Error and enumerators (written December 1999)

While idly flicking through the latest issue of the 'Journal of One-Name Studies' recently (it was either this or do some real work) I came across a report of a ghost entry in the 1881 census which a reader had picked up. It refers to an 'international playboy' Robert GOODMAN (age 52) living at 16 Acacia Gardens, Paddington, with his wife Cicely (aged 97) (ref REG 11/20 f126). According to Roy Stockdill this is a fake. Roy suggests that perhaps it was added to the census enumerators' book (CEB) by a bored clerk at the GRO in the 1950s or 1960s, before the records were transferred to the PRO. The entry seems an obvious fabrication, although it fooled the 1881 indexing project.

The chance are however that one or two entries in the CEBs are ghosts which have yet to be spotted. I thought I had found one the other week when a subscriber to the mailing list, asked me about a William NOBODY (age 41), a farmer labourer in Frankly, WOR in 1881 (RG 11/2941 f145). My excitement mounted as I checked the IGI and the GRO indexes. William does not appear in either place. Surprisingly there are a few NOBODYs listed in Family Search. The entry looks genuine however, even though no other NOBODYs are shown in the index.

Marie here at the Society suggested a possible answer. He may have been a foundling and given that name on adoption. If so it must have been a cruel thing to do.

Why do I think that there may be other ghosts in the census? Human nature is the answer. Certainly if I had been a census enumerator I would be very tempted to leave something for posterity. Enumerators were the people who went round collecting census forms, completing them if necessary and then send the results neatly written up in books to London.

The General Register Office expected an enumerator to 'be a person of intelligence and activity... He must be temperate, orderly and respectable, and be such a person as is likely to conduct himself with strict propriety, and to deserve the goodwill of the inhabitants...' Considering the arduous and precise work they had to undertake they were extremely poorly paid. In 1817 enumerators were given a fixed fee of 1 guinea (1.05); 2s 6d for every 100 persons in their district above the first 400 enumerated; and 6d per mile for every mile above the first five miles covered in collecting schedules.

As Edward Higgs, the historian of the census wrote in 'Making Sense of the Census' (HMSO, 1989) 'It was almost universally agreed that these rates of pay were insufficient in themselves to attract high quality staff, or to encourage the greatest diligence.'

Occasionally on the comments section at the beginning of the enumerator's books you may come across grumbling from aggrieved enumerators about the hard work and poor pay.

In 'Making use of the Census' (PRO Publications, 1997) Sue Lumas quotes remarks made by the enumerator of All Hallows, Barking (HO 107/1531 f193) 'I was not aware' he wrote, 'that all the particulars were to be entered by the enumerator in a book, the work without that, being ample for the sum paid, nor had I any idea of the unreasonable amount of labour imposed. The distribution collection etc of the schedules together with the copying of the same occupied from two to three hours for every sixty persons enumerated and for that - the equivalent is - ONE SHILLING!!'

Is it any wonder that the occasional 'mistake' must have crept in. Perhaps we have spent years trying to follow up one of these fabrications. What a horrible thought...

Surnames at the Society (written November 1999)

One of the things that have surprised me most since I started at the Society at the beginning of May has been the number and variety of British surnames. It's something that I hadn't given much thought to before. Having taught family history I was of course familiar with the theories behind the origins of surnames, that they originate in five ways (six if you include anglicised names of immigrants): by place (York), by nickname (Redman), by occupation (Fowler), by locality (Hill), and by patronymics (Richardson). The theory does not prepare one for the bewildering variety of surnames.

A quick survey of the index to surnames in the Document Collection suggests that the Society has material on about 7500 different surnames. And this is by no means complete.

Many surnames are of course variants, or start out as variants. There are supposed to be, for example, eighty variants of the surname Shakespeare. Incidentally did you know that William Shakespeare spelt his name three different ways in his will, none of which is how we know him today. The reason for this lies more in the fluidity in English spelling of the period, rather than in any uncertain in the dying Shakespeare as to his name.

