So Far, So Good

This year (2025) I finally reach State Retirement Age. I become a pensioner! This is something I have looked forward to for ages. No longer will I have government departments telling me I should get a job, and threatening me with financial sanctions if I don't. Not that I'll be resting, on laurels or otherwise. I'll just have more time to devote to the things I want to do. Like family history, and writing children's books. Every day I pray to live long enough to become a pensioner. So far, so good.

© 2025 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

So How's That Working For You?

Retirement, that is.  It's been over 18 months since I had to stop work for medical reasons.  At the time, I was heavily involved in the England Project's Orphan Trail on WikiTree, and as I ended each day feeling pleasantly exhausted (is there such a thing?) I wondered (as so many retired people do) how I ever managed to work a full-time job AND get all this done.

The answer, of course, is that I didn't manage.  Every day made me more and more tired, and the life-work balance turned into work-work-work-remember-to-breathe - and then WikiTree in your spare time (that's a laugh).  In fact, for the first few months of 'retirement' I didn't do much dreaming or goal-setting.  I just concentrated on breathing and getting the days mixed up because every day was the same as the last one.

I have moved on from the Orphan Trail to the One Name Studies Project on WikiTree.  At least this doesn't take up quite so much of my internal battery.  I can breathe between spreadsheets.  So now, when I have been asked to 'spread the word' about WikiTree, I find that I can approach it with (most) brain cells firing.

WikiTree is a beautiful thing.  It saved me from a post-retirement Vegetative State.  Go on, try it.

Join me @ WikiTree

© 2019 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

2018: A Fresh Start

2018.  Nearly eight years since I started this blog - and eighteen months since I wrote in it.  It was originally meant as an extension to my desktop family history program - detailing the *history* part:  Anecdotes, snippets of information, quotes, pictures - and even some chapters of book(s) I am writing on the surnames that appear in my family tree.

No, I'm not closing down the blog.  This isn't one of those "goodbye, it's been fun" posts. (And, hopefully, there's nobody out there who wishes it was.)  This is more of an "I wonder what's out there?" post.  Because I am starting a new stage in my life.  I have stopped working (for health reasons; I'm not pensionable age yet!) which means I can devote more time to my ancestors, more time to my writing, more time to my One Place and One Name Studies, more time to developing my websites, just more...time.

I won't deny it...it's scary and depressing all at once.  I didn't realise just how much my focus was on work - not just 'going to work', but scheduling all the other days into preparing to go to work. Which days needed to be set aside for clothes washing, for grocery shopping; which groceries to get in order to be able to make packed lunches - and so on.  I don't know if I could have faced this enforced retirement without my ancestors.  How do people cope without them? (Packed lunches are no substitute.  Trust me on this one.)

But it's also exciting and full of wonder.  Now that I have the time, what will I discover about my family, my friends, myself? What genealogical steps forward (or backward) will I take? Will I take courses? attend webinars? I already love working on WikiTree.  I could never have made the transition to retirement without it.  If you don't know what it is, click the link and explore.

© 2018 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

S is for Surname Studies, Statistics, and South Pool

I have to keep to a routine.  I have four surname studies, one One-Place study, ten websites/blogs, my own genealogy, a Facebook group - and a day job.  So I reserve specific days for specific tasks: like today (Saturday) is usually South Pool Saturday.

South Pool, in Devon, England, is my One-Place Study.  I am collecting everything I can find about the place (can anyone say ebay?) and building small trees of the people who lived and worked there.  I have also started a South Pool One Place Study within the branches of WikiTree.  I am transcribing its parish registers and slowly putting the results up on WikiTree, as well - and I am pleased to say that today (25th June 16) I have put all its baptisms from 1664 to 1699 on there, linking the individual's profiles.  There are now 569 profiles linked into the Study.  The Murch Name Study has 316 profiles (with plenty more offline), and the Blagdon Name Study 287.

Did you know that 49.2% of all statistics are made up on the spot?

