February update

This month we have:

* an update to the DORMER family tree - Ursula, at the head of the tree, has been correctly named as Alice Collingridge. Thanks to Charani, who is undertaking a one-name-study of Collingridge, for the heads-up on the surname.

* two more newspaper articles about the murder of baby Jane BOWDEN in 1856. These expand, and in some cases differ slightly from, the information reported in the trial. I do have some further articles on this case to get typed up, and also have some further articles on the Adams murder.

* Frederick CORKETT has been added to the list of WW1 military men from Wing. In Fred's case I hadn't previously located him in the WO363 records as his birthplace hadn't been indexed and his residence was London at the time he signed up. This is probably quite common as this generation did head London-ward, so there will be more men out there that I haven't identified yet - if your man served but is not listed, do let me know.

November update

This month there's a number of small additions scattered over the website:

Military Men:
* a link to Project Gutenberg's copy of The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
* new listings for John BANDY alias MAYNE, Frederick Arthur HOWCUTT, Edwin JORDAN, Edwin RANDALL, Thomas ROWE, George SAUNDERS and Frederick WOOLHEAD
* updates to Albert BANDY, Albert BRAND, James BURROWS, Arthur CUTLER, William George PEASE and William WOOLHEAD

Some other pages have been updated thanks to the useful information found in the War Office 364 series, notably:

Baptist: Frederick WOOLHEAD (also a link to the obituary of Hannah HELEY in the Baptist Magazine)
Wesleyan Methodist: William WOOLHEAD
Catholic: Thomas ROWE (not that the Catholic page is up on the website yet as it's a bit short of information - does anyone have anything they can contribute?)

The DORMER page has been updated to include the charming epitaph for Magdalen Dormer from St Mary the Virgin in Waterperry Oxfordshire.

I haven't yet found a suitable place to record William WOOLHEAD's interesting tattoos though - there may not be enough of our Wing ancestors with body art to warrant its own page! I'd be intrigued to be proved wrong though.....

LUCAS 1670s to 1730s

Today I "met" Lorna who is researching her Lucas family of Ascott. Her Wing timeframe is a bit earlier than a lot of us - anyone out there got any useful tips or suggestions for other sources around this time beyond the standard parish registers and wills? The Lucas family were tenants of the Dormers at Wing Park and were friends with the Ffynes family.

Feb update

I've uploaded the February update (technically it's not February for another five hours but tough!). There's new pages on the straw plaiting industry within Wing and a couple of pages about the Dormer family. Hope you like them!

DORMER

I've completed my pages about the Dormer family ready for the February update. It's been an interesting process, wading through various source records, pedigree books, biographies, parish registers, reviewing my photos of the various memorials within All Saints Church, and checking out the various inaccurate or incomplete information already out there on the web! In particular there are many pedigrees online that are contradicted or greatly expanded by the information found in the Wing parish registers and memorials, so hopefully my final version of the Wing Dormer family tree has a greater chance of being accurate. As always, it's worrying some of the things you find floating around out there.....

Back to reality

First week back at work after the holidays always seems so long......

If anyone would like to retrace the steps of my summer holiday in the South Island, they can take a peek here.

On the Wing front, I've been working on a page about the Dormers. It's actually a long weekend here in Auckland (hurray for holidays!) so there's a chance it might even be finished in time for the February update.

Perspective

Remember, remember the 5th of November.........I wonder how long it took for the news to travel by word of mouth to rural Bucks? And would it have had any more direct relevance for our ag lab ancestors than it does for us today?

I dare say it was much closer to home for the openly Catholic Dormer family who owned Ascott. The plot was overseen by Robert Catesby - was this a relation of Dorothy Catesby who married Sir William Dormer of Wing and founded the almhouses of Wing in 1562? Dorothy died in 1613 and her son Robert Lord Dormer held Ascott in 1605.