Surprisingly some surnames appear to have died out: (DE) BRUGES, NETTERVILLE, KYME, for example. But it is always difficult to make generalisations. Some names are so odd that it makes you wonder how they occurred in the first place, or why the people whose names they are haven't changed them to avoid embarrassment. Some of my favourites, taken from the Document Collection index, for the letter F, are: FAIRSERVICE, FANJOY, FARKER, FARTHWAT, FEA, FEREBEE, FETTIPLACE, FIDGE, FIRMAGER, FRACKLETON, FRISBY, FROGBROOK, FUNGE, and not forgetting FUHRER.

FOWLER seems positively boring in company such as this! The seven thousand plus British surnames are of course both a boon and a curse to genealogy. It can makes it easier to trace a family with an unusual name.

Welsh family history is that much harder because there are so few surnames. In the census returns Llandrindod Wells, central Wales, for 1851 over three quarters of the town shared the same six surnames. Anybody attempting Korean genealogy may be put off by the fact that a great proportion of the population have the same surname -KIM. The very ease with which British surnames change is a curse.

In one's researches it is very easy to forget that the ancestor is probably there but under a different name. Sometimes it is easy to guess, but occasionally one is less scratching one's head at the change. 

The National Roll (written November 1999)

The Society of Genealogists has of course a considerable amount of information, especially for the First World War, which may be of use to researchers. In particular it has the excellent 'Soldiers died in the Great War' CD-ROM available in the Middle Library [Ed - Now online]. Here in the Upper Library can be found an incomplete set of 'National Roll of the Great War, which in the words of its editor claimed 'to supply a wonderful memorial of splendid services truly worthy of the thankful remembrance of a grateful Empire.' It was ambitious project, nearly six million men served in the British armed forces during the First World War, of whom roughly 700,000 lost their lives. And countless millions of other men and women were engaged in war work of one sort or another.

Unfortunately only fourteen or so volumes were ever published, although many more were planned. A complete set is held by the Imperial War Museum, but so far as I know the SoG is the only other place that has a set, although it is incomplete. The Society has volumes for men (and some women) from London, Leeds, Birmingham, Bedford and Northampton. Volumes 4, 9-11, 14 are missing. [Ed – the roll is now available both on Ancestry and Findmypast].

Each individual has an entry which briefly explains his or her war service and medals gained. Judging by how they are phrased these entries were completed by the individuals themselves or their families. Perhaps they also payed a few shillings to see their war service commemorated. When during the early 1920s people began to want to forget the war and their part in it, fewer and fewer people subscribed to the 'National Roll' so the project collapsed.

Opening a page of the first volume at random one comes across Mrs A.E. HANCOCK 'Special war worker'. 'During the war' here entry reads 'this lady rendered valuable service in the employ of the General Post Office and thereby released a man for military service. Her duties were carried manner, and she was commended for her patriotic work.'

Her husband Bombardier E.T. HANCOCK RGA [Royal Garrison Artillery] 'joined in October 1916 and was sent to the Western Front. He took part in many important engagements while in this theatre of war including those at Arras, Messines Ridge, Passchendaele and Vimy Ridge. In March 1918, during the German offensive he was wounded and invalided to England, and in June of the same year was discharged medically unfit for medical service owing to his wounds. He holds the General Service and Victory Medals.' They both lived at 94 Bronsart Road in Fulham.

The Society also has a number of other published rolls of honour, generally regimental rolls for officers and men of a particular regiment. There are also a few rolls for companies such as, English Electric and Refuge Assurance.

My favourite however is one published by the Croydon Library Committee in 1920 and can now be found on the Surrey shelves in the Middle Library. 'Croydon and the Great War' offers a history of the work of the council during the war, as well as a roll of honour for local men.

Some personal details are given. Frederick Thomas ALLEN of the Border Regiment, for example, was employed by Messrs Sainsbury in Purley. He enlisted in May 1915 and wound in 1916. Another ALLEN, Harry, was married with a son and had been employed by Croydon Tramways. He died of pneumonia while a prisoner of war in Germany on 29 June 1918. He served with the London Regiment.

The war service of the councillors themselves and their children are also marked. H. BISHOP, son of Councillor Samuel BISHOP, 'having only one eye, was refused by the Army and served as a Special Constable from December 1917, until demobilisation.'