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

Trivia Tuesday: The Apothecary

Following on from the popularity of my 'genealogical trivia' theme for the A-Z Challenge, I am going to continue on.  Not at the frantic pace of the Challenge (a post a day, following the alphabet), but a post per week.  I started by looking up the word 'trivia' - Wikipedia insists it means "obscure and arcane bits of dry knowledge", but I hope that the trivia I choose will not be 'dry'.

www.morguefile.com

Do you have an apothecary in your family tree?  These were the forerunners of today's doctors, and used medicines, perfumes, spices, herbs, comfits, antidotes, aphrodisiacs, antiseptics, tonics, purgatives, laxatives, emetics, astringents, and general cure-alls [The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History, David Hey].  So you can see that you went to the apothecary for more than just the common cold! They even dispensed something called "Dragon's Blood"...


And, in case you thought anybody could 'set up shop' as an apothecary: the apprenticeship for this profession took five years and you had to be licensed.

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

A-Z Challenge 2016: Reflections

These stats just keep getting better and better! After I wrote my 'Reflections' post for The Writing Desk (which included the stats for the A-Z Challenge in April), I took a look at GenWestUK's stats for the A-Z Challenge.  Similar to the other blog - Over 2 thousand views.  4.4 thousand views to my Twitter feed (shared with The Writing Desk and the Murch Blog, of course).  My Google+ account has shot up to over 92 thousand views.  But with one special extra: GenWestUK crept up to top 49,000 views - and I am grateful to the A-Z Challenge for a huge chunk of them.

Each year, although the concept of the Challenge is attractive, the benefits far outweigh the sweat.  By which I mean: I know there are times when you curse yourself for being an over-ambitious/insane/foolish {delete irrelevant adjective - aw heck, leave 'em all in, why not} kind of fool for doing what you're doing, and some people are actually quite hysterical by the time April finishes.  But the sense of achievement if you made it! If you didn't manage to post every day - your dentist will be truly amazed as you grit those teeth and determine to do it next year.  And the backlash of energy you receive in May!

You can do anything!

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

A-Z Challenge 2016: I'm a Survivor - Are You?

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

A-Z Challenge 2016: Z is for Zigzag

Most people think that genealogy goes backwards in a straight line.  And so it does...for the most part.  Pedigree charts march in a straight line (whether left-to-right or up-to-down).  Lineage-based genealogy software shows children, parents, grandparents.  In fact, your research only pauses long enough for you to add in those fifteen children that great great grandma had.

And then you reach a brick wall - a 'dead end', a cul-de-sac.  But this is where zigzagging comes in.  Don't just go in a straight line and stop.  Look at the children.  Their spouses.  Their children and their spouses.  Look at their FANs (friends and neighbours), the place where they lived.  Did they own land?  Were they likely to be witnesses to somebody else's Will?  Were they a 'black sheep' and were reported in the newspaper for a crime?  Did they emigrate? (and that's why you can't find them?)  Zigzagging can often be more fun than researching in a straight line.

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

A-Z Challenge 2016: Y is for Yonder Street

This has to be my favourite address in my family history.  Yonder Street, Ottery St Mary, Devon, England was where my MURCH ancestors lived through several centuries.  Yonder Street still exists today, with the (fairly small by today's standards) terraced houses at the lower end of the housing market.




I just love the idea of somebody asking where my ancestor lived, and he said, "I live over yonder street"...

 

Google Map of Ottery St Mary

 

 
© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

A-Z Challenge 2016: X is for Making Your Mark

This isn't a post with a strange word you never heard of that starts with 'X'.  Nor is it a post about a word which just happens to have an 'x' in it somewhere.

'X' was often quite a big part of some people's lives.  Nowadays, illiteracy is fodder for newspapers who want a screaming headline or two - but a couple of hundred years ago, there was not nearly as much stigma about not being able to read and write.  If you could, then you were regarded with some awe.  I'm sure you have come across signatures on marriage certificates (for instance), where you almost wish they had signed with an 'X' instead.

But the signatures of the bride and groom were not originally required.  Everybody in the parish expected the parish clerk to be able to read and write, and therefore he would enter the names and dates.  And, of course, he would spell things the way he thought they should be spelt.  Like Winyfort for Winifred.  I wonder if she would have made an 'X' at the time of her marriage (1676) if it had been required?

