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

On This Day: 13 June

13 June 1813: my great great great great great uncle was born.  Samuel MURCH, born to another Samuel MURCH and Margaret Marshall Littley MURCH in Ottery St Mary, Devon.  He was baptised on Boxing Day of that year: 26 December 1775, also in Ottery St Mary.
 

And here he is again in the Bishop's Transcripts, a little more neatly written

Seems fairly straightforward, don't you think?  Except someone sixty years ago said that he also died and was buried on that same Boxing Day - and I can't find a record to back this up.

Then came my direct-line ancestor - yet another Samuel MURCH, born to the same parents 11 April 1778 (Ottery St Mary) and baptised 1 January 1778/79.  Since he was also called Samuel, it is pretty logical to think that the Samuel born in 1775 had died.  But had he?  Definitely a genealogical mystery to solve.

© 2015 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

On This Day: 30 October

This snippet from Exeter & Plymouth Gazette, 30 October 1841.

Column devoted to the Agricultural and Industrial Association Dinner at Subscription Room, Canniford's London Tavern:



"To the Journeyman who has worked longest in the employ of the same master, £1. - Samuel Murch, Sen., 38 years employed in the Ottery Factory, 18 years during the time of the present respected proprietor, Mr. Newbery."

On This Day: 21 July

21 July 1744 was the marriage date for my great great great great great great grandparents: Gideon MURCH and Elizabeth BASTIN.  And it was a Tuesday.

Gideon was born in Ottery St Mary, Devon, in 1721, in the last few years of George I's reign.  He lived through the reigns of two more Georges, but only a year after Gideon and Elizabeth's marriage came the attempt to put Bonnie Prince Charlie on the throne.

In later records, Gideon is described as a weaver.  Throughout his lifetime, there were several improvements in looms and weaving in general: one of the first was the 'flying shuttle', which made its appearance in 1733.  John Kay, who invented it, placed a shuttle at each end of the loom, and one single weaver could knock the shuttle back and forth with amazing speed (previously it had been pushed backwards and forwards, and often needed two weavers).  Gideon would have been 12 when the 'flying shuttle' appeared, and was probably an apprentice.

Further innovations in weaving came throughout Gideon's life; he saw the beginnings of how everything had to go faster, be bigger.  The 'spinning jenny' came in 1764, the 'water frame' shortly afterwards (a powered textile machine). 

Gideon appears in numerous nonconformist records, baptising his children as Protestant Dissenters.  He was definitely looking for something.  I wonder what his wife thought?

Fearless Females 2013: Day 19: Surprising Fact

Have you discovered a surprising fact about one of your female ancestors? What was it and how did you learn it?

One of the witnesses to the marriage of my paternal great great grandparents - John HAYWOOD and Johanna MURCH - on 30 September 1869 in Ottery St Mary was a lady called Jane PAGE.  I had never heard of her, but thought perhaps she was a friend of the family.

Johanna died young in 1875, aged only 31, from complications following childbirth.  John, with three small boys to look after, one of whom was an infant, quickly remarried, this time to a lady called Eliza DREWS.  The couple stayed married until Eliza died in 1902, aged 56.

Then the 1911 census was released, and I searched it to find John - only to find that he had married for a third time.  I searched other records for his marriage, and found that he had remarried only a year after Eliza had died - to a lady called Jane PAGE, the witness at his first wedding (the one to Johanna).  Was she more than just a family friend, then, I wondered?  She was born in North London, Middlesex.  What was she doing in Devon?

Once again, in honour of National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist blog presents Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.  I know this is really US-centric - but that's not going to stop me honouring my own Fearless Females...

Fearless Females 2013: Day 14: Newsmaker

I just loved this newspaper advert which I stumbled upon quite by accident while looking for something else!  If you are a fan of "Lark Rise to Candleford", and know who Miss Pearl and Miss Ruby are, then you will also enjoy this snippet about my Miss Emily.

From "The Western Times", published in Exeter, Devon - Saturday 12 April 1884:

This is my great great great aunt Emily Murch, born 1837 in Ottery St Mary, Devon.  She is my current shining star as detailed in today's Fearless Females posting.

[This post originally appeared in Fearless Females 2012]

Once again, in honour of National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist blog presents Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.  I know this is really US-centric - but that's not going to stop me honouring my own Fearless Females...

