Visited My Ancestral Village in Somerset, England (Pics)

[Ed Rooney]

During my recent trip to London, I had a day off and decided to drive the two hours out to Somerset, which is where my family resided prior to moving to America in 1873. I am very interested in genealogy, so through family records, Parish records and UK census data, I was able to put figure out what my ancestors did and where they lived from 1770 on. Beyond 1770 is a problem because the parish registers were damaged in the 5 year period when my G-G-G-G-Grandfather was born. But based upon how and where the families lived, I have a few theories about who his parents were.

The funny thing is that last year I was able to use UK BMD records to track down some of my cousins who stayed in England. They live about 40 minutes from the village, but they had no idea we were from Shipham. They just assumed the family had always been Northeast of Bristol.

We left my hotel on Bishopsgate at 7:30am, and arrived in town at 10am. We had to wait a few hours for the pubs to open, during which time we walked around the village snapping pictures, visited the parish church, drove over to Winscombe (some family from there also) and poked around their cemetery. By the time we returned, the pubs were open and we were hungry for lunch. The first pubs was the Miner's Arms, which has been there, virtually unchanged, since my ancestors dug for lead in the hills. We had one or two in there, but it was a hard-drinking Sunday afternoon bunch that didn't seem interested in socializing. Also, they weren't really cooking. Just some sandwich bits laid out for everyone. Their loss.

We decided to head over to the Penscot Inn, which was also around in the old days. There was a good crowd, old and young, looking more like they had just left church. A WWII vet was sipping lemonade as he told stories of the war. We ordered lunch (a bacon Cheddar burger, in honor of the neighboring village of Cheddar where I also had family), and as an icebreaker, I quietly told the bartender to pour everyone a round on my tab. Pretty soon I was chatting with everyone in the place. I had a few more drinks, they had me try some local Thatcher's cider, and we all tried to figure out of we were related.

It was a small village, so we were done sightseeing by 2:30 and drove back to London. Hopefully I will be able to get out there again this summer.

So here are some pics.

[Brunotheboxer]

Where's your Ipad?

[Johny]

well done ed.

[Rolex116520]

I wonder why your ancestors left the village 1873 , did you find out ?

[jdc]

Great story thanks for sharing, my wife traced family to a small village like that in Motcombe about forty miles away from Shipham.

[spuds]

Excellent!

[spuds]

Originally Posted by Ed Rooney

...as an icebreaker, I quietly told the bartender to pour everyone a round on my tab. Pretty soon I was chatting with everyone in the place.

I just re-read this Ed' mate & if you ever find yourself in Essex let me know what pubs you're going to so I can follow you round yeah?!

[Ed Rooney]

Originally Posted by spuds

I just re-read this Ed' mate & if you ever find yourself in Essex let me know what pubs you're going to so I can follow you round yeah?!

I was in Chelmsford in January. You missed your chance!

[spuds]

Originally Posted by Ed Rooney

I was in Chelmsford in January. You missed your chance!

I'm gonna fit you with a GPS-tracker.........

[Ed Rooney]

Originally Posted by Rolex116520

I wonder why your ancestors left the village 1873 , did you find out ?

This was written by another genealogical researcher:

Throughout the second half of the 19th Century there was wave of emigration among families from around the Western Mendip Hills of Somerset to Onondaga County, New York State, USA . It was not a sudden great mass exodus and it was also much smaller than the migration from the area to South Wales and Bristol . It also made no noticeable impact on the millions flooding to the United States throughout this period. What was significant is that this previously undocumented move involved a significant number among the small group of Somerset villages all migrating in the same direction. The first to follow this route did so in the 1850’s. Then there was a gap during the American Civil War in the early 1860’s and then the migration took on a new pace.

At a time when most farming immigrants to the USA were heading for the mid west and beyond the question need to be asked why did most of the Western Mendip contingent settle a relatively short distance from the Eastern sea board. The answer may seem a rather strange but simple one, teasels. The former territory of the native Onondaga tribe had been first populated with settlers in the 1790s with many of the early migrants coming from England. The first clear direct Somerset connection however seems to have come about forty years later with Dr. John Snook (1777-1857). His family came from Isle Brewers, Somerset, England and he made his living as a chemist and pharmacist. Upon arriving in Skaneateles with his family in 1826, Snook and his son, John Jr., both opened apothecary stores. The senior Dr. Snook noticed that the growing condition in his new home was similar to parts of his native Somerset. The soil conditions of the Mendip Hills are not well suited to much arable farming and so it had been historically dominated by the raising of cattle with sheep on the higher pastures. The land however could also produce flax and teasels. As Onondaga County had similar conditions Dr Snook thought it would help his new community if they grew teasels as a cash crop and in 1833 he brought seeds in from Somerset. While he did not profit personally from its cultivation he helped establish teasels as Skaneateles leading agricultural product well into the mid-20th century.

