jones, born in Llanbedr in 1807 to Jeffrey and Elizabeth Jones. Another potential brother was David Jones of Llangenney, who married on 10th July 1807 in Llanbedr to Blanch Philips who was a local girl. Looking more at the Upper Mill of Govilon, this was now a ruin, which had consisted of the mill, a house, a corn drying kiln and a pond. There had been milling in Govilon since at least the 1300's, which utilised the steep fast flowing waters of the Cwm Siencyn Brook as it it cascaded down the Blorenge mountain to the river Usk below. The millstones, which remain to this day at both Upper Mill and at George Harrisons old mill in Llanthony were made from the 'pudding stone' to be found on the summit of the Blorenge mountain. These millstones would grind up the corn brought to them by all the local farmers. And now another fabulous find was a will summary, which favoured amongst others 'Elizabeth, wife of Jeffrey Jones, miller of Llangenny', by which more of the family now came to light. This will from 1823 was made by Elizabeth's brother, Lewis Evans (Lewis being another recycled name in our family) of Llangenny, who owned properties both there and in Llanbedr. By this one could see Elizabeths siblings, Lewis of course being one, and the others being John Evans, who had a son also called John, Ann who was the wife of John Jones in Danderren, Llangattock (it could be so that Jeffrey and John were also brothers), and James Evans, already deceased, but with the will profiting his daughter Elizabeth. Another will I found of 1834-5 was of a yeoman from Crickhowell, John Adams, which profited various of his nephews and nieces, one of whom was Margaret, wife of Jeffery Jones, miller of Llangenny (pretty sure this is an incorrect transcription as his wife was surely Elizabeth) and mentioning also her sister Ann 'Williams' (is this another incorrect transcription?) of Llangenny (although it could be that this Ann, formerly married to John Jones, had become a widow and remarried). John Adams also listed a deceased brother, Thomas Adams, father of Joseph, who would therefore be another uncle to Elizabeth. By such a clue it appears that Elizabeths mother would have been an Adams girl marrying an Evans lad. Jeffery Jones I later saw had died in 1834, in Llangenny, as shown by the death duties register. And I'd searched and searched but could not find any baptism for my Margaret as his daughter, that often absence of any sign that ones children were baptised yet again. But then, and how difficult it was to find this, but there came up yet another Breconshire will, none other than Jeffrey Jones's will summary, millwright of Llangenny, not quite correctly transcribed, for the tricky writing of the time, but mentioning his three children, Jeffrey, William and Margaret married as Mrs Harrison being one of them. I could cry, I mean, well, I did. One doesn't always get confirmation for ones theories in genealogy, but this was it for sure. My long research had blossomed beautiful fruits. As Jeffrey the miller of Govilon was Kenneth Jones's great grandads uncle, this would make Jeffrey's brother William Jones the great great grandad of Kenneth Jones, and Jeffrey and Elizabeth of Llangenny his great great great grandparents. As they would be my great great great great grandparents. And that makes Kenneth Jones, rugby champion of Wales, my fourth cousin once removed.
In my genealogy I focused on doing a presentation for my Welsh great grandparents John and Emma Harrison. I found footage on YouTube of Pwlldu, the hamlet high on the Blorenge mountain where John Harrison had lived in as a little boy, filmed in the 50's by the BBC before the place was bulldozed to the ground. Such a film could be interestingly modernised with music and all, but for there being a big symbol splashed across it to prevent copying. On a Pwlldu Facebook group I found photos of the two rows of houses once there, which my Harrison's had dwelt in, pretty rough pictures really, but I jazzed them up and was so happy for that.
There's a lot to be discovered about John and Emma's lives and the people that surrounded them. For instance, that they had lived a while in Bargoed during their early marriage I'd not known, but now could see from their daughters school registration details. My Welsh family, upon leaving Pwlldu, settled in Varteg and Garndiffaith, they being John's Welsh Harrisons and Emma's Forest of Dean Hawkins's. The Forest of Dean people never would say that they were from Gloucestershire; it was always the more exciting sounding Forest of Dean. One uncovers many stories, like of bully neighbours (I know that well). Jane Hawkins, Emma's mother, had been harassed most threateningly by a neighbour, John Jones who was a blacksmith. Jones's existed in every corner of Wales and I myself have Jones's ancestors, John's granny being a Margaret Jones from Llangattock.
Emma's sister, Amelia, had a daughter called Blodwyn (I love those old Welsh names), and another daughter who like herself was called Amelia. This young girl, Amelia Self, went as a teenager to work in service at a grand house in Swansea, only to be dead within three days of arriving there. She'd eaten a hearty meal of steak, potatoes and beans, thereon retreating unwell to the outside privy, where she had a fit, By the time the locked door was forced open she was almost dead and could not be revived. One may suspect poisoning for this, but she'd been one for headaches and had even had a previous fit some years before.
John Harrison had a cousin in Brynmawr and later Blaina called Margaret Morgan, née Watkins, who while still single had to make out a bastardy order against one George Holly for him having got her with child and yet not having taken responsibility for this. George was a friend of one of her brothers and they were later in the Boer War together where they managed to survive a dreadful massacre.
A lovely clip I found on YouTube of Welsh miners returning from the pit singing 'Bread of heaven', which brought tears to my eyes, as did other clips of the Welsh men singing, all being from a film 'How Green Was My Valley', in turn inspired by a book, reflecting the South Wales mining communities at the turn of the century.
|
AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Categories
All
|