 

Fearless Females 2013: Day 10: Religion

I am participating in the Fearless Females theme to honour National Women's History Month.  Today we were asked what role religion played in our families; as far back as I have researched on the MURCH line, women either married into a Nonconformist religious atmosphere, or were searching for the truth themselves.  Here they are in Ottery St Mary, Bovey Tracey, and Chudleigh (all in Devon), beginning with my 6th great-grandmother::

• Elizabeth Bastin: bap 1720, married Gideon Murch 21 July 1744
• Margaret Marshall,: b abt 1749, mar Samuel Murch, previously married Richard Littley (very religious family who appear regularly in the Nonconformist records) on 26 December 1774
• Eleanor Bending: bur 1834, married to Samuel Murch 14 March 1791 (2nd wife after Margaret died)
• Mary Bending: baptised on Boxing Day 1785, married Samuel Murch 16 September 1799
• Johanna Yeates married Samuel Murch 5 August 1828
• Johanna Murch and John Haywood, married 30 September 1869 in Independent Meeting House, Ottery St Mary, Devon, UK.

This post originally appeared in Fearless Females 2011 on this blog.

Once again, in honour of National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist blog presents Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.  I know this is really US-centric - but that's not going to stop me honouring my own Fearless Females...

A-Z Challenge: O is for Online Parish Clerk

I am proud to be the Online Parish Clerk for Ottery St Mary, Devon, England, and am taking this opportunity to outline what an Online Parish Clerk actually is.  Taken from the GENUKI Devon page on this subject:

"The concept of an Online Parish Clerk (OPC), which originated in discussion on the CORNISH-L mailing list, involves identifying volunteers, one or more per Parish, who will act as a focus for gathering together transcriptions and name indexes related to that Parish (which are not already readily available elsewhere). The notion of Online Parish Clerks should in no way be confused with that of the official (i.e. Parish Council-appointed) Parish Clerks. All OPCs are unpaid volunteers who are willing to assist others in their genealogical research...The term OPC as used here, refers to a repositor of genealogically related materials such as (but not limited to) Church register transcripts, land tax assessments and census information, and the OPC should in no way be confused with the County Council appointed Parish Clerks. All OPCs are unpaid volunteers who are willing to assist others in their genealogical research."

Currently, there are Online Parish Clerk schemes running in the following counties: Cornwall, Dorset, Kent, Somerset, Sussex, Warwickshire, and Wiltshire.

Fearless Females 18: Miss Murch begs to announce...

I just loved this newspaper advert which I stumbled upon quite by accident while looking for something else!  If you are a fan of "Lark Rise to Candleford", and know who Miss Pearl and Miss Ruby are, then you will also enjoy this snippet about my Miss Emily.

From "The Western Times", published in Exeter, Devon - Saturday 12 April 1884:

This is mt great great great aunt Emily Murch, born 1837 in Ottery St Mary, Devon.  She is my current shining star as detailed in today's Fearless Females posting:

Once again, in honour of National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of  The Accidental Genealogist blog presents Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.

March 18 — Shining star: Did you have a female ancestor who had a special talent? Artist, singer, actress, athlete, seamstress, or other? Describe.

Sunday's Obituary: Samuel MURCH

A small clipping from Exeter & Plymouth Gazette (Saturday January 20, 1849) in the Deaths column:

"Jan.16, at Ottery St. Mary, Mr. Samuel Murch, in the 71st year of his age.  He was employed 44 years in the Ottery Factory, - the last 26 years in the silk department of the present proprietor.  He was a trustworthy and faithful servant."


Samuel Murch was my great great great great grandfather (paternal).  I feel honoured to be the descendant of "a trustworthy and faithful servant."  He deserves all those "great"s.

Family History Writing Challenge

Lynn Palermo, The Armchair Genealogist, has come along just at the right time (AGAIN).   This time she has nudged me into revisiting my chef d'oeuvre and turning it into a masterpiece.  How? By posting about the Family History Writing Challenge which will take place in February.  I have previously taken part in NaNoWriMo, which is a challenge that gets  you to write a 50,000-word novel in a month, so I am familiar with the concept.  Lynn has set up a new blog for the Family History Writing Challenge, and in it she answers the questions Why should I sign up? Whom do I write about? How much do I need to write? Where do I write? What if it's not good enough? When does it begin? and Where do I sign up?

I am excited to take part: I am going to revisit a family history book I started writing in 2003 about one of the branches of my family tree with the surname MURCH.  "Faith and Silk - The Murches of Ottery St Mary 1687-1875"  was its title, and I did the initial research, putting all 14,000 words into a Word document. These particular ancestors have provided me with plenty of subjects to cover: monarchs, wars, revolutions, weaving, woolcombing, religious nonconformism, silk and lace working, and the technological advances of the time. *rubs hands with glee at the thought*.

The trouble is: now that I look at it again, I can't remember which bits were written by me, and which were written by other people and faithfully copied down by me as research! so I am going to have to revisit it word by word (oh, dear, what a horrible thing to contemplate - NOT.  I am rubbing my hands with glee again). 

