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.

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?

South Carolina history and beaver hats

At work the other day (Friends Historical Collection), I pulled older books for possible scanning for Ancestry.com. I was excited to see that Ancestry already has The Annals of Newberry (two volumes) by John Belton O'Neall and John A. Chapman— a nice, clean copy that you can print by single pages. If you don't have access, you can download this messier copy from Google books. The download is easier to print multiple pages, but image only (no word searching). You can search for words by staying online on the Google page. Click on the book cover image to open the reader (NOT the eBook); a search box will be on the left.

Ancestry also has both volumes of Historic Camden, by Thomas Kirkland and Robert Kennedy (note: there are genealogical errors in Kirkland and Kennedy, especially in regard to the English family). Here's the Google version.

I like the Annals for the nitty-gritty details, humour and generous genealogical name-dropping, especially for Bush River Meeting. O'Neall, born in 1793 to an Quaker family of Irish descent, heard first-hand accounts of Revolutionary South Carolina and witnessed the 19th-century events himself.

After a listing settlers in the Bush River area for half a page, O'Neall describes an imagined meeting for worship, probably based on family recollections:

... I can see the aged form of the elder David Jenkins, sitting immediately below the preacher's bench, on the left of the southern entrance to the men's meeting, leaning on the head of his staff, his large protruding lower lip, the most remarkable feature of his face. Alongside of him might be seen the tall form and grey hairs of Tanner Thomson, as he used to be called. Scarcely could the sacred stillness of Friends' meeting keep him from snapping his thumb and finger together, as if feeling a side of leather. Just here I recall the person of Isaac Hollingsworth. His was a stalwart form, more than six feet high. He sits the picture of firmness, and ever and anon, throwing up the ample brim of his flapping beaver, he looks as if he was restless....

A little further to the right or lower down, might be seen the pale features of that excellent man, Joseph Furnas! Near to him was to be seen the tall, erect form, florid complexion, clear, blue eye, ample forehead, and grey hair of John Kelly, Sr.; just alongside of him might be seen Isaac Kirk. Friend Kirk, as he used to be called, was a true Quaker. He was plain and simple as a child, kind and forbearing in every thing. No better heart was covered by a straight-breasted coat. He had his peculiarities: one, that in reading, he read as if he was singing the passages—another, that when talking to any one his foot had always to be in motion. ...

In the women's meeting, on the preacher's bench, under their immense white beavers, I recall the full round faces and forms of the sisters, Charity Cook and Susannah Hollingsworth. Both wives, both mothers of large families, still they felt it their duty to preach "Jesus and him crucified." The first, Charity Cook, was indeed a gifted woman. She traveled through the States extensively. Twice visited England and Ireland. When her husband drove his stage wagon into Rabun's creek, at a time when it was high, drowned two horses, and only escaped drowning himself by riding a chunk to land, she swam to the shore, and thus saved herself. Her sister, Susannah Hollingsworth, was not so highly gifted. Henry O'Neall, and other young Friends, used to affirm, that when Aunt Suzey, as she was called, began to pray, they could always keep ahead of her by repeating the words she was about to say.

Just below the preacher's bench, the once round and graceful form (afterwards bent by 82 winters) of Hannah Kelly, once Hannah Belton, a native of Queen's County, Ireland, might be seen. No more intelligent, kind, or benevolent face ever met the upturned gaze of her juniors. Well might it be said of her, that she was indeed "a mother in Israel." Her eye of blue, her long straight nose, high cheek bones, and clear Irish complexion, can scarcely ever be forgotten by those who saw her.

When I first read "their immense white beavers," I pictured the large, white bonnets of modern stereotypical Quaker illustrations. According to History of American Costume, 1607-1870, bonnet was a loose term from the French used for all kinds of hats, but actual bonnets didn't come about until later in the 18th century, including straw ones. (My Quaker great-grandmother wore a floral blue bonnet.)

Beavers were actually wide-brimmed hats, and women wore them over their caps — caps having been a staple for centuries. Notice in the first paragraph that men wore them, too.

This beaver hat is from the mid-18th century (American Costume, p. 167).

Speaking of Bush River, a group of descendants and people who care about the cemetery will have their annual Bush River Quaker Homecoming May 2-5 in Newberry, S.C. Their nascent website is here. (I noticed mistakes right away in the cemetery list, but they are building this site. The bibliography looks interesting.)

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!

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.

--

When the facts get in the way...

Those of you who follow the *slow* progress of my novel about the English family know that genealogical research occasionally leads to twists in the story. My goal is to fictionalize only the parts that are undocumented, but to keep to the facts as much as possible, like Alex Haley did in Roots.  After working on Moate (my working title!) for several years, I thought the basic plot points were pretty ironed out. I've started revising the ~ 75,000-word draft to make the story flow better, develop characters, add details, etc.

