Praise to Uncle Peter

Anyone reading this blog post on purpose, as opposed to randomly coming across it on an internet search, will know about my 'Orrible Uncle Peter.  Well... I thought it was high time to give credit where credit was due, especially after mentioning him to a complete stranger in Dorset online yesterday, who I had contacted to use one of her pictures on the blog. I told her about him taking us around to all the family haunts last year, grumbling and protesting and wishing I had managed to learn to drive a manual transmission before descending upon him, etc. etc.  But, in the end, it is to him that I now owe so much.  In retrospect, it was remarkable how much I was able to see and get a little taste of that was pure magic.

Cheers

Hmm...

I was just looking again at that postcard picture o f Wimborne St. in Cranborne that I put on the last posting, and it looks like the shop with the man and boys standing in front of it might say "Adams".   I increased the size and looked hard at it, but I could not tell.  The Adams family in Cranborne counted tailors, boot makers, and other merchant folk among them, so it is more than a mere possibility.

That would be fantastic if there was a family shop right opposite the Fleur de Lys Hotel (a.k.a the Flower de Luce by the locals), which was mentioned in Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

Oh, this is so much fun.  Looking on Google Street View today, one can see that the old shop (Adams's or not) is now a veterinarian clinic.

Modern view of the Fleur de Lys Inn

Photo credit: http://www.homesteadbb.free-online.co.uk/dorset.html

Copses and Coppices

  

Every time I look on a map for all the little Dorset places that are mentioned in my searches, I feel like I've zoomed in on the Hundred Acre Wood, or to a Wind in the Willows riverbank: there are dozens of copses or coppices- each with their own individual names, as though the groupings of trees had been there since the beginning of recorded time - surrounding every little hamlet and village I've looked for.   This is charming in the extreme, though it tends to contribute to the irrational fantasy of this being a landscape unsullied by the modern world, and therefore even more appealing than it already is.  It is probably the case that most people involved in geneaological research have to fight this glorification of the past at times, and for my part, I easliy slip into turning the countryside into Storybook England on a daily basis.  Therein lies the pleasure of the enterprise though.

 All rights reserved by http://www.flickr.com/photos/52430002@N02/

So, in my zigzaggity approach to this family history business, I have found myself firmly back on the Dorset mainland, leaving Portland for the future again for now.  Metaphorically tramping across chalk downs (passing copse after copse), and into old churches and ferreting out little bits of information here and there is so enjoyable, and more and more things are connecting as I go.

 All rights reserved by http://www.flickr.com/photos/52430002@N02/

Yesterday, I had a foray across Salisbury Plain to investigate another promising lead in the Unsolved Case of Elizabeth Somebody.  While looking for something completely different, I discovered a record of marriage for a  George Adams (father of the groom listed as Thomas Adams) to an Elizabeth Polkinghorne at the church of St.Thomas in Salisbury, in April, 1874.   The Wiltshire Online Parish Clerks have not got around to the transcibing of the marriage records for that year yet, so I could not check the information from the LDS family search site against a primary source.   In other words, there is still no confirmation of this.  There didn't appear to be any other Polkinghornes around in those records, and it is a Cornish name, so who knows.

Photo credits:

http://www.sunnyfield.co.uk/dayspast/view_item.php?ref=dp0914&section=Dorset

Isaac Gulliver

Isaac Gulliver

        

We've been handed another cold, rainy day here today, so after a two hour hike with one of the hounds this morning, and getting soaked to the skin, I decided it was to be a day of quiet (warm, dry) indoor activity from then on.

It was to the Dorset smugglers, at last, that I turned my attention this afternoon, and although I had heard of the infamous Isaac Gulliver before, I was fully captivated today by this supposedly lovable character, mainly because of one particular myth, or embellishment,  that is linked to him in every account.  When  Gulliver lived in Kinson, there was an incident in which he was only one step ahead of the excise men one time, and when he got home, he covered his face in chalk, and faked his own death by lying in a coffin, with his wife weeping mournfully over him when the men came knocking on the door.

This is just too close to the one handed down in our family to be a coincidence.  Could our "Captain Hyde" have been one of Gulliver's gang members, and the tale got twisted in the telling?  Or could the same ruse have been tried out successfully on some different revenue men by our storied relative?  I strongly suspect we will never know the answer.

Gulliver had connections to Cranborne and Cranborne Chase, which, along with the New Forest, were the main hiding-and-dividing grounds (redistribution centers) of contraband  for the coastal smugglers.  So, if the Captain Hyde of lore is one of the Cranborne Caroline Hyde's family, then there is a possible point of intersection there.  

