Half of our ancestry is made up of our female ancestors,
your mother, grandmothers, great-grandmothers and so on.
For this weeks #52ancestors challenge I thought hard about
this theme. Should I write about a
particular female ancestor? One of my
grandmothers died when I was 2 years old, so I don’t really remember her at all. My other grandmother died in 1917 – so I
certainly can’t remember her. I remember
my aunts well. My Dad had two full
sisters, and one half-sister, whilst my Mum had 4 sisters. I knew them all and remember them fondly –
but that is a topic for later weeks of the challenge.
All my aunts were supportive of me when I got interested in
tracing the family tree and gave me many old photographs of their parents and
grandparents, so I have some photos of my great-grandparents. I have photographs of my maternal grandmother
and her mother my paternal grandmother, and her mother. From the 1910s I have many photographs of the
aunties (and uncles) in formal photographer’s studio shots, and as cameras became
more portable and commonplace, ‘snaps’ of the family on holiday, and in more
relaxed attitudes. From the aunties I also
learnt a about their parents and grandparents and the wider family. What they did for a living, sayings, stories,
and the odd scandal.
However, they say that the only true ancestry is through the
female line as ‘it is a wise man who knows his father’. This is of course true, but how many of your
mothers, mothers, mothers, mothers can you trace with any certainty?
I have been tracing my family for over 40 years, and there are still some lines way back in time that I am still finding out about.
My mother, Eva, was born in Hitchin in Hertfordshire, the
fifth of the six children of my grandparents.
Five girls and one boy, hence why I had an Uncle Son rather than an
Uncle Ernest. Mum married my dad late in life and I arrived
when she was 40. Before her marriage she
worked in a shoe shop, Pomfrett’s, and before that Freeman, Hardy and Willis,
both in Hitchin. In the 1939 Register she
is described as a Machinist, free stitch and zips and general repair work. Mum always made my clothes when I was a
youngster. She loved sewing and
knitting, but she didn’t get on with crochet.
One of the small bedrooms at our house was her ‘Sewing Room’ with the
sewing machine etc.
My grandmother Sarah, always known as Sally, married young, at 17, with my eldest auntie arriving mere days after the marriage. If the rumour is true, she also had an earlier child which was adopted – naughty girl! Sarah had just the one brother, Arthur. Sarah was a housewife, who supplemented the family income with sewing. Exquisite sewing, of which we have some examples kept in the family. She made all the children’s clothes. Granddad received a World War 1 Pension, and worked as a Plate Layer on the Railway.
Sarah’s mother, my great-grandmother, was called Kate. She married late and had just the two
children, Sarah and Arthur. She was a
hard-working lady who ran a successful Laundry at her home. My Mum and her sisters could remember helping
with the washing, mangling and ironing. In
the 1911 Census of No 4 Hitchin Hill Path1, Kate is a Laundress,
employing her daughter Sarah and her husband’s niece, Daisy, who she helped to
bring up when her mother died. Her husband Arthur is a Railway Carpenter. Kate’s maiden name was Cotton, she was the daughter
of George and Sarah Cotton and was born in 1865 in Hitchin. Granny Taylor was a character and had some very
‘colourful’ sayings which have come down in the family.
Arthur and Kate Taylor
Kate’s mother, my great-great- grandmother was called
Sarah. I presume that my grandmother was
named after her. Sarah was a housewife,
bringing up her large family. She and
her husband George, a coal dealer, also lived in the Hitchin Hill area of
Hitchin. In earlier census records Sarah
is a straw plaiter, a not uncommon occupation in Hitchin in the mid to late 19 century.
George and Sarah are buried at the main council cemetery in Hitchin.
Sarah’ s maiden name was Muncey. She was the
daughter of Charles and Amey Muncey and was baptised 24 September 1830 at St
Mary’s, Hitchin. She and George Cotton
were married 11 May 1850 at St Mary’s, Hitchin.
Sarah’s mother, my Great-great-great-grandmother, was called
Amey. Amey was born in about 1811 in
Hitchin and was the daughter of a Sarah Parkins who is
aged 55 and living with Amey and her husband and family in the 1841 Census of
Hitchin. Sarah by this date is a widow. Charles and Amey had six children, 3 sons and 3 daughters.
Further research in the parish registers for Hitchin found a
marriage for a William Parkins and a Sarah Poulter on 26 December 1806. William could sign his name; Sarah made her
mark. More research is needed to find
out more about this couple and their family.
There is a Sarah Poulter who was the daughter of Joseph and
Sarah Poulter, baptised in Hitchin on 5 April 1782. Joseph was a labourer. I
wonder if she is my great- great-great-great-grandmother?
The name Sarah features often in my female line ancestry. I wonder how far back I can go. I’m lucky that so far, my direct female ancestors
have not strayed far from Hitchin!
1. 1. The National Archives of the UK (TNA); Kew,
Surrey, England; Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911, Ancestry.com. 1911
England Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations,
Inc., 2011. Last accessed 27/02/2022.
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