Mrs Dorothy DICKINS, the daughter of Councillor John PELTON worked at Purley War Hospital between 1915-1917, before going to Le Havre to help in the YMCA canteen there. Her father himself served with the local volunteer battalion, although he may have been too old to see active service. 

Deaths (written October 1999)

I have been much preoccupied by death. Fortunately there hasn't been a family tragedy, but coincidentally a number of documents on the subject have come to light in the last few days that may be of interest.  

Let us start with an extraordinary letter from a condemned man at Newgate Jail which is being added to the Document Collection. William LONGMUIR writes from the 'condemned hold' to a Mrs COTTUM on 21 Oct 1725:  'I return you a thousand thanks for your favours as for my life I have no friend to stir about, so I have no dependence and I don't know that the death warrant may come down on Saturday night or on Sunday we expect it at farthest so I hope. If we die on Monday you will be so kind as to let me see you once more at chapel on Sunday. But if the warrant comes down when it will as soon as I know I will send [for] you directly as you shall know when it is. I should be glad to see you once more which is all at present from your most unfortunate servant. PS I should for ever be bound to pray for you. If you would give me a few papers into your church for me while only your prayers are desired for a young man [that] is under sentence of death.'   

Apart from the letter we know nothing more about this unfortunate man or the reason that he was languishing in Newgate. Can, as they say in the TV crime programmes, anybody help with this case? [See below]



Kingsley Ireland from Australia thinks that William LONGMUIR was actually William LONGMIRE and I misread the letter, which is quite possible. We have conducted a lively corresondence. He writes:

It was with interest that I saw your blog as a descendant of the William LONGMIRe from Holborn who emigrated to America via Newgate in 1725
I am a descendant of George LONGMIRE, Quaker, of Colthouse near Hawkshead, Lake Dirstrict, Cumbria who married Ann BRAITHWAITE in 1692. His descendant, Hiram LONGMIRE emigrated to South Australia in 1848 with his wife Ann and 5 children.  In 1972 I published a book "The Family History of Hiram LONGMIRE 1814-1880", consisting of   52pages.
You may view this book FREE nowadays as it has been put by a relative more adept at computers than I am, on the Facebook site that has been set up under Hiram LONGMIRE. You may need to trawl backwards until you see the 3 oval  busts and the title in gothic print, after which you may Forward the pages.
For many years I was in communication with Mrs Marie RICE of Tacoma, WA who wrote a book about the James LONGMIRE (ancestor of her husband, Robert) who crossed in a covered wagon along the Oregon Traill and established the Longmire Springs on Mt Rainier. We excahnged information about  the ancestry and history of the LONGMIRE family, and I was aware of James's descent from the emigrant William.
A number of years ago I saw in the accessions of the Society of Genealogists, London  library, a letter written from Newgate by William LONGMIRE dated 21 Oct. 1725  to his patroness, benefactress and friend, Mrs Cottum, who my well have been influential in having his sentence commuted to transportation. It begins "I return a thousand thanks for your favours"
I am an inept old fogey with computers and don't know how to scan and make attachments. I could send you a copy of the one-page hand-written letter by post if you shared a postal address with me. If you are not happy to do that, I could probably find a relative/friend who could email it.
It is a "copy of the copy" and is not very clear, but I would not say indecipherable. You may wish to obtain another copy direct from the Society of Genealogists, London.
I would like it to become freely available to ALL descendants of William LONGMIRE of Holborn-Newgate via sites on the Internet, but my only proviso is that I would like the annotation to state that the original letter is in the Library of the Society of Genealogists, London, and its existence was brought to the notice of William's descendants  by Kingsley IRELAND "Tregare"  128 Penrice Road    Angaston (Barossa Valley) South Australia  AUSTRALIA 5353 tregare@hotmail.com      Skype: kingsley..ireland

Death at least since July 1837 has been accompanied by a death certificate. The certificates themselves are often not terribly informative, so are often ignored by family historians. Given below are two examples. They come from the Brooks Davies Collection, the first few boxes of which (it is a huge collection) is available in the Upper Library.   Firstly, the tragic death of a newborn baby:   Herbert Hatton Joseph COLLINS died aged 6 weeks dated 15 Jan 1896.  Place of death: 60 Prince Edward Road, Hackney. Reason congenital syphilis. Son of George Collins, gen labourer and Eliza (present at death)  I'm no expert, but I presume that one of the parents was carrying the disease and passed it on to their child. Was Eliza a (former) prostitute, or did George pick it up from a local whore? We shall probably never know. 

