Page 30 - Gen Mag Online November 2020

30

Each of the above-mentioned websites will be discussed in further articles.

Although the focus of these sites will be on England, other parts of the UK are not neglected. One
particular useful site for Wales is Ancient Welsh Studies. While for Scotland check out People of
Medieval Scotland.

For Ireland a site which could be overlooked is one organised by Roots Web. Check it out at Ireland
History in Maps.

Unfortunately, the Isle of Man while having a well documented history, genealogically only manorial
rolls date back to the end of the mediaeval period. The Manx Chronicles may be useful however.

Another site sometimes overlooked, but which could prove useful in pointing you to suitable books
on all aspects of family history research is the the British Library.

Using Google is also a useful way of finding sites which you could easily miss. Brigham Young have
produced a video about using Google. Many researchers have published their own research online
many going back to mediaeval times. Type your surname interests and see what comes up.

One other website which, while not directly a mediaeval research site publishes many family trees
which you can trace back to the the middle ages. The site called Stirnet is a pay to view site but
could prove invaluable to you. Not expensive.

Finally, don’t overlook Wikipedia. The latter gets a bad reputation for publishing information which
is not always true. And yes, it is a valid criticism. However it is also a useful mechanism to add
information on ancestral connections to your own tree. Most of the historical people mentioned will
have been researched thoroughly with the sources listed at the bottom of the articles. On the
downside, many of the writers are from North America so spelling and language use can be a problem
at times for British audiences. For instance, the Assheton family of Ashton under Lyne in Lancashire
are a completely different family to other Ashtons. But a number of Wikipedia sites spell the surname
as Ashton. So, use your judgement when searching.

Dating is also a problem when researching your mediaeval ancestors. Different sites often have
different dates for events in an individual’s life. One thing to remember as well is that during the
middle ages, a person’s age to marry was irrelevant. Children were often just pawns in their parents’
schemes and plans, so don’t be surprised if you ancestor was forced to marry at a very young age.
Girls were often in their teens when they bore children.

It was only much later when age was restricted for marriage. And even then it was not uncommon
for girls as young as 12 to be married off - sometimes to much older men.

Finding A Gateway Family

Linking up with a well documented family is often a hit and miss affair. In my own family history I
found a published family history of the Talbot family of Lancashire. This was published over a hundred
years ago, but in the Appendix there was a small family tree of a Talbot family living in Salesbury,
near Blackburn. The information itself was probably lifted from an earlier book written about 30 to
50 years earlier. This particular book was a History of Blackburn in Lancashire. From my own research
I had found the link with the family mentioned in the 2 books.

th
Finding such histories is not difficult. The 19 century particularly, saw a growth in interest in
researching local history. Many authors travelled the area recording many local family’s histories.
Many had lived on the same land for generations. In my own case, my ancestor Nancy Talbot was
a direct descendant of a Robert Talbot and Elizabeth Hoghton. Robert it turned out was the illegitimate
son of Sir John Talbot of Salesbury manor near Blackburn, Lancashire, while Elizabeth Hoghton
was the daughter of Sir Richard Hoghton of Hoghton (now Hoghton Tower) near Preston in
Lancashire. Robert was born around 1540 and Elizabeth about 1544.

Interestingly, illegitimacy was never a barrier to children of the gentry or aristocracy. They could