Gulliver died in 1822, so whoever our
Captain Hyde was, he would have to have
lived around the same time if we are to
assume that these men are connected.

Another nice little tidbit is that Gulliver habitually used Branksome Chine as a place through which to move his landed goods from the beach at Poole, then up through Pugs Hole in Talbot Woods.  

For those family members reading this 

that don't know about Pugs Hole, now 

a public foot path, I must tell you that 

it runs along the perimeter of Talbot 

Heath School - that fine and famous 

alma mater of dear old Mum - and a beautiful little spot it is too.   And, it's 

only a few blocks away from where 

A.R. lives now.

The one overarching frustrating fact of all this family history business is that nobody kept any handed down written records through the ages.  For the last five or six generations at the very least, family members have been literate, so what happened to all the letters, diaries, records of their lives?  The same as everyone else's, I suppose: lost, destroyed, not considered worth keeping.  Same old, same old.

Heh heh.  My dogs both wag their tails in their sleep.

Information sources:
http://www.dorsetlife.co.uk/2011/12/bidding-for-success/
http://www.smugglers2010.co.uk/smuggling-in-bournemouth
http://www.smuggling.co.uk/gazetteer_s_13.html#fnB88
http://dorset-ancestors.com/?p=912
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dorset/content/articles/2008/04/04/kinson_smugglers_feature.shtml

Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

Thank heavens THAT is behind me.  For about 36 more hours, that is.  And a Happy St.George's Day to all - and Shakespeare's birthday, and World Book Day.

Happily, I managed to snag an invite to a roast beef and Yorkshire pudding dinner chez M&P, so that was the perfect way to end this 7-day slog and celebrate the day in an appropriate fashion.

There is absolutely nothing of a genealogical nature to report this evening, as I am too cross-eyed to sit in front of a computer screen for much longer in order to do any research.  My greatest wish at the moment is to return to that old technology, the book, and see if I can pick up where I left off with Dombey and Son a few weeks ago.  I have set myself the task of reading the full Dickens' canon in this, his bicentenary year, but haven't progressed much in the last month.  It may end up taking more than a year.

Captain Hyde

It's pouring with rain late this Sunday night, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.  One more day to put in before a day away from hospital, patients, office, and all things orthopedic.  I have been having dreams involving people with the wrong feet at the end of their legs, and Rottweilers being catapulted into my garden from the other side of the fence to harm my Retrievers.  Clearly, I am in need of some solitude (in re my own species), working in the spring garden with peaceful dogs.

In spare moments snatched in the hospital library this weekend, I have been escaping from it all by trying to find any reference to a certain "Captain Hyde" relation that A.R. recalls as being famous in the family for being a smuggler.  She wrote to me:


He was apparently married to a very religious wife, who prayed for his soul.  There is a story that Gangan used to tell about him one time being pursued by the excise men over Bourne Heath (before it became Bournemouth),  but, he managed to get home, where he dived into bed with his face covered in flour, so that he looked ill.   I expect that the story got bigger and better with each telling... I personally remember him, as I once got good marks for a school project when we had to write about one of our forebears, and Gangan had just told me about the said Captain Hyde.

So far, no joy.  But,  I hope that somewhere, someone will have made reference to this man, so that we can locate A.R.'s story in time and place.

  

Betsy Trotwood Copperfield

A pause to marvel: this is the first view of the first member of the next generation of our family.  He (as the ultrasound tech believes "him" to be) looks like he is made of chocolate, and I refuse to believe I am old enough to become a great-aunt until it is proven that he is made of the usual weave of human tissues - or frogs and snails and puppy dog tails.

And as these U/S techs are so frequently incorrect on the sex of the baby, I am afraid that assuming that I have a great-nephew on the way is still a bit silly. So, I shall call him Betsy Trotwood Copperfield for now and await confirmation in a couple of months.

Married, Missing, or Dead

In the not too distant future, all of the census records and church records will be more completely online, and searching for long lost relations will be such a simple thing from far away, compared to now.  My poor, bug-eyed head is in need of a rest after only a couple of hours of research this evening.

Recently, my work days have been intense and long, and doing anything more taxing than sprawling in front of Lark Rise to Candleford DVDs with a dog on each side at the end of the day is proving to be difficult.  Four more days to go before a day off still.  Flah.  As I watch Candleford, I wonder how similar the depictions of these villages are to somewhere like Cranborne, for instance, in the same time period.   George Adams and members of his family were the postmasters and tailors and parish clerks, so it is easy for me to imagine the characters in Candleford  as people similar to my own relations.

