Boring? Not In The Least...

The photograph is of Anne Puckeridge...she died in the 1870's in Australia...one of Himself's people.

I've been having a think, prompted by a comment which Emmo left actually...she said all her people were ag labs and quite boring...of course not everyone has a family tree stuffed with really interesting people who left detailed Wills for us to pore over or died in gruesome ways by behest of a King...

The vast majority of people researching their family trees will find plenty of farm workers because it was they who made up most of the population of Britain before the Industrial Revolution...

Don't dismiss them as boring though...they were anything but. They grew the food to feed the country...milked the cows and made the cheeses and the butter...they fattened up bullocks for roast meats they couldn't afford to buy themselves and picked stones out of the fields...their children...often very young children... stood in a field of newly sown wheat or barley to frighten away the birds which would have otherwise eaten the valuable seed...

Some of those men would have ploughed the fields with a team of oxen or horses...a skill that not everyone could learn...others became swift and efficient at pig-killing time or lived in a shepherds hut during the lambing season so as to be close to the flock...others spent their days fencing or building stone walls or mucking out the sheds...wheeling barrow after barrow into the garden of the 'big' house for the Head gardener to use in the vegetable patch and the hot-houses...

Perhaps the men were poachers...not so much from greed, but from necessity...a couple of rabbits would make a decent stew and the skins a pair of warm mittens for one of the children...

If the farm they worked on kept poultry, then they'd have looked forward to cadging a couple of wing or tail feathers from the geese or turkeys when it was plucking time... to give to their wives to be used as dusters for her best delph...a sack of feathers was to be carried back to your cottage with pleasure because they could be used for a filling for a pillow...

They lived with rules and regulations set down by the farm owner...no washing to be hung out on a Sunday...Church attendance wasn't an option, but one of the rules of your job...in Ireland, if you happened to keep a pig and built him a small sty to live in, then your rent would increase...you had to toe the line and quite literally doff your cap when the owner did his rounds...seated on his glossy horse.

Your Ag Lab probably left his schooling before he was thirteen or so...always supposing he went in the first place...a wage was more important than learning your abc especially if your Father had died from TB or an outbreak of typhus, so if you are lucky to come across the parish records on-line for when your great-grandfather was married, he would have been the exception if he could write his own name...it'd be far more likely he left his mark.

Faced with dozens of ag labs and ready to forget you ever started the silly tree in the first place? Google will be your friend. Look to see what your Gt Uncle would have worn...what he'd have eaten...how much he'd have earned. Find the place he worked on Google Maps...see if he had a gravestone in the local churchyard...

Putting some flesh on the bones of those who've gone before you makes them real people...

[Hidden]

I am real proud of my ancestors on my grandfathers side they were into agriculture in a big way right back to my 4 times great grandfather they owned 10 acres of grass land which they hired out to local cow farmers for a reasonable sum in those days, the family were all like yours AG Lab's my grandfather was the last as at 12 year old he became a wagoners lad (same as a lorry drivers mate) for a farmer he was the lowest servant in the house but hard work never killed him after he married my Nan in 1925 (she was a parlor maid) he moved inland and worked on the railway, the farm that had been in the family was taken for war food in WW1 and auctioned of afterward. When he retired they both still lived in their family home until some nosy do gooder tried to get the landlord to install an indoors loo and bathroom so he sold the property leaving my grandparents in sheltered accommodation right up to the day he died he was helping the other neighbours in the flats when we asked him why he was still laying fires and cleaning windows at 87 his reply was "some one has to look after the old ones" he at the age he was, was the oldest the youngest he helped was 67. Both my grandparents had longevity and that I can only put down to hard work on the land right up until they were in their early 70's did they make the annual pilgrimage to Kent and work as hop pickers.

[Suz01]

Well written and thought provoking Vashti. Tell me what is an Ag Lab? My sister has done a lot of family reasearch....one came here (Australia) on a convict ship. Can't recall off the top of my head but it was a hunger driven theft eg: 2 chickens. And here we are in the lap of modern luxury with all our gadgets and our well stocked pantries and freezers. We should give our forefathers more thought than we do. Suz x

[jimmyw123]

your bang on with your post vashti, i have went into my genealogy, my goodness there's all sorts , most though were farm labourers/blacksmiths in the sottish borders,,, and when you really think deep about it, these people really worked for their pittance, often "allowed to keep a pig or so,, as part of their wages, then often had to follow the work, taking their families with them,,, no modern transport, no machinery ,, all done by back breaking work,,very strictly, no work on a sunday, this was kept AS the sabbath,,, and we often have the cheek to complain,,

on my fathers side my g/g father [same name as me] lived in the cow gate edinburgh,, at that time it 1800 was exactly that,, a cattle market, he was a coal carter,, no electric lights, no cars , phones etc etc,, the place was rat ridden, living in two rooms with two windows, 10 children, both father mother died before 45,, the youngest children put in the poor house,, must have been shocking,,,then there was the opposite, a relative was a school master, my g/g/g uncle his wife my g/g/g aunt lived to 101 from 1750 to 1851, unknown in these days,, i have her birth cert and her death cert, a lot of interesting stuff though,,,but it doesn't bare thinking about how they HAD to live,, jimmy

[Towse1950]

Thank you for that. I know we came from Farm Folk and appreciated hard work as we moved from farm to shop keepers then property developers. Me I am a landlady have been since I was 18 with my first two bedroomed flat. I slept in the kitchen with the children. Funny old life. I live in Jetsey with five separate self contained units let. Cut down the work load for me in my sixties now! Audrey

[emmo]

Yes I do really agree - I have filled out my family history with all of these details. But also of those who ended in the workhouse when there was no work to be found - we have to remember they were only paid IF there was in work and in winter bad weather were often laid off. My history has a couple of women who I admire so very much for their fortitude even if they were never 'famous' in the usual sense of the word. They were certainly heroines to me and I'm proud to be descended from them.