This Blog is to provide up-to-the minute information on updates together with some background on how I run this web site, plus more general genealogy news.

If you have any Hertfordshire history news that should be reported here, please Tell me about it

Spring in Hertfordshire

Most of our Hertfordshire Ancestors would have worked in the countryside and been very familiar with the changes in the seasons - something that those of us who live in town can easily forget. As they worked in the fields, or walked along the lanes, these are flowers that they would have seen at the end of March

Now that Franci has gone I don't get out as much as I should - as my Doctor recently reminded me. These photographs were taken two days ago, at the College Lake Nature Reserve, near Tring, which is just on the Bucks side of the county boundary.

Your Questions Answered

A Hertfordshire Grocer has branches in Yorkshire

Simon found the information on W. B. MOSS, Hitchin, from 1861 and  reported that they had a branch in Otley, Yorkshire. Census returns show that two W. B. Moss's sons married Yorkshire girls and set up businesses in Otley and Ripon.

St Pancras Schools, Leavesden

Gail asked about the records of children who were at the schools set up in Hertfordshire. Because the children at the schools were referred there by workhouses in Middlesex the first place to look is the London Metropolitan Archives. I have added a note to the Leavesden page.

The reason why Dyson Levick come to Harpenden?

Anthony has done some extensive research and the new evidence strongly suggests that when Dyson and Lizzie were living in Harpenden with a young family Dyson's wife Annie was still living in Yorkshire. As a result the "wife" being sought could be Lizzie Wilmot, aged 19, living at London Colney at the 1901 census. See LEVICK/WILLMOTT, Harpenden, early 20th century

Football

The Stanville Football Club (continued)

Mike writes: Although I had not heard of this club the suggested portmanteau origin seems reasonable.  The approximate timing is also interesting because the Cavendish estate had been developing since 1883 followed shortly after by Stanhope and Granville roads and part of Camp Road, near the area known today as the Crown.  At that point in time there was no Fleetville and the Midland railway separated this area from the rest of the city.  Apart from Clarence Park (from 1894) there were several other playing spaces - part of Watson's old nursery, then in the hands of F Sander, most of the Gaol Field west of Camp Road, and the home field of St Peter's Farm. 

     Mike is publishing a book on St Albans' East End later this year and I hope to be able to post details here when copies become available.

St Albans

Your Questions Answered

Why Checking the Source Documents is essential

If you are stuck looking for an ancestor at the beginning of the 19th century a read of the case of William Ashby should give you some ideas as to where to look. Nick was up against a locally common name and no immediately obvious candidate. Various ways forward were considered - such as looking at William's children and occupation. Two pieces of information proved essential in positively identifying his parents. The first was a crossed-out place of birth entry on a census return (not covered in the computer indexes used). The second was a witness, Rebecca Ashby, at William's marriage (witnesses are not listed on the online computer indexes). There was only one possible Rebecca in the indexes - who had a brother called William of exactly the right age. Rebecca married and in the 1871 census her place of birth was the same as the crossed out name given in 1851 for William. See ASHBY, Watford Area, Early 19th century

Why did Dyson Levick come to Harpenden?

Dyson Levick and Lizzie Willmott had two children in Harpenden before moving to New Zealand  before 1910. Research suggests that Dyson had no prior connections with Hertfordshire - and probably came from Yorkshire. More information is needed from New Zealand to take the story further  See LEVICK/WILLMOTT, Harpenden, early 20th century.

A Bushey man becomes a Congregational Minister in Derbyshire

When I first looked at POTTEN, Watford, late 19th century I could not find Henry Thomas Potten in the 1891 and 1901 censuses. A check of the 1911 census showed him living in Derbyshire with children born in Ireland in the late 1890s. Marina says he later went to Brighton.

Old News

   The Sandridge Night Soil Cart, 1899

The St Albans Rural District Council was responsible for sanitation, and in the summer there was problems with the arrangements to empty chamber pots in the Bernards Heath area of the parish of Sandridge.

Places

Freemasons in St Albans

Jon kindly provided a list of the Freemasons in the Halsey Lodge, St Albans, in 1879, which included my great grandfather, Jacob Reynolds. He also supplied a list of the first St Albans Lodge from 1845. I have added details of the Halsey and St Albans Lodges, together with Jacob Reynolds' certificate, and an invitation to the unveiling of the foundation stone at St Albans Grammar School.

St Albans

A brief history of Puckeridge with a map from 1746

 The History of Puckeridge as briefly described in The Agreeable Historian together with a detail from a contemporary map.

   In addition the Puckeridge pages have been reformatted and a dedicated menu added.

Puckeridge

Football

Old News

The Stanville Football Club

I recently spotted a large group photograph of the Stanville Football Club on ebay, taken by a St Albans Photographer. But who were they? They were clearly a local amateur team active between at least 1893 and 1901 but I have not discovered where exactly they were based or the names of anyone in the photograph. Who is the well-to do man with the cigar in the photograph? Was he the club sponsor/chairman and was he a prominent business man in St Albans? And why the name "Stanville"?

