FOURTEEN ARRESTED FOR RELIGIOUS MEETING

(Mullingar, 1662). Fourteen residents of Moate-Granoge and surrounding areas were arrested Sunday as local law enforcement continues to enforce the Act of Assembly, which prohibits any gatherings not sanctioned by appointed officials and the Anglican Church.
       "We don't want to have another uprising like in '41," said Walter Lambert, justice of the peace. "These meetings might look innocent, but they're all about disobeying the law. We've got to nip that in the bud."
       The alleged criminals all hail from the same radical religious group. They call themselves "the people of God," but are more commonly known by their nickname, "Quakers."
       Lambert would not allow any press inside the Mullingar jail. A spokesman for the prisoners answered questions from the Westmeath News on condition of anonymity.
       "Walter Lambert and other officials are breaking the law, not following it," he attested. "This is only the latest event in a long line of harassment."
       According to the spokesman, three members of their society were imprisoned last year for six weeks, then released without ever having been charged with a crime. In a separate incident, John Wilson (a Quaker, but not currently in prison) was badly beaten for refusing to pay for prison food. The spokesman added that Henry Fuller (among the current prisoners) was physically attacked by Lambert himself for speaking to him about religious freedom.
       No one in Lambert's office would comment on the alleged assault.
       A court date has not been set. The Mullingar jailer said the prisoners will be transferred to Dublin prison for further disposition.

What if there had been newspapers in County Westmeath in the 17th century? I doubt they would have had neutral reporting. This was a little writing exercise for the chapter I'm currently editing. The "Act of Assembly" is probably the wrong term, but the rest of the story is based on facts as recorded in the Moate Meeting minutes and Sufferings.

¿Qué pasa?

Wondering where I've been all month?

I've been working on a couple of blog posts. One is a transcribed document about the English and Flynn (Flin) families in colonial South Carolina. Another is about some very cool 17th-cenutry Irish maps, recently digitized and available online. I'm still pondering over some of the (owner) names on the County Westmeath maps, names that don't match up with my genealogical research.

Then I put everything aside to get ready for another trip. I spent last weekend visiting Quakers in Mexico.

When I got back, all my free time — and sleep time, and eating time — was confiscated by these six little cuties! Feral, unweaned... Did you know kittens don't automatically know how to drink from a bottle, much less lap up milk or formula? Did you know they have to be fed every few hours, day and night? Ay-yi-yi!

Now you know what I've been up to.

Irish names

As I fill in servants and supporting characters in my history-based fiction, I want to avoid stereotypical Irish names like Patrick or Moira. What were the given names of people who really lived in early modern Ireland?

I started with a primary source, the "Sufferings" of the Quakers in Moate Monthly Meeting — and immediately ran into the great dilemma of this type of research: who was Irish and who was English? Centuries of English colonization or "plantations" (preceded by Viking and Norman settlements), along with intermarriage, left a mixed populace. The question of whether a man was Irish or English might be restated as: "Which generation of English was he?"

The prefixes O' and Mac served as a guide as I scanned the indices of my reference books. MacLysaght also claims Crowe, Maloney, Brady, Cock and Spencer as Irish surnames. The best source for other surnames turned out to be The Grand Juries of County Westmeath, containing an appendix of family genealogies that takes up most of the book.

Given names for men

The most common are Daniel, Hugh, George, Edmond or Edmund, Sean, Thomas or Tom, and James. There were also several mentions of Torlogh or Turlough, Robert, Con or Conn, John, Eoin, Owen, Kevin, Brian or Bryan, Keadagh or Kedagh, Terence, and Donall, Donel, Donal.

More names: Denis, Fergal, Art, Redmond, Egan, Beare, Rory, Peadar, William, Michael, Ernie, Eamon or Eamonn, Dermot, Edward, Eddie, Antony, Anthony, Lucius, Jimmy, Cormac, Stephen, Henry, Raymond, Ramsey, Joe or Joseph, Martin, Frank, Art, Arthur, Seamus, Conor, Feagh, Charles, Cahir, High, Jeremiah, Patrick, Paddy, Colm, Allen, Neil, Neill, Shane, Abraham, Nial, Aghery, Christopher, Theobald, Nangle, Phelim, Mallachy, Maurice, Richard, George, Morgan, Conla, David, Hubert, Hume, Francis, Breasal, Thadeus, Garrett, Nathaniel, Peyton, Whitney, Francis, Logan, Theobald, Walter, Peter, and Cuthbert.