Back then, I used Microsoft Word to contain my words of wisdom.  A wonderful word processor, it does have disadvantages when you are writing anything of any considerable length like a book (scrolling to see things and find things, for instance).  So now I am going to use Scrivener (the Windows version).  I have imported those precious 14,000 words, and already I feel more in control.  I can divide them into chapters and even paragraphs, find things easily, use the corkboard feature so I can see at a glance where I am.  Eventually, when I have worked out what is research and which are my own words, I can separate the two and yet keep the research within the same program.  Scrivener puts the "flow" back into "workflow".

Roll on February!

On This Day: 19 January

Thomazin BENDING, my 4th great greataunt, was born on 19 January 1795 in Ottery St Mary, Devon, and christened only a couple of weeks later on 4 February 1795.  Maybe she was ill from birth, and that is why she was christened so quickly - at any rate, she mysteriously disappears and another Thomazin BENDING is born on 26 January 1796 and is baptised on 27 January 1797.

It was a standard and fairly popular tradition: if a child died when tiny, then the next child of the same gender would have the same name; for instance, if baby John was born, but died when two months old, then the next boy baby born in the family would be called John.  This is one of those habits which was quite common among our ancestors, and yet is not so common nowadays - and often catches out both the new and the experienced genealogist.  It is easy to get confused as to why there are two baby Johns in the same family, and to discard one as perhaps being nothing to do with that particular family, or that maybe somebody somewhere got their dates mixed up - but in fact it is two separate babies in the same family with the same name.

In fact, you can use this as a clue: if you have a child named Harriet, with no death date, and then another Harriet within a couple of years, at least you have a lightbulb-moment clue that the first Harriet might have died young.

On This Day: 19 December

Another great-aunt, but this time she is my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-aunt.  Her name was Wilmot BASTONE, and she was christened on 19 December 1684 in Ottery St Mary, Devon.

Her parents were married in 1684; most of the babies born as the first child of a couple in my family tree also died within months.  As I know nothing about Wilmot, I wonder if she was one of them?

1700 census: Finished!

Today I completed transcribing the 1700 census of Ottery St Mary.  It has taken me about 6 weeks.  I have sent the transcription to Brian Randell of GENUKI; it will form part of the "Pre-1841 Devon Censuses and Population Listings" project on the GENUKI pages, and will (hopefully) be a help to anyone researching their ancestors who came from the area.

The census itself was not like the later ones, where families were listed, their ages, where they were born and so on.  No, this was merely a list of the men (and sometimes widows or wives living alone); no families, no ages, no places of birth.  So some may say it won't be of much use to anybody.  Well, actually, I beg to differ.  If you suspected your ancestor came from that area, but weren't too sure, it may help you pinpoint him (or her).  And then again, it is just so special for we genealogists who love that sort of thing: to be able to see your ancestor's name - it gives you a sense of connection to the past that we thrive on.  I have found my 8th great grandfather there - and just to see his name gave me a shiver.  You may have heard of the "genealogy happy dance" - well, now here's the "genealogy shiver" !  Here he is: Walter Bastyn:

and I came across many familiar names, whose descendants I have met across the decades in other censuses - they may be 'nothing to do with me', but they are so familiar, they might just as well be friends.  Who knows? they might even have been my ancestors' friends, too! The Peryams, the Menifeys, the Eveleighs, the Churchills, the Blackmores all appear - and I know that the Hudys and the Norringtons are part of my family tree.

I have loved deciphering the Secretary Hand that the document was written in.  As soon as I have finished transcribing the 1841 census for Ottery St Mary, I might just go back for more, and transcribe another parish.

1700 census: Secretary Hand - help required

I have been working steadily away at transcribing the 1700 census for Ottery St Mary, and I have LOVED it.  it is written in Secretary Hand, and trying to work out what something says when it looks nothing like modern English handwriting is actually very absorbing.  It gives the little grey cells a lot to concentrate on!

Of course, there were bound to be letters, words, names and so on that I could not decipher.  And there are several which are making me frown at the screen.  But I am really stumped at one particular abbreviation that crops up a few times, and wonder if someone else out there can tell me what it means:

It's the first word.  Believe it or not, that is a lower case 'r', followed by a lower case 'p' - or is it?  the census itself only lists men and widows (no families) - so I wonder if it stands for 'relict of'? although in other parts of the document, widows are listed as 'Mistress Clode', 'Mrs Hues' and so on.

1700 census Ottery St Mary

Well, I finally received the photocopies from the Devon Record Office of the 1700 census for Ottery St Mary, Devon.  They had already told me that there would be 4 pages, so I thought to myself, "Huh! I can do that easily - it'll take no time at all!"  That was until I got the photocopies.

