A Cornerstone Post about my love of family and community history.
Ever since I was a little boy I’ve been fascinated by the past and stories of my family. My parents inherited a box of pictures and documents from my grandfather, and these fuelled my interest. When I retired from ‘proper’ work I promised myself I would research and write the story of my family and the communities and society they were part of. Family history research is a long, slow grind, with hours spent looking for sources in the archives. But patience is finally paying off and a clear picture of my ancestors’ lives is beginning to emerge.
I’m researching the lives of my ancestors from the late eighteenth century to the 1950s. While my main focus is on my ancestors I’m also interested in connecting them to the communities and broader world they lived in. To do this, the project is broken into four main themes.
People
The project traces four generations of my main ancestral lines: the Fernleys, Bradleys, Nuttalls and Lucys. The main focus is on a core group of about sixty of my direct ancestors, although I do some research on other relatives, friends, colleagues and neighbours where they are relevant to the story. There are some interesting people to discover: like James Fernley, the drift miner from Charlesworth, Egerton Stafford who died in a boarding house in Missouri, and Elizabeth Stafford who seemingly disappears in 1903.
Places
My ancestors’ lives were shaped by the communities they lived in. Apart from a few exotic outliers in Hull and Ireland, my ancestors come from a fairly tight geographical area. A circle of forty miles radius drawn from the centre of Manchester just about covers it. But they lived in an amazing variety of communities, from the industrial city of Manchester, to moorland farms in Derbyshire. I’m telling the stories of these places and how they changed over time.
Society
To understand my ancestors’ lives better I want to know what kind of society they lived in. Although their lives would have been shaped by wider political and economic events, I want to focus on their everyday experiences, such as work, family life, housing, food and education. What was it really like to live in Manchester in the 1850s? What was life like for Edith Annie Nuttall working in the cotton mills?
Culture
I am also interested in the culture of the society my ancestors lived in. For this theme I’m looking at religion, customs and traditions, popular culture, literature, music and the arts. How religious were my ancestors? How did the Wilson family entertain themselves in their moorland farm in the 1860s?
I hope you enjoy the stories and maybe even feel inspired to trace your own ancestors.