I primarily wanted early modern Ireland names, but Grand Juries also provides interesting ancient names with their Roman equivalents; you can see how they morphed into more modern names.

Duachus Galach, Duach, Errnin, Eogan (Owen), Fergusius, Feargna (Fergnaus), Achaius (Eochy Tiorm), Aodh Finn, Brenain, Cathalan, Arten, Orgaille (Orgallius), Brefny, Cu-Conachi (Constantine), Mac-nahighe or Macnahighe (Nicholaus), Tiernan, Godfrey (Godfridus), Maolsachlin (Mallachy), Giolla-Joso (Gelasius), Giola-Josa-Ruadh (Gelasius), Cathal (Cathaldus or Carolus), Donogh, Murketagh, Awly, Fergall, Andach, Morough, Matha (Mathew), Matthias, Rufus, Manus, Maolmordha, Philip, Cuconacht, Cormac, Mahon, Carbrey, and Fedlim (Phelim).

The names in Modern Ireland are more recent and possibly anglicized. They continue many of the names already listed, plus Justin, Connor, Frank, Oliver, Malcolm, Michael, Heber, Louis, Nevil, Samuel, Flann, Murrough, Mairtin, Feargus, Tomas, Cahir, Jeremiah, Sylvester, Ernest, and Philip.

Given names for women

By far, the most common name I found was Katharine, Catherine, Kate. Mary and Mary Anne also showed up several times.

Other names were Maud, Bernadette, Patricia, Rossa, Patsy, Nuala, Grace, Kitty, Dorcas, Genet, Margaret, Jane, Elizabeth, Susannah, Diana, Louisa, Ruth, Jane, Eleanor, Bridget, Sarah, Margaret, and Anne.

More ancient: Fedelonia, Indearva, Ranalt, Winifred, and Finguola (Penelope).

More modern (in addition to the names above, still in use): Deidre.

You'll notice I included nicknames and spelling variants. Here's a great resource on nicknames and how some names changed.

Where did everybody sleep?

If the Clibborns of 17th-century Moate, Ireland, had from 4 to 10 regular servants, in addition to 7 to 9 children (counting an orphaned nephew and niece) — where did everybody sleep?

Although John Clibborn's house was called the Castle, it was a tower house that didn't have as many rooms as we might imagine. Let me describe the layout for you — the rooms and arrangement are real; who slept in which room is fiction in progress.

Main Floor

The main or ground floor has a dining room (where the Moate Quakers probably worshiped), a sitting room, and a kitchen. A small room off the kitchen is called the servants' quarters; the cook likely slept there. Although there might not have been the great differences in hierarchy among servants that we see in shows like Downton Abbey (set 200 years later), I don’t know if the cook would have shared the closet-sized space with the kitchen wench. The girl probably slept on the kitchen floor in front of the fire. The bottom of the two-story round tower (hidden by a tree on the left in this picture) served as a dairy or pantry, similar to a root cellar.

The First Floor

The first floor (second floor to Americans) has four bedrooms: one above the dining room to the west (the window on the right), one off the stairway, one at the end of the hall (window on the far left), and a round room at the top of the tower that can only be accessed through the other bedroom. (I wanted very badly for the heroine of the second book to live in the tower room, so I wrote the story that way.)

17th-century bedroom exhibit - National Museum of Ireland

My novel sets John Clibborn and his wife in the west room. I imagine their bedroom as something like this 17th-century exhibit at the National Museum of Ireland, with the addition of curtains on the bed and a rug or two. (Do I see stacks of rushes on the floor? I think not!)

For the first book, the bedroom at the end of the hall is the nursery and the tower room is for the older girls. In the second book, all the girls live in these two rooms.

The Clibborns had such a reputation for hospitality that I made the room off the stairs a guest room. In the real life, however, guests may have bunked in rooms with the family.

Guests aren't the only ones who slept with family. In poorer households, according to MacLysaght, family and guests slept together on the floor. In wealthier households, according to Pepys' Diary, the chamber maid slept in the bedroom with her master and mistress. That gives new meaning to one of Pepys' diary entries (I can’t find the exact quote): The wench up early. Dallied in bed with the wife a while. That concept of no privacy is so alien to our culture! At least they had curtains on the bed.