Secondly, the death of one of Edwardian England's most prominent showmen and aviation pioneer:   Samuel Franklin CODY died 7 August 1912, Cove, Aldershot age 52, aviator, died by accidental collapse of an aeroplane   CODY was born COWDREY in Texas in 1860 and took the surname in honour of Buffalo Bill Cody. He came to England with various shows during the 1880s and 1890s and settled here permanently at the turn of the century. Something of an enthusiastic for new inventions, especially aviation, he made the first powered flight at Aldershot in 1904.  

According to an article in the Sunday Telegraph Magazine for 21 January 1996 he had asked that 'When my time comes I hope it will be swift and sudden death from one of my own aeroplanes.'   

Wills and probate are often part of the ritual of death. Wills can, of course, tell us quite a lot about the will maker and his or her relationship to the rest of the family.

Another item destined for the document collection is the will for William BARWICH, a planter on Barbados who made his will in May 1752, and added various codicils as he outlived his family. He had obviously long ago fallen out with his son Samuel for he bequeathed him £100 with the comment: 'and since by an unparalleled conduct and turning a deaf ear to all [] he hath perversely [] himself of my blessing I bequeath him that of Esau, by his sword shall he live, and I do give him the said hundred pounds to buy himself a sword accordingly.'

He had also had problems with his daughters, Jane and Mary, for he left his estate to his (estranged?) wife, Elizabeth, who had returned to Europe. The reason for this is that his daughters 'who have made it their choice to depend on her which is the reason for me to leave them to their own election.' In fact his daughters died before him, for they are deleted from the will by a codicil of 1756.

On the other hand he is keen to ensure that his widowed mother is well looked after leaving her rooms in a house in his plantation with instructions that she shall have full use of the kitchens. And, as this was still the age of slavery, his mother was to have the 'use of Negro woman named Alley for the term of her natural life.'

If his family should die before him, always a possibility in tropic climates, the estate should go to Nathaniel CARPENTER, son of Nathaniel CARPENTER, of London merchant 'the man I loved best and received most kindness while living.' Carpenter however is excluded from the will by a later codicil, perhaps the two fell out or Carpenter died.

While sorting out material to be microfilmed for the document collection I came across this GRO death certificate dated 21 November 1837 for John Durdin, age 2, japan polisher of Aston, Birmingham. The information was supplied by the mother who perhaps got confused in her grief. If not they certainly started children working early in those days!

Victorian family history (written September 1999)

Have you ever thought what it must have been like tracing your ancestry a hundred years ago. Well this week I have been following one man's attempt to trace his ancestors one hundred and twenty years ago.

Robert Edwin Lyne (1828-c1890) was headmaster of the art school in Dublin from the 1870s. He came from a poor family who lived in London, but had come originally from the Cotswolds and border area of Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and Warwickshire.   His papers have been languishing at the Society since the 1950s when they donated by a Miss Bennett. Elisabeth MacDougall sorted a box last year, but the remainder of the material only came to light recently.

The collection consists of a mixture of letters relating to Mr Lyne's genealogical researches and more general family and financial matters. They date from c1840-1890, although the genealogical material largely falls within the period, 1879-1884.   Somehow Lyne became aware that a Mary Lyne of Reading had left £500 unclaimed on her death (the equivalent of perhaps £50,000 today) and he set too to see whether they were related. He believed that they were connected through his grandfather Thomas Lyne, who was supposed to have had sixteen children, although other members of the family thought it might have been just thirteen or fourteen. Thomas Lyne was born about 1765 probably in Syde, Gloucestershire.  He began by inserting advertisement asking for help in the personal columns.

