1847 3rd Jan: George BUDD aged 26, bachelor and Labourer of Merrow. Son of William BUDD to Hannah STEDMAN aged 21, spinster of Merrow. Both Signed.
1849 9th July: John NORMAN aged 23, bachelor and Labourer of Merrow. Son of John NORMAN, bricklayer to Sarah ELSTONE, aged 21, spinster of Merrow. Daughter of John ELSTONE Pensioner. Both Signed. Witnessed by James SMITH and Mary SMITH
1857 21st April: Richard DEWITT of Full Age. Bachelor. Occupation Nobleman’s steward, of Merrow. Son of Francis DEWITT, Farmer to Sarah ELSTON aged 20. Spinster. Of Clandon. Daughter of Farmer ELSTONE. Both Signed. Witnessed by Samuel ELSTON and Hannah ELSTON
1887 20th Feb: Henry MATTHEWS, aged 30, bachelor and Labourer of Merrow. Son of John MATTHEWS, Labourer (deceased) to Amelia SEAL, aged 30, Widow. Daughter of George PITT, Gardener. Both signed. Witnessed by George SHEPHERD & Martha SEAL.
Several of my blogging buddies are taking part in the meme called Six Degrees of Seperation hosted by Annabel Smith and Emma. The way the meme works, which is based on the six degrees of separation theme is to start with the nominated book for the month, in this case The The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and then link to five other books. You link how ever you see fit and I have put the rules to the meme at the bottom of this post. The Bell Jar is familiar to me, yet I do not think I have ever read it, but it is now added to my library list. As I did so I noticed that I had another of Sylvia Plath book’s on the list. Letters Home: Correspondence 1950- 1963. That in turn reminded me of a fiction and debut novel, Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase by Louise Walters. The story line is based on two entwining lives. A young girl who works in a book store who loves to read the notes and things found in books. The second character is her grandmother who changed the course of family history and experienced love. The timeframe works, firstly modern day and secondly set during the second world war. My review is still awaiting to be written, but I read this book in about two days.
A few days ago I came across a blog post with the recipe for Rock cakes. I have not had rock cakes for years, and in fact it has been years since I really did any cake baking. So, whilst Stuart has gone off fishing I had a sort through the cupboards to see if I had all the ingredients. I did, so cooking commenced.
My Grandmother was a pretty good cook. She cooked for memory mainly but she did own a few cookery books and I now own the ones that she did. A favourite was rock cakes. Mum, whilst I was at school was in fact a dreadful cook. I have memories of taking sponges to school that had a dip in the middle. I don’t know what happened, different recipe, different oven, but at some point the sponges stopped having dips. I can’t recall who made the rock cakes of my childhood, but as I got this batch under-way I was deep in thought of yesteryear.
Perhaps it was not enough concentration, because my batch are not an absolute success, but they are edible. I know as I have just had one! I think next time I will make a small amendment, a splash more milk, but only a splash!
Weekend Cooking is a weekly meme hosted by Beth at BethFishReads
The first general meeting of Next Gen took part in Tuesday evening, well it was the early hours of Wednesday morning here in the UK.
I had planned to try and watch live via the Google+ Community whilst sitting in my pyjamas. Are you not relieved that I not join live?
So on Wednesday morning I sat and over a cup of tea I watched the recorded and archived version of the meeting. It is wonderful that like +Society for One-Place Studies that +The NextGen Genealogy Network is embracing social media and taking genealogy to the next level in terms of engagement.
After the introductions, +Jen Baldwin, co-chair of Next Gen raised a series of questions and then encouraged conversation with the panel and those watching live. Here are the questions then I am going to chip in with a few answers
What can we, as a virtual organisation do to make an impact right now in the genealogical community?
What can we physically do to support the mission of the Society? …….“empower genealogists world wide”
How can we assist more traditional societies?
Where should we be focusing our energy right now?
How do we connect at national events?
What special interest groups are required within NextGen?
How do you genealogically “geek out”?
Some really great and thought provoking questions. I will share some thoughts with you.
Next Gen exists as a virtual group. The society embraces social media and by doing so is setting the scene for the next generation of genealogists to join those already involved. The biggest issue is, we as an arena of genealogists need to over the ageist aspect of genealogy. Whether you are 10, 40, 60 or 102 you can all be genealogists. Young does not equal new. We need to stop labelling as young and new. We need to be inclusive of race, gender, age, geography. We need to open our arms wide and welcome anyone who is interested in genealogy or history in this way. We need to stop the elitist view.
