Old Family Photos can tell a story

About a month ago Barbara contacted me about a collection of old family pictures, many taken by J. T. Newman of Berkhamsted. She then sent me digitally copies of some of the photographs - including the backs where relevant. 

I have now sorted them out - and they provide some useful information relating to the the Piggott photographers, and also the formats of pictures taken by James Newman. The family pictures, with date information is on the Newman CDV & Newman Family pages.

This photograph of the Biggs family was dated to approximately 1905 when it was realized that the "Pollie" referred to on the backs of some of the photographs was Mary Biggs - "Polly" being a common nickname for "Mary". I then found the marriage to Alfred Bernhard Cooper - and the children (apart from the infant) were found in the 1901 Scotland census. A check with the Scotland births for the infant should tighten up the date more accurately. This not only fills in details of the family but also helps to date the type of mount J T Newman - which could make dating other photographs easier.

Parish Maps, etc., in 1851 - an essential resource

Try the 

online parish maps 

on familysearch. 

They are hidden under the title England Jurisdictions 1851 and provide a google-based map of the country showing the parish and county boundaries. In addition you can click on a parish and get useful information. For instance for Hatfield it tells you:

Bishop's Hatfield is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Hertfordshire. Totteridge is a chapelry of Bishop's Hatfield
Other places in the parish include: Woodside, Newgate Street and Roe Green
Parish records begin 1653, Bishop's transcripts 1603
Non-Church of England denominations identified in Bishop's Hatfield include Baptist, Independent / Congregational, Primitive Methodist and Wesleyan Methodist

Parish		Bishop's Hatfield		For each of the jurisictions it is possible to get an appropriate map
County		Hertfordshire
Civil Registration District		Hatfield
Probate Court		Court of the Archdeaconry of Huntingdon (Hitchin Division)
Diocese		Post 1844 - Rochester, Pre 1845 -Lincoln
Rural Deanery		Hertford
Poor Law Union		Hatfield
:Hundred		Broadwater
Province		Canterbury

In addition you can get details of contiguous parishes - or those within a given distance.

U3A - An essential Resource for the retired family historian

The University of the Third Age has been in existence for some 30 years, and if you are retired don't know it, or of other "Learning in Retirement" organisations worldwide, you really should find out more about it. I have provided a list of the U3A groups in Hertfordshire which run family history (and sometimes local history) study groups. I expect most study groups are like the genealogy group we have in Tring, which meets monthly, and has occasional invited speakers and excursions - for instance to the National Archives, the local Records Offices (including the London Metropolitan Archives). Other meetings provide the opportunity for everyone to exchange notes on their own researches (which could involve families from anywhere, and not just local families) and there is a healthy mixture of experienced researchers and beginners. Most are researching their ancestors online and at every meeting someone reports on a new and useful web site that they have discovered. In addition there is nearly always someone who can give good advice to beginners. If you are old enough to join you really ought to be a member of your local group, wherever in the world you live. If you live in a Commonwealth country you are bound to meet up with people who have experience of researching ancestors from England.

Some U3A groups also have local history study groups - and reminiscence groups recording living people's memories of the past - which could be of interest. Some heritage study groups probably also include local history. ... And if there isn't a local group that covers your interests at present you might well be able to start one!

I have added a U3A link on the Key Web Sites page.

Panshanger, Hertingfordbury, near Hertford

Panshanger House, Hertford - posted 1905

I have posted the above post card on the Panshanger page, together with another showing the River Mimram at Panshanger - with higher resolution images available. If you would like to know more about Panshanger, tell me and I will add information about the house and some of the people who lived there

Keeping up to date on the picture front

I have just had a reminder that none of us are getting younger -  my free bus pass is due for renewal - and I needed a new passport style photograph. I could do it online - as long as I could provide a suitable digital photograph. 

So this is the result of a do-it-yourself exercise. The plain background was simple - the walls of our wet room are white tiles from floor to ceiling - and the camera was happy focusing if I help it at arm's length pointing it back at my face. After several shots where I lost the top of my head I suddenly realized the trick. If I stood one particular spot I could see the back of the camera in the mirror on the opposite wall - so could check that my head was in an appropriate position before I pressed the shutter! A dozen quick shots and then choose the best ...O.K. I will never be body beautiful but this is a better likeness than the old one.

The Kings Head, Ware - and much, much more

This Document is "rather boring"

Oh No - it isn't

Legal documents can be difficult to read, and it is very easy to dismiss them, when they can contain a wealth of information. I saw an advertisement on ebay for "Copy draft conveyance of the Kings Head pub - Ware, Hertfordshire: Larger than A4 and on 8 sides.  Messrs Joseph Pollard and William Ransom to James Bullen and Samuel Porter the younger - 1879.  It was situate in Mill Lane.  The document is full of the usual legal terminology and rather boring." and I purchased it for £0.99 just to see what it said.

But it turned out that it was not just any old conveyance. The King's Head, Ware, had been owned by the Lucas family of brewers who had been brewing beer in Hitchin since 1709. As a result I have produced an annotated copy of the text, identifying the many people mentioned as a far as possible. Following up leads I track down a court case in Chancery over a will, and a long list of other public houses, mainly in Hertfordshire, which were owned by the Lucas family,

Read what I have written and you will never again assume that a legal document must be boring!

Another example of H V Leménager (of Watford) CDV

PermalinkStill hoping for a breakthrough on the dating for this Victorian photographer The latest carte de visite is almost identical to an earlier one, but the card is a different shade - and the back is printed in black. If you have any examples of his work which can be dated reasonably accurately please let me know.

Flog it at Ashridge House, near Berkhamsted

The BBC TV program "Flog It"- which values your antiques and then sells some of them off at auction - is coming to Ashridge on 31st August.

The Rhododendron Walk
circa 1930

In addition it has been announced that the plans to restore the gardens at Ashridge House are to include replanting the rhododendrons which line the Wellintonia Avenue, as original mass of different coloured varieties has been lost because of the vigorous growth from the rootstock. I have therefore added "new" old post card images of the gardens to the web site - all of which can be enlarged by clicking the displayed picture. (Even larger images are available on request). At the same time I have added a menu to the Ashridge Pages.

Do you have any quoysshions in your house? Perhaps your ancestor had some.

If you are lucky at least some your ancestors will have left a will - and an inventory of the furnishings of their house has been preserved. To illustrate the sort of information you may find, and the language it is written in, I have posted a detailed article, first published in the Home Counties Magazine of 1904. This describes the goods listed for Tannis, a fourteen bedroomed house in Aspenden, in 1569. Often the lists remind you that, for instance, some of the following would seem odd in a modern kitchen:

iii great beefe potts & ii lyttle brasse potts, iii greate pannes & iiii lyttle pannes, iii posnets, one great chaffer, a morter of brasse wth. a pestle of yron, one latten ladle, one scomer, a grate, ii grudyrons, ii dryppyng pannes. One olde chafyng dyshe, ii plate candlesticks, one stone morter, one payre of greate racks, viii spyttes, iii paier of pothooks and iii payer of pothangers. 

But of course the beef joint would be impaled on a spytte over the great open fire - with drypping pannes to catch the melted fat, while vegetables would be slowly cooking in the brasse potts hanging on pothooks from the pothangers, or boiling away in a greate pott on the grudyrons directly over the flames.

Of course most inventories, for instance for a small farmhouse, will have far fewer goods, perhaps not even the luxury of a quoysshion, but reading the article provides a fascinating peephole into the past, and what the insides of our ancestors houses must have been like.

Drowning Accident - William Williams of Cheshunt - obit 1782

A typical 18th centure
gravestone

In silence here beneath a youth is laid

By whom the sports of nature were survey'd

With ravished breast o'er meads he did pursue

The started hare which o'er the landskip flew

By which pursuit his heart oprest with heat

Plung'd in the stream which nature thought so sweet

But now the stream a change to nature gave

And plung'd this youth deep in the silent grave.

An epitaph from Cheshunt recorded in Cream of Curiosity