Today I shall be Mainly...

[Sue]

The mower is well liked Stanley although he says he hasn't quite got the knack of using it yet.
There was a frost last night, good job I didn't plant and live plants yesterday.

[Stanley]

It take until the first weeks in June in Barlick Sue. I'll bet Rochdale area is about the same....
I shall be ignoring the pain and pottering in the shed.

[Sue]

Usually mid April here Stanley. There was another frost last night and mist over the fields

[Stanley]

No frost here Sue, damp and the promise of rain later.
I shall be in the shed but not tearing any trees up by the roots....

[Stanley]

Playing out in the shed. Washing the loose cover off the sofa and generally keeping up with the housework.....

[Sue]

Really warm and sunny, rain forecast for a couple of days, temperatures in the early teens,I think Spring has arrived. Overnight weeds and their FLOWERS have appeared on my potato patch plus four potato shoots. All it did was rain during the night after a dry sunny week.

[Marilyn]

Visitors have taken their small person for a walk to use up a bit of his energy.
( he has been pretty good actually - he is 4 and I have had everything in my house measured as he came with his retractable measuring tape in hand! Always good to know how big my chairs etc are. Though he is not too good at reading the numbers and declares everything measures "100".)
I've made Soup and crusty bread for their return, then I believe they are headed home.
it is lovely here today.

[Stanley]

We are promised wind and rain today Maz.... Enjoy the sun.

[Sue]

Same here Stanley, with a little less this afternoon.

Yesterday I threw away old food in the freezer, cooked what I could and started a rum pot with some of last years fruit. It is looking healthily spacious ready for this years crop. We still have loads of corn cobs and green beans left from last year and several bottles of soup that I made. I freeze the latter in English plastic milk bottles. The French ones don't seal very well and are opaque so I can't see the soup contents should the label fall off. I made roast tomato and pepper soup with the remains of the tomato crop in the freezer. I can now see I have one beef joint ( from England) and several portioned up packets of mince for bolognese etc.

[Stanley]

I always try to have a regular clearance and defrost in the freezer Sue. I can't remember throwing anything away but I suspect I have less variety in mine as I am not freezing garden produce.
Today I shall be revealing the Cunning Wheeze in the Shed!

[Marilyn]

I spent a couple of hours emptying all the treasures from my China and Glass cabinet. Washed everything and polished all the glassware. Cleaned the mirrored back, glass shelves and glass doors.
Will reload it tomorrow. Things can spend the night on the dining table. So long as there is no poltergeist activity overnight, things should be safe there.
Amazing how many memories pop into your mind when you handle stuff you keep tucked away.

[Stanley]

I did the same in a kitchen cupboard the other day Maz and threw away anything I hadn't used for 15 years.....

[Marilyn]

Eek..!...most of my "treasures" are much older than that, Stanley. (And I can't part with them)
I am not saying they have much monetary value (treasures often don't).
For instance, I have two Theakstons coasters, snaffled into the handbag after a lovely drive to Dent searching family history, and a restorative drink at the lovely old pub....where we were given a most heart-warming welcome, which I will never forget. ( happen we were the only folk past that day as the weather was most foul).
I have a pebble from the beach at Febby's childhood home.

All sorts of stuff. And I have a weakness for beautiful old glassware I collect decanters and old glassware.

[PanBiker]

Our ancestral paths may have crossed Maz. My paternal side hail from Dent and surrounding area.

[Marilyn]

Maybe Panny, though trudging through the graveyard didn't enlighten us.
I can be more specific with surnames, though I would have to get my folder out, if you are interested.
The publicans recognised the surname I mentioned.
Beautiful little spot...

[Tizer]

Old postcards are great for photos of our ancestors' home towns and villages. In the old days of black & white, when postcards were used almost daily like we use email now, the postcard photographers took snaps of almost anything. It's surprising what you can find. You can buy cards on Ebay, or go to a postcard fair and tell the dealers which area you're interested in. Or simply take a look at the Francis Frith web site. They were big in the postcard business and now have many of their images online. Here is the Dent page. Click on the thumbnails to see bigger images. LINK
If you want to look at postcards of another place just put the name in the search box. Some place names will bring many pages of thumbnails. Warning: you can spend a lot of time on that web site!

[Marilyn]

Thanks Tizzy.
Much appreciated.