Next Gen goes some way to stop that and does bring people, location and genealogy together. There is quite a journey ahead as Next Gen bridges the gap from the traditional ages of genealogists to the actual varying ages of genealogists. Next Gen provides an arena for enabling that conversation to take place between say parents, grandparents and extended family with the youngsters of the family. We need to build on the interests of those youngsters, by getting them engaged with what is around them.
The children of today, are it seems, (as I don’t have any children), children for less time now. Or is that a sign that I am getting old? The kids have mobile phones and often not parted from them. Then there are Playstations, x-boxes and hosts of other games. All pretty much technologically driven. What happened to Monopoly or is that old fashioned?
Engagement needs to happen in the arena where the kids are. Get genealogist Grandma on Facebook and share those photographs. Perhaps pointing out the resembles to current, live family members, especially the youths.
Next Gen, by simply being “out there” is providing an arena to encourage dialogue Firstly with the youth that are interested in genealogy and secondly, for the want of a better term, the genealogical adults to try and engage the family next generation.
Think about it. Great grandma would have potentially milked a cow or walked five miles to the farm to purchase milk in a jug. Junior these days opens the fridge and it is in a plastic container. The concept and dimensions of something familiar to everyone is completely different.
In the hangout the example was given of engaging youths in the Pension Rolls for 1812. Sounds a great idea. About three years ago I visited The Underground Hospital on the island of Jersey in the Channel Islands.As you enter the museum visitors are presented with a card bearing someone’s name. There was limited information, but the genealogist in me asked why? Having been round the museum, the cafe had a series of pictures of people on the wall.You took the card you received when you arrived and searched the wall to establish the fate of the named individual. It interested me and pretty much every adult and child there.
The fate of some people was unknown, some had survived the Second World War (the Channels Islands was under German control from 1940) and others sadly perished. Sobering for the children, but that is a conversation for a parent to explain. I have written about the Underground hospital before, but you can see the post HERE. What is interesting is that about a year ago I had an email from someone whose parent knew one of the people named on one of our cards. That was fabulous as it meant that, the individual had survived the war and I passed the details onto the museum in Jersey. Sometimes joining the dots is great!
By being an on-line organisation the possibilities are endless for engagement and testing the water with technology. Encouraging those more seasoned genealogists to toe dip into the fantastic on-line genealogical world. The bottom line is that we can learn something new every day. The internet has revolutionised the way we do everything, including genealogy. Lets use it to an advantage to engage another generation of our families.
Society Website where you can find out more details about the Society and join
Disclaimer – I write a regular column called Right Here, Right Now for NextGen Dispatch, the quarterly newsletter for the Society and I am also Chair for Social Media. I have also write occasionally for the Society blog and have been featured as Member Spotlight. The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the Society.
A few days ago, FindmyPast announced that they had released as part of their 100 record sets in 100 days the Royal Artillery Attestation Papers (1883 – 1942).
I already have my Grandfather’s military record which I ordered from Veteran Affairs back in 2008. The day it arrived I was away and Mum was as excited as I was to see what the record said.
This morning I went to the search facility and inserted my Grandfather’s name along with his year of birth (1908) and his service number which I knew from his military pay book. I hit search. Then, up popped a reference.
Courtesy of FindMyPast
I was surprised as usually anything in more recent times is withheld, but sure enough it was a document relating to my Grandfather. And something not seen before.
Courtesy of FindMyPast
I so wish Mum had been here to see this little discovery about her Dad. Today I miss her even more.
Today is week 36 of what is going to be a 15 month project. Each Saturday, at around 12.30 am UK time I will release the prompt for that week’s Book of Me, Written by You. If you are new here, welcome! The details, background flyer and Face Book link to the Book of Me can be found HERE.
This week’s prompt is – Your Year
This week the prompt is in two parts:
Think back over your life. Which year was “your year” in terms of happy, special and treasured events?
Think back over your life. Which year was absolutely not “your year”
Thing in terms of health, wealth, happiness or a degree of sadness, back luck and years when you simply wish you could go back and relive or redo something.
Julie Goucher ~ Anglers Rest 