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

How can maps help you with your family history research?

I love maps and can spend hours just looking at a good map, but how have I used maps to aid researching my family tree...?

1610 Map of Lancashire (Image link: www.wikipedia.org, Author: Hondius; John Speed, 1610)

• With Google Maps I look up the addresses my ancestors are recorded residing at (addresses are on census returns and birth, marriage & death certificates). Your address search may not find anything if the street no longer exists, but if you are lucky you can find the street and then using the Streetview orange man you can virtually walk down the streets your ancestors may have walked down, you might even be able to find the house in which your ancestor lived. NB House numbers may have changed along the street at some point in history so may not line up with the direct address on the census returns.

Antique Map of London 1572-1624 (Image link: www.wikipedia.org, Author: Sanderusmaps.com, 1572-1624)

• Alan Godfrey Maps & Cassini Maps have reprinted old Ordnance Survey maps of many towns and cities throughout the UK which are sold on their own websites and also in local bookshops, Information Centres and on Amazon (Godfrey maps & Cassini Maps). I love these little maps as I can lay them out on a table and highlight where my ancestors lived, worked, went to church or were educated. These maps will tell you a lot about the community your family lived in, from knowing where their local church, schools, industries were to the types of housing, terraced, detached, farms, town houses, back to back housing, tenements or stately mansions your ancestors may have resided in. By looking at old maps from different years of print you can establish how towns and cities became built up over periods of time.

• You can also find old maps of some places on the internet:
• Vision of Britain
• Old Maps
• Rootsweb
• Old Maps Online
• British History - Maps
• Local society websites such as: 
• Bradford Historical Society for old maps of Bradford, West Yorkshire.
• Lancashire Council - Old Maps for old maps of places in Lancashire

Copyright © 2013 Ruth Hogan

WDYTYA Review - Series 10 - Sarah Millican

Old Fashioned Diver's Helmet
(Image link: www.wikipedia.org,
Author: Szilas, 23 Sept 2013)

Another fantastic episode of WDYTYA.


Two amazing stories of Sarah Milican's inspirational ancestors.

Firstly, James Hoult, her great x3 grandfather who was one of the first divers in the world!!! I never realised that Whitstable was famous for diving, I have many a mariner ancestors from the north Kent coastal towns, such as Whitstable and Herne Bay. I thought Sarah looked great in the early diving kit.

Absolutely fascinating records about John Malcolm's time working for the Hudson's Bay Company...with great prospects of adventure and prosperity for young men, but so so scary to get lost in desolate north Canada in the middle of winter. Even more horrendous to go on and lose both your feet to frost bite with no anaesthetic...OUCH!

It was beautiful to hear that he lived a long life and was able to marry, have children and settle down to a life, despite being an amputee in the early 19th century.

Until next week's episode....(although I will be on holiday so it might be longer before you see my review!)

The Book Of Me, Written By You - Week 2 - Your Birth

The Book Of Me, Written By You is a 15 month project set up by Julie Goucher at Anglers Rest.

Each week there are prompts which require answering.

Week 2 - Your Birth

Me in the hospital

I was amazed at how challenging writing about my birth was, because I was there but don't remember any of it (which is probably a good thing!).

I had to search out my baby album for more information and also found a calendar of my first year in which my mum had recorded all my firsts in it.

I was born in Edith Watson Maternity Unit at Burnley General Hospital, Lancashire and as far as I am aware both my mum (obviously) and my dad were present. I was their first baby, my younger brother followed a few years later.

I was born at around 6pm on a Saturday in December, which was not the most convenient time as it meant my dad missed the football results and my mum missed her evening meal, but of course they were delighted I had arrived on schedule. I weighed 7lbs 7oz and was 57cm long. I had a lot of fair hair, which is still the case now and beautiful blue eyes. Apparently I looked most like my mum but my personality was more like my dad's, for I was inquisitive and could not keep still for a minute.