Can You Help?

Whit Monday Sports at St Albans, 1893

Until Clarence Park was opened the St Albans Cricket Club held an annual athletics day on my Great Grandfather Jacob Reynolds's meadow, on Heath Farm, Bernards Heath. While many of the competitors were local it is clear that many people came to St Albans for the day to watch or participate. I have listed all the people mentioned in the lengthy report of the event. It includes two members of the Stanville Football Club.

Stereoscopic Views by Downer of Watford

Frederick Downer produced a large number of post cards in the early part of the 20th century, but had been a photographer in Watford from at least 1871. This view of a garden turns out to be of Watford Place and was taken in about 1880.

Newly Published

    A Real Fairey Tale in Hertfordshire

Philip Wray, who has made a number of contributions to this site in the past, has written up details of his Fairey ancestors of Hitchin for the April issue of Family History Monthly (in shops 10th March). The article shows that sometimes records have survived that mention the poor in the 17th and 18th centuries - and demonstrates what can be found in Records Offices and Libraries.

 The Hertfordshire Countryside now has a web site

The Hertfordshire Countryside magazine has been published since 1946 and the early issues contained many admittedly often short articles of interest to the family and local historian. It is still published monthly, and while it now contains more "life style" material it still has several articles each month which reflect on the history of Hertfordshire, In the March issue there is a long illustrated review of a book, Hertfordshire Geology and Landscape, published by the Hertfordshire Natural History Society, an article on Watford Technical School, and an article on the village of Therfield with many pictures of the older buildings.

From the Help Desk

     I've got so much information but it doesn't fit together ...

Beverley's question about WEEDON, Abbots Langley, late 18th century raises an issue that affects a lot of visitors to this site. The surname is locally quite common - and she is not certain which John Weedon is which. This is one of the most frustrating types of question I can get - because to solve it you really have to identify all the John Weedons in the area - and many other people with the same name - collecting information from many different sources - some of which may only be available as unindexed documents in a Records Office. This can be frustrating work with no certainty of success. If you have a similar problem you may well find it useful to see what I have said.

     I have had a similar problem and will give details to indicate the amount of work that can be involved.. Over 30 years ago I was looking for the parents of William Speed Locke. We had his birthday (15th February 1792) from family records, and the census said he was born in Aylesbury. I combed all the records I could think of collecting references to members of the Lock(e) and Speed families in the area. and ended up with lots of pieces which would not fit - so I gave up trying. A little later I was looking for information on the Wilgoss (or Wildgoose) and Gibbs families in Aylesbury and spent a happy afternoon looking line by line through two massive "Overseers of the Poor" ledgers. I extracted entries about the welfare payments to members of one Wilgoss family and the trading activities (supplying second hand clothes) of Robert Gibbs. On the last page of the second ledger there was a list of miscellaneous receipts. A one line entry established that William Speed had paid for Widow Lock's lying in month at the right date! It was an illegitimate birth where the father accepted responsibility. A supporting piece of information turned up by chance in a scrapbook (relating to the Gibbs family) which included a 19th century press cutting reprinting an 18th century diary, which included details of the death of Widow Lock's husband a few years earlier. With these extra pieces it was possible to fit a number of other facts together to make a coherent story. Unfortunately I have still not been able to prove whether it was William Speed senior or Junior who made the payment. If there was a baptism it would almost certainly have been at a non-conformist chapel whose records have not survived for that date.

     Make at date with Forbidden Love

The next meeting of the Hertfordshire Family History Society is at Woolmer Green on March 26, when Frederick Feather is talking about "Forbidden Love". It sounds interesting. We all have a bit of it in our family trees - One of my own ancestors, Daniel Hill, went up to London to marry his late wife's sister - which was forbidden under church law at the time.

     Get Your pen out and sign

Occasionally I get messages from organisation who are trying to raise funds to preserve a  Hertfordshire church and recently I mentioned the web site for The Friends of Westmill Church. For the first time in 10 years someone has used the Ask Chris facility to ask me to sign a petition to preserve a historic building. It is not in Hertfordshire - but the Cleveland Street Workhouse is a very rare survivor  from the 18th century so why not support it. by signing the petition. At the same time why not tell me (with link to an appropriate web site) if there is some aspect of Hertfordshire's heritage that needs support.

Intermission - 5th March 2011

Nearly 40 years ago there was scheme called "Plant a tree in '73" followed by "Plant some more in '74" My daughter Lucy planted a sycamore key in a plastic cup - and it had grown until it was by far the biggest tree in our end of the housing estate. However it had got far too big, but, because of what happened later, we didn't want to loose it entirely. So we called in Luke Mabbett, from Aldbury, who has done an excellent job pollarding the tree - removing the top 25 feet or so of branches without damaging the other plants in the garden!.