Genealogy Chat

Thankyou for all your interesting/amusing contributions. To Heather Positive Thinker I looked for a previous thread but only found one 'looking for that thread'. Will add another one myself, again from the records of Hunsingore Church. I believe that many years ago all Parishes had a CRIPPLE CART. If an 'outsider' died in the parish the cripple cart would bring the dead body to church for burial. If a person was found alive on the highway, that may become a charge on the Parish the Parish Constable was despatched with the cart to dump the person in the next Parish! This entry shows the existence of a Cripple cart in Hunsingore. 17th October 1729. A stranger who was brought to Walshford by the Cripple Cart bury'd Oct 17

I am all for the vicars adding their little comments, especially where a child is born out of wedlock and the father is not named on the certificate, gives you that piece of jigsaw to research even if you cannot prove it. I have it many a time with my direct ancestors - no named fathers - and unfortunately the vicars have not been so kind and added a reputed father, family stories go that it was by who they worked for or even a lodger just passing through town!

Taken from the burial register at St Donat's, Glamorgan: May 24 1792: John Harry of this parish was buried here on 24th May aged 110 years, remarkable not for his longevity only but he retained his faculties to within a few hours of his death, he had to see his great grandchildren walk before him. From the same register a sad entry: Alice, daughter of LLewellyn, burnt to death - a particular instance of carelessness and inattention in parents.

Rosalyn, Could you tell me where you accessed the Kirk Sessions? I think they might help with some questions I have about one lot of my rellies. Do you know how recently they used Kirk Sessions? Registration started in 1854 but would they still have used the Kirk as a kind of court? Regards Abigail

Certainly up to the 1850s, it was a matter of great public interest as to the father of an illegitimate child, everyone being very concerned that the cost of that child should fall firmly on the father and not on the Parish. A clue to the father's name is often found on a baptismal register - an unusual, surname-y sounding middle name is often that of the father and was an aggrieved woman's way of stating to the world that she DID know who the father was. In addition, the Vicar, if he was kindly disposed, or the Parish Overseer pushed him to it, would pencil in the name of the father in the margin. But quite often, you have to look through the Poor Records for Bastardy Orders. These were almost exclusively taken out by the Workhouse Master, or the Parish Overseer, not the Mother, and they have been an absolutely invaluable source of information for me with regard to my slutty female ancestors! I sourced mine on A2A (Lancashire). Almost all 'bastards' (oh, how I hate that word) would have been the subject of one of these, from the late 1500s onwards. These Bastardy Orders were taken out in the County Assizes up to about 1850, when they were reduced to the Magistrates Court - they are more difficult, but not impossible, to find after that date. (Sorry, got right off the topic now!) Olde Crone

Rose's Act, in 1812 standardised Parish Register entries. The following entry from Hunsingore Church is 'Dade style' but yet again, in this instance, it is more a case of 'Vicar's perks'. BURIALS ANNO DOMINI 1776. MARGARET THE WIFE OF THE REVEREND JOHN OGLE, CHAPLAIN TO THE 6TH. REGIMENT OF FOOT, AND DAUGHTER OF THE REVEREND JAMES RUDD, VICAR OF KILHAM IN THE EAST RYDING OF THIS COUNTY, BY ELIZABETH HIS WIFE, DAUGHTER OF JOHN ROUTH OF HAWES IN WENSLEYDALE, GENTLEMAN. THE ABOVE NAMED MARGARET OGLE DIED OF HER FIRST CHILD AND WAS BURIED ON SATURDAY 18TH FEBRUARY IN THE NAVE OF HUNSINGORE CHURCH. How easy would family history be if all Parish Register entries were as above! Ray Whincup