The Top Floor

The second floor (or third) has the same pattern, except without the tower. So that's three bedrooms on the top floor. While it was common for siblings to share rooms, the older children must have been separated by sex. So I imagine the boys on the top floor, with their youthful energy to take them up and down that extra flight of stairs. Perhaps the steward had to share a bedroom with the footmen, unless the junior servants slept on the floor in the boys' rooms.

Settle bed

Servants' beds (or children's) could be pulled out from under the main bed. Another hideaway sleeping spot was the settle bed, which served as sofa-bench during the day and folded out into a mattress-holding frame at night. For this novel, I put a settle bed in the Englishes' cottage instead of the Castle.

So the house servants were scattered throughout the house, not in some separate wing. I presume field hands slept in their own cottages each night. But what about the permanent outdoor servants?

Remember the bawn, the walled courtyard on the east side of the Castle?  I forgot about the house-sized room at the far end from the kitchen door. It’s substantial (the current owner of the Castle uses it as her shop. Vague memory tells me the inside of the bawn is like a stable, but the large room could house several servants, including the gardener and the stable hands.

17th-Century Servants

As I write about my family of 17th-century Irish Quakers, supporting characters keep popping into scenes — I have to imagine and keep track of how many servants John Clibborn would have had. The only direct reference I’ve found comes from a list of Sufferings: In 1687 he took his son “and servants” on horseback to confront tithemongers who were stealing crops. Clibborn instructed them not to strike back if anyone hit them, so I can infer these servants were men. They must have been in or near the house, available to leave in a hurry.

A couple of years ago I watched the miniseries Berkeley Square and learned that a footman does a lot more than ride on the back of Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage. He serves at table, carries all kinds of things from food to packages, runs errands and delivers letters. Last year I watched Downton Abbey, the addictive show that highlights the life and hierarchy of servants in a wealthy English home.

Susan Ardelie wrote these great posts about domestic servants in the 18th century, one about women and one about men. A lower-income family would hire an all-purpose maid who (I shiver to think of it) empties the chamber pots in the mornings and cooks the food afterwards.

Finding detailed information about life in 17th-century Ireland has been more difficult. MacLysaght’s index is less than comprehensive. Quennell’s index also ignores servants. I skimmed through and found only one image of a country milkmaid. I checked other social history books, but they describe indentured servants and slaves, not domestic employees.

I finally found answers in the Diary of Samuel Pepys. This abridged version starts in 1660, the perfect time frame for my novel. There would be similarities between the practices of the English in England and the English settlers in Ireland. The differences are that Pepys was an upper middle-class city boy who kept a small household and no stables or farm. John Clibborn was also well off — at least, before the Jacobite-Williamite war — and needed enough people to maintain his large country household with lands.

The Scullery Maid by Giuseppe Maria Crespi

In regard to his own household, Pepys mentions “the wench,” who is probably the same as the “chamber mayde,” “my boy,” the “cook-mayde,” an upper maid, and a short-term companion for his wife. The companion could dance and sing. She didn’t stay employed long, however, because after they hired her Samuel Pepys started staying home more often and his wife took notice.

Pepys’ household of servants, usually three, gave him a lively time. One time he lowered their wages and they cursed him. He had constant trouble with his boy, whom he whipped at least once. After struggling with his conscience about firing the boy, Pepys finally found out he was a thief. Pepys hired his own sister as an extra maid, on condition that she act like a servant and not a family member. They couldn’t stand each other and within a few months, Pepys sent her back home to their father.

Pepys mentions other servants among his wealthy acquaintance: a sword bearer, the king’s footmen, the duke's pages in opulent livery, a drayman, a coachman, “his man,” “the boy,” “her wench,” “the girl of the house,” the Master of the Horse, “his girl” who was cleaning, countrymaids milking, a guide (in the city), a porter, labourers, and the queen’s “maydes of honour.”

Since Clibborn was a Quaker, he would not have had fancy livery for his servants. Pepys’ wife got her hands dirty, working with the maid to do the laundry and sometimes cooking. I can see Dinah English Clibborn, who grew up a farmer’s daughter, doing the same. So maybe the Clibborns had one or two chamber maids (no housekeeper needed to manage a large staff), the cook and a kitchen wench.

