Genealogy Chat

Hi everyone

I am trying to find out a couple of things

1. Whether or not my gt gt grandfather was asking for charity, say from the church.

2, And if his father owned a farm.

I watched the WDYTYA (the J Paxman episode), he was in the exact area where my rellies come from and like his they moved away.at the same sort of time. So I am trying to find out if my rellies came to London for work and to escape poverty, (or was there a more sinister reason as family legend suggests!)
I just dont know where to start, what records should i be looking for and where, can anyone help, I dont suppose its worth getting in touch with Mr Paxman do you! tee hee

Anyway any ideas would be extremely welcome, its been one of those "been here all day and got nothing!" mind you i get a lot of them. thanks everyone for taking a peek

Bookmarking as this looks interesting...Hope Yvette gets back to her thread. Would love to help (If i can)

Gerri x

Tell us what solid facts you have so far - you need to work backwards from yourself. And tell us the family legend and that may be traceable or not!

Depending on when these people were alive the Churchwarden accounts/Poor Law details (sometimes referred to as Parish Chest)/Land tax accounts/tithe payments etc for their parish will hold the details you are searching for. If someone owned a farm then he will appear in all of those and if pre 1850s tithe maps should exist to show you where the property/land was. If poor the first two should have references to them .All of the above will also predate census returns. I found all my family- rich and poor(well mainly poor) via films available from my local LDS, and tithe maps held at Kew. The relevant county Family History centre will also hold them.

Jan

Firstly, apologies everyone for not getting back to you all sooner! Life gets in the way of this research i am afraid. Anyway thank you for all your helpful replies. I do know the names of my ancestors and have found them on the census.
The reason i was asking about the poor relief was because my gt gt grandfather came to London between 1864 and 1868. The family legend was that he ran away from Suffolk because he became involved in a brawl in a pub and the other man accidently died. I have always kept an open mind on this. But, after watching the WDYTYA with J Paxman it got me thinking because my rellies came from the same place and left at almost the same time.
Well, i am at last going to the RO in Suffolk next week and have been told to look at the Tithe and Aportionment books to see whether my 3 gt grandfather owned/rented farm so i know where to look for that. Jan, thanks for your tip about the Parish Chest, have made a note and will ask to see it when i get there.

As for the "accidental death" I have done some research with the British Library catalogue to see which newspapers were in circulation at that time and will have a read through them. Although i dont hold out much hope. Thanks again everyone for your tips. Yvette

ps, i dont think my ancestor would have owned a farm before the 1850's. Going by the census it has him as an ag lab in 1841 and 1871 as a farmer with 30 acres then in 1881 as a retired farmer.

I would just wonder - if he ran away having accidentally killed this chap - would he not have then given a false name and place of birth in the census records?

HI Heather, just taking a break from the gardening, its glorious here! Yes i agree with you about that, the story is that he changed his name from Storrer to Storer, not very imaginative! I have never been able to locate him (George Storer) on the 1871 census. Although by looking at the 1881 and seeing where the children were born, i can see that he left suffolk between 1864 and 1868. All the family for generations have known of this story, even those who have never met each other. Another spanner in the works would be that even if there was a report in a newspaper it would be hard to prove a link with my rellie as he apparently ran away and was never caught. So when i saw the WDYTYA it got me wondering if it was for work that he moved to London, there was a farming famine in Suffolk and the industrial revolution was happening, it may have just been a more interesting story to tell the kids. Like i say i keep an open mind. Going back to the census, he still gives his place of birth as Saxtead suffolk and i know this to be true, birth cert and other censuses. Thanks for your interest. Will check back later this evening...back to the garden...yvette