And sometimes, icons were used instead of the 'X'.  This is known as an autograph...

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

A-Z Challenge 2016: W is for Wiki on FamilySearch

Have you heard of the FamilySearch Wiki?  I had, but assumed it was not much more than a blog.  But actually it is so much more. You go to familysearch.org, click on 'search' and scroll down to the bottom of the drop-down list which appears, where you can click on 'wiki'.  The Wiki itself says it best:

"The FamilySearch Wiki is a tool for finding information about subjects, records that may have been generated about your ancestors, and the places in which the records might be found. It is a vast information depository. When you search in the Wiki you can search for places your ancestors lived, but also for subjects and research methods to help you understand and learn about the history of your families. You can possibly find records and record collections from the states, counties and cities where your ancestors may have worked and lived."
[https://familysearch.org/wiki/en/Find_an_ancestor_using_the_Wiki]

The Wiki has information from 245 countries, mainly links to sources you are looking for: censuses, BMDs, probate, military - but not the records themselves, be warned.  And it's free!

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

A-Z Challenge 2016: V is for Valuation Office Field Books

If you haven't heard of these before, don't worry.  They are tucked away at Kew (in class IR 58).  They cover the years 1910-1914, and list all the properties in England, who owns them, who lives in them, and whether they have been sold recently.

They are also known as 'Domesday Books', because of their similarity in content with William the Conqueror's original Domesday Book.

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

A-Z Challenge 2016: U is for Uxor

The further back in time you go (in parish records, that is), the less and less they seem to think of women.  Children are baptised as the son or daughter of John 'and his wife'.  Then the son or daughter of 'John', with no wife mentioned at all.  I have even come across a marriage record which stated that on a certain date, 'James married his wife'!

Uxor is the Latin for wife.  So, among the highly-stylised Secretary Hand (can you believe it was supposed to make things clearer?) and the mystifying abbreviations (which were probably not at all mystifying to the person who wrote them), you come across 'et uxor', or 'et ux'.  All this means is 'and wife'.

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

A-Z Challenge 2016: T is for Toleration Act

I'm still tracing those nonconformist Protestant Dissenter ancestors of mine, and when we last met them, they were being fined for being recusants and not going to (the established) church.  The fact was recorded, so there's one source - and here's another.

In 1689, an Act of Parliament was passed which said that Protestant Dissenters (except for Unitarians) could meet in their own houses of worship as long as said houses were registered and not in an organisational structure that linked them all together (which suited my ancestors just fine, as their nonconformism evolved into the Independent faith).

The registration included lots of family history information. The name of the religion (obviously), the minister, whose house the meetings were being held in, and the names of leading members of the faith.  I really must go to my county record office to see if any of my ancestors were 'leading members'.

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

A-Z Challenge 2016: S is for Sacrament Certificate

Following on from yesterday's 'R is for Recusant Rolls', today's letter goes into a little more detail about what a recusant (especially a Roman Catholic recusant) was supposed to do when it came to sacrament certificates.

A certificate was required by the Quarter Sessions (my letter Q post) to prove that a particular individual who held an official post (civil or military) had:


a) taken the sacrament in a church of the established religion (i.e. not nonconformist)
b) taken an oath that the current king had sole authority in the land

The law began in 1673 and was not repealed until 1828.  The certificates are another source you can look at during your visit to the local county record office.  And this was not just a quick "yes, I agree" like you get in a lot of software these days.  The wording of the oath was really quite violent:

"I...do swear that I do from my heart abhor, detest and abjure, as impious and heretical, that damnable doctrine and position 'That Princes excommunicated or deprived by the Pope or any Authority of the See of Rome may be deposed or murdered by their Subjects or any other whatever.'...I do declare that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state or potentate hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superiority, preminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual within this Realm.  So help me God."

Ouch.

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

A-Z Challenge 2016: R is for Recusant Rolls

This subject is close to my heart, as many in my family tree were recusants.  No, it's nothing horrific - that is, unless you were a parish priest of the established church.  Recusants didn't go to church.  At least, not the established parish church they were supposed to go to.  Some were Roman Catholics, and did not want to worship in a Protestant service.  Others (like my ancestors) were Protestant Dissenters.

