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Forthcoming Events
New or Guest Members are welcome at any of our meetings.  

The next and future meetings will be held in:

Forthcoming meetings

Monday November 21^st 2011
Jane Barnes – talk entitled “Tales from a Farmer’s Wife”  … an amusing and informative insight into life on a family run farm in East Leicestershire.

Monday January 16^th 2012

Thelma Childs returns to take us on a slide tour of parts of Gainsborough she did not have time to show us during her talk in January 2011.

  Recent meetings

September 19^th 2011

Our speaker for the morning was the popular Linda Hotchkiss who entitled this talk – Expanding Family History.

Linda proceeded to give us a Powerpoint presentation starting with the basic sources of information, family knowledge, certificates, Census, parish registers, bishop’s transcripts, I.G.I. and memorial inscriptions. These would build a skeleton on a tree and if you were lucky and read the details then maybe an outline, but to add flesh, colour and clothes to the skeleton one needs to look for other sources. She pointed out a pitfall of the 1911 census where up to 10% of women over 21 were missing as they refused be register as a protest about voting rights.

She then proceeded to lead us through a plethora of other more detailed sources of information that would add much more to our family trees and in many cases add to the local and social history of our projects.  She started with the end of lives and the National Probate calendar that is now available on Ancestry.  She took us through a variety of will types and the basic detail to be found in each of them. There was the standard will, the death-bed will, memorandum, and Letters of administration were all forms of settling estates. There were also extras that included inventories of goods, often set out by the room and therefore giving a good indication of the house type and size. Administration accounts were rarer but if found could give much detail on the costs and final distribution of goods and wealth. She demonstrated this with 2 examples.  One of an estate worth £19 and another £1225 [adding 0’000 would indicate today’s values].

Then there were death duty registers [1796-1904], now available on the internet, which could add more detail, inquisitions and post mortem – more people, more connections. Grave registers were more informative than burial registers, odd military records and heraldry papers. College of Arms, herald’s visitations, bishop’s visits, Burkes peerage, clerics, Crockfords, University alumni records are all based around individuals or events. Land tax records detailed owner, occupier [tenant], and rents. County trade directories may not include many individuals but gave a very good summary of the villages and their principal occupants, buildings and trades people. Land registers and publican / licensing records showed individuals and when ownership or personnel changed hands.

The list of sources went on to include Electoral records, freeholders, poll books, Burgess rolls all for people with specific rights, house plans, planning applications [not just a recent phenomena] sales catalogues, local papers, mortgage papers, and glebe terriers - the list seemed endless. Linda concluded by pointing out that she had not even attempted to look at military, criminal, or legal records which could all warrant a talk in their own rights and therefore much more than she had talked about for over an hour was available to researchers putting the ‘flesh on the bones’ in our own family tree records.

July 18^th 2011

Our speaker for this meeting was Eddie Woolrich who talked to us about the Dovecotes of Nottinghamshire.

Eddie began by explaining what a dovecote was. A structure specifically built to house and breed pigeons / doves, mainly for meat production. Squabs [young pigeons up to fledging age] was the best and most tender meat and reserved for the house owner / gentry whilst the older tougher birds were used by the labourers and other workers. He raised a laugh by explaining that there was a medicinal recipe to rub 2 handfuls of fresh and warm ‘residuals’ [droppings] into the scalp for hair regrowth purposes. The residuals were also a source of material for gunpowder production in place of saltpetre [potassium nitrate]. It was also a good fertiliser and records exist from 1689 when the Rector of Clayworth sold 3 cartloads of ‘residuals’ for 2 guineas.

The oldest reference to dovecotes is in the mist of times in the middle east, and the earliest in the UK from the 12/13^th C and they were based in larger residences such as palaces, abbeys, castles and manors, but later in halls, rectories, and then almost all farms. There is a huge variety of design and no two appear the same. Many had just a few dozen nest boxes, but the three biggest locally were Sibthorpe (1000-1200), Serlby and Clifton at 2000+, with the largest having 2350. One of that size, when full of breeding birds and chicks could house up to 10,000 birds. When squabs were harvested regularly birds would produce 2 squabs every 4-6 weeks. [a lot of meat in 4000+ pigeons!!] The shape and size of the nest boxes also varied according to the design of the dovecote and the materials used in construction. Using slides throughout his talk Eddie was able to demonstrate many of these differences.