Wool production had been very important to the British economy right through the Middle Ages and teasels were valued for the natural brushing power of their bristles. They were used to raise the nap on woollen cloth which was then sheared off to produce a smooth finish. Wool production reached its height at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. Teasel cultivation at the time was cantered on Cheddar and Winscombe but a report in the 1794 also shows teasels were also cultivated in the parishes of Wrington, Blagdon, Ubly, Compton Bishop and Compton Martin.1 So by 1800 teasels were to be found throughout the Western Mendip Hills and extending into the Chew Valley. The same 1794 report highlighted the problems of teasel production. Firstly good quality teasels could not be produced on the same land year after year. Secondly as a biannual plant it occupied the land for two years before producing any income. The seeds were sown in April and weeded three or four times with long narrow spades and then thinned in November. The following summer the teasel plants were again weeded and "speddled" (earthed up). The heads were then cut and dried, and divided into three grades by size, known as kings, middlings and scrubs; but the scrubs produced little income. The crop was financially risky for the farmers as too much rain at the time of blossoming could render it useless; and prices varied widely from year to year. Finally the 1794 report noted that the men working with the spades used in digging up the thorny plant needed to be “accustomed to it”.

The teasels were used primarily by the woollen cloth manufacturers of Somerset and Wiltshire with large quantities sent to Yorkshire from Bristol. By 1800 however the situation was changing. Cotton had replaced wool as the major fabric and at the same time the drainage and protection from the sea of the Somerset levels saw an increase in the importance of the diary industry in the area. Local farmers could earn much more from dairy and cattle production than from teasels and sheep. Sheep continued to be grazed on the higher pastures but teasels became a secondary crop often used to raise a little extra money.

Teasels are not naturally found in North America and therefore they needed to be imported from England generally via Bristol . As The USA strove to develop its own Woollen cloth industry it needed teasels to help in the finishing of the material. Dr Snook realised the growing conditions around Skaneateles were ideally suited to the plant and it production. The area was naturally forested but once cleared the conditions were similar to the Western Mendips. After the introduction of teasel seeds in 1833 many farms in this upper New York State area concentrated on dairy farming and teasel production. The early census records for Skaneateles in the 1830’s and 1840 however reveal very few west County names and so it seems in the early days only the seeds may made the journey across the Atlantic from the Western Mendips. There was one name on the Onondaga County census of 1840 which does point to a connection is that of James Lukins who arrived in 1840 but I have not been able to establish if his true origins.

The first clear connection I have identified with the Western Mendips area of Somerset is with the Starr family from Draycott near Cheddar. Thomas arrived with his wife Maria and three children at New York on the ship The Empire on 30 November 1846. Thomas was not an agricultural worker but he was listed as a mechanic. He does however appear to have been more of a general labourer and lived in Skaneateles town. Thomas and Mary did not remain in their new home and returned to Somerset in the 1860s. Their children Charles and Hannah however adapted the new land and settled in Onondaga County . They therefore should be regarded as the first identifiable Mendip settlers.

The next migration move from the Western Mendips I can be certain of occurred is 1850 when Thomas Lane from Westbury and Mary Hancock Clark from Rowberrow arrived. Then on 7 January 1851 George Badman’s family arrived on the Elizabeth from Bristol . George and Elizabeth appeared on the 1850 for Skaneateles which indicates that they made an initial visit in that year but it was the following year before their children joined them. George was from Compton Martin and census records show that George‘s family grew teasels. Over the following twenty years many other members of Badman family followed and they became one of the major groups of Mendip migrants. Also in 1851 Solomon Tutton and his young fmaily from Banwell migrated to New York State . These families were followed on 7 June 1853 by Robert Volks and his family who arrived in New York and then moved onto Onondaga County . In 1851 they had been living Littleton , Somerset and they don’t appear to have had any Western Mendip connections but on the same voyage was a group on men who certainly did have such connections and four members of the Hancock-Clark family from Rowberrow. The men were James Wookey from Worle, Charles Stevens from Winscombe, a James Stock which I taken to be from Shipham and James Adams from Churchill. I have not found any trace of them visiting Onondaga County and none of these names are recorded in the 1855 census for Skaneateles so apart from the Volk’s and Hancock-Clark families we cannot be certain they made it to Onondaga County but the inference is there. If they did visit Onondaga County it does seem they only went for a year or season’s work and while their families stayed behind in Somerset .

