Motivation Monday - Top Ten for 2016

My genealogy 'to-dos' are numerous & I never seem to make much progess, probably because I'm too easily distracted by those pesky shaking leaves* on Ancestry!

So I've decided to list the top ten things I could really do with getting to the bottom of and hope that a list will keep me focussed!

1. Finish searching the French online records for my Oldham family in Calais. The Census and Birth/Marriage/Death records are all freely available online. I've found the family in 1866, but also need to look further back to see if the previous generation spent time there and also if any of them went to Australia.
2. Transcribe sections of Joseph Woolley's diary and finish reading/copying the remainder at the Nottingham Archives. Continuing with the Oldham family, but this time in Clifton, Nottinghamshire. Joseph Woolley was a framework knitter from Clifton, as well as his own business his diary documents he commented on his neighbours and local events. I need to transcribe the pages I've already photographed and finish reading the remaining sections in the Archives.
3. Finish checking the Methodist records at the Nottinghamshire Archives. I'm mostly looking for Oldhams in these records, but other family names have cropped up too.
4. Make use of the Nottinghamshire Family History Society's research room. To find more Oldham information, specifically Thomas Oldknow Oldham's birth/baptism around 1834. Also check their online databases.
5. Finish reading Percy Richardson's war diary and finish the blog posts.
6. Tidy and reorganise documents, certificate and books. Before ordering any more!
7. Check out parish records on Find My Past. Look for my May family in Frant, Sussex from 1600 working backwards.
8. Visit some local churchyards to look for gravestones. Sawley, Moira, Donisthorpe, Church Wilne, Draycott, Basford, Ashby-de-la-Zouch & others aren't too far away to visit and record any memorial inscriptions.
9. Look for tithe maps and census information for Pilsley. To find out who lived in and/or owned my late father-in-law's farmhouse.
10. Start scanning photos. I received a Doxie Flip as a Christmas present so I'm intending to scan and share many of my photos.

So - lots to do!



*if you have your family tree uploaded to Ancestry, they kindly add a little 'shaking leaf' to any family member they may have records available for, which is usually enough to distract me from doing what I'd orginally logged on to do in the first place!

Those Places Thursday - Gervase & Clifton

I had found the marriage details for my 6x great grandparents William Oldham & Mary Tebbutt in the Derbyshire Record Office quite some time ago, but had never got round to following it back any further. They were married in Sawley, Derbyshire on the 2nd December 1777 and the entry revealed that William hailed from Clifton which is just outside Nottingham.

So on my last visit to the Nottinghamshire Archives I was delighted to find a record of William's baptism which took place on the 9th August 1752 at St Mary's in Clifton and showed his parents were Gervis & Mary Oldham.

What struck me about the Clifton registers was the high number of boys being named Gervis, Jarvis or Gervase.  The name and its variants have cropped up in my Oldham family for several generations & I'd thought it was probably a family tradition, but finding so many others in one area made it obvious that it wasn't just in the one family.  A quick search of the Family Search site also revealed that it was also a commonly used name in other areas of Nottingham, and I wondered why.

Reading around the history of Clifton I came across details of the Lords of the Manor, the Clifton family, who had been prominent landowners in the area for some 700 years.  The family's link with the area originates with a Norman knight, Alvaredus, who settled in Clifton and took the village's name after having been appointed warden of Nottingham castle.

His descendant Gervase de Clifton purchased the manors of Clifton & Wilford in 1324 and from him follow several generations of sons all called Gervase, including 'Gervase the Gentle' (died 1588) and 'Gervase the Great' (1587 - 1666).

The family were hugely influential throughout their time as Lords of the Manor in Clifton and this influence wasn't just restricted to their local area.  The Cliftons were favourites of several Royal courts, including Edward IV and Henry VI.  Gervase the Gentle was a particular favourite of the Tudor monarchs; Elizabeth I giving him his epithet in the verse she wrote about four Nottinghamshire gentlemen:

"Gervase the gentle, Stanhope the stout, Markham the lion, and Sutton the lout." 

Despite being supporters of Charles I during the Civil War, the Clifton family managed to keep their lands and Sir Gervase Clifton (1744-1815) had Clifton Hall remodelled during his tenure. The family remained at Clifton until the 1940s when Peter Thomas Clifton began to sell off the land and then finally the Hall itself in the 1950s.

So it would appear that the abundance of Gervases in Clifton is down to the tradition and longevity of the local nobility.



Picture from & further info here.