Bassetlaw had 37%, and Newark 34% of the dovecotes in the county which Eddie believed was due to the clay land in the area and the growing of corn crops.

At Wollaton Hall, the dovecote is above the stable block, with the butchery below, it has 926 boxes on 4 walls and was renovated in the 1980’s. It took Eddie along with 2 other researchers over 25 years to survey and record, well in excess of 300 dovecotes in the county. He had slides of many and discussed fully each of them and their design, structure, location as well as materials used and current condition. These included dovecotes at South Wheatley, Barton in Fabris [octagonal made of gypsum], Cromwell [13 C GII listed building with mud & stud boxes], Church Farm Hayton [Resting pegs right into wall and accessed by JCB bucket], Flintham [made entirely of mud in early 18thC and also listed], Sibthorpe & Thoroton, [both round but different inside and in construction]. He believed the last functional dovecote was built around 1890 as they had fallen into lack of use after the turnip was introduced from the continent and fodder could be grown and kept for livestock feed and hence meat in winter. It was a most interesting and well researched talk.

Summer Outing June 13^th 2011

Sunday had been the wettest day for several months so it was with some apprehension that 15 souls set off to Laxton. We were greeted with coffee and biscuits by Stuart Rose and family as well as some sunshine. Stuart gave a short refresher talk with the map of the Open Fields using the 3 crop rotation system. He explained how the grass on the sykes was auctioned off in June and how each successful bidder put a small fee in the pot for liquid refreshment at the pub after the auction was over. They celebrate with 4 ‘agricultural’ church services during the year, Plough Sunday in January, Rogation in spring, Lamas to bless the first corn of harvest and finally their Harvest Festival.

Stuart has 120 acres in the village but it is widely spread over 17 locations throughout the Open Fields. There are now 14 farmers with 120-140 acres each and a few more with smaller farms making up the village estate. [Details of this were in last months’ issue]. He told us that there was a Foreman for each of the 3 Open Fields, plus the Bailiff, and Clerk making 5 officers, a representative of the Crown Estate and a local Solicitor as well as the 12 Jurors who form the ancient Manorial Court followed by the Court Leet. There is a new jury sworn in every 12 months. They are still allowed to levy their own fines and are exempt from the Common Law system.

We then set off on a most interesting walk. First stop was by the old village school, now the village hall where a bomb fell early in WW2 and claimed the only victim of the hostilities from the village. Miss Willis the then school mistress lost her life a fact that is commemorated on a plaque in the church along with the names of all the village men and women who served in the forces and all returned safely. It must be the only War Memorial on which there is only one death and that occurred within yards of the church. Inside the church, our next stop, is the 1635 map of the open fields with all 2210 strips indexed by farmers’ name. A genealogist’s dream if they have ancestors from the village. Manorial records for other villages, where they survive, are held at archives and are a mine of information – if you can decipher them!! In 1700 the village population had been 600 but by 2010 it had reduced to less than 300 and the 2210 strips in the fields were down to 174 over a much smaller acreage. Whilst in the church we also looked at other features like the effigies dating from c1360 including one wooden one. Outside the gargoyles made some interesting viewing!

Then it was off to Crosshill Farm which like many in the village has the traditional building layout around a crew yard, each was clear as we studied the uses. Mixed boxes, for calving etc, a stable block with feed storage above, the threshing barn designed specifically to blow away the chaff when winnowing with its large doors and slotted base stone to board up in winter]. Then there was the cow house, the dovecote another source of food, the open buildings for cattle shelter around the open yard – even the hard stone path up one side to keep the farmers feet relatively clean.

We then walked to the Motte and Bailey site of the old castle and later Manor House, covering a 20 acre area. From the high point one can see the boundaries of the parish which are mostly the surrounding woodland. The more recent outlying farms, the open fields with their strips all ploughed downhill to a low point for natural drainage, the location of the springs and streams, the grazed land. More modern landmarks to be seen from here are the 3 Trent Vale power stations. The weather was also good enough for us to see Lincoln Cathedral, over 20 miles away. Returning to the village and other farms by the Back lane which in many villages ran along behind the farm closes and gives rise to the parallel layout frequently found. There was time to look at some of the rare species of grass that still grow on the sykes due to lack of cultivation, fertilisation and managed seasonal cutting.