These appeals attracted the odd fortune hunter, William Line of Banbury wrote: '...my father and grandfather belonged to Littleburn, and other matters seem to answer to it. So hearing from you I hope that it may be that "I am the rightful owner". May I ask sir what it is, money, land or otherwise, and what quantity. Waiting a reply...' 

However these appeals did produce a number of long lost cousins who  fell over themselves to help Edwin Lyne in his researches. They visited former servants and possible relations in the hope of finding useful information. Sometimes of course potential informants had just died.

Richard Philips helpfully wrote in October 1881 'My cousin Mary David died... about a year since she could have told us almost everything you want to know.' 

Of particular interest is John Lyne of Cranbroook, Tasmania who emigrated in the 1840s and had become a prosperous farmer. As well as family gossip and reminiscences, his chatty letters talk about life on the island.

Another correspondent was Richard Philips, who ran a stationers and grocers shop in the pretty Cotswolds village of Bourton on the Water. Philips became an assiduous researcher filling letters with personal reminiscences. On one letter he added a postscript 'My daughter jokingly asks why you make these enquiries.' It is something we all must ask ourselves at times. 

Of course Edwin Lyne could not rely entirely on the memories of his relations. He had to find firm facts. So he turned to two of the key sources still employed today: parish registers and Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) wills.

Lyne doesn't appear to have used GRO certificates. Perhaps they were too new; for the national registration system had only been in place for forty years when he began his study.   

Parish registers then were still kept locally. Edwin Lyne had to write to each incumbent of parishes, where he thought there may have been Lynes, asking them to search the registers for him. In many parishes his enquiries roused a great deal of interest. In Bucknell, Oxfordshire, the Rev G.W. Pieritz enlisted the support of Col and Mrs Hibbert, the squire of the village, to pour over the registers.  Thomas Plumb, the sexton at Little Compton, Warwickshire, took his two daughters 'down to the church this evening and cannot find such a headstone as you state.' 

Even if there was nothing in the registers the incumbents often talked about Lynes in the village. Revd John Hodgson, Rector of Kinver wrote that 'There are no Lynes of any position here - the only man of the name is a higgler of coal (George Lines) has resided about 19 years in the parish...'   

In many parishes however Mr Lyne's enquiries were received with a great deal of grumbling about the work that they would involve. At Fredington, Warwickshire the Rev R.E. Williams complained: 'I find upon trial that the task of examining the register for Lynes is more than I have time for... the earlier entries are written in a most difficult handwriting and are faded through age.'   

In a few parishes incumbents seem to have been overwhelmed by requests by other researchers. In Hanslope, Buckinghamshire the Revd M.A. Nicholson replied 'You must really excuse me the troublesome work of register searching. I am almost daily devoured with parties searching the register for Christopher Wren... Duchess of Marlborough...etc etc. 

Another problem was the fee to be paid for the work undertaken. Incumbents could charge 1s for every search extending over a period of not more than one year, and 6d additional for every additional year, and 2s 7d for every single certificate. This was expensive: a search over several centuries might cost £5 or more (worth £500 today). Fees however could be waved for 'literary research' which included family history.   

A few incumbents were prepared to wave the fee altogether. In Bloxham, Oxfordshire, Rev J. Hodgson replied: 'As to fees I shall leave it to you. Were I not hard pressed in money matters, having a very large family of 11 children, I would make you a present of the certificates: but as it is I don't want to be extortionate and anything you think fair and right I shall be willing to accept.'   

Others were more hard-headed. The Rev W.H. Chamberlain,in Keevil, Wiltshire said 'I must mention to you that the custom of this parish is that the fee is 1s for a search and 2s 7d for extract should be first sent by those who apply from a distance.'

The clergy rarely charged the full amount for research undertaken, although most asked the legal fee for certificates. However as the extracts supplied were free, and gave as much information as a certificate, Edwin Lyne wisely bought few certificates.   

PCC wills were held by district probate registries. The records would in due course be transferred to Somerset House and eventually to the Public Record Office. They were a good source of names and could be used to identify parishes with Lynes in them. Searches however cost 7s each, so Lyne used them sparingly.