The pages are written in a beautiful antique hand that I am not allowed to post online until I get permission from the local incumbent.  Some of the names are easily readable, such as 'John Mills' or 'William Taylor', but others will take a lot of studying - and, oh, I am going to have to work through the National Archives tutorials on palaeography.  Oh-dear-how-sad.  Can't you just see me rubbing my hands in glee? *huge grin*

From a vague guess, it looks as though the only people who are listed are heads of households and widows.  No children.  Not even 'John Bloggs, 1 wife, 6 children, 4 pigs, 2 cows...'.  Just 'John Bloggs'.  But I have already found my great great great great great great great grandfather, Walter Bastyn.

This looks exciting!  And as soon as I get church permission, I will post a snatch of the handwriting on this blog.

Fearless Females: Generations of religious women in Devon, UK

I am participating in the Fearless Females theme to honour National Women's History Month.  Today we were asked what role religion played in our families; as far back as I have researched on the MURCH line, women either married into a Nonconformist religious atmosphere, or were searching for the truth themselves.  Here they are in Ottery St Mary, Bovey Tracey, and Chudleigh (all in Devon), beginning with my 6th great-grandmother::

Elizabeth Bastin: bap 1720, married Gideon Murch 21 July 1744
Margaret Marshall,: b abt 1749, mar Samuel Murch, previously married Richard Littley (very religious family who appear regularly in the Nonconformist records) on 26 December 1774
Eleanor Bending: bur 1834, married to Samuel Murch 14 March 1791 (2nd wife after Margaret died)
Mary Bending: baptised on Boxing Day 1785, married Samuel Murch16 September 1799
Johanna Yeates married Samuel Murch 5 August 1828
Johanna Murch and John Haywood, married 30 September 1869 in Independent Meeting House, Ottery St Mary

1841 census: I've started!

Today I made a start on transcribing the 1841 census for Ottery St Mary.  It took me about 20 minutes of reading the instructions - seemed like an eternity before I could put finger to keyboard, but eventually I did it.

And, needless to say, within minutes I had a question to ask about what code to enter if a person was born out of the county...fortunately, it was answered the same day.  And on the first page I attempted were my great great great uncle and aunt! it made me feel as though I were among friends already - I was certainly among family.

I just love the thought that, in the future, my humble tappings may help another genealogist, who may shriek something like, "There they are!" and do the Genealogy Happy Dance.

1841 census - Ottery St Mary

Well, the CD has arrived (the CD of the 1841 census for Ottery St Mary).  I can hardly wait to begin to transcribe it for FreeCEN.  Wait - I can wait.  Or at least, I know I should wait.  Because once I dive into it, I will need hours and hours because I will become so fascinated with the process (and the census itself), and the evenings after a hard day's work just won't suffice.

So I will grit my teeth and think hard about something else, and leave the 1841 census until the weekend.

I listened to a Legacy webinar tonight.  Next week is the second part of a series of 'Blogging for Beginners' by DEARMyrtle (or is she DearMYRTLE?).  Legacy have kindly put the first part (which I missed) back into their viewable webinar archives, which has prompted me to come here.

Ottery St Mary

This week I have reapplied to be the OPC for Ottery St Mary (the last time I operated as such was 2006).  The OPC (Online Parish Clerk) - not to be confused with the Council-appointed Parish Clerk - gathers together everything they can genealogy-wise regarding their chosen town or village, such as from parish registers, census records, land tax assessments, tithe apportionments and so on.  Then genealogists with an interest in that particular town can email the OPC for lookups and with queries.  I have myself broken down many a brick wall by contacting the relevant OPC.

I have reactivated my OPC website and stand ready to receive queries.  At the moment, I have censuses (or access to transcriptions of them held on my PC), Nonconformist baptisms (1746-53, 1785-96, 1812-34) and burials (1748-1797), some Pigot's trade directories, and the 1873 land tax assessment.

One thing I did find, all those years ago, was that I wasn't so much getting Ottery-specific queries (although of course I got some), but also queries along the line of "how do I start my family history?".  This time I will be ready for these sorts of queries.  I am going to add a page to my website called "Beginner's Luck" and have all the basic starting points, links etc.

I have arranged to transcribe the 1841 census of Ottery St Mary, and now only await the CDs so I can start.  I have also begun the arrangements to transcribe a 1700 census of Ottery.  There are a few pre-1841 censuses of various Devon places, and these can be found on the relevant GENUKI page.  Often, these pre-1841s are only population listings, but they can perhaps be of use.  I have contacted the Devon Record Office and asked them to provide me with photocopies, as I cannot get to the DRO itself.

I am excited to do all this.  Other parts of my RL have calmed down somewhat, so I am really concentrating on the family history side of things.  I will document in this blog how I get on (with the transcribing and the OPC-ing).