Back at Lilac Farm we were treated to a superb lunch, answers to questions, a showing of the third film about the village that there had not been time for during our May meeting. Stuart also has his own ‘museum’ of old implements and tools with many artefacts from times gone by where we were challenged by the use of some tools. All in all it was a most enjoyable day out.  Some of us I am sure will return!

1635 Map    =   Stuart Rose of Lilac Farm Laxton explains the detail shown on 1635 map in Laxton Church 
including 2210 strips of land and their farmers indexed by name.

NORTH & SOUTH WHEATLEY LOCAL & FAMILY HISTORY GROUP  

It is impossible in any of the sets of notes produced as a summary to cover more than a small part of the proceedings from any one of our meetings. This could not be more true than for the talk we received on May 16^th delivered to us by Stuart Rose – an expert on and a tenant farmer Laxton village and its ancient ‘Open Field System’. The village is only a few miles from here yet how many people are fully aware of what history and heritage is on our own doorstep. The area concerned is some 2000 acres in total and from the earliest records dating back to the Doomsday book it had only had family ownership for over 800 years until the Ministry of Agriculture retained the Lordship from 1952 – 1981 and then the Crown Estate Commissioners took over in 1981. The 2000 has now dropped to about 500 acres which is still farmed within the strip system. The village population in the early 1800’s was in excess of 600 but today is less than half of that.

Stuart had brought along a film made in the early 1930’s which apart from being historic in its own right showed how the system worked then and how little had changed over centuries. He followed this with his own ‘Powerpoint’ presentation. The first good map of the village dates from the 1630’s and shows all the 1600 strips in the bigger ‘open’ fields which covered an area of some 2000 acres, it shows the Manor house, the Church and each property with its own homestead ‘field’ behind it for the milk cow and other household requirements, remembering that the ‘strips’ for that holding could be a long distance away when the only transport was oxen or horse. Even by the 1930’s the open field had become smaller and outlying farms established to farm land no longer in the open field system. The preserved area now comprises the West, Mill, and South fields and the traditional rotation system of Winter wheat, fallow, and a variety of spring crops is still followed. The strips for each holder are scattered within the large open fields to ensure all get a mix of land/soil quality and type. At that time (c. 1930) there were 30 farmers within the system. The film showed, tenants walking down their strips ‘two hand’ broadcasting followed by horse harrows. There are cart roads in each field and sykes [pronounced six], the grass from the sykes is mown and sold or grazed and any income is used by the village for the upkeep of gates and roads etc. There are 26 of these sykes around the open fields today and because they have remained uncultivated for so many years they are all SSSIs [Sites of Special Scientific Interest]. These SSSIs are a wealth of wildlife types and for many years have been a haven for 100’s of skylarks and a variety of wild flowers.

The village was at one time self sufficient with its own mill and miller, blacksmith, wheelwright, and baker etc, but now almost everyone need more than one job to make a living as it is almost impossible to survive in agriculture on the small acreage held by members in the village. Even pre 1700 not all villagers were ‘Freeman’ and some were committed to work for the Lord of the Manor, and then part time look after their own land in the strip system.

Robin Hood may have disappeared into the annals of time, and the Pilgrim Fathers little heard of except in history books but dating from before the time of both Laxton and its open field system carries on into the 21^st century.

Stuart’s knowledge allowed him to answer all questions and his enthusiasm for the system was very evident. He was proud to tell us of his role as a Juror on the ancient Manorial Court and his additional post as ‘Clerk to Gaits and Commons’.

This was just the start of what proved to be a most rewarding morning and we even had a guest from Holland with us who was so thrilled to have attended that she plans to inform her own Probus group when she get home.

Monday March 21^st 2011

This was our AGM. The formal proceedings of officer’s reports, reviewing the last 12 months, checking that we are solvent, discussing plans for the upcoming year and the usual round of thanks to speakers, officers, and members, but in particular to Mike Carnall for the use of the Boardroom, all took less than an hour.