Today, I have been trying to flesh out Isabella's siblings before going back in time again.  I might then go forward one generation with them, just to see where they all headed off to, or if they stayed in Portland.  Chances are that more than just Isabella left the Isle from her generation.  

To the couch with the hounds now though.  Another early day looms.

Spring: Really This Time.

It's time for a break from the day's labors.  Another glorious,  hot spring day here has prompted me to get into the garden and make a start on the biggest project of the season: moving the goldfish pond.  After emptying the water and debris from the pond in its old location today, I have moved all the plants that were in the future location, so that on my next day off, all will be ready for me to dig the new hole.  Half the back-breaking work is finished.

I have added the information on George's sister, Caroline, to the Known So Far page.  After the last posting on the subject, I found her marriage record: in November of 1864 she marries Thomas Head in Cranborne, witnesses are Thomas and Caroline Adams.  It's a bonus when you get an extra little 'confirming' bit of information, like the witnesses being the parents.

All the windows are open in my house, and I can hear the sweet sound of a motorcycle revving down a street in the distance: a sure sign of spring established.  Barring a fluke weather system, there will be no more snow and ice until November or December.

Yesterday, we went on a hawk migration observing expedition organized by the local birding group.  There were a few world-class experts at the site, including my favorite brother-in-law, so for those of us who were comparative rank amateurs, it was a real joy to be there with them and learn all kinds of things about the Atlantic spring raptor migration.  We were on a ridge with a 360-degree panoramic view at the north end of the Bay of Fundy, and there was all kinds of activity in the skies.  And stopping at marshes, ponds and lagoons on the way to and from, we saw a lot more birds.  I added several to my life list.

RMS Titanic

RMS Titanic departing Southampton on April 10, 1912

                                         
It's the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic tonight, and I cannot let it pass without a mention.  At 11:40 pm ship's time (GMT -3), she hit an iceberg about 600 km south of Newfoundland. This is the moment, as I write (GMT -4), that it happened.

Apparently, this is a photograph taken by a steward on the Prinze Adelbert on  
the morning of  April 15, 1912 of the actual iceberg that Titanic struck - there 
was red paint on it  from the ship's hull along the waterline.  

It looks so astonishingly innocuous. 

                                                                                      

Photo source of Titanic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RMS_Titanic_3.jpg
Photo source of Iceberg : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Titanic_iceberg.jpg

Final Cranborne Work - For Now

               

              

Before getting back to the Portland branch of the family for the foreseeable future, I have been sweeping up a bit with George's Cranborne clan, and trying to trace connections to legends.  Reportedly, one of his brothers traveled in the U.S. with Harry Houdini, and another brother married a widow who was a nurse with Florence Nightingale.  After a lot of work, I haven't come up with anything solid to report yet, but I am hoping something will connect later to all the research put in today.  I finally found a list of all the nurses that were in the Crimea with F.N., without travelling to the National Archives at Kew, so I am onto something there.  As for the Houdini legend - heaven knows whether there will be any mention of an Adams from England in any of the historical records, but there was absolutely nothing online.  That might be a task I could interest a young relation in: reading all the books they can find on Houdini and reporting back on his traveling companions.

Significantly, I found two more siblings of George's that we did not have in the accounts from Grandma.  One of them, Thomas, turns out to have been a Brewer and Beer Retailer, which will please many in the family now; and yet another Caroline has appeared, then disappeared.  The last trace of her was in the 1861 census as an 18 year-old still at home.  There is no marriage or death record to be found on her yet.

Elizabeth Jane Somebody

Circumstantial evidence piles up around a suspect after dozens of others are eliminated from my inquiries.

Hours and hours spent on the George Adams and Elizabeth Jane Somebody mystery again.  She came and went through George's life between censuses, which has been the most unhelpful thing of all.  After trying every conceivable way to find a marriage, or death/burial record, for an Elizabeth Adams in the right time span and in the right part of the country, and coming up without any strong (or even weak) possibilities, I decided on a whim to just look for any other Elizabeths (ignoring last names) that had been buried at St.Clements in Bournemouth, which is where one of their children was buried.  Perhaps they didn't marry after all; this was one avenue I had not investigated.