As for the men, there might have been a steward to manage all the servants, although I can also picture someone like Clibborn being hands-on and managing many things himself. As landlord and farmer, he needed someone to manage the household, either a steward, or his wife Dinah. MacLysaght lists several sources that show the Irish people living at a slower pace of life — in other words, perceived as lazy by the busy, industrious English. I can't decide between the diplomacy of an Irish steward over Irish servants, or an efficient English steward with the friction of a house full of Irish servants who didn’t live up to his pace of life.

Would Clibborn have managed the stable hands and field hands himself, or was there an overseer for the outdoor staff? Clibborn himself (whom I’ve fictionally given a great affection for horses) would be his own Master of the Horse.

Let's add them up: in the house, a steward, one footman and a boy (to run errands and work) or two footmen, an upper chamber maid and “a girl” or all-purpose maid, and a cook. Oh, and a nursemaid. Outside, one or two stable hands including a driver, a gardener, a gardener’s helper or general handyman, and a bevy of seasonal field hands.

Next time: Where did they all sleep?

Irish history in the details — Sheep and bawns and rushes on the floor

I want my novel to transport readers back to 17th-century Ireland. As a writer, I want to transport myself back in time, so I can absorb enough little details to make the story real.

MacLysaght's book, Irish Life in the Seventeenth Century (previous post) keeps giving me good tidbits, but via slow, rambling prose. I don't have to use them all, but some will lead to edits.

For example, in the draft, Dinah English has a serious talk with her brother John while he's out watching the sheep. Most days, I have him plowing or harvesting. In fiction, you want variety in the your characters' actions. In real life, however, their daily tasks would have been repetitive.

MacLysaght wrote that people didn't keep many sheep in nearby King's County (Offaly) because wolves were so prevalent. Wolves! People brought their livestock into the bawn at night to protect their animals, not only from wolves but also from bandits. I'd seen the word "bawn" before, on a drawing near the Castle in Moate. You won't find it in Webster's Collegiate Fourth Edition, but Wikipedia says bawns were later used for kitchen gardens.











This stone enclosure sits across the creek from the Castle in Moate, County Westmeath, where the Clibborns lived. It may have been used as a protective corral, a roofless barn. I threw that little detail into the story.

The Englishes must have had some sheep, because the wool industry in Ireland had not yet been crushed by the late 17th-century English laws. However, John English can't be a full-time farmer and a full-time shepherd. My semi-fictional family, living in near-poverty, brings their livestock into a bedroom-sized barn at night, so they can't have a whole flock. Maybe just a few sheep, so they can spin wool for their own clothes.

The Clibborn family of the Castle had more wealth. One map drawing (that I can't find right now) labels the eastern courtyard as "the bawn." The same map labels the stone structure across the creek as a "walled garden."

I didn't take any pictures inside the courtyard when I visited in 2009, but I have the impression that horse stalls run along the longer inside walls. This photo shows the outside of the courtyard/stables, which might have been John Clibborn's bawn.

Here's a detail I decided not to use. MacLysaght writes that people in small castles and keeps (I would call them manor houses) in 17th-century Ireland didn't have much furniture. Instead, they threw layers of rushes on the floor, sometimes three feet deep, and sat and slept on them. Wait a minute! I want to be authentic, but that's too alien to our idea of post-medieval history. How would you walk around in a room filled up to the windows with some sort of perpetual haystack? Quennell's A History of Everyday Things in England shows plenty of 17th-century furniture. Even though that's in England, not Ireland, I'm sticking with sofas and chairs and (perhaps) rope beds for my story.

Here's one more detail — that didn't come from a book — as I imagine John English working the family farm. A few months ago, my Uncle Jim told me how he plowed with a mule as a young man in eastern North Carolina. I was astonished! Yes, some people had tractors then, he said, but they were expensive and unreliable. I asked him if he had to be strong to push the plow down; was he working as hard as the mule? Oh, no, the mule did the work, he said, but the walking wore him out. Especially with a single plow, one row at a time. You walked all day long, and the work was mind-blowingly tedious.

By the way, horses can't stand that tedium. That's why mules and oxen make better farm animals.

I'm amazed how, nearly three hundred years later in the early part of the 20th century, my family did the same work, in the same way, as John English probably did back in Ireland.

Writing family history — Children lost and found

Last week brought me two "Aha!" moments in connection to my work-in-progress.

