Can you help? Poll books

Wing residents from several years' polling in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire are currently listed on the website. I'm aware of the following years of Buckinghamshire poll books that survive but that I don't yet have - do you have access to them (available at Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies and other places), and if so can you get me scans or photocopies of the page for Wing? To be complete, I'd also like a copy of the title page, and as a bonus, details of any Wing residents listed in other parishes - unfortunately I don't think these will be nicely indexed for you though!

1685 - 1700 - 1701 - 1702 - 1710 - 1713 - 1734

From 1841 to 1890 almost a complete run exists of the annual electoral registers - these registers list those eligible to vote, rather than recording actual votes cast as the poll books do.

Falling in love

I'm just finishing up on the three-week One Place Studies course I'm taking with Pharos Tutors. This has been a very interesting experience - as well as high quality course materials there certainly is a lot of value in being able to interact with a group of fellow genealogists, all intelligent, committed to the course subject and from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. Lots of fun and knowledge to be gained by bouncing ideas and results off each other! Check out Pharos Tutors to see if there's an upcoming course that interests you.

Here in NZ, Rabobank advertises using the slogan "your significant other bank". It turns out I may have a significant other one-place-study (as well as a Top Secret Genealogy Project that you will hear about later). I'm a little bit in love with the hamlet of Tilford in Farnham, Surrey, now. I tell you, places are addictive!

Twiglet on the tree

I'm an aunty!

September update

This month I've done a bit more housekeeping, adding notes on the usage of old-style versus new-style dates where appropriate, along with details of the administrative boundaries of Wing to the gazetteers page.

New to the wills page is the will of William RICKARD, "late of Slapton and now of Stanbridge" who owned property in Wing and elsewhere when he died in early 1841. William evidently didn't have children, so many brothers, nephews, nieces and other individuals received bequests. If you're connected to RICKARD, BONE, PRICE, BUCKMASTER, or FOUNTAINE in Wing or surrounding parishes this will is worth a look.

Milton Keynes Heritage Open Days

If you're in the Beds/Bucks area in early September, check out the Milton Keynes Heritage Open Days. There's a variety of events of interest to genealogists and historians, not just in Milton Keynes itself.

In Imaginary Land, where I have unlimited time and money to be there, you'll see me at:

* Reading Old Handwriting workshop
* Old Fashioned Games at Bradwell Windmill (in costume!)
* Bees, Hives and Honey with the North Bucks Beekeepers Association
* The Loneliest Church In Bucks - Tattenhoe Monument and Howe Park Wood

and probably many more - these things are easy to schedule in Imaginary Land!

Note that All Saints Church at Wing is participating in the Historic Churches Ride & Stride event. This is a sponsored event to raise funds for the Historic Churches Trust and the church of your choice - All Saints, perhaps?

What's in your inbox?

I'm still here, honestly, I'm just very quiet online this month! I've been very busy at work (the day job, not genealogy), so the month is flying by very quickly. Any spare snippets of genealogy time I've had have been devoted to my WHITEs of Dorset and the LATHWELL one-name-study.

Some interesting genealogical emails have also come my way this month. The first was an enquiry about the likely location of the Royal Oak pub in Ascott, which I was able to answer thanks to some previous information provided by David. The second was a possible candidate for John BULL who appears on the Wing War Memorial for WWII - there's a chance a single marriage certificate might be enough to prove or disprove the connection, if only I had unlimited funds to look into such leads! And the last was an email from someone researching the history of their home in Deddington Oxfordshire - one of the earliest owners in the mid-17th century was a JAKEMAN, which is my family, but it's 40 years or so earlier than my own research currently goes back. I must find time for a library visit to relook at the OFHS parish register transcripts and see if the link can be made....

Has anyone else had any interesting genealogical emails lately?

August update

This month I've added the names of some more Wing people with wills held at the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies. The surnames involved are

BAKER
BURCOTT (from 1556 - perhaps the namesame of the hamlet?)
COLES
CRAFTON
STEVENS

While paging through the entries for Wing in the CBS online index I noticed quite a variety of interesting spellings (eg Folentyne and Wuster), so do watch out for this if you are searching for your own families there.