Lo, there was one there that fit the bill: Elizabeth Fripp, aged 31 in 1875 - and she too lived on Victoria Rd. (the same road listed on church burial record for baby William Pitt Adams in 1878).  The date of burial for her was listed as August 30, 1875 - two months after William and Thomas were baptized.  [Family lore said that she died in childbirth, but as the only child they knew about was Thomas, they could have been a little off on this too.]

So, then I searched for Elizabeth Fripps born in 1843 or thereabouts, and the only close match I found was an Elizabeth JANE Fripp, born in Wimborne (spitting distance from Cranborne), and I started to think that this may at last be her.  The mother of  Elizabeth, Thomas, and William Adams was listed as an Elizabeth Jane.

Whatever the case turns out to be, this is literally the end of the line for me and E.J. Somebody, because there is nothing else that can be done without being in England to search records the old fashioned way and getting copies of death certificates.  And, she is not even an ancestor of ours, so this obsessing is getting me no further with adding to our own story.  Except, of course, that if she hadn't died, then Isabella would not have married George and family history would have been quite different, so she warrants a place in the story.

Brief, But Annoying

This was the view of my street Sunday morning.  Easter weekend weather culminated with a meteorological bang  - hopefully, the LAST 20 cm of snow of the season - and it has all gone again now.  The crocuses look forlorn, though new ones are poking through the soil to replace them.

I was in email contact with some very nice people in Bidford-on-Avon on the weekend.  There was a photograph of St.Laurence churchyard that I really liked and wanted to get permission from the photographer to use it on this blog.  My own were not particularly good from last year's visit.

This morning I have been bashing away at some more research online, but coming to dead ends down every road.  It's time to move on in a new direction now.

Easter Sunday

At this time last year I was in England.  In light of it being the end of Holy Week, I am going to put some pictures of the most interesting places of worship we visited.  For this trip, Hereford Cathedral was probably the most stunning, with the added attractions of the chained library and the Mappa Mundi.   I could have spent days there.

Then there were dark, little 13th century chappels with crooked naves, and ancient, damp ghosts; there were churches that have been saved from financial ruin by creatively turning part of the buildings into marvelous restaurants; there was the amazing story of Yarpole where they have combined the church, post office, village shop, and art gallery into one entity, with a dear little tea room in the gallery under the medieval roof (the entire enterprise is run by volunteers, and the people I met I would have gladly brought home with me to stay).  There were the village churches in which I was christened and Mum and Dad were married; and there was Bath Abbey in the late afternoon after rain, with hordes of  French teenagers on a school trip; and I could even include the "drive-bys" of Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge -  no stops at those hallowed places on this trip.  And let me not forget Holy Trinity in Stratford-upon-Avon.  Weobley and Milton Abbey and Ludlow and South Wales - there were always churches in my daily cache of photographs .

 Happy Easter to all.

Chained Library, Hereford Cathedral





Weobley

Ludlow

Stratford-upon-Avon

St. Laurence Church, Bidford-on-Avon.  Photo: Pete Batacanin

Snowshill

Christchurch Priory

Photo credit for chained library: http://atlasobscura.com/blog/librophiliac-love-letter-revised-edition
Photo credit for St.Mark's Church: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alwyn_ladell/4799285698/in/set-72157624194471469/

I Didn't Mean for That to Happen

Well, another huge gap  -  longer than intended.

After a strange and interesting winter, followed by complete madness in the interim with new projects, spring has sprung on the East Coast of Canada - I have crocuses open in the garden already, and the snow has been gone unseasonably early for the last two weeks.  The scene outside my writing room window is like an aviary right now with all the birds scrabbling about at the feeders and on the ground finding nesting material.

Here is a picture of the newest member of my little family, to the right: an adopted Yellow Labrador Retriever that is the size of a Great Dane.  This has taken some getting used to.

So, I finally got back to the family research project this past weekend, and right away I found something that I'd somehow missed before.  Returning to the Cranborne connection and great-great-grandfather George Adams (Isabella's husband), I thought I'd try one last stab at finding his first wife, Elizabeth, just in case more records had been posted on any of the internet-accessible ancestry sites I'd been using last year.  I didn't actually get further with her, but I did find that in addition to the two (possibly twin) boys they had together, there was a baby girl before them - also named Elizabeth - and I am sure that that record was not there before.  Today I am going to look into this some more and find her death date, then back to her mother, Elizabeth Jane.

It is good to be back at this.

[Later]

The burial date for baby Elizabeth Adams reads: 9 June 1874, Cranborne; 1 day old.

Still nothing on Elizabeth Jane.  There is absolutely no record of her death before George marrying Isabella that I can find anywhere.  What a very, very strange thing this is.