Whereas the working men of 1853 did not seem to go to settle the Hancock-Clark family certainly did. Follwing Mary Hancokc-Clark in 1850 and Sarah Clark and her three children in 1853, on 8 May 1855 Charles Hancock Clark (1830-1915) and Ann nee Bees (1835-1864) arrived on the Osprey at New York. This fmaily with its roots in the villages of Shipham and Rowberrow was part of the extended Stevens family from which were to come a significant number of the migrants over the following fifty years. In the same year Charles and George Durbin and the sister wives Sarah and Mary nee Brook with their children also left Somerset for a new start. The brothers came from Loxton in Somerset but the sisters had their roots in Compton Martin and Winscombe. I have not found any blood or marriage links to the other families but it seems a little beyond coincidence that the wives parents came from the two communities in which most of the other migrants had their roots.

The next year on 14 November 1856 Charles Hancock’s cousin Joseph Hares arrived from Winscombe in New York on the Osprey. Like the 1853 group he left his family in Somerset but unlike the others he stayed. He was followed on 29 April 1857 on the same vessel and route by George, James and Joseph Stock with his family all from Shipham and Aaron Stock from Westbury and Isaac Fisher from Cheddar. It seems at this stage some of them were still not committed to migration. I have ascertained that three of them; Aaron, John and George Stock returned to Somerset in 1858 whilst Joseph Stock and Isaac Fisher stayed in the USA. Aaron and George did however return to upper New York State after the Civil War. Stock family history records supports these events by recording some of the men had worked in Onondaga County and returned to Somerset before finally emigrating.2

What drove these families to migrate and some men to take the long journey for what for what may have been no more than a season’s work was the desperate situation many of the families were reported to have been in. The mining in Shipham and Rowberrow had rapidly declined in the 1840’s and 1850’s and in 1853 the last Shipham mine closed. Although clearly it was the miners who were directly affected by these events many of them turned to agriculture and stayed in the community increasing the number looking for a decreasing amount of agricultural labouring work. This was just at a time when the demand for agricultural labour in the area was falling.

Cheaper import from the Americas and Europe had reduced the profitability of arable farming in Somerset particularly after the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. The railway had also opened up in the area in 1841 which aided the transport of agricultural produce to the cities, in particular Bristol and onward into London. This particularly helped make diary farming more profitable which needed less labour than arable farming. In addition while the demand for labour was falling the growing agricultural population far outstripped the available agricultural work. Many members of the Western Mendips communities moved out of agriculture and mining altogether and into other trades in Bristol , South Wales and Weston Super Mare but there was a hardcore who stayed. Some of theses moved away from Shipham, Winscombe and Rowberrow but they did not go very far and generally settled in places such as Cheddar and Compton Bishop. There were only a few permanent settlements in the USA from the Western Mendips in the 1850’s and Shipham history recounts that during this period many of these old miners turned to growing teasels and flax.3

The Hancock-Clarks, Joseph Stock and Joseph Hares were among the small number who made the move to USA permanent during this time. Events in Somerset clearly had to get a lot worse before many others were to make the big move.



It is certain the American Civil War had some impact on slowing the migration but even after it ended in 1865 migration was slow in resuming. Many members of the old communities from Shipham, Rowberrow and Winscombe continued to find work in Somerset. By 1869 however the situation had clearly worsened and the new wave of migration really started. What brought this about can be seen in reports on the plight of Agricultural workers particularly those in Somerset . In 1851 agriculture had employed near 1.8 million in Britain but by 1881 this had dropped by nearly half to around 980,000. Whereas wages and conditions in the factories had gradually improved during this period those in agricultural had gone in the opposite direction. Growing agricultural mechanization and the continued rise in agricultural imports from the USA , Australia and Argentina pushed down the demand for agricultural workers.4 Agricultural wages in Somerset were particularly badly affected and by 1869 they were among the lowest in the country with many agricultural families in Western Somerset living in extreme poverty. For men with large families reports show they were better off in the appalling conditions of the work house than working on the land. Farmers were accused of treating their cattle much better than their workers and for families in the Western Mendips even the income from teasels dried up as demand fell.5
Faced with choices of a move to the city, poverty or the workhouse the alternative opportunity of moving to the USA must have seemed overwhelmingly inviting. Some 3,500,000 people emigrated from Britain between 1851 and 1881 many of them from rural communities who saw the wide open spaces of the USA providing them with new opportunities 3. However the post 1865 wave of migrants from the Western Mendips was no random group as many of them had family connections to the migrants of the 1850s. It seems they wanted a new home but not a very different to the old one. The area around Skaneateles seemed to be main focus for these settlers and although some moved onto other areas after a short time in Onondaga County it was most commonly only to neighbouring Cayuga County . This area may have been across the Atlantic and many miles from home but the agricultural conditions were very similar to what they had known. It was well suited to the diary farming and teasel cultivation. Certainly the Somerset agricultural workers knew all about the plant. Particularly important for the migrants however was the knowledge that they already had family and friends there which would have made it easier to settle more than most places. Skaneateles history certainly took note of the many “marked English characters, mostly from Somerset”. The town’s history describes one bow-legged, loud-voiced little man, whose cow got into the village pound. "A purty land of liberty this wur," he said, "where a cow couldn't run in the streets." He had lost an eye while cutting teasels and when speaking about it afterwards he said "wouldn't have los un for five dollars; now, nor yet for ten." In the late nineteenth century with so many with broad Somerset accents in the area visitors to Skaneateles and Marcellus may have wondered if the have been transported to the Mendips.6

