After the Marriage Act came into force in 1754, it seemed that irregular and clandestine marriage practices may have ended in Bedminster. In part 1 we saw an immediate shift in the nature of marriages recorded in the parish register and Emanuel COLLINS had left the Duke of Marlborough public house, so perhaps the new …
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Irregular marriages at Bedminster: part 1 – Emanuel COLLINS, the Duke of Marlborough, banns and licences
Clandestine or irregular marriages in England prior to the 1753 Marriage Act (which came into force on 25 March 1754) are best known to have taken place in the area around the Fleet Prison in London. Marriages there were numerous and surviving records from series RG7 at The National Archives are available to view via …
Cardiff 1911: a question of language
WELSH, ENGLISH OR BOTH? A particular feature of the census in Wales is the language question, first introduced in 1891. This was intended to record whether each member of the household spoke Welsh, English or both languages. The data collected is by no means perfect. In 1891 there was no age limit specified for this …
A Somerset centenarian?
William MEAD (or MEADE) was a boatman on the river Parrett and on the canal near Bridgwater in Somerset. He certainly lived a long life and raised a large family, but did he really live to the age of 100? On 19 May 1876 the Western Gazette reported as follows: A HUNDRED YEARS OLD. – …
Family history on my doorstep
In September 2019 I visited St. Margaret’s Church in Roath, Cardiff. This did not take a great deal of effort as it’s only around ten minutes’ walk from my house, however the Cadw Open Doors event included a historical talk and the opportunity to climb the tower so it seemed like a good way to …
What if the parish register is wrong?
I was pleased to see a tweet from Bristol Archives yesterday announcing that Bristol parish registers will shortly be available on the Ancestry website. Parish registers are a fantastic resource for genealogists and it’s great to see that we’ll be getting the images to view alongside transcriptions of the entries. I spent some time poring …
Trout Cottage
Amongst my grandmother’s papers, there is a photograph of a house labelled “Trout Cottage – Malpas 1923”. This whitewashed cottage surrounded by blossoming trees is not the home of my ancestors, who lived in the terraced streets of Newport. Their houses were not unlike those that can be seen in the background on the right-hand …
M*N*S BREWER – making sense of an ancestor’s unusual forename
A moss-covered headstone at St. Mary’s Church in the Exmoor village of Luxborough marks the final resting place of my great-great-great-great grandfather and two of his grand-daughters[1]. On this occasion his name is recorded as Meaness BREWER, chiselled in the stone for as long as it can withstand the moss, damp and winds of the …
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JANE - tracing the life of my great-great-great-grandmother
Some ancestors leave an easy paper trail to follow. Others, like Jane, make things more difficult … and interesting. The story of my great-great-great grandmother begins on 20th May 1857 when we first meet Jane HILLMAN at her wedding to Thomas PRICE in Bristol. Their marriage certificate tells us that Jane is the daughter of Isaac …
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Jenni Phillips - Genealogy 