Family Tree Research - A Holy Man In The Family

John Wesley

My family research began a long time ago and I only recently purchased a worldwide version of Ancestry.co.uk and it has filled in a few gaps and has also led me down some unexpected paths.

In my last post, I discussed the fact that the vast majority of my male ancestors were miners, save for my Tyne Waterman great grandfather and his dad, who was a hairdresser!  I like to think of him as a sort of geordie Vidal Sassoon or Nicky Clark but I think the reality is less glamorous - he was cutting, trimming and rollering in the 1820s - posh people were still wearing wigs but poor people stuck to short back and sides and the women rarely had their hair cut.

I did not expect to find too many surprises along the way in terms of 'occupation' on the census records from 1841 through 1911 so imagine my excitement when I discovered the following occupation for my great-great grandfather, R.N.S - Occupation: Miner/Wesleyan Minister.


I should also reveal that his son, my great-grandfather was not a religious man and was very much a man who did not 'spare the rod' when it came to disciplining his own children.

Montour Mining Company

I understand from reading other family history stories that this was nothing new in the early 20th century and recent episodes of the new BBC drama, The Village certainly bear this out.

 Times were tough and you had to be tough to survive.

His religious upbringing may well have included an element of fire and brimstone. who knows?

 I do know that he was extremely articulate and a strong supporter of the budding Labour Party but even my grandmother never, ever mentioned his own upbringing, describing him often as 'a closed book'.  So was that closed book a bible, I wonder?  Was he the way he was because of his Wesleyan upbringing?

Montour area of Pennsylvania

 He never talked about his siblings, parents or upbringing and surely, having a dad who was once a preacher would have been a story worth sharing with your own kids?

So how on earth did my great great grandfather become a Wesleyan Minister?  What is a Wesleyan Minister?  What did he believe?  Did he take his young family to Montour, Pennsylvania for a mining job or the opportunity to also spread his mission?

My interest was piqued - here's what I discovered

Pittsburgh Coal Company - probable employer of RNS

Religion in general in Britain was being brought into the cities and the poor were being brought into the fold of religious worship (whether they wanted it or not).  The truth is that the vast majority of the poor did not think about God, care about God and mainly, did not know about God so religion meant nothing to most of them.  Some of them could hardly put food on their tables and worked very long shifts in either the pits, mills or the factories so going to church was not really top of their 'to do' list.  they lived in pretty terrible urban areas and life was a struggle from day to day with high infant mortality, disease and abject poverty.

It probably didn't help that the newly evangelical leg of the Church of England led most of their sermons by telling these poor people to not be so idle!  Not to drink!  Not to fornicate!  Well, dear me, what else did they have in their lives?  Work!

The Wesleyans were also evangelical - they went out into the people and talked to miners at the pit heads - talked about loving God, loving Christ and loving your neighbours too - because in that sort of community brotherhood came goodness of heart and spirit.  I'm no expert but it all sounds like it was about telling people to understand God and love God on their own terms - no church!  So Wesleyans had chapels and chapels were about the community and brought God into the community.

I found a document online which has the name of my relative on it - he went to mines in the North East of England and preached his message there.  I have no evidence that he was a Primitive Methodist, though maybe he had a bit more of that about him after his time in Montour, which had a strong Wesleyan presence.

He stops calling himself a  Wesleyan Minister eventually - maybe age got the better of him; the 1891 census his occupation is listed as 'Sewing Machine Salesman', no mention of being a minister.  By then he was 53 years old.  I don't think its a coincidence that all of his jobs after living in the USA are 'salesman' type jobs.  He never worked in the mines again.  He certainly did not make any money in America, their address in 1891, Palmer St, Jarrow was a slum area.  They moved there after first moving back to Derbyshire; home of his wife.  Eventually he came back to the North East.

Interesting to note that Montour's neighbouring county is called Northumberland; so possibly named after my own neighbouring English county?  Seems likely.

As a footnote - my great-grandfather (the closed book) married a girl who was famed in her local area, Percy Main, Northumberland for being a medium - she did seances and went to people's houses to do spiritual evenings.  My great grandfather might have been turning in his grave?

Family Tree Research - Bringing Your Ancestors 'Back to Life'

As a family historian, you are going to have good days and bad.

The good days might see you discover a new line of your family, maybe a sibling of a great-grandparent with lots of supporting evidence.  Your heart beats a little bit faster and your great grandparents look a little less lonely on their particular branch of the tree.

On bad days, you discover nothing or hit a brick wall and feel like you have wasted money on your subscription to whichever site you are using and you also think that brick wall means "that's it!"  You've finished!  You've gotten as far as you can go.

But don't give up.  There is more to family tree research than putting names down on a piece of paper.

Let's face it, a few months into your research, you're already sick of looking at your own surname and your own home town appearing over and over again.

If you find someone born in a different county or state, you feel like you've struck gold - your family weren't always living in your town - some of them had to move there; and given the decade you are looking at, maybe they had to move there on foot, or on a horse and cart.

Now imagine if you were moving to the next state or the next town; could you do it easily?  Knowing that because the new town is hundreds of miles away, you might never return?  You might be leaving behind parents or brothers and sisters.  In those days, you might never see them again and only contact them by letter (if you could read and write).

So if you're stuck or you hit a brick wall, why not head off in another direction?

I Wonder What Their Town Looked Like Back Then?

• You know their names
• You know where they lived, you might even know the name of the street (census?)
• You know when they lived there - 1881? 1901? 1911?

Time for some real history - you have the internet at your disposal.

Go onto Google images and put in the name of your town and the year you are researching,

e.g. Plumstead, 1881 or Arlington, Texas 1901.

Let's see what Google images returns for this.

This is an image called The Lake, Plumstead and appears on the following website:

http://www.plumstead-stories.com/photos%20-%20early%20Plumstead.htm

I should say, at this point, that my ancestors moved FROM Plumstead to North East England, looking at this idyllic photo makes me wonder why?

And how does Arlington, Texas fair on Google images (why Texas you ask?  I am watching a baseball game in the UK between the Rangers and the LA Angels and I have a soft spot for Texas).

This photo is of 'Mineral Well' taken in about 1900 which was basically, the centre of Arlington when it was being established.

Isn't it an amazing photo when you think about what Arlington has become?  Look at the horses in the muddy street and the street is brimming with people.

The photo is from the following website: http://library.uta.edu/spco/timeframes/mineralwell.html

So don't be so quick to slam shut your laptop or switch off your PC.

Go on Google images and try to at least know something more about the place in which your ancestors lived.

Imagine wearing those clothes and walking down those streets.

Is the sun shining?  Or is it the depths of winter and people are huddled against the cold.

Save the images to your Family Tree Folder and print them off for your file.

Suddenly the ancestors you've had success in finding have a home and you know what their home town looked like at the time that they were walking around.

Here's a little video about one of my ancestors - I found out that he died in a mining accident in 1884, leaving his children orphaned (his wife had died the year before aged 27).  Did I just want them to be names on a page? No.  I needed to bring myself a bit closer to them and this is how I did it.

Let me know about your family research adventures.  If you are from the north east of England, you might enjoy the videos featured in this article about Geordie folk band, The Unthanks; they get back down to what the nineteenth century was really like in this area -keep it real!