[PanBiker]

Maybe Panny, though trudging through the graveyard didn't enlighten us.
I can be more specific with surnames, though I would have to get my folder out, if you are interested.
The publicans recognised the surname I mentioned.
Beautiful little spot...

If you give me the names I can compare with what we have in our Ancestry tree.

In the smaller and farming communities I think it would be fairly safe to say that most folk would know one another. It was hard existence and they relied on one another for a lot of the rural tasks. When researching our separate trees, Sally and myself hit a point in time where some relatives from both of our families were farming in the same dale. They branched and Sally's lot came down to Long Preston and Skipton via Bishopdale and mine from Garsdale and Dentdale to Barlick. We joined up again 250 years later at a dance in Gisburn.

I'm stuck on my paternal line with John of Marsett. I have had a tantalizing glance of him around 1720 from a half perished church manuscript that is now lodged in Kendal. All the interesting and potential follow on stuff is in the half of the book that is no longer there. Still looking for another source.

[Marilyn]

ive had my map out Panbiker. We stayed at Ingleton as I had ancestors connected to the potteries there. did a big loop and stopped everywhere I had discovered ancestors prior to our trip...Chapel-le dale, Deepdale, Dent, Kirkby Lonsdale, Burton in Lonsdale, High Bentham, Low Bentham.
I may have been searching for the surname MASON in that area. (Possibly ALLEN too). And I think I am looking at dates prior to 1800. (I have a Mason/Allen marriage for 1820 in Dent also)
That particular folder is in an utter mess and I have obviously investigated a lot of leads that didn't help me at the time. Will attempt to get my head around it in the next few days. I have a feeling I kept encountering a lot of re-marriages and early spousal deaths in that area and I may have taken some records with me on the trip that did not find their way back into the folder.
I am generally pretty good with recall and soon get back on track once I have read a few documents, but for some reason, I just couldn't find head nor tail this morning.
Perhaps going back through my photos will kick start the process. (we spent a lot of time in graveyards/churches). We met a lot of helpful people too...

I remember thinking just how little choice folk had finding a marriage partner, given the small communities and distances between.
That thought struck me even more strongly when we were doing the ancestral stuff in Cornwall too ( though we had much more success there). Some parts of Cornwall are extremely remote and we weren't entirely sure where we were at times. How difficult it would be to meet anyone in some of these places, let alone someone suitable! I doubt that love played much part in the process. (He is single and has a heart beat...he will do!)

[Stanley]

Maz, I found the same thing when I moved here from Stockport and started to go round the farms with the mobile shop. You had to be careful what you said because they were all related! Many families had someone who was 'away' as well, congenital breeding faults through breeding too close I suspect.....

[Marilyn]

Things have reached desperation point when your own brother starts to look good....

[Stanley]

I think mainly close cousins Maz..... We forget how isolated these farms were before industrialisation.

[PanBiker]

The names don't immediately ring any bells Maz but I will have a look at our files.

Big families and illegitimacy were common in farming families as well. Both practical considerations. Young men who would ultimately have a farm to run would often "try a girl out" to ensure that they could bear children. There was no stigma attached to this practice, the first and sometimes a second child, the couple would then go on to marry. All of course to ensure that you would have someone to look after you and take over the running of the farm. We have a few examples of this in both our families when they were farming up in the dales.

There were exceptions of course but most of these seemed to involve the gentry (or sons of) using the girls in service and then refusing to marry or support. We have a momentous example of this in my family where the girl was kept on until but turned out shortly after the birth of her child. She walked 20 miles with babe in arms and arrived in a thunderstorm at the door of a recently widowed gentleman who she had heard of who's wife had died in childbirth. She offered to wet nurse his child in exchange for board and lodgings. She became his housemaid and they eventually married and had more children. After bringing up both of their families she became midwife in the dale and was still attending to confinements well into her 70's. The Bronties would turn a tale like this into a book.

[Wendyf]

A wonderful story Ian!
On Find My Past here is a 1729 Askrigg marriage for a John Lambert of Raydale House to Elizabeth Metcalf of Marsett, is that your man?

[PanBiker]

Thanks for that Wendy, I will have to get my ancestry tree up on the other machine to check though. My John was from Marsett as far as I am aware. I have all the details of his son Roberts family who continued with the farm. Not beyond the realms though that their could be a link, will have to revisit the dates, can't remember Roberts mothers name, if I have it. Exciting though!