He did however get the registry in Northampton to provide a list of Lyne wills for the county, although he does not appear to order copies of any original wills.  Lyne's attempts to use archive holdings themselves were generally frustrated by the lack of finding aids. A local historian Cecil J. Davies, from Painswick, Gloucestershire wrote: 'I have not been able to spend a few hours in the Public Record Office and my progress there was very slow; so many of the [Lay Subsidy] rolls are not well indexed that much time is lost in searching for facts.'   

This may help to explain why many genealogists and antiquarians of the period spent considerable amount of time calendaring and indexing records. Lyne himself, amongst other publications, transcribed the lay subsidy rolls for Theddingworth, Leicestershire. 

Eventually of course he came across a genealogist who was tracing the family: Capt G.J.M. Glubb, late 38th Bengal Light Infantry, of Bedford (and father of Glubb Pasha). In particular, Glubb seems to have been conducting a one name study of Glubb, Gloub, Gubb, and Glub surnames 'for' as he told Edwin Lyne 'they are all the same'. His letters are full of references to medieval and Tudor Lynes scattered throughout the West Country, although what connection to Lyne's line remained unclear.   

Unfortunately the Lyne Collection is incomplete. We don't even know when Edwin died. There are no pedigrees to show the work completed or a final written account of his family history. What is clear however is that although he never managed to claim that £500, he derived a great of pleasure from his studies and added, if slightly, to the sum of human knowledge. What greater epitaph can a family historian have? 

The story last week about the papers of Edwin Lyne produced a great deal of response amongst subscribers to this list. What was even more surprising was that not one, but two, people e-mailed me claiming a relationship to him. The chances of this happening must be very remote.   

Edwin Lyne appears to have begun his researches with an appeal in the personnel column of The Times for 5 Janaury 1876. While at the PRO the other week I found it on the front page of the edition for 5 January 1876. It reads:  'To incumbents, parish clerks and others £5 will be given for the register of baptism of Thomas LYNE who lived and was buried at Syde, GLS in 1812 aged 87 and born about 1725. He had brothers: Robert Lyne, who was buried at Baisford, GLS aged 80 and Henry Lyne of Farcot. A reward is also offered for the register of marriage of Thomas LYNE and the register of baptism of Robert and Henry LYNE.  Address R.E. Lyne Esq, Theddingworth, Rugby.' 

Actually Edwin seems to have got his facts wrong. According to Richard Lyne, who kindly sent me his notes on that branch of the family, Thomas was born at Little Compton across the border in Warwickshire. Did Edwin ever realise his mistake?   

What struck me as interesting was that this was not the only advertisement of the type carried by the newspaper. There seemed to be one or two appeals in every issue, all couched in much the same way. It might be a useful exercise for somebody to comb through the personnel columns of The Times and extract this information. Who knows what use it might be to the genealogist of today.  

Packard's Pals (written September 1999)

Packard’s pals

During the past week I have been cataloguing the papers of Brigadier John Joseph Packard. Brig Packard took up genealogy on his retirement from the Army in 1961 and it remained one of his interests until he died in August 1993. The result of his researches appeared in a book published in 1987, a copy of which is to be found in the Library here.

During the years Brigadier Packard, and his wife Faith, established contacts with Packards around the world. The collection is full of family news. The Packards also welcomed distant cousins passing through England to their flat in the Barbican, a complex of apartments (and much else) near the Society in central London. 

From a genealogical point of view the collection is perhaps a tad disappointing Packard traced his Suffolk forebears back to the beginning of the seventeenth century when they lived at Stonham Aspall near Framlingham.

He seems to have given up doing much serious research when Packard and his family moved to London in the early 1970s. Thereafter he seems to have concentrated on building up links with Packards worldwide.

The collection however clearly shows the spread of the name. Most North American Packards are descended from a Samuel Packard who settled with his wife and child in Hingham, MA in August 1638. Australian Packards perhaps begin with the Revd Daniel Packard who arrived with his large family to be chaplain to Bishop Short in Adelaide in 1851.   

The collection however shows clearly the differences between the North American and British strands of genealogy. Americans seem to have become interested in their origins much earlier than the British. I have a clipping on my desk from the Daily Telegraph of 9 July 1890 which talks in the most patronising tones about the American 'characteristic trait ... [a] fondness for tracing their blood to old English families.' and concludes 'We believe American citizens are a little weary of the dead level of modern Yankee society.'