I've been banging my head against this historical novel — about my ancestors, the English family — for several years. The draft moves forward, slowly. I knew something was wrong with it, but not what.

I just devoured two of Elizabeth Peters' novels from her Amelia Peabody series. Every book teaches me something, even though Edwardian Egypt wouldn't seem to have anything to do with Irish Quakers. I enjoyed the story immensely, but this time I noticed all the subplots ("Writers read"). Not only are the Emersons trying to find a murderer, but the professional rivals are also messing up a new tomb, the grown children have an ongoing romance subplot, the daughter is conflicted about women's rights... there's a lot going on! Switching back and forth between these other little story elements adds tension to the main (murder) plot.

My story, at least in the middle, is ... one plot. *yawn* Since it's based on real people, most of the facts I know are about marriages and births, which require me to skip a year or two between certain scenes. (Spoiler Alert!) I made a conscious decision not to focus on certain supporting characters, like my direct ancestor John, because I know he dies young. I didn't want to build up his storyline or make him another POV character and then disappoint my readers.

I've got to fill the gaps. Between main events (conflicts and happy times) for my MCs John Clibborn and Dinah English, I need to throw a bunch of little stuff in. Have their children get into trouble, add another visit from the tithemonger, create drama with the servants (English vs. Irish, maybe), or even add some favourite horses or dogs to the storyline. I need to flesh out the supporting characters.

I started looking at Clibborn's older children for potential storylines: Jane, Sarah and George (William died as an infant). Was somebody courting Jane, Dinah's new stepdaughter? No; I looked her up and she was maybe 10 years old when they married (no recorded birth date). However, she probably played games with her future husband and his siblings.

Looking up the children led to my next revelation. Jane's sister Sarah — didn't exist.

I must have confused things from secondary sources. Liam Cox's history of Moate contains a family tree that shows Sarah between two other children. Looking at it again, there's a little double line there; Sarah was George's wife!
I knew George married Sarah Fuller, but first names were so common, I easily accepted another Sarah. On top of that, two of John Clibborn's sons by his second marriage married Sarahs. That makes three Sarah Clibborns of that generation, and none of them were his daughters!

Unfortunately, none of Clibborn's children by his first wife are in the primary Quaker records — except a small note about George's death, which explains that he was "sprinkled" and therefore his birth not recorded. That makes no sense to me, since his father and all the first generation of Quakers were baptized as children. I couldn't find Sarah in marriage or death records. When I pulled up photos of a large family tree, owned by a Clibborn descendant who still lives in Moate, Ireland, Sarah wasn't there, either.

That's OK. I didn't like her character anyway; I forgot to include her in the last few scenes I wrote.

I had thought I should put research aside and plow through my writing. 'Looks like I need to get back to research again. I never finished going through all the information I brought back from my last trip to Ireland — beaucoudles of it.

Wait, did you notice? There's another daughter on the family tree, Mary. Who is Mary? I happened upon this previous post and there, at the end, was a mysterious Mary. Aha!

Mary is not in Cox's book. I dug around this weekend, and found that George mentioned a sister, Mary Sawyer (from typed extracts), in his will. I had taken that with a grain of salt when I first saw it, because people commonly called their in-laws "sister." The Clibborn family tree above looks to me like she married William Langer; since I don't have an image of George's will and some writers don't read 17th-century writing accurately, I'll leave her married name with a question mark.

With many descendants in at least three countries, several genealogy books have been written about or at least mention the English and Clibborn families. I'm lucky (or blessed) to keep discovering more information. In 2009 I discovered another sibling, Thomas English, whom everybody else had presumed died as a child. This week I lost a child, Sarah. And now it looks like I've gained another one — Mary Clibborn!

Setting the Stage with Irish history — And what's with all the stripping?

As I research and write my novel, I just don't get some of my villains, who are based on real people in Irish history. I sort of get the resentment between Catholics and Protestants, which at that time was inseparable from "natives" (some of the Irish Catholics were actually earlier English settlers who had assimilated) versus an invading foreign government. I understand, a little, the greed and lawlessness that drove Rapparees to steal from my characters (Rapparees was a loose term applied equally to Irish army irregulars and any highway bandits).