Today, I ran into a little snag.

My main character in the second book of this multigenerational saga is Ann English, whose mother and father died when she was a little girl: Mary died in 1672 and John in 1676. John's second wife, Eleanor, was never mentioned again in the genealogical records. They had only been married two years. As I wrote in this 2009 post, I thought some of their relatives may have taken in the orphans, Ann and her brother Thomas. I decided that their aunt and uncle, Dinah and John Clibborn, were the most logical choice. They were well off and probably lived only a mile away from the children's inherited farm, which the Moate meeting took care of in trust. Not only were the Clibborns a logical choice, but very convenient for the story — they were the main characters in book 1 and their grand home, the Castle, would continue to be the main setting.

Here's today's surprise: I had photographed some signatures of members of the Moate meeting to supply me with names for supporting characters. I just noticed the signature of a witness at two weddings: Eleanor English, in 1678 and 1679. This is not John's sister Elinor, who had married George Castleton about 1669 (note: I am reconciling different records about Elinor's marriage date, and at the moment I think 1669 more accurate than the 1664/5 date in the English Family Tree on this blog). As a matter of fact, Elinor Castleton is the signature above Eleanor English in the 1678 document!

As much as I hate to throw out my whole orphans-live-with-Clibborns part of the story, having Eleanor stick around would explain why Thomas was living on his farm at the age of 14 in another record. I thought that was a bit young to be on his own. But why was Eleanor never mentioned in the death or (re-)marriage records?

Since there are no records for her, I think I need to go back through the other records and look through all the witnesses. At least that would give me a rough timeline to think about.

Oh, I so wanted Ann to live in the tower room at the Castle... Maybe Eleanor was just visiting?  *sigh*

-  I was about to submit this post when I remembered that the farm was rented out to Christopher Coats when Thomas was about 16 (this from memory). That means that Eleanor was either gone by then, or she had to move in with somebody else. I've got some figuring out to do.

For my extended English family readers: Eleanor Wilkinson was already a widow when John English married her. "Elinor" Chesworth, daughter of John, was born in Middleweich parish, Chester County, England, and came to Ireland as a servant in 1659.  She married Stephen Wilkinson of Athlone in 1662. Stephen died in 1671. Eleanor had a daughter Martha in 1672 who died about eight months later. Husband and child were both buried in Moate in the Friends Burying Place. (Moate Meeting record book, MM IV, M1)

A Trip to the Past - Part 2

Friday I drove over to Camden with the vague goal of finding some original documents that Cousar had referenced in his book. One of them mentioned Edward Flin. My ancestor Thomas English married Margaret Flynn (or Flinn), daughter of Edward and Ann, who was "a cousin of Lord Cornwallis." I have not yet found Ann's maiden name or how exactly she was related to the British general, nor have I found anything about her and Edward, including their deaths, except for the land record where they first arrived in South Carolina from Ireland.

I started in the Register of Deeds office. Unlike library archives, they didn't mind if I took pictures, which helped speed up note-taking.

Yes, this is how I spend my vacations!

I found some land records with Englishes in them, and other names in early Camden that are starting to become familiar to me. But I didn't find the book of "Pleadings and Judgments, Book F" that I was looking for. The lady at the counter told me that this building was for Camden records, and I need to go across the street for Kershaw County records.

After going through the metal detector at the courthouse and asking very nicely for photography permission, I walked back through the cold wind to the car and got my camera. The office for intestate (no will) cases is upstairs and the testate records are downstairs. The old books were jumbled around, but I finally found Book F.

And there was the record! A lovely case of two generations who died without a will — the granddaughter's husband wanted to buy the land, so his case included the death dates of Edward and Ann Flin, the names of their children (Margaret and Jean), their grandchildren (Margaret and Thomas English's children), Jean and Thomas' death dates, and more details.

Oh, and Edward was a blacksmith. A primary document with many of my colonial family members and their connections in it — Wonderful stuff!

A Trip to the Past - Part 1

The first week in November I took a trip back in time.

Actually, I took the camper down to South Carolina to attend a Revolutionary War re-enactment in Camden. My ancestors lived in Camden, during the Revolutionary War — I had to go! This was a perfect opportunity to glimpse what their lives would have been like.

I took a few extra days to research my English family. Thursday I went to the South Caroliniana collection at the University of South Carolina. I wanted to find two sources that books on the English family had referenced: John Cousar's book, Quaker Turned Presbyterian, and Elisabeth Doby English's Descendants of Joshua English. I was excited to finally see them with my own eyes. The former turned out to be a book and the latter was a manuscript.