We then moved on to the annual round of member’s tales, memories and family mysteries. Each member had prepared a short talk of 5 to 10 minutes and this year was the usual mix with a few surprises thrown in.  We were entertained with stories of relatives (3 different lots) who had emigrated in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, to many parts of the globe. How they had settled, been successful business men, even had places named after them. There was a story of a very recent discovery of a previously unknown relative who had been able to supply photos from the mid 19^th century and producing a full set of family portraits of the time. We had a vicar transported 100 miles for burial in 1744. We had two murders from different members. There were the details of Nottinghamshire when it was literally under three feet of snow in the winter of 1886/7. One member brought along 2 small china cups purchased many years ago from a travelling trader who used to visit the village with his goods every other month. Then the family bible that led to discoveries about a family member in the 1860’s to 1880’s whose family was struck by tragedy and then the guy disappeared, leading to what is known in genealogy as ‘ongoing research’.  As well as the two cups we had two pieces of native Indian weaving from Mexico. We even had a book written in local dialects long before modern audio recording was invented. A great morning of real entertainment all produced ‘in house’.

 January 17th for the first meeting of 2011, our speaker was Thelma Childs and she started by telling us a bit about the Gainsborough Local History Group called “Delvers” and how over many years they had collected old photographs, drawings and memorabilia involving Gainsborough through the ages. As they had so much material she had decided that for her talk today she would concentrate o the Market Square and the area through to the new bus station.

  Starting with slides showing drawings of the old market square before 1800 she moved quickly onto the Moot Hall and Town Hall with it’s distinctive triangular gable end through some of the changes resulting from bomb damage in the early 1940’s, which were not fully rebuilt until the mid 1960’s. She managed to cover so many aspects of the past with photographs showing a variety of people, vehicles along with shops, buildings, public houses and events.

The market square was crowded with people for several events in the early 1900’s, some of which had been positively identified whilst others remained a mystery. -  A problem with which we are familiar when trying to identify people in old family photographs. There were far too many to list them all but a few that stood out included Rockall’s Ice Cream, one picture showing a ‘tented’ hand cart and later when they progressed to a custom built motor van. Shops included the bread shop near the Lamb Inn around 1915. Fine Fare supermarket which opened in the 1960’s, but this shot was from early 1970’s as the adverts in the window were decimal! Burrows the Chemist, the Newspaper offices, and Beltons, Bowers’ was a particularly large shop, Salter & Salter – Boot Co. replaced in 1926 by the Gaumont Cinema, then there was Constance Kirk – Tobacconist, along with Hinds bread shop which was an old timbered building. Caldecots News Office bore the title – “Retford, Worksop, Isle of Axholme and Gainsborough News”, in large letters across the front. Jays furniture store, Greenlees, Home and Colonial, Stevens Book shop, Anthony’s the Peoples Draper and Dunn’s shoe shop in Silver St.

There were events in the Market square, with what appeared to be a preacher / speaker along with a brass band and hundreds of people in Edwardian clothes and even some of the crowd standing in horse drawn carts. A similar gathering for Peace day in 1919, hundreds marching for the funeral of King George V, as well as the circus elephants who paraded when the circus came to town, having walked from Doncaster, were all featured on the slides. One of our own members recalled the elephant that always received a loaf of bread in Beckingham and would not move past a specific house until it was fed.

For the last part of the talk we were also taken to the White Horse pub in 1906, Gleadalls mill / granary both on Silver St. Monson’s Arms Hotel, as well as the location of the soup kitchen, a gathering outside the Conservative club for the coronation of King Edward VII, a donkey cart with it’s ‘rag and bone’ man, several pictures of the old lock up, originally built in 1843 and part of which still exists if you know where to look. Even the Half Moon (under water) which dates from 1832, but was flooded along with much of the town in 1947 was on slide.

November 15th 2010. Our speaker was Mike Gildersleeve who told us he had his own personal story to tell. He would try to split it into 3 chapters.

Chapter one:- By way of introduction, he was a Londoner by birth, but for most of his life had been a resident of Woodsetts, Near Worksop. His parents, who had adopted him as an infant, were Stan & Kitty Gildersleeve. He never thought of them as anything but his parents and they laid the foundations of his life from education which started with bath night and stories then and before going to bed. Their method of telling him he was adopted was a fairytale story at a very young age, and all he knew throughout his life was that his birth name was Gibson. The stories of childhood memories stretched far and wide including soccer rivalry in N London and his trips to relatives there. For many years he worked as a teacher but was able to take early retirement. His promise to his mother “never to seek his natural or birth mother” whilst she, Kitty, was alive had been kept. His eventual retirement allowed him to start the search, with one object in mind, “closure” and the chance to say hello or pay his respects at her grave.

