Tomorrow, I’m taking my genealogy research on the road. Normally, this is exactly the sort of expedition I would undertake alone. Earlier this summer I took myself camping at Roundhill in the New Forest and, inevitably, used the opportunity to visit Buckler’s Hard for a little Georgian and Regency-era history. Give me an old map, a churchyard and somewhere historically interesting to wander around and I can entertain myself quite happily.
This time, however, it is the summer holidays, my husband has a week off work, and disappearing alone in pursuit of dead people seemed a little antisocial. So I have devised a compromise: I get a genealogy road trip and the children get strategically placed treats for tolerating it. This is, I think, excellent parenting.
The first investigation: King Charles and his clan
Our first stop is Frampton-on-Severn in Gloucestershire, where I’m following the trail of the wonderfully named King Charles and his family. King Charles is, in fact, a person rather than a monarch, although his name has made this particular branch considerably more entertaining to research.
I already know quite a bit about the Charles family from the records. What I don’t yet have is a proper sense of their world. So I’m going looking for it. I’m hoping to find surviving family gravestones, walk the enormous village green and explore the waterways that surrounded the community in which they lived. I want to see where the church sits within the village, how everything connects and whether being there makes me notice anything that I haven’t spotted while looking at records and maps from home.
The children’s reward for patiently following me around a churchyard looking for Charleses is go-karting. We’re also visiting the National Waterways Museum, which I have successfully classified as both their entertainment and my research.
The second investigation: Francis and his sheep
Then we’re heading to the Burton Dassett Hills in Warwickshire, following another ancestor: Francis Anderton, sheep farmer. On paper, I know where Francis lived and what he did. What I want to understand is the landscape in which he did it. I want to see the hills, the surrounding farmland and the settlements for myself, and compare what I find on the ground with what I’ve been learning from the records.
The children’s compensation for accompanying me to some hills because a dead man once farmed there is Warwick Castle. I feel everyone is getting a reasonable deal.
From records to real places
This is the bit of family history I particularly love. Records give us the framework: names, dates, relationships, occupations and addresses. But eventually I want to know more than what somebody was called and where they appear in a register. I want to understand the world around them. Sometimes that means following another documentary trail. Sometimes it means looking at maps, newspapers or local history. And sometimes it means actually going there.
I have no idea yet whether I’ll find the Charles gravestones. I don’t know whether Frampton will answer any questions or simply give me several new ones. I don’t know what seeing the Burton Dassett Hills will add to Francis Anderton’s story. That’s rather the point. The records have taken me this far. Now I’m going to follow the trail on foot. I’ll tell you what I find when I get back.
Hopefully, there will be sheep.
Post script: And what treat does my husband get for being dragged against his will around the Midlands in pursuit of gravestones, canals and long-dead sheep farmers?
Well, the sheer joy of spending quality time with his family, of course.
He’s a lucky man.
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