But I don't understand the downright cruelty of some of my villains. The tithemonger, for example, who flew into a rage and beat up John Clibborn's son Joshua, nearly killing him. In the story recorded in the Book of Sufferings, written by the pacifist Irish Quakers in the 17th century, the man's rage seems to come out of nowhere. For me, as a writer, he needs backstory.

Athlone Castle

Another thing that puzzles me, is what's with all the stripping that went on during the Jacobite-Williamite war of the 1680s-90s? The governor of Athlone got in a tizzy one day, had all the Protestants stripped and drove them out of town.

I wondered if it was in retaliation for some similar act the English had done. The English army certainly abused the Irish inhabitants, and people still remembered high Irish fatalities in the Cromwellian invasion and war of 1641. I found these balanced summaries about those conflicts, but nothing about mass stripping.

A History of Modern Ireland: The coming of the Penal Laws
garethrussellcidevant.blogspot.com5/11/12
A History of Modern Ireland: The coming of the Penal Laws. A Note. The history of Ireland is a complex and controversial subject. The relationship between the past and prejudice is symbiotic. The fury, passion and venom that ...

Cromwell at Drogheda: Two Sceptical Threads | Skeptic Ireland
skepticireland.com3/21/12
Cromwell at Drogheda: Two Sceptical Threads. Posted on March 21, 2012 by HandsofBlue. Cromwell as viewed by Ireland. Oliver Cromwell, like so many figures in Irish history, is very difficult to get an objective opinion on. The man is seen as ...

About 1690, Rapparees or bandits stole leather goods and stripped William Edmundson's "ancient" wife naked. She caught a fatal case of pneumonia on the long walk home.
 
Ironically, the only example I've found of the English army stripping any Irish involved Edmundson himself (a Quaker minister) trying to stop the practice. Earlier in the conflict, he saved two Irish men from hanging and fussed at the English soldiers for stripping them. He forced the soldiers who had taken their clothes to return them, saying "Besides it might be a precedent to the Irish to strip the English." (WE's journal)

The conflicts in Ireland go way back, each side retaliating for something the other side did like an Appalachian family feud. But does anybody know of earlier precedents for taking the population's clothes?

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Learning about Ireland in the 17th century

As I work on my novel about the English family, my ongoing brick wall hasn't been so much about genealogy, but in learning about Ireland. I want to include those little historic details that give the reader a sense of time and place. I've found plenty of references about war and battles and even the persecutions of Quakers, but there seems to be a dearth of information about Irish daily life in the 17th century.

I tried using English social history, especially since my real-life characters were English settlers. I started with Marjorie and C.H.B. Quennell's A History of Everyday Things in England. It's a great resource and I used it to picture what Dinah English and John Clibborn would wear. Other topics, however, are jumbled about rather randomly and I'm never quite sure which would have carried over to the neighboring country.

Quakers journals of the time dealt more with spiritual things than physical. English diaries, like that of the famous Samuel Pepys, reflect an extravagant Restoration England that would have been rejected by Quakers, who strove for lives of simplicity.

I recently had a breakthrough — last month I found Irish Life in the Seventeenth Century, by Edward MacLysaght, through intralibrary loan. Pictures are few, but details abound! For example, the English settlers wore "breeches" (snug at the knee in Quennell's drawings) and the Irish wore "trousers," which were looser garments of similar length. One of the appendices (part of which is in Gaelic, but Dr. MacLysaght condescends to summarize a little for us) tells that poorer Irish men often didn't wear a shirt, just a waistcoat with bare arms under their cloaks. Exactly the little tidbits I've been looking for!

Fascinating as it is, Irish Life is not a quick read, and I had to send the plain blue hardback to its home library. I found a 1979 paperback online, with people in 17th-century costume on the front (remember the lack of pictures?), so I ordered it.

My copy arrived yesterday (yay!), sans appendices, notes and bibliography (boo!). Apparently the author, 91 at the time, (and perhaps his publisher) thought fit to cut 150 pages from "this popular edition." Ouch. Looks like I'll have to save up to buy an older copy.

I've been blessed recently with an outcrop of websites and blog posts to help with 17th- and 18th-century research. I plan to gather some of these resources into a subpage on this website. Meanwhile, here are my top finds for May:

1. A map and clothing from 1610 Ireland, at Irish Historical Textiles (contains the picture on the cover of my newly acquired paperback).