The South Caroliniana Collection

You can't take pictures of documents in the collection, and I wished I could have taken Cousar's whole book home, there was so much information in it! I wrote notes like crazy and was quickly overwhelmed. The book has paper covers and looks like something that would have had a small print run (i.e. not easy to find a copy).

English's book was more of an extensive family tree, and I took some notes and decided to order copies of the pages with my part of the family, and the branches that lived in the area near the time of the Revolution.

I looked at a few microfilms and then ran out of time. Since parking is difficult at USC and I found the two books that were my goals, I decided to spend tomorrow researching in Camden.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun — "Heritage Pie" Chart

Tonight's challenge from Genea-Musings is to list your 16 great-great-grandparents, and where they came from, married, and died (I saw this meme on Tonia's Roots). Here are mine:

1. Ransom P. SAUNDERS b. ca 1818 in North Carolina, m. Delilah Beaver in March 1832, N.C., d. 1850 in N.C.

2. Delilah BEAVER b. ca 1810 in Caswell Co., North Carolina, d. before Dec. 1874, N.C.

3. John L. CARRELL b. 25 Oct. 1822, Rockingham Co., North Carolina, m. Julia Ann Young 22 Feb. 1845, Rockingham Co., N.C., d. 17 July 1895 (probably N.C.).

4. Julia Ann YOUNG b. 28 May 1817, North Carolina, d. 6 Jan. 1898.

5. Dempsey LASSITER b. ca 1823, Nansemond Co., Virginia, m. Elizabeth Jane --- before 1846, d. after 1910 (living in Nansemond Co., Virginia in 1910). Dempsey's son William Lassiter was one of my brick walls until a couple of years ago, when I finally found Dempsey and his family.

6. Elizabeth Jane --- b. ca 1825 in Nansemond Co., Virginia, d. before 1910.

7. Henry BAKER, m. Joan Weston before 1882

8. Joan WESTON, b. Nov. 1851

9. Thomas S. MANESS, b. ca 1849? (possibly Moore County, North Carolina), m. Sarah Pandora Wall 25 June 1874 in Guilford County, North Carolina, disappeared in 1875. Thomas is my current brick wall. He disappeared before my great-grandfather was born, and I am the fourth generation looking for him.

10. Sarah Pandora WALL, b. 29 Aug. 1859 in North Carolina, d. 30 July 1930, Randolph County, North Carolina.

11. Thomas Madison ENGLISH, b. 25 Aug. 1827, North Carolina, m. Armecia White after 1870, d. 3 June 1888, buried in Guilford County, North Carolina.

12. Cynthia Armecia WHITE, b. 9 Sept. 1849, North Carolina, d. 30 Dec. 1926 in Randolph County, North Carolina, buried in Guilford County.

13. William Gaston ROUTH,  m. Roxie Bryant. Their children were born in Randolph County, North Carolina.

14. Roxie BRYANT.

15. Jacob Shadrach KINDLEY, b. 26 Oct. 1852, Davidson County, North Carolina, m. Mary Adaline Copple 14 Dec. 1871, Davidson County, North Carolina, d. 30 Aug. 1917.

16. Mary Adaline COPPLE, b. 16 May 1851, Davidson County, North Carolina, d. 18 Oct. 1911.

I've been obsessed with a few of my family branches (like the English family, a portion listed at the top of this blog) and this list shows how I've neglected others. While I hope to fill in the details someday, my near term goals are to finish my English family novel and to break through my Maness family brick wall.

If I drew a pie chart of locations, most of the circle would be filled with Carolina blue, with a little wedge for Virginia. The family seems to go back to colonial days before they start branching out to other countries.

Back on the trail of my ancestors

I can't believe I'm going back to England in just two weeks! All my attention has been on the new bookshop, but I need to get back into the genealogy mindset. I'm going to a Quakers Uniting in Publications conference in Birmingham, but I added a precious few days in London at the end of the trip for genealogy research. My primary goal this time is to find out all I can about the Fredericksburgh Monthly Meeting.

Fredericksburgh, now known as Camden, South Carolina, was also known as the Wateree meeting (on the Wateree River) and even Pine Tree Hill. When my ancestor Joshua English moved there from Ireland in 1753, he brought his wife, Mary, and six children: Thomas (22), Elizabeth (18), Robert (16), John (~13), Mary (~11) and Joshua (~8). (Fellow historians think the younger four children came on a separate voyage because they weren't present at court for the land request. My research shows that no other Quaker families arrived in the four months before they did show up in the records, so I believe they traveled with their parents.)