Chapter two:- This covered the start of his search and a whole host of twists and turns, all equally interesting and adding to a real mystery story. His parents had a daughter before discovering they could have no more children, so when they adopted Mike his sister was 10 years old. She was his first point of reference in his “search for mother”, but she too only knew his birth name was Gibson. Then it was to mother’s sisters including a favourite aunt, who he turned to for help. One of them, Elsie, was very surprised he did know the story of his adoption as it turned out she had been instrumental in his parents adopting him. The story involved the evacuation of a business from London around 1943, its base in Derbyshire, its location and the preparation of forces for the Normandy landings. His father, she told him had been a serving US soldier, but he had been sent to another base before his mother, Joyce, was able to tell him he was to be a father. So even though he had a surname for the soldier there was little point in following it up at this stage. Having got the story and a Christian name for his mother he was able to start his search for Joyce Gibson, but the records showed hundreds of them around the country and he made copious notes as he pawed over books and microfiche in libraries and record offices. It was not until he made contact with another sister, Ethel, who had letters and family photos dating back to her youth stacked away in a spare room, that he was able to narrow the search to Islington where she told him Joyce had lived prior to the evacuation. Ethel even had a faded and battered picture taken in Derbyshire that included his birth mother. More records and trips to London eventually traced the right woman, but where was she now.

Chapter three:- Having got the right woman, at least on paper, finding her was a problem. He managed to trace her family and a sister, a birth aunt. Making contact with her he was frostily told that her sister [Mike’s birth mother] had died some years earlier, had never married and had no children. So it was back to the records, but this time there was no trace of a death. More research eventually led to the exposure of the web of deceit spun in that phone call and the discovery that his mother was married, and still alive. There followed the story of contacts made and rejection, letters sent, replies received and so many more mysterious questions, even involving forensic handwriting experts. There were even fruitless attempts to trace that ex soldier in the States, who may well be buried somewhere in Europe or be a family man in the USA.  The final twists kept our attention right to the end of Mike’s story. It had been an enthralling morning, superbly presented, with no reference to notes and only two illustrations, a photograph and a letter, and even at the end the audience was still not sure if the full story had been discovered.

Those who got to the meeting are still talking about it, those who didn’t missed a very special talk.

  Monday 20^th September 2010 Our speaker for the morning was Maureen Sutton.

Maureen started by telling us that over a number of years she had had published two books dealing with customs and ancient rites or folk law from the countryside around Lincoln. The first is now out of print but the second, entitled ‘A Calendar for Lincolnshire’ covers a very wide range of customs as the title suggests in chronological order. She felt it was sad that many of these customs and traditions are no longer kept and that it was important that they were written down and the elders of villages interviewed for their memories before our heritage was lost forever.

For her talk today she was going to start in August, and the first day of the month is Lammas Day, which is in fact Loaf Mass when people go to church and take a loaf supposedly made from wheat of the new harvest to mark its start. Other traditions which are associated are Glove Sunday when a worn out canvas glove would be hung in the church to show that the women had also contributed to getting the harvest in. Those women wore long skirts and hessian aprons and used canvas gloves to gather the shocks of corn into stooks. We also heard about the white maiden glove laid at the front of church three weeks prior to a marriage to signify the brides virginity, and if any man knew different he should take the glove.

Stories about the traditional gathering of samphire on many parts of the Lincolnshire coast, various methods of cooking it, speculation as to how some gets to Harrods, village rights of harvesting it and much more. An acquired taste, it is often cooked to accompany fatty meats. Then there was also the tradition of ‘rough music’ when almost anyone could join in a band and create a noise designed to drive away unwanted imposters and even bad weather. Other recipes included what may have been the origin of plum bread or Christmas pudding when various fruit was mixed with steeped whole wheat.

