Timelines are something that hadn’t really thought about until I was asked to review Smith and Bertram’s Tracing your Ancestors using the UK Historical Timeline: A Guide for Family Historians a couple of years ago.
Putting your ancestors into context of their time is a very useful exercise. We may be able to find their dates of birth; baptism, marriage and death / burial, but what was going on in their place of residence, county, country and the wider world.
My Great Grandmother was born in 1838 in Poole in Dorset, shortly after the introduction of Civil Registration of births, marriages and deaths. ‘Poole established successful commerce with the North American colonies in the 16th century, including the important fisheries of Newfoundland, but By the early 18th century Poole had more ships trading with North America than any other English port and vast wealth was brought to Poole's merchants, with many of the medieval buildings of the Old Town were replaced with Georgian mansions and terraced housing. The end of the Napoleonic Wars and the conclusion of the War of 1812 ended Britain's monopoly over the Newfoundland fisheries and other nations took over services provided by Poole's merchants at a lower cost. Poole's Newfoundland trade rapidly declined and within a decade most merchants had ceased trading.
The town grew rapidly during the industrial revolution as
urbanisation took place and the town became an area of mercantile prosperity
and overcrowded poverty. At the turn of the 19th century, nine out of ten
workers were engaged in harbour activities, but as the century progressed ships
became too large for the shallow harbour and the port lost business to the
deepwater ports at Liverpool, Southampton and Plymouth. Poole's first railway station opened in
Hamworthy in 1847 and later extended to the centre of Poole in 1872,
effectively ending the port's busy coastal shipping trade’.1
By the time of my ancestors' birth, her father was engaged as
a Coal Metre in the harbour area at a time when the shipping trade was declining. The Dominey family did have connections
with Newfoundland further back in time. My ancestor married for the first time in 1857
in Poole, her husband was a sailor who was lost at sea a couple of years later. As I
noted in a previous blog, she then left her young daughter with her sister and
worked locally in service until she moved, perhaps by train, to London in
search of a better life. She married for
a second time to my Great Grandfather in 1873, a man several years her junior - her ‘toy boy’. The couple went on to have three more
children, a son (my Grandfather) and two daughters. His younger sister had a heart condition and
died at the early age of 17, the older sister married a Suffolk man in Willian and then lived for many years in Leiston, in Suffolk. Full circle for my paternal family. The family remained in London until the late 1890s
when my great grandfather is found as the Licensee of a ‘pub in Willian in North
Hertfordshire. Running a ‘pub was a long-established occupation in the Nickels family.
The Nickels family originated in Suffolk and moved to London for work
in the late 1860s and 1870s, a time of much new building where their trades of
plumbers, painters and glaziers (and publicans) was of use.
My Great Grandparents then settled in Hertfordshire and were
in my part of the county when the new Garden City of Letchworth was being
built in the early 1900's. My grandfather and his growing family also moved to Hertfordshire in the late 1900s to help build Letchworth. My great grandmother lived to witness the
First World War and the death of her daughter in law, my grandmother. She and her eldest daughter helped to look
after the 6 children before my grandfather married again in 1919.
My great grandmother led a hard but interesting life. Born in Poole in Dorset, endured the tragedy of widowhood
at a young age, headed to London, remarried and after her second family were
grown up moved to a relatively quiet corner Hertfordshire where she died in
1920. My Dad could vaguely remember his
grandmother, ‘a little old lady’, shortly before she died when he was nearly 4
years old. I wish I had know her – I wonder what stories
she could tell!
Have a go yourself!
