A Memorial for the Herts Regiment on the Western Front

The Belgian Government have granted permission for Herts at War to place the very first Memorial to the Hertfordshire Regiment on the Western Front. 

War Memorials

Military

The memorial will be placed just outside the village of Sint Juliaan, north of Ieper (Ypres) and will commemorate the Regiment's infamous attack on 31st July 1917 but will also stand as a tribute to all who served in the 'Herts Guards' throughout the four years and six days that they spent on the Western Front.

A Charity event is being held on 9th May to raise money to pay for the memorial. See http://www.hertsatwar.co.uk/memorial

Relating Census returns to Maps - Where was Uncle's Farm?

Help Desk

Little Hadham

Jean's great-grandfather Arthur Trigg, was living at Uncle's Farm, at Little Hadham, in 1891. I use this case to show how it can be possible to relate census data with old maps - particularly the large scale Ordnance Survey maps of Hertfordshire which were published around 1880 and which can be accessed on www.old-maps.co.uk.

Click here to see how to do it. 

Uncle's Farm is probably plot reference 397

Discover Sandridge April 25th to May 29th

Yesterday I went to St Albans to deliver a picture that will appear in this exhibition. 

Sandridge

If you have ancestors who lived the historic Sandridge (which includes parts of modern St Albans - such as Bernards Heath and Marshalswick - and parts of modern Wheathampstead north of the River Lea) why not try to get to St Albans!

It's a shame you don't have a donate button!

This morning I got a comment brimming over with praise for this newsletter ...

It's a shame you don't have a donate button! I'd most certainly donate to this superb blog! I guess for now i'll settle for bookmarking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account.I look forward to new updates and will talk about this website with my Facebook group.Talk soon!

But of course, if you look in the right hand column of this blog you will see you can make a donation to help the mentally ill in Hertfordshire, although unfortunately very few of you bother to do so, and it already seems that this year's total will be well down on last year.

So why hadn't the poster made a donation if he really was so desperate to do so. It is very easy to find out by googling for "It's a shame you don't have a donate button!" and you find that hundreds of bloggers have received an identical message, felt flattered, and allowed the message to pollute their blog. In each case that the comment has been accepted the sender has succeeded in planting a link into your blog!

It is quite clear that the sender is spouting a bucketful of honey-flavoured lies in order to lure you, and people who visit your blog, to his web site. Once you realise this you know that, however innocent it looks, the message cannot be considered to be safe.  I regularly get this kind of message, admittedly not normally so flattering, and if there are any links on them I block them as spam unless I can be sure that they are genuine. As far as I can judge most of them appear to have links with the criminal end of the spectrum

In case you wondered, this is the reason why any comment you make on this blog do not appear immediately. I moderate all messages as the last thing I want is for any comments on the newsletter to be hazardous! 

Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, left her mark at Water End House.

Sandridge

Sarah Jennings was born at Water End, Sandridge (now in Wheathampstead) and little could have her parents guessed that she would end up as the Lady of Blenheim Palace! My interest in the house arises because my Great Great Grandfather, Dolphin Smith, moved there in about 1843. 

However the reason for mentioning the house now is that Harvey's father worked as a gardener at the house in the mid 20th century. As a result we now know that at that time the house was occupied by Colonel Bertram James Walker and his second wife,  Lucie Marie Ludovika Anastasia Adelheid Karola Hedwig comtesse Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow of Denmark. Harvey also provides an interesting description of the interior of the house - including an inscription "SJ" which is said to have been put there by Sarah Jennings.

Did your ancestors spend time sitting in the stocks.

Subject Index

Many of the villages in Hertfordshire would have stocks (see Early Crime and Punishment). Bishop Stortford Museum has kindly provided the following picture of the stocks that formerly stood in Thorley churchyard.

Thorley Stocks

The stocks at Aldbury still survive in the open air - but time has taken it toll. Do you know of any other Hertfordshire stocks that can still be seen  - preferably in their original location?

Views of Wilstone and Wilstone Reservoir, near Tring

Tring

A week ago I attended a most interesting meeting at Wilstone Village Hall in aid of St Cross, Wistone.  John Painter has taken up the reins, dropped by the local historian, Dick Gomm, who died in 2009, aged 93. Not only has John digitised Dick extensive collection of pictures of Wilstone but added many others, and had also recorded every early map he could find. Unfortunately they are currently not available online but is is always nice to meet an enthusiastic local historian who is systematically recording the past.

As I had some photographs of the Wilstone reservoir that were not in his archive, I have now produced higher resolution images of my Wilstone post cards - passing him copies where appropriate.

Wilstone Reservoir from the South.

This picture shows the reservoir from by the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal and the rough ground in the foreground could be the line of Miswell Lane, an ancient trackway that led from Long Marston through the current village of Wilstone, passing through what is now part of Tring to end up on what was Tring Common, on top of the Chiltern Hills. If this analysis is correct this part of the track is now lost under the former Tring Town rubbish tip, which was in use in the first half of the 20th century.

I do make mistakes sometimes ...

Help Desk

Barley

I am human - so I am capable of making mistakes - and sometimes they appear on my web site. arlier today Noni pointed out an error on the page about William Wood Cook - who had the house "Dalny Veed" built at Barley when he retired from working in Russia. Basically I had got the information about his wife's parents wrong - and the offending sentence has now been rewritten:

Dalny Veed

In 1878 William married Emily Mary Mills, daughter of Thomas Benjamin Mills (a grocer who died in 1857) and Rebecca Mills nee Beetham, in the Darlington area and in 1881 ... ...

However the question involved a lot of out-of-Hertfordshire research and the answer ends wit a note indicating that my genealogical information needed checking - which I now know it did!

Read the story of Percy Buck's Post Card - and find out how you can help

Military

Hitchin

Herts at War are researching the backgrounds of the Hertfordshire soldiers who died in the First World War, and to do this they often need the help of living relatives - who hold vital information, often as photographs and letters. One of their success stories recently appeared in the Daily Mail under the title Photo clutched by WWI British soldier as he died on the Western Front was returned to his family ... by the German who killed him.

I will not duplicate the very interesting story here but will say something about Percy Buck's background and end with suggestions as to how you can help with the research currently being carried out in England.

If your ancestor couldn't write, records may be wrong

Help Desk

Braughing

When Margaret's ancestor Thomas Bradshaw (born c 1811) went to Australia in 1855 his parents were described as James and Sarah. Unfortunately online records failed to produce a suitable couple in the Braughing area of Hertfordshire. However Thomas Bradshaw couldn't read and write, so when he was asked for his parent's name he naturally gave the name of the woman he called mother - although she was actually his step mother! The matter in complicated because when one investigates the marriage between James Bradshaw and his first wife, Susanna, there is a ten year gap in child baptisms - including Thomas - probably because they were non-conformists and the relevant registers have not survived.

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