Genealogists with Quaker lines are usually fortunate, because they kept meticulous vital records. However, living archivists and deceased authors alike assure me that no records exist for Fredericksburgh Meeting. Whether they didn't keep records, or the records were destroyed, or they sit lost in someone's attic, nobody seems to know. The meeting fell apart after only a couple of decades and was formally laid down in 1784. Apparently, wealth and slaves and plantation life drew several members away from their faith. Those who stayed true to Quaker ideals moved to Bush River Meeting, which was farther into the South Carolina backcountry, or to other states. Joshua's son Thomas, my ancestor, remained a Quaker and his son John moved to Bush River and then to North Carolina.

Two things inspired me to hunt for these records. 1 - I read in a book that Fredericksburgh reported directly to the London Yearly Meeting. Later on, they were under North Carolina Yearly Meeting, but seemed to have little interaction with other American meetings. 2 - Skimming through a Virginia heritage book, I ran across a letter from Fredericksburgh Meeting, signed by its members. I thought, if a Virginia meeting has a record - a snapshop in time - of this little group of Quakers, more records must exist.

The letter attests to the character of William Terrell and his wife Martha, who apparently moved from Fredericksburgh to Southriver Meeting in Virginia with their children in 1762. It was signed by Samuel Wiley; John, Henry, Robert, James and Rebecca Millhouse; John, Joshua, Robert, Joseph, and Mary English and Mary English Jr.; William Elmore; William Smith; Zeb. Gauntt; Timothy, Samuel, John and Mary Kelly; Mary Tomlinson; Sarah Russell; and Mary Cook.

Those names give me enough clues to hunt for more.

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.

Arctic Ireland

You know how you look for a book on Amazon or eBay, knowing that it's probably out of print or hard to find? And sure enough, they don't have any copies, but you can put it on your "wish list." I was looking up something else on Amazon and happened to click on my wish list. To my surprise, several copies of of a book I wanted were now available. No pictures, no "look inside," but one of them was inexpensive and from a highly rated seller, so I ordered it.

Arctic Ireland, The extraordinary story of the Great Frost and Forgotten Famine of 1740-41, by David Dickson, arrived today and I couldn't wait to unwrap it! I wrote earlier this year about that coldest winter, during which my ancestor Joshua English and his family lived in Moate, County Westmeath, Ireland.

I immediately looked in the index for Moate. Sure enough, this book also mentions that 20 houses burned down in that small village during the drought that accompanied the Great Frost. No details, unfortunately. But, although the footnotes are all lumped together by page, I can generally figure out that the source was a Dublin newspaper, which is more than I had before.

Even though there's only that brief mention of Moate, now I have a whole book to read for background information, which will hopefully inspire me to get back to my novel. I took a break from my work-in-progress in August. Now that NaNoWriMo is over (that's a future post), it's time to get back to work.

Amanuensis Monday - Archdale, N.C. in 1902

From the North Carolina Year Book, 1902.

Randolph County
Justices of the Peace for Trinity Township were W.N. Elder of Maud, J.F. Mendenhall of Thomasville, B. L. Lineberry of Trinity, E.W. Pugh of Progress, W.M. Wilson of Archdale, and R.E. Mendenhall of High Point.

Public School Teachers: [I'm only posting those in the Archdale area]
Farlow, Miss May, Sophia
Elder, Miss Daisy, Archdale
Bulla, Miss Dora, Sophia
Bulla, Miss Bird, Sophia

Schools and Academies: [none in Archdale]

Ministers not in Towns: [none in Archdale]

Physicians not in Towns: J.M. Tomlinson, Archdale.

Factories, Cotton Gins, Cotton Mills, Lumber Plants, Saw Mills: [none]

Merchants not in Towns: S.F. Wall & Co., Sophia

Saloons: [none in Randolph County]

Archdale
Incorporated in 1874.
Population, 182.
Tax rate, 12 and a half c on $100
Town Officers. MAYOR- H.A. Tomlinson
CLERK- W.M. Wilson
TREASURER- W.M. Wilson
TAX COLLECTOR- John F. White
CHIEF OF POLICE- John F. White
BOARD OF ALDERMEN- H.A. Tomlinson, J.M. Tomlinson, T.S. Folwell, Lee Andrews, W.J. Wilson
PUBLIC SCHOOL SUPT. Miss Sallie Redding.
SCHOOL COMMITTEE- L.C. Andrews, E.W. Pugh, H.A. Tomlinson
POSTMASTER- J.M. Tomlinson
R.R. AGENT- A.C. English
EXPRESS AGENT- A.C. English

Ministers and Churches.
FRIENDS- D.C. Cox, Pastor.

