Geoffs Genealogy Update 31 January 2010
Sunday January 31st, 2010 | Geoff
2010 has begun with some very harsh weather here in the UK. Snow, ice and wind the like of which we haven’t seen for many a year, and it hasn’t finished yet. As I type this it is snowing on my corner of the world. I’m sure that if you are reading this in Canada, or the eastern states of the US you will laugh at our concern at what is, compared to your winters, a mere smattering of snow, but when you are not used to these conditions it is no joke, I assure you!
The weather has meant that I’ve only been to one football (aka soccer) match since Christmas – and that was a lousy performance by my team in quite cold conditions – but the good side of it is that there is not much one can do outdoors, so one may as well settle down to some more research.
So what has gone on in our research this month?
Well, there never seems to be a dull month as far as treeing is concerned, and January has been no exception.
I was contacted by Darlene, who is descended from the Herberts of Cardiganshire. These people feature on the Bankes pedigree from the time when Rev David Herbert (1767-1835) married Mary Price (abt 1777-1856) in 1796 at Llanfihangel Ystrad in Cardiganshire. David was a descendant of a long line of Herberts, who had occupied premises (or maybe the right word is estates) on the Cardiganshire coast near Llansaintfraid for many, many years. I have a tree that was given to me by Christopher, a Herbert descendant, which takes the line back to the 13th century. Christopher told me that it had been researched by his mother, and there are many aspects of it that may not be correct, but it is certain that the family had been in that part of Wales for many generations.
The union of David Herbert & Mary Price produced five children, two of whom died in childhood. Of the three other children Mary Herbert (Abt 1806-1884) married Rev David Parry (abt 1794-1877), who was a very well known Welsh preacher – known as “Silver Bell”, no less. Rev Parry was vicar of Llywell, Brechnockshire, for forty years before moving to a neighbouring parish – Defynnog – in 1862. When he died in 1877 he was buried at Defynnog. We have visited his grave, as Defynnog is on our usual route when we go for one of our many summer weekends in Carmarthenshire. Apparently there is a portrait of him in the vestry of Defynnog parish church, but we haven’t seen it.
David and Mary Parry did not produce any children. The only one of the five offspring of David & Mary Herbert who had children was their son William Herbert (abt 1795-1893). He was vicar of Llansaintfraid after his father, and held that post for well over fifty years. He married Elizabeth Morice (1793-1892) and they had five children, all of whom lived long lives. One daughter married a clergyman and two of the boys were also clergyman. The second daughter – Frances Elizabeth Herbert – featured at some length in this blog two months ago.
Darlene has sent me a big Word file containing a great deal of extra information about generations of the Herbert family before the time of the above mentioned Rev David Herbert, and it will be an interesting exercise to go through this and see what I can add to our tree. There is also, of course, material relating to her line of Herbert ancestry from the father of “my” David Herbert, and I certainly look forward to looking at that.
There has been a very exciting development this month on my Culshaw research. Through using various detective methods which I won’t explain in this blog, Helen has got in contact with the daughters of a cousin of my father who dad has not heard from for about 70 years. Dad’s cousin is alive and well, and living in Lancashire, and I am at the moment planning a trip to Lancashire to enable him to meet and spend some time with her. This really is so exciting! Dad is absolutely thrilled, and from what I gather he is spending much time talking with her on the phone! Helen and I really can’t wait to meet these “new” cousins.
This really is a wonderful aspect of our hobby. Over the years I have been fortunate enough to meet many cousins, some close and some more distant, all kinsfolk who I would never have met , but for this obsession of mine. I count myself very lucky in this respect.
As if that was not all, these newly found cousins have given me some more information about a lady who has had me baffled for many years. I have written previously in this blog about the mysterious Elizabeth Bennett (abt 1854-1931), and how I could not identify her parents. Well, thanks to information we now have I have a new lead on the problem, and high hopes that we may be able to “crack it”. I’ll let you know more when I’ve got something concrete to report.
Apart from the above, I’ve spent ages adding information to the Bankes Pedigree so that when we update the website the tree will be as up to date as possible. I’m going to need to draw a line under this at some stage, but will carry on for a while yet.
On top of all this, January was the month when I’ve been working on the March 2010 edition of the Shropshire Family History Society Journal. It’s done now, and off to the printers, and hopefully our members will be pleased with it.
One last thing to mention. Over the last weekend in February the Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2010 event is being held in the exhibition halls at Olympia, London. For the first time ever, we at Shropshire FHS decided to exhibit at this event, and five of us will man the stand over the weekend. I shall be on the stand on the Saturday and Sunday, 27 & 27 February, so if any of you are at Olympia on either of those days I’d be delighted to meet you. Of course, I understand that there will be many people there who are a lot more worthy of your attention than me, but I thought I’d
mention it, just in case.
Good hunting to one and all!
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