At first (in about 1560) the fine was 12 pence per time-he-did-not-attend.  By 1581, the fine rose to 20 pounds per month.  Much later, the fine was all his goods and two-thirds of his property (that's maybe why I'm not rich now; there was nothing to hand down).  The Recusant Rolls, as a source, may help you discover a little more about your ancestors: what they owned, what they had to pay, and so on.

If you were an upper-class recusant, it seems as though the law looked the other way.  If you were a really poor recusant, you couldn't really be prosecuted anyway, because you had nothing to surrender.

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

A-Z Challenge 2016: Q is for Quarter Sessions

The Quarter Sessions were a 'meeting' of the local Justices of the Peace held...er...quarterly.  But they weren't just criminal courts for things like burglary and murder.  You had to conform to the established religion (or get a licence to worship elsewhere); the JPs also managed the upkeep of the roads, administered the Poor Law, and regulated trade and employment.  This continued until 1888, when the local council took over.  However, the criminal court part continued with the Quarter Sessions until 1971.

Not all Quarter Sessions records survive; but some have been published by county and local family history societies, and some remain in the care of the county record offices.  They may include such items of interest (for a genealogist, at least!) as juror lists, pub landlords, land tax assessments, and maps.

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

A-Z Challenge 2016: P is for Private Baptism

This is one you may have come across when researching in parish registers.  There is an entry for a baby “privately baptised” and/or “publickly received into ye church”.  What’s all this about?  You may even have come across the term “half-baptism”.

There are two main reasons for it.

      1) The baby was not expected to survive even as far as the church door, so it was ‘privately baptised’ then and there.  Sometimes even midwives could perform such a baptism! If the baby did survive, it was ‘publickly received’ as soon as it could make it to the church.

2)   The baby was born into a posh family who, like the families who married under licence instead of banns, thought that the general public should not be party to what was a very private event i.e. getting married or being baptised.

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

A-Z Challenge 2016: O is for Outlawry

We're jumping back into the legal system for this letter.  Remember 2012's post "E is for Englishry", where if you could prove that the person you had killed was English, you got away with lesser punishments than if the victim had been Norman?  Well, this is similar.

Same time span (1066 to Tudor times): this is what could happen to an outlaw (someone who ran from the law, or even just did not turn up for court).  Anybody could lawfully kill him on sight.  While he was on the run, all his goods and lands were forfeited for a year and a day, after which they went back to his lord anyway.

And get this, feminists: Women could not be declared 'an outlaw', because they hadn't had to take the relevant oath in the Court Leet of the local manor.

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

A-Z Challenge 2016: N is for Negative Proof

'Negative proof' is surely a phrase coined especially for the genealogical community.  Certainly, it is much used by us.  What exactly is negative proof?

Say you have an ancestor called John Smith, who lived in a small parish in the West of England.  You know the year of his baptism, you know the place, you even know his parents' names, so you merrily head off to the internet/county record office to search for him.  You find him, and are about to input his name into <insert name of genealogical software here>.

John, son of Thomas and Mary Smith.  And, right underneath his baptismal entry, is another John, son of Thomas and Mary Smith.  Is it the same one?  Was the parish clerk forgetful, and/or seeing double? You turn the page.  There's another John, son of Thomas and Mary Smith.  This is where negative proof comes in.  In order to make sure that you have the right John, you have to prove that all the other Johns were not 'yours' - within a radius of about 15 miles is about right.  Or, if you are doing a Surname Study, you have to prove that all these Johns were indeed separate individuals and not the result of the clerk having the flu and not seeing straight.

Or maybe you have found what looks like John, son of Thomas and Mary Smith.  But those names are not exactly unusual, so the logic of negative proof is to search all the registers around, to make sure there are no other John-son-of-Thomas-and-Mary-Smiths.

Of course, if your ancestor is called Severus Adolphus Ambrose Smith, you are unlikely to come up against too many duplicates.

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved