Instead of Sudoku
Jul. 23rd, 2008 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaceySo I got myself a subscription account to Genes reunited which gives be reasonable access to census data and vital records data that otherwise you have to pay-per-view for. As a result I can, until my sub runs out at Christmas, click on the website and search for family members hitherto unknown.
M f-list has all suffered from this already in that I've been posting random bits of family history... but... it's getting addictive.
Yesterday I found out about four genrations of Hitchmans that I hadn't known about...
Now if only I'd done some work as well.... Read more behind the cut
And here are the obligatory pics. This is the second William Hitchman Rose with two of his aunts taken in 1904
And this is William Hitchman Rose
M f-list has all suffered from this already in that I've been posting random bits of family history... but... it's getting addictive.
Yesterday I found out about four genrations of Hitchmans that I hadn't known about...
Now if only I'd done some work as well.... Read more behind the cut
John Hitchman (b.1770), the son of Thomas Hitchman (b. approx 1750) and Mary Simms who married in Windrush in 1770, came from Naunton (just north of Northleach in the Windrush Valley) to Aston Blank (now called Cold Aston) sometime before the birth of Thomas Hitchman (b.1796). Then the Hitchmans seem to settle in and around Aston Blank, Gloucestershire through the late 1700s.
Aston Blank/Cold Aston is a rural parish close to the Foss Way (old Roman road that runs diagonally across the Ciotswolds) 18km east of Cheltenham. It's never been a big place. Cold Aston manor had only 18 tenants in 1309 and 18 parishioners were assessed for the subsidy in 1327. Depopulation in the early 14th century caused an overall decline in population by 1524 when there were only ten taxpayers. In the later 16th century the population probably remained unchanged. In 1650 there were said to be 14 families but the hearth-tax return of 1672 named 25 householders. In the 18th century the population rose gradually from 120 in 1710 to 216 in 1801. This is when the Hitchmans were there.
Thomas Hitchman was an agricultural labourer who was born in Aston Blank in 1796. He married Keziah Herbert (born 1796), the daughter of Richard Herbert (1761 - 18187) and Ann Webb (b.1760) from the neighbouring village of Notgrove. They had at least 11 children, including two sets of twins, between 1822 and 1838: John (1822) Charlie and Mary - twins (b.1826), Joseph (b.1828), Sarah (b.1827), Ruth (b.1830), Miriam and George - twins again (b.1831), Rachel (b.1836) Leah (b.1837) and Richard (b.1838).
Their fourth child, Joseph Hitchman was born in 1828, also in Aston Blank, not all that far from where he eventually ended up in Oxfordshire. He married twice, firstly Ann in 1848 in Stow on the Wold. They had 6 children, the first four being born in Combe, Oxfordshire. Their last two children were born close by in a tiny village called Woodleys, Near Wootton (not far from Woodstock in Oxfordshire), and that’s probably where Anne died. Later - still living in Woodleys and now listed on the 1871 census as a carter. He’s married to Elizabeth, a poultry keeper, and they have another three children. (The youngest is only 2 months and Elizabeth is still only 37 so there may be more children later.)
I can’t find the family on the 1961 census (yet) but Thomas, aged 20 is still living at home and is an agricultural labourer along with his seventeen year old brother John. Their younger sister Sarah is 15 and the handwriting on the census form is hard to read, but her occupation looks like ‘gloveress’ or glover-something. Does anyone have any ideas?) William is ten, a scholar. The three younger children are all Elizabeth’s and there’s a bit of an age gap, so the three little ones are: Keziah, Kaye and Edward aged 3, 1 amd 2 months.
We can only guess what took young farm labourer Thomas Hitchman from the rolling hills of Oxforshire to the rolling mills of Sheffield, but the next time we find any trace of him he’s a labourer in an ironworks living in Ecclesfield - just a few streets away from the Rose family. He obviously met and seduced young Everelda, a servant and thirteen years his junior.
Thomas Hitchman didn't quite marry Everelda Rose in time so their first child’s surname was Rose - William Hitchman Rose, born 12th June 1883 - but all his siblings were Hitchmans not Roses. Little William Hitchman Rose's birth certificate doesn't have the father named and it's Everelda's mother Hannah (formerly Hannah Kay) who registers the birth.
Thomas eventually did the decent thing by Everelda, whether under pressure or willingly, we'll never know, but they married in the September quarter of 1883 and had at least four more children after William: Albert, (1885), Everelda (1990), Hannah (1993) and Mary (1995), but by the 1901 census Everelda is a thirty-seven year old widow with five children - presumably supported buy the oldest two.
The first William Hitchman Rose married Janie Keeton and fathered the second William Hitchman Rose, Best Beloved's Grandad, known as Bill,
Family tales say that Janie was a lovely person, a real carer, but (the first) William Hitchman Rose was a devil to live with, often drinking away his wages before Janie got hold of the housekeeping money. She nursed him diligently through his last illness but once he died, Janie became a new woman - taking holidays for the first time in her life and actually having fun. Even in her later years she was still organising things for the ‘old folks’ who were probably younger than she was. No one has a bad word to say about Janie. She was a real sweetheart. And maybe that’s why her son Bill turned out so well.
