The Family in History

[Maiden Stone]

What a very unchristian , judgemental remark for a chaplain to make.

He seemed to have had a bee in his bonnet about burial clubs. I wonder if it was his experience of being prison chaplain which caused him to think the worst of working people.
Many of my ancestors lived in Preston from c.1820. 1 pair of my 3xgt-grandparents lost 2 of their 5 children in 1840s. Another pair lost 2 of 3 in the same decade. Siblings of the parents, including a doctor's wife, also had several children buried in Preston graveyards. Reports in local newspapers tracked epidemics around areas and named streets. The ginnel or wynd where a 3xGGF spent census night 1851 had an open sewer.

[Maiden Stone]

Listening to adaptation of "Middlemarch" on Radio 4. Setting the scene "The year was 1829, the country was suffering economic decline and Parliament was in crisis". Coincidently it was around then that a business of eldest brother of a 3xGGF failed. He and partners were sued and had to sell assets. A few years later the 2nd eldest brother went bankrupt. By 1841 both men were employed as accounts clerks.
Another 3xGGF campaigned in 1840s for restoration of wage rates which had been cut during the economic decline in earlier decades.

[IgorStrav]

What a very unchristian , judgemental remark for a chaplain to make.

I think that in previous times, there was a focus on the principle that if you gave 'poor people' too much kindness and consideration, then it would encourage them in their perceived indigence.  The reason that Workhouses were as awful as they were.

I am always reminded of the very honourable Thomas Coram, who was very upset by the number of abandoned babies to be seen in London (it's a horrifying thought) and wanted to set up a Foundlings Hospital.

He tried to get support, but many Christian people (amongst others) were reluctant, thinking that it would increase the number of abandoned children.  It took years for him to be able to set it up.

Horrifying thought -  but I suppose it is only the distinction between 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor, which can be heard even now...

[iluleah]

I have for one or two direct ancestors and it has enabled me to piece together some interesting finds although I did it at first to learn more about the time they lived in and what was happening nationally and internationally

[andrewalston]

I have always found old newspapers interesting. They tell you something about what people thought about events at the time, rather than some historian's, sometimes biased, view.

I was prompted by contact from a third cousin to find out why his branch of the family emigrated to Nova Scotia.

Reading the local paper informed me that there was a slump following the end of the Boer War, a fact not mentioned in history books. Mills were on short time, and coal pits were on a 4-day week rather than the usual 5½. Then in June 1902 a serious pay cut was enforced. Family finances must have been dire. At the beginning of September an article appeared about a group of colliers from 15 miles away who were going to Cape Breton "where coal mines are being developed". My great great aunt's husband sailed at the end of the month, with his family following him in the spring of 1903.

[Lola5]

Scottish folk also  went  to Canada for fur trapping as their fares were paid and money good ...but fearsomely  cold.


It seems that after wars there is hardship for the people.
It was the same after  both WW1 and WW2 . Wars take a lot of money and all sides have to then recover economically by  frugality.

[BashLad]

What a very unchristian , judgemental remark for a chaplain to make.

It was also a rare, but real, phenomenon albeit subject to a daily-mail-esque moral panic.

https://www.thesocialhistorian.com/fraud-murder-burial-club/

But to the topic at hand I always try and link the local and social history to my genealogy. For instance some of mine moved from Buckinghamshire to Lancashire in the window 1832 -1839 and when I looked at the local history it turned out that poor law commissioners sponsored poor ag labs  to relocate by canal 1835-1837 - probably not a coincidence.

That said it pays to check your assumptions as another family relocated from the countryside to the towns and I assumed they were following the work but I later found a distant relation with the same surname (they were the only family in the area with the name) was involved in a fairly nasty attempted murder and then within 15 months everyone with the name had either moved to Bradford or towards Manchester.

But for me it's always a victory to link the family tree to specific historical events. For example the Loveclough printworks burnt down and both a granddad's maternal aunt and a paternal aunt relocated their respective families 35 miles to the same village.

I've also found more than a few emigrants whose departure turned out to coincide with goldrushes.