RootsChat.Com
Family History Documents and Artefacts => Family Bibles => Topic started by: matt94 on Sunday 13 September 09 14:15 BST (UK)
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Hi All,
I know that one branch of my family has the family bible of my gg grandparents Joseph & Tabitha Smith. It seems that the bible went to Benjamin Francis, their youngest son, who died in the 70's. Benjamins son said to a friend of mine:
"I also visited my cousin and her husband , they are both not well so I
did not press them but they do have a Family Bible ( when they can find
it) which might have some information. Also TABITHA was handicapped
and in a wheelchair in her later life"
The problem is, John has changed his email address and we don't know how to contact him. All we know is he lives in Tring, Herts.
Help
Matt
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How about putting an advert for him in his local newspaper.?
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or the telephone book if you have a rough idea where he lives.
tony
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Or BT on line directory enquiries?
Copperbeech5
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Problem solved
He emailed me! I will ask him
Thanks for the suggestions
Matt
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Hi, Matt,
I can't offer you any help but just wanted you to know that I'm in the same position:
My cousin had the family bible with ancestral names and dates in it. He and his wife divorced and she took off with the bible. She's been married twice after that. We can't locate her.
I thank God and the people who participate in this site.
Have a good day,
Jack
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I am lucky enough to have been given ours its wonderful... it doesnt go back too far - but what it does contain is so special. lucky me
I always look out for them at car boots, and other things like medals - you never know what you may find .. one mans trash etc..
xin
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oh wow.. just another bit of info
i needed to find a part of the family my whole family had lost touch with... i googled and used the white pages...
the first person i got was the daughter in law of the family i was looking for... never give up!!
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I've never heard of our family having a family bible, did all families have them?
Lizzie
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Lizzie i didnt know my family had a family bible until a person rang me up this afternoon and told me i was welcome to view it. sooo shocked.
i dont know if all families had one. to be honest lower classes couldnt read or write so i dont think that everyone did.
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My husband's brother has their family bible that lists names, places and dates going back to Wales in 1839, which is fortunate as the 1841 census for that particular area is missing. He gave me the dates over the phone so I haven't seen the handwriting but I do know that the groom was the son of an Irish migrant.
The brothers didn't know of its existence until my brother-in-law answered his door one day and saw an old spinster aunt on his doorstep who had arrived unannounced. She'd travelled a long way by train and bus to give him "something" because, as she said, his was the only branch left with the family surname.
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Some of my ancestors could write, I've seen their signatures on wills - and judging by the writing, it was more than just being able to sign their names. However, if there was a family bible, in any tree, it wouldn't have come to me as I'm not descended from the first male in any family.
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wow Rena thats amazing. it was really thoughtful of her to come all that way to give him the bible.
Lizzie :) i am sure they were well versed with reading and writing i didnt mean to offend. i am just saying that not every family has one or it has gotten lost along the way. I hope that u find urs though :) keep looking and dont give up.
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I love it when you see an actual really real signature on any document... really special...
xin
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From the little I have seen on the subject it would appear that Family Bibles were passed down to the oldest child in each generation. Perhaps someone on this thread can confirm this or not?If this is the case, then at least it would give a slight clue to where to start looking.
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it may be the case in some families. not in mine. my great great grandfather had the family bible because his father migrated with him to Victoria. the older brother remained in Tasmania. he passed it down to his second oldest daughter, who then passed it on to her daughter. i will be seeing her this weekend hopefully
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i am sure they were well versed with reading and writing i didnt mean to offend
I wasn't offended. I did have some ancestors who couldn't write - so I presume they couldn't read either - but for the ones who were literate, I just haven't seen or heard about a bible. Like Roger says, they were probably passed down to the eldest child in each generation, which tended not to be my ancestors.
Lizzie
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The spinster aunt who had the family bible was the oldest child of several sisters and two brothers.
My father-in-law was the oldest son but didn't even get his father's pocket watch which he'd inherited from his father before him. The pocket watch was given to the younger brother who actually carried the name of the boys' grandfather because, as was often the case in those days, the oldest son who had originally been baptised with grandfather's given name had died as a child.
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I have no chance of a family bible on either side if I am right about the oldest child (I thought son) inheriting it! My paternal grandfather was the youngest son of 5, while though my maternal grandfather was the oldest in his family, his father's position in the family was the reason my grandfather was an ag lab rather than a wealthy farmer. I think he was 12th, certainly 20 years younger than his oldest sibling.
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One of the relatives in a branch of a cousin's line had found a family bible. I was excited for her until she told me it had been stored correctly and damp had got in. I have n't heard of one in my lines, that would be too easy! I have heard of them being found in charity shops etc but would n't have thought about car boots. The best info source i sometimes find is the family history society that i belong to, they bring various cd's etc of useful records. Also other people who are researching the same lines and the opportunity to swap info.
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I have no chance of a family bible on either side if I am right about the oldest child (I thought son) inheriting it!
Live in hope! For one strange reason or another, both our family bibles have passed down to youngest children. One of them in particular was passed to my great-great-grandmother who was the youngest of nine children. I believe it was then passed in turn to her youngest daughter Lilian, the youngest of 12!!