Doctors. J.M. Tomlinson

General Merchandise.
H.A. Tomlinson & Co.
Martin Creasy.

Poultry Yards.
Archdale Poultry Yards.

Amanuensis Monday - Trinity, N.C. in 1902

From the North Carolina Year Book, 1902.


Randolph County
T.J. Finch, of Wheatmore, was a County Commissioner.
Justices of the Peace for Trinity Township were W.N. Elder of Maud, J.F. Mendenhall of Thomasville, B. L. Lineberry of Trinity, E.W. Pugh of Progress, W.M. Wilson of Archdale, and R.E. Mendenhall of High Point.

Public School Teachers: [I'm only posting those in the Trinity area]
Royalis, Miss Birdie, Trinity
Gibbs, J.E., Trinity
Crater, A.A., Trinity
McCarkle, Miss, Trinity
Ingram, Mrs. L.J., Trinity
Young, Miss Indie, Trinity
Johnson, Miss Rosa L., Trinity
Craven, Mrs. Nannie, Trinity
Heitman, J.F., Trinity
Fearns, Miss Corinna, Hill's Store [I'm not sure where that is]
Thayer, Mrs. W.F., Hoover Hill

Schools and Academies: [none in Trinity]

Ministers not in Towns: METHODIST: C.A. Wood, J.P. Lanning, A.A. Crater, J.F. Heitman, Trinity.

Physicians not in Towns: D. Reid Parker, Trinity.

Factories: Dixie Chair Co., Trinity

Cotton Gins, Cotton Mills, Lumber Plants, Saw Mills: [none]

Merchants not in Towns:
J.L. Hinshaw, Hoover Hill
L.S. Harrelson, Hoover Hill
W.S. Loler, Trinity
B. Parker, Trinity

Saloons: [none in Randolph County]

Trinity
Incorporated in 1869.
Population, 274.
Town Officers. BOARD OF ALDERMEN- J.K. Harris, B. Parker, A.C. English, J.R. Reddick, J.D. Bronne.
POSTMASTER- Miss Amanda Leach
R.R. AGENT- A.C. English
EXPRESS AGENT- A.C. English

Ministers and Churches. METHODIST- G.E. Eaves, Pastor.

Schools and Academies. TRINITY HIGH SCHOOL- A.A. Crater, Principal.

Hotels and Boarding Houses. Parker House.

General Merchandise.
B. Parker.
W. Lohr.
J. Parkin.
W. O. Harris.

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.

Tombstone Tuesday - Camden, S.C.

As I finished going through the cemetery files (see previous posts), I did hit paydirt. One of the files contains a spiral-bound notebook where Ted had written down the names in a cemetery (original work), then gone back and annotated where he found full dates or family members' names. Another file had similar work, scribbled onto the backs of re-used paper.

While my goal was to see if we could publish any of Ted's work, I was excited about some of his copied material because it pertains to cemeteries where my Quaker ancestors lived - Bush River and Camden (Fredericksburgh), S.C.

I've never been to Bush River. A descendant in Georgia, with Ted's help, organized a group of people that has done a lot of work to clean up the cemetery. The Haworth family has a couple of photos on their website. I'd like to go there someday, in the next two years.

The Old Quaker Cemetery at Camden, which has grown as it is still in use by the current town, started as a small burying ground used by the Fredericksburgh Monthly Meeting (the old name of Camden, also called Wateree and Pine Tree Hill). Here are some photos I took during a visit in 2007. The brick-covered graves, with no inscription, are purported to be old Quaker graves. Which means that one of them could possibly belong to my ancestor, Joshua English, who immigrated from Ireland in 1753. I don't know. I just know that the 18th-century Quakers didn't believe in marking their names onto headstones.

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?

More work, and looking forward to it

I'm excited after this morning's publications board meeting. The author of the collection of Quaker biographies that I edited last summer was there, and we're getting close to publication. Two of our board members went to the QUIP conference (Quakers Uniting in Publications) and had a great time with the international writing community. Next year's meeting is in England and I've already volunteered to go!

We talked about our marketing plan, or lack of one. We're a relatively small nonprofit who sells our books at annual events and through mail order. So I was sitting there thinking, how can we market online when we can't afford online purchasing (eg. ProPay)?

We had a couple of proposals related to publishing cemetery records. A late historian, or his family, donated his research files to another committee who asked us about publishing them. He researched lots of Quaker cemeteries, including some that have been laid down. Although it's sad that he's no longer with us, I'm excited that I'm going to get to look through his files so I can report back to the board. One of the files is about Bush River, the South Carolina meeting my English family ancestors attended.