I have to admit to very much enjoying the Oxfordshire section of my family, about whom I knew very little until recently. Not to take away anything from the long-loved Suffolk and Scottish folk, but it’s nice to have a bit of variety, after all, and this lot certainly provide it.
I’m particularly diverted by my great great great grandmother Elizabeth (née Burman) and her second husband. She was born in 1802, married William Meades and had four children, and was widowed in her early thirties. She then married John Harwood, a stone mason from Charlbury thirteen years her junior, so only about ten years older than her eldest son (William the mason, as I always think of him). She then had three more sons: George who was also a mason; Henry, who was a photographer; and Alfred, who among other things ran an eating house in Shoreditch.
John Harwood may even have been a Freemason as well as a mason, which would have helped, but he does seem to have had the three things I always feel you need to get on in life: ability, persistence and luck. He kept a shop in Chipping Norton as well, and the family, including his younger step-daughter Sarah, evidently helped to run it. It was probably something fairly general to begin with, but by 1871 it was a toy shop (!) and he then went into dealing in furniture. That business lasted for some years, and was evidently so profitable that he and Elizabeth eventually retired to Worcester and lived on their own income. She died there at 89, and at some point he moved back to Chipping Norton, married a sprightly young thing in her late sixties called Hannah, and died aged 81 in 1903.
Obviously the paper records aren’t going to tell you what the man was really like, or how happy he and Elizabeth were. It wasn’t all roses, as their youngest son and some of their grandchildren predeceased them, for example, but some of the later Meades family history is really rather grim, and it makes a pleasant change to read about two people who were apparently prosperous and healthy, and lived to a ripe old age.
A place for notes, descriptions, stuff, stuff and yet more stuff.
Does what it says on the tin.
Showing posts with label family history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family history. Show all posts
09 August 2009
31 July 2009
Family History and the Census
When I’m beavering away at reading Census returns as part of my researches into family history, I often find myself wondering about the event as it actually happened, as well as occasionally puzzling over what was recorded. Were my relatives co-operative or (as I suspect in at least some cases) a bit bolshie about officialdom poking its nose in?
It can’t always have been easy for the enumerators or the enumerated. There were surely many conversations conducted through closed doors, or on the doorstep in inhospitable weather, and/ or with rising irritation on both sides. Even something as simple as having a head cold, or having some teeth missing may have had a bearing on what was heard and recorded. Either or both parties may have been tired, hard of hearing, had an accent the other found difficult to understand, or simply misunderstood the question asked or the answer given. William Meades the stone mason always gives his place of birth as Oxford/ City of Oxford until 1901 when it suddenly becomes Chipping Norton (which is probably correct). Admittedly not that far away, but a sufficiently different response to be surprising. I’m sure that sometimes the question about birthplace was asked or understood to be not ‘where were you born?’ but ‘where are you from?’ – potentially rather different, especially if you’d moved area.
If you add to the complications the larger households ( often including step relatives, in-laws, extended family, and lodgers/ visitors) and the fact that the 19th century respondents were not at all accustomed, as we are, to having to give name, place and date of birth on a regular basis, then it’s no wonder that mistakes were made. William Meades had at least twelve children by two wives (the first of whom died at 32) and lived in at least three places, Oxford, West Ham and Lowestoft, so I’m not entirely surprised that the odd inconsistency creeps in. In an age when personal possession of certificates was unusual you would also be dependent on other people to tell you your correct birth information – and if one or both parents were dead, that simply might not be possible. As I doubt many people bothered to keep a record of things like children’s date and place of birth (or even full names), that’s even more room for variation. I don’t, incidentally, agree that most ordinary people were absolutely illiterate before about 1870, as is often confidently stated. Signing a mark rather than a name when a birth, marriage or death is registered is sometimes cited, but all this demonstrates is that the vicars and registrars at least sometimes made a tactful assumption – and you probably wouldn’t question their authority. Many people knew enough to write their names and read a newspaper, at least, though obviously the standard varied enormously.
All this is without the later mistakes made in transcription, of course – understandable in some cases, though not all. Even if you write Jemima Dunnett as something that looks like ‘Gerunia’ (and it does), it’s never going to be likely that her daughter will be called Manuel (Hannah, actually). But some of it is uncommonly hard to decipher: I always remember an editor’s comment, admittedly about earlier church registers reprinted by the Harleian Society: “the chirography and orthography at this period are both infamous” and feel it’s sometimes equally applicable!
It can’t always have been easy for the enumerators or the enumerated. There were surely many conversations conducted through closed doors, or on the doorstep in inhospitable weather, and/ or with rising irritation on both sides. Even something as simple as having a head cold, or having some teeth missing may have had a bearing on what was heard and recorded. Either or both parties may have been tired, hard of hearing, had an accent the other found difficult to understand, or simply misunderstood the question asked or the answer given. William Meades the stone mason always gives his place of birth as Oxford/ City of Oxford until 1901 when it suddenly becomes Chipping Norton (which is probably correct). Admittedly not that far away, but a sufficiently different response to be surprising. I’m sure that sometimes the question about birthplace was asked or understood to be not ‘where were you born?’ but ‘where are you from?’ – potentially rather different, especially if you’d moved area.
