19th century military men

One of my fellow POLLARD descendants (hi Clive!) alerted me to the WO25 military records series in which some of our Pollards are lurking. Along with George and Andrew I found a few other men from Wing recorded in there, and they have now been added to the 19th century military page. If you have ABBOTT, BATES, CLARK, HUBBARD, JAPP, JENNINGS, JORDAN or POLLARD in your tree from Wing in the early 19th century that should please you. There's always more to find out there!

I've also found a couple more WW1 servicemen as I continue on my WW1 project, but I won't be updating the website for them until a bit later on.

WW1 servicemen list updated

I've made a couple of minor tweaks to the military pages today as a result of my research to date into the WWI servicemen. Note that I won't be updating for everything, there will be extended profile pages coming at a future date so I will save most of the changes for then, however I am removing any men that are incorrectly listed on any given military page. Today I've removed an EGGLETON who was born in Askett rather than Ascott, and also removed a DEANE who I suspect wasn't in the RAF until after WWI.

World War One Centenary Project

During 2014 I'm participating in the Society for One-Place Studies annual project to focus on World War One and its impact on our one-place study communities.

I already have a partial list of WWI servicemen from Wing, however I intend to go back and systematically work through researching each man and their service history to create a military profile of them for the website. With 48 casualties recorded on Wing's war memorial and several more known to have died but not been recorded on the memorial, let alone all those who served and returned home, I have my work cut out for me!

If your ancestor or relative from Wing served in World War One please email me (even if you have emailed me before) so that we can share information.

JAKEMAN in the Miscellany

I've done a tiny update, just a JAKEMAN from 1588 doing his financial duty in the face of the Spanish Armada.

The key! The key!

New to the website yesterday was the key to the 1798 Wing enclosure map. This is a list of everyone who obtained land (or already held land) as part of the enclosure process. The text of the actual award, plus some sort of fancy mapping of the map itself, will come in due course. However the key is pretty useful on its own as simply a list of who was around in Wing at that time with enough clout to get land.

I've also added a more general page about farming in Wing. This explains the pre- and post-enclosure farming systems in general terms. I'll be expanding this later on with more information about what the farms, farmers and farm workers in Wing actually did.

Reworking the military men pages

I know this is not one of the things I said I was going to be working on but I've reworked the military men pages a wee bit. Previously I had these lists split into WWI, WWII, and Other. The Other list was getting a little bit long though, so I've split that into 19th century, 20th century and Other.

The Naval servicemen within them have been spruced up, so to speak. Their date of service has been corrected (the revised catalogue entries at The National Archives make it clear that I had noted their birth year, rather than service year, so I've fixed this - I haven't paid to get copies of their actual records though so the service date is just an indication to the year they joined up I think, not their full service), five more Naval men have been added and the link to the Naval records at The National Archives was updated. I've also added a recipient of merchant marine war medals.

The war memorial page has been updated following the unveiling of the fully restored war memorial in November 2012. The page now includes two new photos of the restored memorial, along with expanded text about the memorial.

I've also updated the photos of the Evelyn Close plaques, now larger and without rain splatters!

I came, I saw, I photographed

Hi everyone! I'm back from my trip to the UK and more importantly my visit to Wing!

I'm going to try really really hard to finish a couple of outstanding projects (like the farms projects and the 1910 valuation books) and get those up on the website for you. You can also expect to see some things coming out of my visit – however those 735 photos I took in Wing (eeek) won’t transcribe and arrange themselves onto webpages all by themselves so that'll be happening gradually. However I am going to try to let go of that perfectionist streak and upload a little but often, rather than waiting for a particular research project to be completely finished.

Apologies to those of you I wasn't able to meet up with while in the area. I did manage to fit in a visit to Heather who showed me round her charming several-hundred-year-old house in Wing, complete with bowed floors and ceilings, and doors formerly installed in All Saints Church. One Wing resident I had previously corresponded with was Vic Sirett and I was very sorry to learn he had passed away earlier this year – farewell, Vic.

For those looking for accommodation in the Wing area I stayed at Ivy Cottage Annex, a self-contained converted building in Burcott. This meant I could walk throughout Wing so was perfect for my needs, and was in a lovely rural setting with a neighbouring listed building (Ivy Cottage) to boot! My hosts Siewlin and Ed’s daughter Fei Yen Ashton Waller is a talented artist who has sketched various buildings in Wing, and you can see an example of her work below. Another local accommodation option is Wingbury Courtyard Business Village B&B (formerly Upper Wingbury Farm), however this is further out from Wing towards Wingrave.

Houses off High Street Wing by Fei Yen Ashton Waller