2. The Books of Survey and Distribution list names and show how land changed hands from Catholic to Protestant owners in Cromwellian and Restoration (mid-17th century) Ireland.

3. Popular books in the 18th century — a handy list by Roseanna M. White at Colonial Quills.

4. Did 18th-century women tie their apron strings in the front or the back?

5. What basic skills would an 18th-century outdoorsman or traveling colonist need to know? Keith Burgess tells us at A Woodrunner's Diary.

6. The author of Vintage Visions wears 18th-century finery.

And in a different century:

7. Last month 425 years ago, three ships carrying men, women and children departed English waters to start a new life in Carolina. They would become known as the Lost Colony.

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Eating 17th-century food

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to eat the way people did in the 17th century? I've dreamt about an immersion course (small beer for breakfast — why not?) to see what life was like for my ancestors and get details for my novel. But after watching this hilarious episode of the BBC's Supersizers, I'm glad Giles and Sue did the immersion for me. I can live vicariously through their experiences while keeping my internal organs in good working order.

Each of the six videos below is about 10 minutes, for a total 1-hour episode about life — and especially food — in Restoration England. Thanks to A Woodrunners Diary for the idea.

My ancestors in Ireland were Quakers, so they would not have set such an extravagant table. There's a clip about Puritan/Quaker/country food towards the end of the third video.

Genealogy check-in — Dinah English

I've been so busy with the book store (opening in a few weeks!) that I haven't spent much time with genealogy or writing. A few weeks ago I wrote two good pages of Joshua's story. (If you're new to this blog, I'm writing a historical novel about my Quaker ancestors in Ireland, to be as factual as possible, like Roots. Joshua is the final generation, the one who emigrates to America, and I've had a hard time imagining his story, which has a lot of genealogical holes in it.)

I tried two other mornings to write, and didn't get down a word. Maybe I need to get back in the habit of writing more often, but that's hard to do when juggling several part-time jobs, physical therapy and church events.

I did have one break-through, not through my own efforts, but from a fellow genealogist. He got my e-mail from a bulletin board (yes, genealogists still use online bulletin boards to find each other) and asked for some information about the English family. He gave me Dinah English's birth year, another piece of the English family puzzle.

Dinah's birth date was strangely missing from all of the Quaker records of Moate, County Westmeath, Ireland. For fictional purposes I had made her the oldest child of Thomas English. I use a lot of educated guesses in my novel; I figured, why would a younger child hide her age? My new informant confirms that she was indeed the oldest child.

I also had a theory in my head that she wouldn't admit to her age not because she was vain, but because she was born "too early"; her parents were only 18 when they got married in England (young by later Quaker standards), and I think it was common among 17th century people to have to get married, if you know what I mean. I didn't include that in the book (yet) because it might not be the case, and I'm not out to dishonor my ancestors, just tell their story. But the theory is possible. Thomas and Ann were married in 1630, and now I know that Dinah was born in 1630.

As a first-generation Quaker and the wife of the village landlord, I think Dinah was embarrassed and hid her birth date to protect her parents' reputation.

Benjamin and Ann

(Spoiler Alert! for my novel in progress)

I feel sorry for Benjamin Parvin and Ann English, who had a long and rocky courtship.

In my historical novel-in-progress, the courtship was especially long because of a big argument and an estrangement that went on for several years. I made all of that up, to add conflict and make for an interesting plot. But something happened in real life, and I have no idea what it was.

Quaker engagements had to be long, because the couple went through an approval process that involved their local, "monthly" meeting and the regional, or "province" meeting that only met every three months. No matter what their age, they had to have permission from parents (or relations, if the parents weren't living) and everybody in their meeting (church congregation). Benjamin and Ann were in their late twenties, which was fairly common for 17th-century marriages in that community.

Benjamin, who had grown up as a second-generation Quaker in Ireland, did something wrong in those procedures and the meeting gave him a "paper of Condemnation," which means he was on the verge of being disowned for whatever it was he did. They said he had "proceeded in relation to marriage with Ann English Contrary to the order of truth" — the word "truth" being used at that time for both belief in Christ and for all of the Quaker rules and culture.

No, I don't think they were pregnant. The meeting had no qualms about writing that in their records, and Ann's first child was born in 1698. Since Ann was an orphan and Benjamin's father had died, I suspect they broke some rule about getting permission, or perhaps they set a date or started making plans before they had the meeting's approval.

