Historic discoveries on my doorstep... Tong Village & Fulneck's Moravian Settlement

I love local, social & family history...

As I was looking for walks in my local area to try and improve my fitness levels, I discovered a walk on the AA walks website called Tong & Fulneck's Moravian Settlement.

Tong is a village about 5 miles south west of Bradford. It is a beautiful little village with a church, pub sweet cottages, farms, Tong Hall (the manor house), hotel, ice cream parlour, farm shop, a cricket ground and large garden centre on the outskirts. It has always been a small place that inspires me with interest for 2 reasons:

1. My 5x great grandmother, Agnes Mitchell, was born in Tong and baptised at St James church in 1784.
2. It is a beautiful quaint little village in the countryside between two large cities (Bradford & Leeds), yet it has managed to keep it's historic feel and green fields.

In doing some recent reading about Tong Village, here are a few things I have discovered:

• "Tong" is derived from the Old English tang meaning fork, probably deriving from the fact that Tong is situated between two valleys (Pudsey Beck and Cockersdale) and the fork in the becks.
• St James chapel, is a 12th century building on the remains of an earlier chapel indicating that Tong was probably a pre-Conquest settlement.
• Tong Hall is a 17th century manor house which is also probably on the site of an earlier building.
• The Lord of the Manor discouraged new developments to prevent over population which is probably one of the vital reasons why the village is still a village with surrounding farms.

But going back to the walk, what was "Fulneck's Moravian Settlement"? I had never heard of it...

Fulneck's Moravian Church

The AA website informed me that the Moravians were "...Pre-reformation dissenters from the Roman Catholic Church..." who came to establish a community in West Yorkshire, which was initially named Lamb's Hill and later became Fulneck.

WOW...that was a something on my doorstep which I never knew about!! 

The Moravians were the first Protestant church in Europe which began at the end of the 14th century in Bohemia and Moravia - the people wanted to worship God in their native tongue & not Latin and adopted a doctrine of "justification by grace through faith alone". They started sending out missionaries in the early 18th century, one of these early Moravian mission settlements was in Fulneck. 

Fulneck Moravian Settlement

I wanted to know about this group of people and their settlement, as well as to do this walk and visit Fulneck...

In doing some more reading about Fulneck, this is what I discovered:

• The land was given by Benjamin Ingham (an evangelical Anglican clergyman) to Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendork (a Moravian Bishop) to establish a Moravian settlement in 1744.
• John and Charles Wesley (who began the Methodist church in the UK) were initially associated with the Moravian Society in London.
• The school which was built as part of the community is now a well known public school.

My husband and I decided to do the walk this weekend, which we thoroughly enjoyed despite the occasional heavy rain showers and I think the landscape and views from the Moravian settlement have not changed at all in the nearly 300 years since the Moravians first settled there.

Information from:
Wikipedia - Tong Vilage
The AA - Tong & Fulneck's Moravian Settlement
Wikipedia - Moravian Church
Wikipedia - Fulneck Moravian Church

More Grave Hunting in Herne, Kent

Ok, so not much Family Tree research has been happening over the past few months, hence why the silence (other than the Book of Me) on this blog recently. I hope to get back to things again when life returns to some kind of normality...whatever that looks like!!!

St Martin's Church, Herne, Kent
(Image taken by Ruth Hogan, 24 Mar 2014)

A few weeks ago, my husband and I were doing a southern tour of some of his relatives as we do not get to see enough of them. As part of this tour we went to visit his Aunt and Uncle who live in Herne, Kent. It was great to see them but I was able to spend some time scouring the graveyard at St Martin's Herne Parish Church as this was the parish in which my ancestors lived in the early 1800s.

St Martin's Church - Font
(Image taken by Ruth Hogan, 24 Mar 2014)

The Redwood family, my great, great, great grandmother, Jane Redwood, was born in Herne, Kent in 1827. Many of the Redwood's were baptised at St Martin's Church. This is the font in which the baptisms would have taken place. My great, great, great grandmother was baptised here on 7th October 1827 at only about 3 weeks old. Jane's parents James Redwood and Sophia Homans were married at the same church on 13th October 1818.

William & Ann Redwood's Gravestone in
St Martin's Church Graveyard
(Image taken by Ruth Hogan, 24 Mar 2014)

There was one grave to the Redwood's in the graveyard which was in a pretty good condition compared to some of the others, but unfortunately since coming home and researching William & Ann Redwood it appears they were not from my Redwood lineage that I have discovered so far. I did not look for any of the other family surnames from Herne, such as Homan and Sutton, but perhaps we will go back there again one day.

It was a fun trip to see the church in which my ancestors were baptised, married and buried, as well as spend some quality time walking on the beach with my husband's aunt, uncle and their dog, Rosie.

Lincs To The Past

www.lincstothepast.com

Do you have any Lincolnshire ancestors? Well, if you do the LincsToThePast website is the place to go for parish and local records and what is great is that it's FREE to use.

I have used this website a lot as my Presswood family have lived within the same area of Lincolnshire for 200 years.

Unfortunately not all the parish records are available to view online and they are not transcribed but most of the parishes of Lincolnshire are small and rural so if you know which parish your ancestors resided in and the approximate year of their birth, death or marriage, then you can quite easily browse the images to find them.

When using the site to look for great, great, great, great grandfather, William Presswood's burial record in the parish of Stow-in-Lindsey I found out something really interesting...

...so I am going to run through how I found his record on the site.

Firstly, I had established an approximate date of death of c1841-3 for William from researching the family on the censuses and birth, marriage and death indexes. In 1841 the family was living in a hamlet called Bransby, Lincolnshire in the parish of Sturton by Stow or Stow in Lindsey.

