Balancing A Family Tree

[coombs]

I rarely consider what major historic events were going on at the time when I am doing my family history. A distant cousin wrote up about a branch in our tree in rural Suffolk but kept shoehorning historical events into the write up, events that took place in another part of the UK or even abroad. He had got back to 1666 and said "the year the Great Fire of London broke out". I found that irrelevant, as they were in rural Suffolk, not London.

Someone on a FB group found that one of their ancestors owned a few slaves, and were distraught and the findings. Someone else replied with "Who cares?". A bit near the knuckle reply but true. I would be pretty intrigued if it was me. It was history, it happened. I found an ancestor in the 1560s bought a slave.

[Biggles50]

I rarely consider what major historic events were going on at the time when I am doing my family history. A distant cousin wrote up about a branch in our tree in rural Suffolk but kept shoehorning historical events into the write up, events that took place in another part of the UK or even abroad. He had got back to 1666 and said "the year the Great Fire of London broke out". I found that irrelevant, as they were in rural Suffolk, not London.

Someone on a FB group found that one of their ancestors owned a few slaves, and were distraught and the findings. Someone else replied with "Who cares?". A bit near the knuckle reply but true. I would be pretty intrigued if it was me. It was history, it happened. I found an ancestor in the 1560s bought a slave.

It is a fact that Cities like London, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester were all built on slavery.

All the other Cities and Towns involved in the weaving of cotton were directly or indirectly involved with the slave trade.

Add in the sugar, spice, minerals into the mix and the whole of the UK was involved in slavery.

Even the humble Farm Labourer only had a hand to mouth existence, we found ours being mobile in the location of their home and work was a case of on whatever farm needed men.

One important aspect that we really should consider is that the History taught today is vastly different that what we learned at school and if we do not include all related family details of the lives of our forebears then they will be lost.

[Erato]

I rarely consider what major historic events were going on at the time when I am doing my family history.

Interesting.  I almost always connect a date to some major or minor event, even if it has no direct bearing on the ancestor in question.  Born in 1805 - ah, that's the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition.  Married in 1859 - ok, Origin of Species was published that year.  Immigrated in 1834 - that's when Richard Henry Dana sailed to California.  It helps me sort of set the scene and place my ancestors into a historical/cultural context.

[MollyC]

I cherish every little scrap of information which sheds light on the political, religious or cultural outlook of my ancestors."

When I found my ancestor had served in the Peninsular War (reply #5) I decided I had better find out about it, so I bought a book*.  The war must have been mentioned at school, but just before my syllabus for O level history began at 1816.  It was only on re-reading the book's introduction that I found a clue as to why one of the soldier's sons was given the second name Wesley, which had puzzled me, because they were an Anglican family, not Methodist.

"The young Arthur Wesley - the family name would be changed to Wellesley by his ambitious elder brother  Richard... "

So you never know where general history may lead you.

* Peter Snow. To war with Wellington, from the Peninsula to Waterloo. Murray 2010/2011. 078 1 84854 104 7

[coombs]

I guess such historical events can reveal, if a record survives, an ancestor who was lost at sea as a sailor, in the navy, or if an ancestor was in the army and they fought in a historic battle. But I think if they died, their service records were destroyed. I found an ancestor from Oxford who was based in Norfolk in 1797 and Suffolk, and deserted in Sep 1798 in Ipswich. I cannot trace him after that but the Oxfordshire Militia was based in Ireland in 1799, so he may have been recaptured and died in service or of an illness while in Ireland. The regiment was not in Ireland for very long though. He was a serjeant in 1798 and was 33 then, but apparently there was not always a fixed time from entering the army to being promoted back then. Some may have been promoted quickly due to being older or doing something heroic.