When I starting looking into this migration I considered if it might have been officially organised but no evidence has come to light to support this. Indeed although the period around 1870 saw a significant rise in migration to Onondaga County there are no mass voyages of Western Mendip migrants, instead there it was a gradual process over a long number of years. This pattern does however suggest there may have been possibly family financial support with money sent from the States to bring relatives over. At the very least the knowledge that other members of the family and old community were waiting would have made the move easier. The clustering of ex Shipham and Rowberrow families into neighbouring house and streets in their moves to Western Super Mare, Bristol and South Wales seems to indicate these old community ties were important for many of those involved.

There has been some suggestion that the families emigrated because of teasels alone however this somewhat strongly romantic idea does not stand up to scrutiny. This is particularly the case with the post 1865 migrants who although involved in agriculture were mostly dairy workers. The evidence does however support the idea that the initial choice of the place of settlement in the USA was influenced by thorny plant. Indeed the fourth family I was able to clearly identified, the Badmans, were known to be Somerset teasel growers. The plant may have also have been an influence with Joseph Hares, Charles Clark and the other mid 1850’s labourers but I would suggest it was the need for money that was the main driving force rather than desire to introduce teasels to the American Continent. The similarity in the agriculture would have certainly helped many of the Western Mendip emigrants settle in Onondaga County but I not do feel the plant took them to the United State . I would instead suggest it was diary farming and the opportunity to have their own farm rather struggling on poor farm labourer’s salaries that was the main encouragement.

For the vast majority the move seems to have gone well as the many went from tenants and farm hands to farmers owning their own property; something that few could have ever expected to do if they had remained in Somerset . Whether they were better off than they would have been if they had moved to the cities in England and Wales is more debatable. However by emigrating many of them were able to continue farming for a few more generations and stick to what they knew. I would expect their descendants would argue they made the right decision. Some have expressed they still feel their Somerset roots but when asked they say are Americans first. The accents of their ancestors are long disappeared but I wonder how many still look at noxious weed, as the teasel has officially become, and think that is the reason why their ancestors came to America.


And the ship's advert. My 2nd and 3rd Great Grandfather's came over on this voyage in 1857, but then went back within a year or two. The family settled in NY permanently in 1873.

Emigration to New York,
DIRECT FROM BRISTOL
THE FINE FAST-SAILING and coppered Ship Osprey, 1,200 tons burden.
Richard Keats, Commander; to Sail on the 10th of April, 1857. This well-known and favourite Ship will be fitted up in the same comfortable manner as usual, and will be punctually despatched. All the Provisions supplied will be of the best quality.

Passengers can, if they wish, book through to their destination in the States, thus saving expense and detention at New York.

For particulars apply to Mark Whitwill and Son, Shipowners and Brokers, Grove, Bristol.

[Rolex tom]

cool i have ancestory in bristol and one of them married a women called sarah wells and wells is not to far from bristol anyway very intresting and you should go back sometime

[Dan Pierce]

Very cool. My dad is tracing the family trees on both my mom's and his family's. Turns out his [my] family came over from England in the late 1600's.
dP

[Dr. Robert]

Very cool story & photos!

[Rolex116520]

Thanks Ed , certainly didn't expect such an elaborated answer .

[mtrunner]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing.

[mailman]

Great story and pictures. Thank you

Onondaga county isn't that far from me. I try to make it to Skaneateles once or twice a year. It's a great little town on one of the Finger Lakes. They have a fantastic jazz festival there also

If you still have land there today that your family purchased back in 1826...you're a very lucky man

[Route 66]

What a great adventure Ed!!

My roots go back to Ireland but I'm not sure when my ancestors landed in Massachusetts. I guess it's much easier now to research such things on the internet than it was just a few years ago, I just haven't made the effort...yet.

[Speed]

Love these stories. It must be nice to be able to trace back in this fashion.

Love the Chips & Guinness shot!

[Gaijin]

Awesome story!

[Lion]

Ed, I'm glad you had a great time and it's always fun to go back and trace your family heritage!!!