I decided it was my great grandma Florence Maxted's turn for the avatar and time travel experience, luckily having a few photos of her to work from, and now gaining so many delights. So happy I am for this. Florence was half Irish through her mother Mary née Dolan. I see from a photo of her mother that they have the same eyes, which my father also had; Irish eyes. Florence's fathers family came from Pluckley, the most haunted village in England.
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![]() I got re-absorbed into genealogical realms, all my pets around me as I researched, Storm Kitty on my lap, Angel doggess who had sneaked onto the sofa, and the guinea pigs by the door with outside views. A toy dinosaur I was using to hold down my papers. My ancestress of Pluckley, Elizabeth Maxted, once she was widowed, left Pluckleys rural landscape for the slums of London, staying in the home of a married daughter, and becoming blind. A workhouse had by now been built on the Hothfield common, to dump all the poor and struggling into, and I suspect she didn't want to end up stuck in there. Her new home was on Wickham Street in Lambeth, and her livelihood was washing clothes, as many women in hardship were doing along that same street. One neighbour on Wickham Street, Mrs Manual, made her living caring for the babies of young unmarried mothers, which she would dose up with laudanum to keep them quiet. She was in the papers for the scandal of having poisoned in this way one of the babies. And yet it was quite the habit, and had been since ancient Egyptian times, to give opiates to children and babies, so they would stay content alone while others worked. They were plenty of products advertised to do such a job, with opium lozenges and pastilles on display in pharmacies as if they were sweets. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. ![]() My genealogical study right now is the old world of Pluckley, back when there was never a mention of the village being haunted, when stealing a loaf of bread from someones house could get you the death penalty, when cattle driving Welsh drovers passed by like something out of the Wild West, when lightning was known to strike dead sheep in fields and turn maidens blind, when pigs roamed freely munching on acorns, and just about everyone among the peasantry lived on tea, bread, cheese and potatoes. One fellow in 1823, John Bates, was caught out having 'wickedly, feloniously and against the order of nature' committed 'an unnatural offence upon the body of a mare' for which he was imprisoned for nine months in the house of correction. Hop picking was part of the scene in Pluckley, seasonally attracting more than a thousand workers. And I do know from family elders that my Greenwich ancestors, every year, were among the Londoners who came down to Kent to join in with this. In 1832, treasure was found in the Pluckley churchyard by workmen who were digging a vault, uncovering a trove of silver and gold coins, including at least five gold coins of Augustus Ceasar. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. ![]() 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. I can't resist it, to get stuck into some genealogy researching. I'm curious to see if I can find any more clues to some gypsy heritage. There are hints, but no certainties. I did a read up about gypsies, both Irish and swarthy easterners, but I'm none the wiser. Maxteds were many in Kent, and one I can see was a farmer, very much a settled profession. One Maxted stole from a Kingsnorth in Pluckley, the Kingsnorth's being the family of my friends Jeremy and Ian, for which he was sentenced to transportation to Australia. One of my great Aunts, Selina Maxted, eloped to America with a cousin, being pregnant by him and having two daughters out there before returning. She never married. I want to find out more on this story, but fail to find records so far. Selina's brother was my ancestor George, the one who died falling off a haybale, being pierced by a stick into his entrails. If I was a superstar on Who Do You Think You Are, they'd whip out the whole story, no problem, and for sure tell me if there was or was not gypsy blood. It's interesting that I do have Mediterranean DNA, for so do gypsy descendants, their Indian traces being oft watered down and out. It's also interesting that I can feel so at home in these warmer foreign lands. I am not such a stranger to these places after all. Back to researching, I found out more about my many times great Aunt Selina. Her cousin Edward was a bricklayer who died when they were back in London, after their few years in New York, maybe after a bankruptcy, after which Selina put an advert in the papers looking for a position caring in homes or offices. As revealed by the next census, she and her remaining daughter, the first also having died in London, both found work as family nurses. So, Selina, yes, she does sound interesting somehow, a single mother who had a stint in New York. And I was looking at my ancestress, Elizabeth Mugway of Stalisfield, who got into the papers as an old widow. By marriage she was Elizabeth Roberts. It was her husband, Charles Roberts, who