Henry III granted rights to hold both Brigg and Horncastle fair, the latter being probably the largest horse fair in Europe at its height, and Maureen then sang an old traditional folk song. She continued with a variety of tales associated with customs, from early hours worked in the fields and the foods consumed by workers illustrated with billy cans, and old bottles for milk, ginger beer, and cold tea. Long skirts held down by hem weights, apples boiled in zinc bath and the resultant ‘poison’, fertility rites, straw cocks on stacks and buildings, how children were paid for catching rats & mice when the harvest was threshed. The origins of corn dollies and why they must have red ribbon on them, how a bolster down the middle of a double bed may have led to a specific euphemism, eating of mouldy food before salmonella was even thought of, the histories of barn dances and village feasts. We were treated to further singing with ‘To be a Farmer’s Boy’. Why ploughing matches, driving geese to market, goose muck lane, why a shepherd may have carried a sovereign in a cleft stick, or even why he carried a piece of sheep’s wool, all were covered by our speaker. Advice on making a Yorkshire pudding rise, boiled eggs in hare pies, sweet food eaten before the meat and why – so many facts and tales were fitted into Maureen’s talk that it is impossible to list them all.

Maureen then answered the questions posed and Ann thanked her for a most enjoyable, educational and humorous talk.

Monday July 19^th 2010.
Our speaker for the morning, Dr. Susan Deal commenced by telling us that her story today was set in the late Victorian and early Edwardian period and involved the 5^th Duke of Portland, Thomas Charles  Druce, Welbeck Abbey, mock burials, mystery and intrigue.

The whole story was far too complicated and detailed to attempt to do more than simply note a few of the relevant facts. I will apologise if I have made errors in these notes as the facts came so thick and fast that it was impossible to do more than try to note some of them down.

The 5^th Duke’s full name was William John Scott Cavendish Bentinck and his father Lord George Bentinck was responsible for much of the work at Welbeck Abbey. This included

A huge [22 acre] kitchen garden, an immense riding house, a 1000 yard tunnel, underground chambers including a 160 x 63 ft hall designed as a chapel but used as a gallery and ballroom.

William ‘inherited’ the estate after the mysterious death of George, who walked between Welbeck and Thoresby. He was found dead on one such walk and there were suggestions of both a heart attack and possible involvement in a fight. A monument has been erected near to the site where his body was found. We heard how the 5^th Duke took to eccentric behaviour and effectively became a recluse. He even took to communicating with his own family in the same house by letter.

But there was a dispute and one Thomas Charles Druce laid claim to the title and estate. He had  set up an iron monger business in upper class London, next to Madam Tussauds but where did his initial money come from? There were several members of his family involved in the court cases. George Hollandby Druce from Australia even set up a share system to fund some of the court challenges. Herbert Druce was responsible for actions eventually leading to financial ruin for his family due to cost of legal action.

Eventually on 30^th December 1907 the final ‘verdict’ was given 43 years after the dispute started.

On Monday 14^th June 21 members and guests of the group gathered at the Sun Inn and were literally transported back in time. The mode of transport was built in 1938/9 but because of pressures for military transport was not registered until 1946. Manufactured by Dennis, and originally plying the Dover to London route twice each day, there are now only two of these buses of this vintage in the UK. The body is made of wood and crafted probably by two joiners working without plans, so none of the windows are exactly the same size. There is no exact record of the distance travelled but the calculations suggest it to be in excess of 1,500,000 miles and the engine has been refitted just once. The price when new was a realistic £1,350, whilst many of todays’ luxury coaches would be at least 400 times as much.

Our very knowledgeable driver gave us a commentary almost throughout our journey, and stopped at various points on the way. In Retford we learnt of the 1066 charter enabling the town to become a market town and its steady growth from that time. There was the rebuild of Grove Street chapel from 650 seats to hold 1,000 worshippers, but how many attend today? Then we saw the museum, originally home to the Pedlar family who became famous for saving the Flying Scotsman from the scrap yard in the USA and returning it to the UK. The Turks Head that dates from mid 1700’s and just a few doors away the oldest residence in the town centre, dating from 1701 and selling at that time for just 10 guineas. The story of the Clarks family who started with a small dye works in town and expanded to over 100 shops in the north of the UK.

When we stopped for a while in the market square we were treated to gory tales of early punishments and the unsanitary conditions as the population grew through the mid 1800’s. 1831 saw the first gas lighting, and the fact that before the police came the inspector of Nuisance who single handily kept the peace in town. He was paid just 10 guineas p.a.  Around 1880 ‘night soil’ collections were just not enough to prevent the ‘Great Stench’ of 1884. Little wonder if one considers that the Turk’s Head yard was home to the landlord’s pigs whilst he shared it with an undertaker and had a water bottling business, “Pig Muck – dead bodies – and mineral water” - all in one yard!  Grove Street was home to a sheep and horse fair, much of the Market Square dates from 1700 – 1850, the first bank being built in early 1800’s when there were no less than 4 postal deliveries each day. Dick Turpin is said to have assessed the potential wealth of travellers in the White Hart which serviced as many as 19 stage coaches each day with a team of 4 horses, along with smaller vehicles that was probably 100 horses to change each day.  