On the website I searched "Stow in Lindsey burials"...

Lincs To The Past search (Link)

...which turns up the results below...

Search results (Link)

The results show all the records relating to the parish of Stow in Lindsey and burials, as you can see the records are split into books for certain years but not all record books are always available online, if there is an image next to the record description it means the images for that record set are available to be viewed online.

Click the book you want to look at and then browse...

Browsing the document (Link)

You can look through page by page, or jump a few pages on to find the date range you're looking for and use the toolbar to zoom the image.

1841 is found on page 29 where my ancestors burial is recorded...

My ancestors death record in the parish burial records for Stow in Lindsey Parish, Lincolnshire (Link)

Thanks to the curate who recorded his burial for he has added extra notes which inform me that William Prestwood (notice difference in name spelling) of Bransby "hanged himself, verdict of the Coroner's inquest, Being of unsound mind", which opens up more avenues of research...but more to come about William and his family in The Presswood Story.

At the bottom of the page you will notice that if you register with the website that you can tag or transcribe the documents, which means that you can find people easier next time by just searching a name to see which records are flagged up.

I find it is not always the best or easiest website to use for viewing images but I have spent many a happy hour browsing possible parish records for my ancestors and even transcribed a few. The website contains many different records related to Lincolnshire so depending on what you are looking for, you might find other records of interest to you and your research.

Copyright © 2013 Ruth Hogan

My ancestors were... Nonconformists

Low Mill Wesleyan Chapel, Knott Lane, Rawdon
My grandmother was born here, as her father was the caretaker

A nonconformist was a person or group of people who did "not conform to" the state religion which was the Anglican church (otherwise known as the Church of England) or Roman Catholicism.

My family history is full of nonconformist ancestors, mostly Methodists or Baptists, but I also have a few Salvationists (Salvation Army followers) as well.

There are many nonconformist groups or denominations, some of the common ones in the UK are:

• Baptists - believe in the "believer's baptism"(baptism after professing one's faith) rather than infant baptism. It is commonly performed with full immersion. The denomination was started in the early 1600s by John Smyth. (Wikipedia - Baptists)
• Methodists - came out of the Church of England in the mid 18th century, from a small group who methodically studied the Bible. The Wesley brothers, John and Charles were a part of this small group which travelled the country preaching the Gospel. (Wikipedia - Methodism)
• Congregationalists - believe in each congregation independently running their own affairs. The whole congregation would be involved in teaching, they believe there is no need for a priest to intercede between them and God. They believe to be the most like the early church and the movement began in the late 1500s. (Wikipedia - Congregational Church)
• Presbyterians - the roots lie in the European Reformation of the 16th century influenced by the theologian John Calvin. They were against the hierarchy system of the state church and are governed by individual courts of church elders. (Wikipedia - Presbyterianism)
• Quakers - separated from the Church of England in the mid-17th century and they believe that "Christ has come to teach his people himself". They are well known for silent worship, teetotalism, conscientious objectors and plain dress. (Wikipedia - Quaker)
• Unitarians - encourage their followers to find their own Spiritual path rather than follow a religion. They believe in one God and that Jesus was a prophet rather than God itself. (Wikipedia - Unitarianism)
• Salvation Army - sought to bring salvation to the poor, destitute & hungry. Founded by Catherine & William Booth (a Methodist minister) in 1865. (Wikipedia - Salvationist)

My great, great Uncle Ted in the Salvation Army Band c1901

How does knowing whether our ancestors were nonconformists help in the research we do?

Our nonconformist ancestors may not have been baptised, married or buried at their local parish church, but instead at their own place of worship. It is more common for parish records to be kept in full and still be available for us to view today. Nonconformist denominations often kept records also but perhaps not as fully as the Parish Church and if a church has shut down the records in the past may have become lost of even destroyed.

Baptism

The different denominations have different views about baptism, which can mean that your ancestor was not baptised always as an infant. Some believed in the "believer's baptism" which meant that your ancestor would not be baptised until they felt ready to profess their faith, often in their adult lives.

Marriage

Marriages before 1754 could take place in any place of worship but there were many "clandestine" (secret and illegal) marriages taking place.

In 1754, Lord Hardwick's Marriage Act was introduced to do away with "clandestine" marriages. For nearly 100 years all marriages had to take place in the Parish church by an Anglican vicar with the exception of Jews and Quakers.

In 1837 with the introduction of Civil Registration, it all changed again and Nonconformist places of worship could apply to become registered as a marriage venue, but the local Superintendent Registrar would have to be present to authorise the marriages until 1898. After this the church would have had an Appointed Person who would be responsible for maintaining an official marriage register.

Hedon Road Cemetery, Hull

If your nonconformist ancestor attended a non-registered place of worship they would have to have the legal marriage at a Registry Office followed by a religious ceremony at their place of worship.

Burials

Some nonconformist churches have their own burial grounds, but not all. By the Victorian era there were often local council cemeteries so some nonconformists may have been buried in them or even in the local Parish church burial grounds if there were no other options available.

Some useful websites to take a look at for nonconformists records are:

• Find a church on Rootsweb
• BMDRegisters
• GENUKI or GENUKI search
• London nonconformist registers are available on Ancestry

Other places to look for records:

• Ask minister in charge of church if church still open
• Local record offices
• The National Archives
• Some churches have their own record depositories

Some information for this blog post came from:
YOUR FAMILY TREE magazine 127
Wikipedia - Nonconformist Register
Wikipedia - Nonconformism

Copyright © 2013 Ruth Hogan