is said to have been of a gypsy family, the Otterden gypsy Roberts. Elizabeth was in the papers for having been neighbour to a murder victim, Hannah Giles, killed by a man, Samuel Seager, who obsessively stalked Hannah while her husband was out rat catching with his dogs and ferrets. Elizabeth was well acquainted with both Hannah and her killer Samuel. Rumour was that this fellows obsession was borne from an affair which she had no wish to continue. That very morning Samuel had visited Elizabeth and she'd told him he was a 'queer fellow'. He warmed himself by her fire, while spying through the window on Hannah's house to be sure the husband had gone out. He then called on Hannah with the excuse he wanted her to stitch him some trousers. He was a shoemaker and sometimes she would bind his shoes for him. Having heard the rumours, Hannah's husband, Stephen Giles, had confronted Samuel and told him he was no longer welcome in the family home. Hannah made her sons stay by her whenever Samuel was around, but he got her alone when that evening she was off along the country road to babysit the children of a nearby farmer. He mercilessly slit her throat with a razor, shot her in the thighs and set her on fire. Such are the potential deeds of a stalker who who finds himself attracted yet thwarted by a lone vulnerable woman. Elizabeth and other neighbouring women sobbed their eyes swollen from distress at the killing of their friend and they robed themselves in black. The bakehouse they shared was where Hannah's body was lain, naked and burnt, all the locals and even strangers coming to view her. In one paper a map was drawn showing who lived in what cottage and the spot where Hannah had been found dead. Elizabeths cottage is marked, being the first homestead through a shared gate and across the gardens of the families. Hannahs house was the end one of a row of three, the bakehouse they shared being on the other end. As Elizabeth had been a frequent caller to Hannah's, she must have been party to Hannah's fears. And yet all else in the village had thought Samuel such a harmless man. After the killing Samuel went on the run, later to be found in another county, hungry and looking for work on the railroad, using another name, saying that he was of the Roberts family. He was recognised by a description in the papers, confessed, and was sentenced to execution. They'd 'had words' was the reason he gave for her death. Looking again at Maxteds, I found that Charles Maxteds marriage to Sarah Green, and I'd never noticed this before, though one just had to switch to the next page to see, a double marriage, the same time as his sister Sarah married her own amour. Sarah, the sister of Charles, had already had two illegitimate children, one while she herself was but a young teenager, and for respect of the second child, she had been in church about to marry, the record having begun to be written, only for it not to go ahead, not till these years later with another child now on the way. It sounds Eastenderish, dumped at the altar! Oh, the stories of the past, if we but knew them. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. The British newspaper archives have opened up a whole new world. I keep on seeking articles relating to any of my family, and its not so easy, but I did find a story, this time on my Maxted line. It regarded the death of my ancestor George Maxted of Kent, whose native villages of Pluckley and Hothfield I have been to see (I have to see Westwell too). It was in Hothfield that George died, apparently falling from a haystack, which he was thatching, landing onto a big stick which pierced through his leg and into his bowels. I kept on looking through newspaper articles. Both my Irish Bartholomew Sugrue and his wife Catherine were partial to the bottle, I now read. Oh dear, this gets worse. I mean, here I am seeing drunkard Irish expats in my village, mirroring my own ancestors. It's a shock indeed. And yet another of their children had been caught stealing, James Sugrue, during the case of which it was mentioned that another of his brothers was already in prison. It's impossible to gloss any of this over, I have very dysfunctional family roots, part of a vast melange, from royal privilege to utter desolation. I had a browse for my friends genealogies too. For Akila I found family divorces, for Trebha, his grandfather being caught with stolen fish, Jeremy's drunkards, and Liz's posh side. To find all was so compelling. This is time consuming too, as genealogy is anyway. I sought more old family newspaper articles. So long one looks, coming up with nothing, and then a gem flashes up. I found the death inquest for one of my ancestresses, Maria Ann Harrison of Greenwich, already a widow, who had dropped dead after complaining of a bilious attack. Every organ in her body was said to be diseased. This, it was claimed, was in consequence of her intemperance. Oh dear, another one. A heart attack caused her death, such was the verdict. