I then had to resort to Plan B which wasn't quite formulated in my mind yet. I spent the next 21/2 hours cruising the Norfolk Family History website (another excellent source of information for us genealogists) to see information they had on-line. I learned quite a bit about the history of Letheringsett and the location of the farms of Lord Thomas Hardy who my forebears had worked for. It seems that he also had a farm, Glandford Farm, which was about 1 1/2 miles south of Letheringsett in another parish. (The green balloon with "NHE" on it marks the site. Note the proximity of the railway line in the bottom right corner of the map - which may be why I've got the trains in my blood!!??)
One has to understand the importance of parishes in England. For purposes of civic administration - before there were any civic administrations we call municipalities - England was divided into parishes with a Church of England at the centre of the parish (figuratively, that is). Much like a township boundary, the parish boundary decided which church you would be baptized and married in. In the days when there were no registry offices to register births, marriages, and deaths, the church in each parish was responsible for recording these events in a book - the parish register.
Each year in March, the parish priest (they're called priests in the Church of England and Anglican Church of Canada) sent a copy of the parish register to the local bishop who had his archdeacons collate this information into one diocesen register (a group of parishes are contained within a diocese with a bishop in charge of the diocese). So, when one is researching the family roots, one has to know which parish one's ancestors came from as it makes the search that much easier.
Census records and other historical records are also organized on the lines of the parish so it helps if one knows the physical boundaries of the parish and whether one's ancestors lived in the parish boundaries of Letheringsett with Glanford and worked in the parish boundaries of Thornage (the parish next to Letheringsett with Glanford). (which is not the same location of Glandford Farm). At least that's what the Norfolk Heritage Explorer website says.
Anyhooo..... the long and the short of it was that I got a good lesson on the importance of parishes at the library this morning and perhaps a solution to the mystery of why I can't find the residence of my great-great-great grandmother, Sarah Moore (nee Page), after her husband (my great-great-great grandfather), Stephen Moore, was killed on 01 November 1804. Cause she may have been living in Little Thornage which is the next parish over.
Curiosity also got the better of me as I was exploring the Norfolk Heritage Explorer website so I did a search on Letheringsett. 108 items came up on the search so I started to browse a few of them. To my surprise, a couple of Bronze Age (1,000 - 1,600 BC) ring ditches came up just down the laneway from where Stephen Moore's Pit Hole is located. I may take a trek up the hill the next time to see if I can locate them. (The two green balloons marked "NHE" are the location of the ring ditches. The yellow balloon marked SMPH is the site of Stephen's pit.)
After browsing the Internet at the library, I made my way over to the station just as the Class 31 diesel was coming into Sheringham station.
I made my way up to Weybourne shops to browse the M&GN book store. I ended up buying a few books and early newsletters of the railway to read later in the weekend. It was a nice sunny day that had now burned the fog off with a cool breeze coming in off the North Sea. The shops were all locked up but I managed to get inside to do a bit of painting. In between, I managed to take some photos of the steam locomotives that were under maintenance or overhaul.
I returned back to Sheringham and cruised the shops. There are quite a few small butcher shops that sell some beautiful looking meat. One shop had some prawn, shrimp, and crayfish baguettes. So I picked up two along with a bottle of pear & apple juice, made my way up cliff road, down to the top of the cliffs and ate my supper on one of the benches overlooking the beach and the North Sea. A gentleman came along, saw my "Canada" name tag and we started a conversation. He was as interested in world politics as I and we must have chatted for a good 20 minutes.
Tomorrow I think I'll do some exploring of Norfolk by train - down to Norwich, over to Great Yarmouth and Lewiston and back. Might be interesting to see what "The Broads" (the marshy land with lakes) look like.
No comments:
Post a Comment