If you add to the complications the larger households ( often including step relatives, in-laws, extended family, and lodgers/ visitors) and the fact that the 19th century respondents were not at all accustomed, as we are, to having to give name, place and date of birth on a regular basis, then it’s no wonder that mistakes were made. William Meades had at least twelve children by two wives (the first of whom died at 32) and lived in at least three places, Oxford, West Ham and Lowestoft, so I’m not entirely surprised that the odd inconsistency creeps in. In an age when personal possession of certificates was unusual you would also be dependent on other people to tell you your correct birth information – and if one or both parents were dead, that simply might not be possible. As I doubt many people bothered to keep a record of things like children’s date and place of birth (or even full names), that’s even more room for variation. I don’t, incidentally, agree that most ordinary people were absolutely illiterate before about 1870, as is often confidently stated. Signing a mark rather than a name when a birth, marriage or death is registered is sometimes cited, but all this demonstrates is that the vicars and registrars at least sometimes made a tactful assumption – and you probably wouldn’t question their authority. Many people knew enough to write their names and read a newspaper, at least, though obviously the standard varied enormously.
All this is without the later mistakes made in transcription, of course – understandable in some cases, though not all. Even if you write Jemima Dunnett as something that looks like ‘Gerunia’ (and it does), it’s never going to be likely that her daughter will be called Manuel (Hannah, actually). But some of it is uncommonly hard to decipher: I always remember an editor’s comment, admittedly about earlier church registers reprinted by the Harleian Society: “the chirography and orthography at this period are both infamous” and feel it’s sometimes equally applicable!
Labels:
census,
family history,
illiteracy
26 July 2009
A Rosario by any other name…
…though as it happens there isn’t one among my colleagues - but we do run to a good many of the more unusual names. OK, you’d expect that in an internationally known institution, especially as one section has a deliberate policy of taking interns from other countries, but even when you take out people like Rocio (Spanish), Reino (Dutch), Piera (Italian), Cesar (Peruvian) and Metaxia (Greek); and Ananda, Santina and Shalom have left, you’ve still got a good few. While most of them are just not very often met with (Albertina, Boris, Dominica, Ghislaine, Morna, Rhian, Sorrel) there are some I’ve never come across as first names before (Glenna, Gordana, Jevon, Sonnet).
And in an age which appears to prize such things, I think a few must have been made up: Tawn, for example, although we don’t really have anything to beat some I’ve come across doing family record searches (Candelena, Carkus, Catcheta, Zebulon…). I think first prize for unusualness goes to Gates, though, especially as this is as a female name.
Talking of family history, some unusual forenames from the Lowestoft, sorry, Waveney Cemetery database…
Female: Redalpra, Othelia, Keterah, Aholibamah, Scyllia, Okilinia, Claratina, Happy, Malguala, Bondella, Aloysia Jeanette, Germaine, Azalia, Redelpha
Male: Maldwyn, Admiral, Pompa, Alderman, Raisin Punt, Beziah, Julino, Auger, Rebel, Paris
Some of these are just the result of reading the more obscure bits of the Bible, of course: I have a few on my own family tree, including one Jedidah Chamberlain (born about 1726). She fortunately didn’t appear to have any male relatives called Jedediah – now that would have been confusing. And Pompa is most probably Pompey said with a good Suffolk accent!
I particularly enjoyed (and no, not in a sneery way) Narcissi Lenor (Harvey), Wonderful Smith (who was an RNVR Chief Yeoman of Signals) and Edward Christmas White.
And in an age which appears to prize such things, I think a few must have been made up: Tawn, for example, although we don’t really have anything to beat some I’ve come across doing family record searches (Candelena, Carkus, Catcheta, Zebulon…). I think first prize for unusualness goes to Gates, though, especially as this is as a female name.
Talking of family history, some unusual forenames from the Lowestoft, sorry, Waveney Cemetery database…
Female: Redalpra, Othelia, Keterah, Aholibamah, Scyllia, Okilinia, Claratina, Happy, Malguala, Bondella, Aloysia Jeanette, Germaine, Azalia, Redelpha
Male: Maldwyn, Admiral, Pompa, Alderman, Raisin Punt, Beziah, Julino, Auger, Rebel, Paris
Some of these are just the result of reading the more obscure bits of the Bible, of course: I have a few on my own family tree, including one Jedidah Chamberlain (born about 1726). She fortunately didn’t appear to have any male relatives called Jedediah – now that would have been confusing. And Pompa is most probably Pompey said with a good Suffolk accent!
I particularly enjoyed (and no, not in a sneery way) Narcissi Lenor (Harvey), Wonderful Smith (who was an RNVR Chief Yeoman of Signals) and Edward Christmas White.
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