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Almost 20 years ago a relative of my father's said she wanted me to have the family Bible- it had come down from original owner (my grandfather's great-grandfather) to son, then (no surviving sons) his daughter, then that daughter's sister's daughter (lived in the house), then her daughter (only child). There are 2 other (male) relatives in Ireland who are more closely related to the relative and several male relatives in England. When I suggested the Bible should go to some of them she said no, the original surname has died out and the others never kept in touch so she wanted me to have it.
Went to get the Bible- lovely tooled leather cover, in fantastic condition, obviously a very expensive edition. Inside front cover was (in beautiful handwriting) the name of my great-great-great-grandfather and with great excitement I started looking for family details....
... not another thing written inside even though there are pages (yes, pages) printed for births, deaths and marriages, no deaths letters, newspaper clippings, nothing :'(
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A friend and I found an old family bible in a little local shop. We persuaded the owner to hold it for two weeks to allow us to try to trace the family. (We couldn't afford to buy it.) With the help of Rootschatters on the Australian board, we put together quite a family history post haste, and when the shop owner saw what we'd done, she let us have the bible for a price we could afford.
The end of the story is that the Rootschat thread was found by a grandaughter of one of the two children listed in the bible, and we're going to be returning it into the family.
So do live in hope.....you just never know!
Dee :)
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I have a family bible that I managed to save from who knows what. In 1978 I travelled to England and met for the first time my mother's widowed aunt. She mentioned that she had the family bible and offered it to my mother who declined thinking that it was too heavy to take back to Australia. Fortunately I decided that I would find a way to get it home and took possession of it. I mailed it "book post" back to Australia and it sits pride of place in my bookcase.
I haven't written in it as yet as the old copperplate writing is not easily copied.
As heirlooms go this is one of the few items that I have from my forebears. Immigrants to Australia tended to travel light!
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Why copy the copperplate handwriting? It was contemporary when it was written in the Bible. I would write in it in my present style adding a further page of history for the next and future generations.
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Before my Gt Aunt died five years ago, I used to visit her and she would tell me tales of the family, I would scribble the details down on anything to hand and rush home and start looking for the facts. Aunt Olive was always correct with her facts and then one day she started to tell me about when her parents had died and she was given the family bible and the old grandfather clock... her brother, who lived with her and her late husband decided there was no room for them so chopped the clock up and made a bonfire and the last thing to go on the fire was the family bible >:( :-[ :-[
I would have given my left arm to have just read what was written, but alas it's never to be.
I always keep my eyes open for them in charity and antique shops.
Enjoy if you have one
Jane
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They were certainly not always passed on to the oldest, in my family in the early 1800s it went to the youngest and he also got two shares in the will whereas the others got one share, never found the reason, perhaps his parents thought he needed it more than the others!
I saw the bible offered for sale some years ago on the internet and sent Emails and phoned but got no response so if anyone knows of a Peter Gonovan (Perhaps Donavan) or his firm Banbury Computors situated in Banbury, Oxfordshire perhaps they could chase this up for me
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pm'd a link to Banbury computers
xin
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They were certainly not always passed on to the oldest, in my family in the early 1800s it went to the youngest and he also got two shares in the will whereas the others got one share, never found the reason, perhaps his parents thought he needed it more than the others!
In a slightly earlier time heirs omitted from the will or given less than the others had usually had the benfits earlier while the testator was still living.
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I had thought that might have been the case here as four brothers left the home village and married away but a daughter stayed at home with her parents until they died as did the son who got the two shares, she only got one!
I have little evidence of what was handed on but it could not have been much as the younger was given coal from a Parish charity in his later years. Not unless he had spent it all on wine, women and song!
Incidentally of interest is the fact that in that village in 1820 101 people were inoculated for Cow Pox (Three Ells in Hellidon - Jenny Fell 2000)
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Did the daughter get the house or provision for other accomodation?
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No, the will was proved and left to the wife, the daughter died before she died. The youngest did not appear to get the homestead either. Ancestor was the village butcher and his wife the daughter of the miller and they were both left property in trust before they married by his Uncle who was a woolcomber.
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Hi, Wheatley family, I am distantly related to a wheatley family. Our family came from London and had a goldbeating business. We were told that there were Australian relatives but know nothing more.Do you have a William Wheatley in your family?
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I thought our Family Bible was lost forever. All my cousins knew that the Bible existed, but no-one seemed to know where it was. Then, I made contact with a cousin that I never knew existed - my g. grandmother was married twice, and this lady (that I came across through Genes Reunited) was the descendant of my g. grandmother's second marriage, so her g.grandfather was my grandmother's step-father, and she got on very well with him.
After I'd known this long-lost cousin for a while, (I'd mentioned the Family Bible to her), she was helping her sister go through her late mother's effects. When she got there, her sister had already consigned several items to the rubbish sack, including a very battered old Bible ! As soon as she saw it, she knew what it was, and she has very graciously passed it over to me for safekeeping. It had never occurred to me that this Bible would have been passed down through this family line.
You should never give up hope in finding lost heir looms.