We returned to the town of Retford via Ordsall. A fine spread was laid on for us at the Beeches, and all passengers and crew enjoyed the opportunity to socialise for a while. This was a trip that took in so much in such a short space of time and we may have to do it all again around a different part of the North Notts area. These notes are less than a third of those taken on our journey – it’s a pit you missed it!

              Ready for boarding

 
                    The lunch stop                                                            Suitably refreshed, it was time for home

Book Launch pictures


NORTH & SOUTH WHEATLEY LOCAL & FAMILY HISTORY GROUP

Our speaker on May 17^th was Lynda Hotchkiss. She said her objective was to go beyond the records such as Parish Registers and indexes with which members were very familiar and look at some other sources of information that could aid family historians to ‘put flesh on the bones’ or confirm previously questionable links. Some researchers had options for their next step back on their tree and needed to be more specific, but much depended upon the survival of records, some of which is patchy.

Lynda started with Wills, which often named individuals and their relationships. She also identified the likely location of those Wills that had survived, ecclesiastical archives from 1350 in Lincoln or Nottingham and then maybe York or even Canterbury according to where land or lands were owned. Then later to Probate registers. There could be many clues in the wording and terminology used in both wills and inventories.

Apprenticeship papers, either for local trades and even the livery companies. ‘Children’ from 12 years old were apprenticed either by their families or often by parishes and might be moved to a different and sometimes distant parish to serve that often 7 year term.

Maintenance papers or ‘Bastardy Summons’ often enabled one to clarify parentage and tie down illegitimate children. Then Settlement records, either the printed or handwritten, often named specific individuals and their children.

Workhouse records – from early parish ‘poor houses’ to the larger and more formal Union workhouses after 1834 all kept detailed records even to what each occupant might expect at each of 4 daily meals. These often linked closely with the records kept by the parish ‘Overseers of the Poor’ which again provide a wealth of information about people, their trades, their children and sometimes placement of orphans.

Militia records – ballot papers - covered all males of a parish from 16-60 years of age and why they may be exempt from serving and the ‘Substitute Oath Roll’ which lists Individuals who sold their services and so effectively some armies were made up of mercenaries.

Maps sometimes combined with ‘Glebe Terriers’ could enable you to find out exactly where your ancestors lived. ‘Presentation Deeds’ give details of the appointment of clergy to a ‘living’, and they in turn can be traced often with details of their parents in the Alumni records of Cambridge or Oxford, as most clergy were M.A.

Sales catalogues [often retained by the Victorians] gave details of leasehold, freehold and copyhold sales along with the names of tenants and their property. War Diaries of regiments, Alehouse licences from Quarter sessions, and Large house inventories all enable extra facts to be added and sometimes conclusive evidence of lineage.

Even small vessels on the Trent, or canal boats, their crews, passengers and journeys have been recorded and some ‘Port’ books are available through the Railway and Canal Society.

Lynda gave us all the incentive to start clarifying some facts and adding information to other areas of our records. Family history after all is not just about a skeletal ‘tree’ of names and dates – it is also very much about social history and that ‘Flesh on the Bones’. 

Members Interests
Our members all share an interest in our own and other local villages and are always keen to receive old photographs / stories of individuals, families, and local buildings.
If you have anything you believe may be of interest to us just drop a note to Dave Valentine [see No 114 at the base of the list below for contact details]. Eventually we hope to produce a booklet featuring old photographs etc.
Individual members are in most cases also researching their own family history, some may be local, but many have roots that spread far and wide. Please have a look at the list below. Almost all family historians benefit from the exchange of information as has been proved by various international websites.
If you have any common interests or knowledge of the family names listed our individual members would be pleased to hear from you.
Look for the number by the name and the contact details are by those numbers at the end of the list. 

The annual Quiz Night held to raise funds for the village hall attracted lots of entries. 
The winning team from our Group are seen collecting their prizes from
active chairperson Carol Kirk.