In the 12th month 1696 (February 1697), Benjamin wrote an apology, which was accepted, and he and Ann started making the required rounds of meetings to get their approval to marry. They presented themselves to the men's meeting, then the women's meeting, that month, then went to the province meeting in 1st month (March), back to the monthly meeting in Moate in 2nd month (April), which sent a certificate to the next province meeting. They finally married in 3rd month (May) 1697.

It took a lot of persistence for a couple to get married back then, but Ann and Benjamin had it.

Literacy and backstory

Yesterday I entered family tree information for the ROBINSON family into my Reunion database. Most of the wonderful things I have found about my extended family in County Westmeath, Ireland have come from either original Quaker records or from writings of the late Liam Cox, and this was no different. I found lots of information on Anthony Robinson's descendants (also Thomas ENGLISH's descendants, since Anthony married his daughter Bridgett) from an Irish Ancestry magazine article, written by Cox, archived in the National Library of Ireland in Dublin.

This morning I was looking over some of old Quaker documents that I copied during my research trip. A few entries weren't about my family, but I copied them because members of my family signed as witnesses and I wanted their signatures. I had noticed before, at a wedding, that Dinah English Clibborn signed with "her mark." But at that particular wedding, the handwriting is all the same (copied into the book by the clerk) and lots of people added their marks, including John Clibborn.

But this morning I saw a list that contained different handwritings (original signatures), and again, Dinah made her mark. And so did John Clibborn, and John's sister and a few other people. Which leads me to think that John Clibborn did not know how to write. That blows my mind (and my mental backstory), because John was wealthy, English, and an only son. But he was also a former soldier. So, even though the first son usually inherited everything (and the second became a soldier or clergy), the lack of education makes me think that John was not wealthy as a child. Perhaps he saved his army wages and then shrewdly sold better lands given to him in the Cromwellian settlement and bought cheaper land in the country - in Moate.

John and Dinah Clibborn's niece, Ann English, and her brother Thomas could write their names. In a previous post, I mentioned that, although I don't know where the orphaned Ann and Thomas lived, my book carries the logical conclusion that John and Dinah took them in. With no regular schoolmasters in the area during those years, I assumed the children were homeschooled. But, if neither John nor Dinah could read or write, who taught Ann and Thomas (and the Clibborn children)?

Here's a synopsis from four events (1670s) with signatures:
John English could write, but his sisters (Dinah, Margaret and Bridgett) could not. John's second wife Eleanor and Bridgett's husband Anthony Robinson could write.
Neither John Clibborn nor his sisters Alice Tuart, Ann Miller and Bathshebah England could write. John's brother-in-law Phillip England could write and Thomas Tuart made his mark in earlier years but apparently learned to write his name later.
There's also a mysterious Mary Clibborn that wrote her own name on several documents. She is not one of John's sisters or daughters and, as I said, he's the only son. Who is she?

The English family

I've added a new page, with a link at the top of this blog, with basic family tree information for the ENGLISH family. It's "under construction" - I'm not sure if I will add any more in the near future, but I may eventually add names all the way down to me, about 10 generations down from the Thomas English who first moved to Ireland.

One of my pet peeves is the inaccuracies perpetuated by people who don't understand the calendar that Quakers of this era used - fodder for a future post. For now, I'll just say that I've translated the dates into our modern calendar so that people who use this information won't make those mistakes.

Anyone who does 18th-century or earlier genealogy, please, please write down the dates exactly as you find them, using numbers and not words (1st month does not equal January). Thanks.

Indexing the Moate Meeting minutes

What fun, to come home and check the mailbox and find international mail!

During my trip to Ireland, I agreed to index the early records of the Moate Meeting (Quaker), specifically, minutes of the men's meeting in the 17th and 18th centuries (the women's minutes don't exist until later). It's a win-win deal: the Historical Library gets a volunteer indexer, and I get to find more records about my family than I could possibly have read during my trip. I started in 1742 and I'm about a third of the way through the first set.

The package I got this week has more records, through 1792! At first I was excited, then realized that my family (Joshua) left in 1753. I was hoping for the earlier records, or copies from a different book full of un-indexed letters. But, the reward for good work is more work. And, I thought, maybe I will find out what happened to Joshua's brothers. Regardless, I'm honored to have the job.