Essential maintenance works – Thursday 11 April 2013
The website will be unavailable from 08:00 – 10:00 on Thursday 11 April 2013 for essential maintenance works. A message will be displayed once the website is available again. Apologies to our customers for any inconvenience caused.
This bank holiday weekend we want everyone to enjoy discovering their family’s memories. That’s why we’ve made our 1901 & 1911 census FREE! Let us know what you find.
| Drawing on the Past
Anne Daniels creates unique and evocative artwork using photographs of your ancestors, family documents, names, birth places and more. As an expert designer, she has offered one lucky subscriber the chance to work with her to create a one-off commission telling your story. To enter this competition, email: competitions@genesreunited.co. with the subject line ‘Drawing’. |
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This is long but you may find it interesting…
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They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families
used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken &
Sold to the tannery…….if you had to do this to survive
you were “Piss Poor”
But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t
even afford to buy a pot……they “didn’t have a pot to
piss in” & were the lowest of the low
The next time you are washing your hands and complain
because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it,
think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about
the 1500s:
Most people got married in June because they took their
yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by
June.. However, since they were starting to smell . …… .
Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.
Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting
Married.
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man
of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then
all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the
children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so
dirty you could actually lose someone in it.. Hence the
saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the Bath water!”
Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no
wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get
warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs)
lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and
sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof…
Hence the saying “It’s raining cats and dogs.”
There was nothing to stop things from falling into the
house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs
and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence,
a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top
afforded some protection. That’s how canopy beds came into
existence.
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other
than dirt. Hence the saying, “Dirt poor.” The wealthy had
slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet,
so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their
footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until,
when you opened the door, it would all start slipping
outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way.
Hence: a thresh hold.
In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big
kettle that always hung over the fire.. Every day they lit
the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly
vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the
stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold
overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew
had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence
the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas
porridge in the pot nine days old. Sometimes they could
obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When
visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show
off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, “bring home
the bacon.” They would cut off a little to share with guests
and would all sit around and chew the fat.
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high
acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food,
causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with
tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were
considered poisonous.
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt
bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests
got the top, or the upper crust.
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination
would Sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days.
Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and
prepare them for burial.. They were laid out on the kitchen
table for a couple of days and the family would gather
around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake
up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.
England is old and small and the local folks started running
out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins
and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the
grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins
were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they
realized they had been burying people alive… So they would
tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the
coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.
Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night
(the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone
could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.
And that’s the truth….Now, whoever said History was boring
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2280455/Adopted-Barrie-Prowse-tracks-biological-sister-discovers-play-football-club.html#ixzz2LL5VLXCj
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On this day in 1990 Nelson Mandela was freed after serving 27 years in prison.
Born: 1918
Transkei, South Africa
South African president and political activist
Nelson Mandela is a South African leader who spent years in prison for opposing apartheid, the policy by which the races were separated and whites were given power over blacks in South Africa. Upon his release from prison, Mandela became the first president of a black-majority-ruled South Africa in which apartheid was officially ended. A symbol of hope for many, Mandela is also a former winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Youth and education
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in a small village in the southeastern region of South Africa called the Transkei. His father was chief of the village and a member of the royal family of the Thembu tribe, which spoke the Xhosa language. As a boy, Mandela grew up in the company of tribal elders and chiefs, which gave him a rich sense of African self-government and heritage, despite the cruel treatment of blacks in white-governed South Africa.
Mandela was also deeply influenced by his early education in Methodist church schools. The instruction he received there set Mandela on a path leading away from some African tribal traditions, such as an arranged marriage set up by a tribal elder, which he refused. After being expelled from Fort Hare University College in 1940 for leading a student strike, Mandela obtained a degree from Witwatersrand University. In 1942 he received a degree in law from the University of South Africa.
Joining the ANC
In 1944 Mandela joined the African National Congress (ANC), a South African political party. Since its founding, the ANC’s main goal had been to work to improve conditions and rights for people of color in South Africa. However, its fairly conservative stance had led some members to call for less timid measures. Mandela became one of the ANC’s younger and more radical leaders as a member of the ANC’s Youth League. He became president of the league in 1951.
The years between 1951 and 1960 were troubled times, both for South Africa and for the ANC. Younger antiapartheid activists (protesters), including Mandela, were coming to the view that nonviolent demonstrations against apartheid did not work, because they allowed the South African government to respond with violence against Africans. Although Mandela was ready to try every possible technique to destroy apartheid peacefully, he began to feel that nonviolent resistance would not change conditions in the end.
Read more….
NEW Parish Records!
Find your family in the world’s largest online collection of original parish registers
Manchester Parish Records 1541–1985 have just been added – take a look and run a few searches.
Let me know what successes you have.
How is your new year going so far? I hope you all kept warm during the snowy weather?
It is good to start seeing signs of Spring; Daffodils in the College grounds have already bloomed.
I am currently studying hard to update my qualifications for my changing work role, so there are less Family Tree courses at the moment. However, I am doing a beginners course in May for Hythe library – so if you know a beginner please tell them to phone the library for more information. I also hope to run more courses or workshops at Totton College, although we have not planned any so far. Please do contact the College directly if you would like more and ask the reception staff to put you on a waiting list.
Hythe Library: 02380841457 http://www3.hants.gov.uk/library/hythe-library.htm
Totton College: 02380874874 http://www.totton.ac.uk/adult
Hope to see or hear from you soon.
