Garston Miller surname

[HarrisonHart]

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Hi all. This is more a message for posterity.  In case I never get around to researching it and sometime somebody finds this message and wants to.

I think my particular Miller surname ancestors from Garston, could be direct descendants from "Roger de Miller" who was transferred from somewhere called Barwe to run the mill in Garston by Adam de Garston" sometime in about the 12th century or maybe 13th. 

I can't search on my phone to ensure I'm getting things exactly right while writing this message, but everything I mention is able to be checked and corrected for accuracy via online searches of garston historic documents.

At the moment it's a fairly far reach, but I think it deserves decently checking the records to see if a genealogical paper trail can be established that confirms or perhaps disproves it.

I will attempt to add another comment at some point with what absolutely facts and individuals I've identified over the decades. But for now I just want to leave some points I've discovered for anyone interested in this.  It's interesting to me as a descendant but I also think it is interesting for garston history.  They were never well to do that I know of or believe, and for a long time before industrialisation they were fishermen, I imagine unable to be much beyond subsistence (I'm sure they fished to sell but I'm guessing they just sold to locals). 

The oldest one of my line that I have solid records through his life is Edward Miller born c1758 (varies, and may have his actual birth somewhere, if so I will write a message).  It must seem the jump from 1758 back to circa 1200 is ridiculous and it may turn out to be, but I have some arguments as to why it's worth thoroughly checking.

1) There's a fair few records of millers of garston (including edwards) spotting throughout the preceding centuries. I just haven't had the capacity to collate and research it, I've not been well this past few years.

2) the family were fishermen and lived their home was in a place known as the "shore houses".  I'm not sure where they were or what records exist.  Except I'm fairly sure they were by the shore    .

3) I don't know much about the licensing to fish the mersey in garston over the years.  But I do believe I was told there were very limited licenses.  I also believe there might be some evidence that Roger de Miller was given a license or permission (I could be wrong) to fish the pond associated with the mill, and possibly the river, at some point maybe in Adam de garstons will or on someone leaving.

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[HarrisonHart]

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4) garston was pretty small in the mid 1700s. It was not like industrial garston.  It was I believe a little township and not a well to do or wealthy one, with few job prospects if you didn't have land, a fishing license, or serve a need to locals. And as far as I know locals were not doing well, it was a poor place.  So in a way my theory is why would a family be there and stay there all that time unless they didn't have anywhere else to go.  (Talking about pre industrial times here, there were no docks, no easy travel between areas, no industry; the mill was the early human attempts at industry). Th

5) in 1801 or 1802 in a church burial book where the afore mentioned Edward miller (b. c1758) first wife Mary was buried, I was reading the next pages and on a page it had the burial of a young son of my Edward miller, and a few entires down the infant of another Edward miller.  The part that ties into my belief that my millers might be there from the middle ages, is that next to this other child's burial, next to the fathers name it said "from ireland".  I read all of the pages of that book at some point in the past and this was possibly a differentiation that wasn't common.  They did note if someone was being interred there who had dies in the area and so was interred but was not living locally.   But this particular entry had their place of living as garston, and "Edward miller from ireland" as his name. As if to differentiate from the long time local miller family. 

6) almost all my family history is in garston on many sides, until it goes back to Ireland on quite a few.  But there was a very noticeable difference in my 1800s garston miller family in their records.  A number of differences.  Most of my other family's kept orderly catholic style living arrangements and family units.  My millers were an outlier.  For instance many of the daughters of millers had babies out of wedlock.  This happened occasionally in other lines but it was more extreme and multigenerational with my millers. 
All my ancestors were very poor. So it wasn't just poverty that was different.  It was almost normal or expected of them. Which I find weird given the time.  It's like the family was a bit, different.  It just, to me, it seems like there's every chance they were deeply rooted there and a bit different to others who had come to garston from elsewhere with their more predictable culture and ways of doing things. 

OK that's all my notes for now.
I should have gone and got my notes clear before I made this post because this is all stuff swimming round in my head for decades. But ive been meaning to do just that for a long time and I might drop dead before I get around to it haha so this message is just in case. 

Even though we were very poor and rough around the edges I'm extremely proud of our deep roots in garston and proud to be related to just about everyone from there in the 19th and 20th century. 

Thanks for reading if you did.

[Gibel]

https://ariadne-portal.d4science.org/resource/dcb8e45314a8d3347367967749bcd0a28dfc09a589d77ddaee17a883c09e8453

You might find the above interesting.

[HarrisonHart]

Thank you gibel that is a great resource I had not seen before.