Learning to play the piano at a young age

I was a very smiley baby and was inspired by music from a young age, as I loved my parents singing to me, as well as tinkering on their piano (see photo). I loved being around people and did not like being left alone. My mum and dad were quite glad when at 5 weeks old I first slept through the night.

I met my extended family in stages through the first few months of my life, the first being my paternal grandparents and youngest uncle at a week old and then my maternal grandparents came to stay for a few days when I was 10 days old, which also coincided with my first outing to the park.

My parents were attending at Baptist church at the time of my birth and my first visit to church was on Christmas day. I was dedicated into the church family at 3 months old. When I was 5 months old my maternal uncle married his first wife and my mother was a bridesmaid, which I remember being told was not easy when still breast feeding me.

Copyright © 2013 Ruth Hogan

The Book Of Me, Written By You - Week 1 - Who am I?

The Book Of Me, Written By You is a 15 month project set up by Julie Goucher at Anglers Rest.

Each week there are prompts which require answering. 

Many people are blogging their responses but I was unsure at first whether to share or not, but as the weeks progress I am going to share as much as I feel I can. 

So, here goes...

Week 1 - Who am I? 

(I have not shared all of my responses)

Optometrist

• an Optometrist
• vision of beauty (the meaning of my name!)
• musician
• clarinettist
• genealogist or family historian
• cook
• wife
• lover of God
• clean & tidy
• a daughter
• a sister
• an aunt
• pianist
• home owner
• healer
• organiser
• dreamer
• worshipper
• tea lover
• writer of my own personal family history (see The Davidson Family)
• niece
• a Hogan
• a Davidson
• traveller
  
• Godmother

Copyright © 2013 Ruth Hogan

My ancestor was . . . a cooper

Cooper
(Image link: www.wikipedia.org, 
28 Dec 2008)

A cooper is a maker of a wooden barrels or vessels for carrying liquid or casks for storing dry foods. Cooper is a common surname because it was previously a common trade. It is a skilled occupation that has been around since the Roman times. Unfortunately in the UK it is now a dying trade. There is only one master cooper left in the UK as metal casks and plastic container are now more commonly used.


I have at least two ancestors who were coopers and they were both in the Hair family. My great, great grandmother's sister, Hannah Hair (1861) married a cooper by the name of Herbert Williams (1862), who worked in the Paint Works, he probably made vessels to store the manufactured paint in (according to the 1911 census).

The other ancestor who was a cooper was Hannah Hair's paternal aunt Mary Hair, which I was quite surprised about as I would have expected coopers to be male. I would like to find out more about what exactly she would have done or who she worked for.


You can read more about them and their families in Chapters 9 and 10 of The Davidson Family.


Some information from:
Wikipedia - Cooper (Profession)
Telegraph - the last master cooper

Copyright © 2013 Ruth Hogan

WDYTYA Review - Series 10 - Nitin Ganatra

Kenya flag
(Image link: www.wikipedia.org,
Author: User:Pumbaa80, 10 Jan 2007)

Have just watched this episode of WDYTYA on iPlayer this evening as I was out at an Elton John concert in Leeds last night when it was live on TV...but more about Elton John on my other blog These are a few of my favourite things when I get some time to write about it!

A great episode of WDYTYA, very different but really interesting. Allowing Nitin to speak with his ancestors to gleam information as well as going out and researching. It also shows how difficult it can be to research your overseas ancestors, and shows how lucky we are in the UK to have a whole host of records to research at our fingertips.

India flag
(Image link: www.wikipedia.org, Author: User:SKopp)

A fascinating story of survival and sacrifices made in the face of true poverty and dire need. Fancy moving your family all the way to India to work on the British Empire railways. Also, such a sad story of his mother's siblings and her family, I cannot imagine the sadness of losing that many children, nor marrying at the young age of 6 years old.

Lovely to see a different culture researched in light of the British empire and what was happening in the rest of the world whilst Britain was a great nation.



Another fab episode...can't wait until next week now.

The episode reminded me of my time spent in Malawi in 2007, there were many Indians living there and they were often the business minded people there also.