well hello there :)

[SimonDMD]

Hi There,
First thank you Pam for fixing the sign up – and your wisdom regarding daughters and trampolines!

I only started genealogy in earnest at the start of lockdown, but note I opened an Ancestry account in 2009... wo was already curious.

I live in West London, although my newly acquired DNA results show that I am 41% Welsh, 30% English, 17% Irish, 9% Scottish and 3% Swedish.

No real surprises there and very much reflecting my areas of research focus. My Dad’s lot are all Montgomeryshire/Shropshire farmers (Poole, Davies, Jones, Morris, Nightingale and others). My grandmother Iliffe nee Poole had an 1833 pocketbook in which successive generations had conducted their own family research! Notes taken from the Llansanffraid ym Mechain parish records in the mid 1800s!! A record of my great great grandfather paying for his ancestors gravestone engravings to be re-cut… a feast. On top of that, last year my Dad casually mentioned he had an old farm ledger for this same Great Great Grandfather (Thomas Poole of Aston on Clun). I read through the rather dry numbers to discover 50 years of diary extracts starting in the middle with 1857!! He had the flu in 1900 and wrote them all out “in the hope that some descendent one day would look back on an old farmer’s life’. Well here I am 120 years later – as if he were speaking to me. I have wonderful portrait photo of him too. I gabble on.

So I am big into Pooles of Montgomeryshire – it does look as though they all originate with the Welsh noble family of Welshpool – who took the name ‘de la Pole’ to Normanise their name after 1066 (meaning of Welshpool). The Shrewsbury Chronicle of 1913 conveniently researched and wrote an article on all this. Oops I’m gabbling again.

I am also looking into my Mum’s Walmsley and Riley family lines. (I saw Damselfish’s post about Lambeth Walmsleys – I don’t know how common a name it is – mine seem to be from Lancashire). Excitingly one of my Pooles (David 1804-1844) married an Elizabeth Walmsley (died 1845) child Jeffrey James Poole. Curiously, David born in Wales but his family lived in London. An entry in the 1833 pocketbook comments: “was married 3 years before family knew, and then accidentally – he during a visit home never having mentioned his marriage. Aunt Savage’s suspicion something was wrong when he burst into tears saying goodbyes. Jeffrey James, Robert, & Lizzie Randles 3 children left. The mother dying 12 months after the father…”

The Riley’s came to Manchester from Ireland (John Riley) and were weavers in the textile mills. Son Philip Riley married Mary McGeary (daughter of Mary Ann Baguley). Catholic records for Manchester are tricky, but I was lucky to connect online with a 4th cousin in Blackpool who really knew her stuff. The Manchester Family History Society has all the surviving records for the various Catholic Churches available to buy as CD ROMs. You won’t find any of this online – there were many catholic weddings in the protestant cathedral on account you had to pay the cathedral anyway as well as your local church – so the poor catholics only went there. I gabbling again.

Oo one last thing, my wife is from the USA. A welsh Elizabeth Farr and a Staffordshire George Yoxall travelled there independently, destined to meet and marry in Kansas. I tracked down the farm of the Farr family in SW Herefordshire. Last week I noticed that on my Welsh side I have a 5th Great Grandmother Mary Farr b. 1766…. think I’m going to be busy.

Very best wishes to all

Simon

[Lesley Robertson]

Welcome to the British Genealogy Forum. Have a wander round, pick a suitable area, and give us the details about the person/people you’d most like to find at the moment.

[Pam Downes]

Hi Simon,

Welcome to British-Genealogy.

Hopefully you found it relatively stress-free to put on your big-boy pants and make your first (proper) post.

Lucky you, with the 1833 notebook and the farm ledger, and a photo of a 2x great grandfather.
I have a couple of photos of one set of 1x great-grandparents, only the great-grandfather lived long enough to know me, and he died when I was fourteen months old. Believe it or not, one of my 1x great-grandfathers died in 1869. (Just remembered that I have a photo from The National Archives, of all places, of another great-grandfather.)

My mum kept diaries but for the most part they consisted of 'went to Dot's for coffee', 'Dot to me for coffee' and 'went shopping', so the two or three that were in the drawer went in the bin. (Though I did remember to keep at least one letter that she sent me, so I have a sample of her handwriting.) However her diaries were exciting compared to mine for last year when most weeks contained two entries detailing the times of the grocery deliveries!
Mum did keep details of family events, and when I started the family history in earnest wrote down what she knew of her aunts, uncles, and cousins, plus the very few bits she knew about dad's relations.

Yes, you are going to be busy from now on. No time for boring stuff like DIY. It's BMD, FMP, FreeREG, etc, all the way.

Pam