Certainly American genealogy was well organised. The Packard Memorial Association, for example, organised a large celebration at the Agricultural Grounds in Brockton, MA in August 1888 to mark the 250th anniversary of the arrival of Samuel Packard. A record of the event can be found in the collection. The introduction notes that 'Within the past few years a growing interest has been manifest in many sections to know something of the different branches of the family.' and remarks that 'A better type of American citizens are seldom gathered in one assembly than were present on this... festival.' 650 people, attended at $1.25 per head, consuming a large luncheon before settling back to enjoy a number of lengthy and probably rather soporific speeches from various worthy Packards. 

Few British families would have thought of organising a reunion of this sort at this time - and perhaps British reticence really prevents such events even now.

Late Victorian genealogists of the time were keen to avoid dealing with the broad masses. When the first volume of parish registers was published by the Harleian Society in the 1870s G.W.G. Leveson Gower wrote in the preface that the Society should not publish every register in its entirety, concluding 'I maintain that as a genealogical society we are not concerned to find ancestors for families which have risen to the ranks of gentry in later times; our business is only with the record of those who at the time the entry was made were persons of recognised social position.'

A number of other prominent genealogists of the period agreed believing that the history of the common man was at best irrelevent.   A further celebration of Samuel Packard's arrival in America was organised exactly a hundred years later in a motel in Eureka Springs, AK. This was a much more folksy affair, with a buffet, BBQ and old time dancing.

Such a good time was had that further reunions were organised in 1990 and 1992. The whole event was organised by the Packard and Allied Families Association who published (and perhaps still publishes - the SoG doesn't subscribe) an excellent, if to British eyes a little twee, quarterly newsletter full of news and histories of Packards in America. I particularly liked the romantic history of the Bad Lands Cow Boy published by Arthur T. Packard at Medora, Dakota Territory during the 1880s. Packard eventually ended up as the local chief of police, without a gun, but with the tricky task of getting rid of the local cattle rustlers and other low-lifes.  

If only all our ancestors lived such exciting lives... 

Professional researchers (written September 1999)

One of the surprising things about the special collections here at the Society is the amount of information they can tell you about the person who created the material. If you give your genealogical papers to the SoG you may never know what they might say about you. It may show in the way that the collections were kept.

The JONES B Collection was compiled by Dr Robert Jones, a retired schoolmaster from Croydon during the 1980s: a man seemingly of almost superhuman neatness and discipline which shone through very clearly in the neat and tidy way he kept and sorted the material acquired during the course of his researches into his JONES, HIGGENS, KEDDIE, REYNALDS, and THOMSON ancestors in England, Canada and New Zealand.

For other people their personality shines through in correspondence that survives in the collections. This is perhaps more true for record agents or professional researchers for they spend a lot of time writing to clients.

This week I have been spending much of my time sorting out what will become the DEVEY Collection. Gerald Devey, whose papers these are, was a record agent based in Exeter. The collection consists of his notes and correspondence relating to about 150 Cornish, and especially Devonian, families which he researched in the early 1970s. It includes a large number of letters to clients in which he talks, generally in passing, about what is going on in his life. Usually, it has to be admitted, these events are used to justify delays in undertaking research. All in all they build a picture of a busy, but perhaps rather a lonely man especially after the deaths of his wife and sister. He also becomes reluctant to drive to distant record offices as a result of problems with his eyes. On the other he manages to get to Gibraltar to go research in the archives there which he really enjoys.

Another surprisingly useful source is the scrap paper on which people use to scribble notes. Robert Jones tended to use old science exam papers which confirmed his status as a teacher. Gerald Devey's preferred choice was the headed notepaper of the South-West Special Circle of the Institute of Electrical Engineers of which he appears to have been secretary at some stage. It does not take much deduction to reason that Devey was an electrical engineer before he retired. There is further evidence in that Gerald Devey often used engineering drawings prepared for the Post Office for his notes, thus suggesting that he was a Post Office engineer at least for the latter part of his working life.