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. I had a new angle to explore in my genealogy, the possible gypsy origins of my Pluckley lot. But this is not an easy one to work out. I look to gypsy historical records and see that they have tended to be obvious nomads. At least there are very visible main families which have been recorded. It is harder to detect those who have over some hundreds of years compromised by adopting more general lifestyles. Some have wanted to cover their origins, much as I suppose did those Victorian colonials with their mixed bloods. As I look more into this Maxted line of Pluckley, hints of gypsy origins come up here and there, but nothing is certain. So she may be of gypsies and kings... I look more into the potential gypsy links, still not defining anything. Other than which, I have an idea that many Londoners have gypsy or other kind of traveller histories. On looking up any evidence to back up this theory I see there may be some truth to this. London was a multi-cultural crossroads anyway, drawing in French Huguenots and Jews, and many of the poorer people, not of such foreign groups, had traveller style more nomadic origins, arriving in London for stability, economic reasons and even simply because prejudices had made their former lifestyles more challenging to maintain. They were classed as vagrants and treated as such. Land enclosures were limiting more and more the places at which they could camp. Their valued roles as entertainers and rural traders were displaced. And at one time nobility, and even royalty, had liked their ethnic exoticism, their air of mysticism and their insights into peoples futures. Such interests diminished and they became untrustworthy nuisances. For such they were hiding their origins, many of them adapting to the mainstream. An Irish destitute influx was pouring over due to famine in Ireland. Such groups seemed to easily mix. And even before the gypsies came to Britain, there had been people tramping the land, not fitting into the parish systems. The boundaries between all these various types was becoming less discernible. And I see hints, I do, of something within my ancestors, but I can't pin it down. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. I am turning my attention back to my own genealogy, rather than to that of others. I'd found some family census's which had previously evaded me, of Maxted's in the London of the Industrial Revolution, all confirming who was the old mother of the family, a widow in London, the one to have left rural Kent, living in poverty in Lambeth, on top of which she was blind, Elizabeth Maxted, originally a Roberts. Someone on line had stated that the Robert's from her neck of the woods were Romany gypsies, but on looking I found nothing to back that up. Although, on looking with some curiosity for anything about her departed husband, George Maxted of Pluckley, he is described as being a 'general dealer', a trade that has been sometimes associated with the gypsy people. I found nothing else to add to this. They were a family of fixed abode, not roaming here and there, the Maxted's for so long being in Pluckley, for which I have to conclude most likely then they were not gypsies. And so I drag myself away from the Maxted's and the Robert's and the Mugway's (Elizabeth's mothers family name). AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. ![]() Setting off homewards bound, I en route planned to visit the most haunted village in Kent, called Pluckley, which had been the home of my Maxted ancestors. At last I got to see this quaint village and I loved it, enough even that I would live there. We first looked around the churchyard, the church of St Nicholas being where my great great great grandfather, George Maxted, had married his beloved, Elizabeth Roberts. Pluckley was home to the Maxted's, and not only to them but also to my friends, Ian and Jeremy's 'Kingsnorth's'. The nearest to a ghost we saw was a dog statue guarding a grave, its shadow from a distance looking real, and yet never moving. One small part of the churchyard felt gunky, not a place to dwell long in, but the rest was pleasant. This was a lovely place. We walked a labyrinth mown into the grass and ate luscious blackberries there, such a treat. On some lovely strolling in the fields around, I met a mother and her child. Never had this lady seen a local ghost, although living in an old house quite capable of being the haunt of one. The village pub, the Black Horse, is apparently haunted, as is the church, the church having a white lady and a red lady, and the pub having a poltergeist. I carried on to neighbouring Hothfield, where my Maxted's had also lived, maybe when they were selling provisions. The church there, of St Margaret, felt more of a candidate for ghosts, being in an enclave outside of the village. You could almost feel it's mysteries and flitting spirits. Like at Pluckley, one corner felt gunky, and all was interesting and maybe a little scary. The church was locked up and peering through the windows we saw a priests vestments and ancient decorated knightly tomb. We checked out one more churchyard, burial place of many Kingsnorth's. Quite the place to return to with Jeremy and Ian. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. |
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