Picturing our ancestors lives.

[coombs]

It is great when you visit ancestor villages and towns and even city streets and churches, rather than just hearing about them on Ancestry or Google etc. Even Streetview of the villages is nothing like being there yourself.

My ancestor John Titshall was born in 1823 in Suffolk. He wed in 1845 in Hacheston and 4 years earlier was living a few doors away from his future wife Sarah Archer. I have bene to Hacheston a number of times including the church he wed at. And you get a clearer picture of their life. You even examine 1841 and 1851 census returns to try and nail the location in the village residence they lived at as a lot of village houses were not numbered, but some named or near a pub or shop or something.

In 2015 I went to Bletchingdon in Oxon where my 3xgreat gran was born. I think judging by census returns she was born on the main road in one of the houses behidn the Old Red Lion which overlooked the green.

I have been to London many times and visited where my ancestors lived.

[dowdstree]

Visiting places where our ancestors lived does give you that extra connection with them.

In October we had a holiday in St Monance, Fife, Scotland (a small former fishing village) where most of my late mother's family came from. It was a wonderful experience. I visited the Church, walked many of the streets trying to imagine them walking there too.

I even found a number of family graves in the Churchyard including that of my 3 x great grandparents and their children who had died in infancy. It was very moving and I was able to pay my respects. Also at the war memorial where some distant cousins are remembered for their sacrifice in WW1.

Its a beautiful spot. The Church and Churchyard are right on the Firth of Forth and some of the ancient gravestones are practically falling into the sea.

Many more places on my list still to visit.

Dorrie

[clairec666]

I visited a few places from my mum's side of the family, a few years back, in Norfolk and Suffolk. Discovered a few lovely places off the beaten track. I would have loved to have found my ancestor's farm, but the address "West of River Ouse, Southery" wasn't enough to pin it down! Luckily another ancestor's pub is still in use today.

Still haven't visited anywhere on my dad's side though. Long overdue a trip to Essex.

It's so easy to research from home now, a lot of us neglect visiting the places themselves,  which is sad. My mum and grandad went on family history holidays together,  because local record offices and graveyards were the only way of finding some of the information we have at our fingertips today.

[cms]

I couldn't agree more. I found my ancestors' croft on the west coast of Scotland intact and was able to look inside the house as the builders were restoring it. Also we located the later generations of that family's tenement houses in Greenock.

A family history bonus happened when I spotted my gt gt gt grandparents' house from the Magical Mystery Tour bus in Woolton near Liverpool.

London was a disappointment, since Selfridges swallowed up my gt grandfather's chemists shop and the house they subsequently inhabited had been replaced by a block of flats.  In the case of London though, so many street views survive that it is easier to imagine what life was like there in the late 19th century.

[coombs]

I have been to Oxford, Suffolk, Essex, Sussex, London and Durham, all ancestral places. I hope to visit Dorset one day where my Coombs family originated. And I hope to visit the township in Pennsylvania where my 3xgreat grandad lived once his wife died and he joined a daughter who emigrated there. I hope to visit Selkirk where my Stewart line originated and the ancestral Huguenot villages.

Where my great gran was born in Oxford is now the Westgate Shopping Centre. Since I went though, I have a much clearer pic of their lives.

[pharmaT]

Much to my husband's embarrassment I get very excited when I walk past I building that is old enough to have been there when my ancestors lived in the area.  I just can't help thinking oooo so and so would have walked past this building.

[C_W]

My 3 X Gt Grandfather was rector in Cold Overton, Leicestershire.
On the day of his 50th wedding anniversary to my 3 X Gt Grandmother his youngest son married in his church.
A newspaper article of the day tells how the whole village celebrated with them and the bells rang out.
I have visited the village and church a couple of times,  which makes it easy for me to imagine this special family day.

[jaybelnz]

On trips to the UK, I have visited many places where my ancestors and families had lived, worked died and were buried - through addresses on census, certificates etc.  Also churches where they were baptised, or married.  Camera always vital!

I visited St. Peter's Church in Sheffield (now Sheffield Cathedral) where my great grandparents were married in 1865 (that's the bride on my avatar).  When I was sitting in the church, the Vicar came and sat beside me, as I was writing things down, welcomed me and asked what my interest was.
I told him my great grandparents had married there - he thought a little minute then said "come with me"!  I followed him into a little side chapel and he stopped in front of a small alter.  Then he said, " you are now standing in the exact same place where your great grandparents would have stood to be married".

I had visions of them all standing there. An emotional moment!

Then he showed me round more, he was lovely!  What I didn't know at that time, was that my g grandmother had left home to marry my great grandfather, "to the great distress of her parents"!
This was later found in a letter to another relative, which had been published in a book about her (an artist).

I also Google the addresses, and in the majority of cases, if these houses are still standing, have found them on real estate sites. Lots of super indoor and outdoor photos in today's time of course, but some very lovely old buildings.

My best find online for real estate was to find the house where my g grandparents, their parents and their children were living in the Lambeth London 1861 census. It's now a listed house in the Conservation Village of Stockwell.

But the visits I have made and the photos I have of the Miner's Rows of Ayrshire and the tenements of Glasgow are equally treasured by me.

[Rudolf H B]

Here is the house which had been built by my 5 x great grandfather in 1768 (NI = Nicolaus Jacob),
and where my 4 x great grandfather has built the barn in 1788 (AI = Adam Jacob).

With the help of a ladder I would be able to touch the oak girders, which had been touched by my 4 x great grandfather ...

An other story, Palatinate had been French from 1797 to 1813, and when the Bavarian took over my ancestors had to pay the Bavarian chimney tax plus the French window tax, so there had been plans to  close several windows. - The Bavarian kings needed a lot of money to built there palaces.

Here is the house and the graves Adam (r), his wife (m), and an other pair of 4 x great grandparents (l) - there is a lot of interesting text on the stones:

Rudolf