Bill (Jnr) married Olive Hughes, the daughter of Abraham Hughes (b. 15.4.1879) and Beatrice Fairham or Fareham (d. 5.6.1928.) They had three children, Evelyn Hitchman Rose (Best Beloved's mum, b. 26.12.1926 on her parents’ wedding anniversary,) Eric and Margaret. Bill was a miner all his life, fiercely intelligent, mostly self-educated and a strong Union activist. He retired at the age of 61 due to ill health and died very shortly afterwards of pneumonia complicated by pneumoconiosis.There’s a fabulous article about him that appeared in a children’s newspaper in 1949 - about the life of a miner.
Aston Blank/Cold Aston is a rural parish close to the Foss Way (old Roman road that runs diagonally across the Ciotswolds) 18km east of Cheltenham. It's never been a big place. Cold Aston manor had only 18 tenants in 1309 and 18 parishioners were assessed for the subsidy in 1327. Depopulation in the early 14th century caused an overall decline in population by 1524 when there were only ten taxpayers. In the later 16th century the population probably remained unchanged. In 1650 there were said to be 14 families but the hearth-tax return of 1672 named 25 householders. In the 18th century the population rose gradually from 120 in 1710 to 216 in 1801. This is when the Hitchmans were there.
Thomas Hitchman was an agricultural labourer who was born in Aston Blank in 1796. He married Keziah Herbert (born 1796), the daughter of Richard Herbert (1761 - 18187) and Ann Webb (b.1760) from the neighbouring village of Notgrove. They had at least 11 children, including two sets of twins, between 1822 and 1838: John (1822) Charlie and Mary - twins (b.1826), Joseph (b.1828), Sarah (b.1827), Ruth (b.1830), Miriam and George - twins again (b.1831), Rachel (b.1836) Leah (b.1837) and Richard (b.1838).
Their fourth child, Joseph Hitchman was born in 1828, also in Aston Blank, not all that far from where he eventually ended up in Oxfordshire. He married twice, firstly Ann in 1848 in Stow on the Wold. They had 6 children, the first four being born in Combe, Oxfordshire. Their last two children were born close by in a tiny village called Woodleys, Near Wootton (not far from Woodstock in Oxfordshire), and that’s probably where Anne died. Later - still living in Woodleys and now listed on the 1871 census as a carter. He’s married to Elizabeth, a poultry keeper, and they have another three children. (The youngest is only 2 months and Elizabeth is still only 37 so there may be more children later.)
I can’t find the family on the 1961 census (yet) but Thomas, aged 20 is still living at home and is an agricultural labourer along with his seventeen year old brother John. Their younger sister Sarah is 15 and the handwriting on the census form is hard to read, but her occupation looks like ‘gloveress’ or glover-something. Does anyone have any ideas?) William is ten, a scholar. The three younger children are all Elizabeth’s and there’s a bit of an age gap, so the three little ones are: Keziah, Kaye and Edward aged 3, 1 amd 2 months.
We can only guess what took young farm labourer Thomas Hitchman from the rolling hills of Oxforshire to the rolling mills of Sheffield, but the next time we find any trace of him he’s a labourer in an ironworks living in Ecclesfield - just a few streets away from the Rose family. He obviously met and seduced young Everelda, a servant and thirteen years his junior.
Thomas Hitchman didn't quite marry Everelda Rose in time so their first child’s surname was Rose - William Hitchman Rose, born 12th June 1883 - but all his siblings were Hitchmans not Roses. Little William Hitchman Rose's birth certificate doesn't have the father named and it's Everelda's mother Hannah (formerly Hannah Kay) who registers the birth.
Thomas eventually did the decent thing by Everelda, whether under pressure or willingly, we'll never know, but they married in the September quarter of 1883 and had at least four more children after William: Albert, (1885), Everelda (1990), Hannah (1993) and Mary (1995), but by the 1901 census Everelda is a thirty-seven year old widow with five children - presumably supported buy the oldest two.
The first William Hitchman Rose married Janie Keeton and fathered the second William Hitchman Rose, Best Beloved's Grandad, known as Bill,
Family tales say that Janie was a lovely person, a real carer, but (the first) William Hitchman Rose was a devil to live with, often drinking away his wages before Janie got hold of the housekeeping money. She nursed him diligently through his last illness but once he died, Janie became a new woman - taking holidays for the first time in her life and actually having fun. Even in her later years she was still organising things for the ‘old folks’ who were probably younger than she was. No one has a bad word to say about Janie. She was a real sweetheart. And maybe that’s why her son Bill turned out so well.
Bill (Jnr) married Olive Hughes, the daughter of Abraham Hughes (b. 15.4.1879) and Beatrice Fairham or Fareham (d. 5.6.1928.) They had three children, Evelyn Hitchman Rose (Best Beloved's mum, b. 26.12.1926 on her parents’ wedding anniversary,) Eric and Margaret. Bill was a miner all his life, fiercely intelligent, mostly self-educated and a strong Union activist. He retired at the age of 61 due to ill health and died very shortly afterwards of pneumonia complicated by pneumoconiosis.There’s a fabulous article about him that appeared in a children’s newspaper in 1949 - about the life of a miner.
And here are the obligatory pics. This is the second William Hitchman Rose with two of his aunts taken in 1904
And this is William Hitchman Rose
