Genealogy Chat

Even using the basic facts can sometimes say so much.

Sometimes even basic records still tell us a lot about the lives of our ancestors and you can really get a feeling about the people and who they were. For example: I found one of my husband’s ancestors called Hinson Dennis in Norfolk whose dates are 1747-1818. There’s not a lot of information about him as he wasn’t rich or famous and he lived before censuses. However using the IGI and the FFHS site plus discussing this with another of his descendants who’d found the same information, we have managed to glean a story which looks very probable and I shall be double checking when I can. Hinson’s mother was Ann Dennis and it looks as if he was illegitimate. An Ann Dennis in the area died while Hinson was a baby and I am pretty sure that was his mother. In the same area there is a John Hinson who I think was Hinson’s father. John married a woman called Jane Lee in 1748. Now the telling bit is the naming of Hinson’s own first three children. He calls one son John Dennis, another Lee Dennis and a daughter Jane Dennis. So just these dates and names have given us a possible story of a man, John Hinson, who loses his first love Ann, but marries a kind woman who takes on him and his baby. Jane Lee must have been a good stepmother to the child Hinson Dennis because two of his own children are called after her. It’s getting to know the human stories behind the basic information that makes doing family history so worthwhile and fun. Sue

Susan I do so agree with you. My 6 x GGPs had ten children, and whilst I have found the bare bones in the records, obviously not a lot else survives from the early 1700s. But I have pieced together an intriguing story. Their eldest daughter Jane called the Banns in June 1743. Curiously, no marriage took place.Four months later,in October, her intended groom married someone else. I thought this was a bit odd. I was terribly shocked to find aburial record in September for Jane, found dead in a field of childbed, alongside her 'bastard stillborn infant'. Both died unshriven.(So no christian burial rites for them) I was very very upset by this and it occupied my thoughts for ages - she was only 19. Later on, I managed to get the Wills of her father and mother, who were farmers. From the mother's Will, another daughter had gone on to have an illegitimate child. But how differently this one was treated - Granny left him the farm! I like to think that they were so distressed at what had happened to their eldest daughter, that mum put her foot down and said they would support this daughter and her child, never mind what the neighbours and the Vicar thought. OC

Susan and OC, how right you both are, this is what I like about our hobby trying to find things out about our ancestors. This is why I cannot understand the 'name collectors' what is the point of a list of people you do not 'know'. Sue

I have put up my scaffolding and am now trying to build my story. I have read books on the times my rellies lived, the weather, wages, opportunities, etc. and they are comeing alive for me. No photo`s of these rellies as they were late 1700s onwards, but I am, I hope, making a word picture of them and their lives. Nothing grand about any of my lot, ag labs, manure workers, dock labourers, but they were real people and I hope I can bring them alive for my family to 'see'. Kathlyn

Even the humble ag labs have their occasional surprises! I was irritated that I couldn't find the death of one particular ag lab. In desperation I googled - and there he was! He had been left a fortune by an elderly Uncle and had inherited vast estates in the Turks and Caicos Islands, which is where he died. I now have a book's worth of information on this man! OC

what a sad story OC. yes, i think you can build up a picture from details, no matter how small, that you find in various records. i dont know if any of you feel like this, but as i follow an ancestors' life, i begin to connect emotionally with them and they come alive (if that makes sense!). Even their occupations and where they lived can tell you alot. Looking deeper into our rellies' lives is certainly a lot more interesting than gathering a load of names and dates.

Finding that a rellie was illigitimate makes you wonder at the circumstances. The father is not names on the birth cert. The mother worked in a 'big' house........this is where the imagination starts to work.....Who did the dirty deed was it the master, was it his son, was it the footman, or was it the milkman?????? Finding that a 3xgrt grandmother and 4 of her children died in a 2 year time period...why??? Scarlet fever....Whooping cough.....Dyptheria?????? Hunger....... I think we could all join the CID after the apprentiship we have served on this hobby. Kathlyn

Soft as... One mystery which is driving me insane is my 7 x GGPs. They had NINETEEN children, of whom only two survived to adulthood. Their parents outlived them all and I often wonder just what the children died of - only one has a cause of death entered in the burial register.(Smallpox). The rest of the huge, extended family all lived in the same village and died mostly of old age, with very few infant deaths. OC

Don't dismiss the poor old ag labs too quickly. I don't have any in my tree (so far) but there are a few in my partner's tree. When tracing these back - son to father for a few generations - I found a couple of farmers - owning 200 and 300 acres of land. My chap is descended from a younger son of a younger son who obviously never got the money but the gr gr gr gr grandfathers were probably reasonably well off. Keep digging. Jill

Well, it doesnt take long for the money to disappear does it - when you think most of them had say 10 kids, the next generation would be 100 and so on. I found my dads family of ag labs down in Sussex had quite illustrious ancestry who owned huge amounts of land round Brighton. I guess it rather reminds one of Tess of the D'urbervilles, doesnt it. These guys must have had vague memories of being landed gentry once - but then so must have nearly all the village!

That is too true. Any wealth in a family rapidly disappeared if there were a large number of children and perhaps several marriages. It is my most unlikely family branch, which was one of the poorest on my tree, which threw up the most surprising ancestry. It went from the Earls of Lincoln in Tudor times to ag labs working on a potato farm. Just 9 generations separated wealth, privilege and royal descent, from a family living in a tiny cottage on the Fens. But sadly my lot were all younger sons of younger sons and often by second wives. No money left and no memory of the ancestry by the time we reached modern times......yet the family hadn't moved far and the descent was there to be found in records! So you never know what might turn up. However, as has been said earlier, any family can reveal a fascinating story. I was reading a little booklet written by a local WI for the Millennium and I found an account of an ancestral uncle in Somerset who was so angry when the local vicar tried to add High Church rites to services that he threw eggs at the unfortunate priest. The vicar then wrote to the Bishop complaining that all the villagers were rough barbarians! That has now coloured my whole attitude to that family group! Best wishes Sue