These are the collection, so far, of newsletters sent out to interested parties. They are repeated here in case you may have missed any. Treat them as a precursor for information that is coming to the site, or might by now be included.
Written by Brian Baker
This is the first multi-mail out from OysterTown. The idea is to spread the information coming in from various sources so that you see it first in case it is of interest to you. Eventually this information will be built into the site but in the meantime you may well be able to add to it.
The new WW1 memorial page with links to pictures of local graves and CWGC details is coming on. Unfortunately not enough time is left before the publication of the new page is due to do everyone justice (I set November's memorial day as the target), but as with all of the site everything is ongoing and hopefully what is published will encourage contributors to add to.
I have been in correspondence with Jason who lives near where the FLIRT was shipwrecked in 1898 and he has furnished me with more information about the loss of men and the ship. A picture of the hatch cover from the FLIRT came my way (thank-you Suzannah) which was made into a table and was used in the local pub for many years. This was the same hatch cover that was used to carry the bodies ashore. Jason tells me that it was sold in an auction recently for £10. I regret having missed the chance to buy this and return it to the town so that it could be displayed in the museum to honour our lost townspeople.
The discovery of the week was returning to some Shingleston research. This is the family where we started in attempted to build the Oyster Gedcom. I have now found the marriage details of Nelly Grace Shingleston, the eldest daughter from Beach Alley. She married Richard John Foreman in June qtr 1897, Blean reg.district. He was the son of Richard John Foreman whose line goes right back to the beginning of their researched family history in the 1700's at Seasalter, and was married to Ellen Jane Collar(d).
See http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Village/2123/lawson/lawsonforeman.html for more details.
This means that the Shingleston's were connected to the Foremans, Collars, Foads etc. so the original hypothesis that the families of this era were probably all related is still on the tracks.
I spent a while in Whitstable Cemetery looking for some Gambrill/Gambrell headstones without success. Maybe All Saints Churchyard will show more promise.
I also took a picture of no. 18 Whitby Road, Folkestone to send to Helen in Australia, only to find when I got home that it was no.7 that her ggGrandfather Alfred John Gambrell had lived in. I'll probably be back there within the week so I'll see if I can photograph the right house before people start getting suspicious about my intentions!
I don't know how many of you use the subscription service Ancestry.com for 1891 census data as I do but recently whilst compiling information on Whitstable born people on ships to continue from our 1881 version I have become quite saddened by the errors in transcription. Admittedly I know the correct names for most of the people traced but how can I rely on data that puts Whitstable in the county of Flintshire, or calls the vessel FLIRT the FLINT. It has been a rule of the site to present data verbatim and let the reader correct minor discrepancies that they are aware of but if I were to follow the rule in this case it would only result in major errors that people might take as fact. It looks like I'll just have to look at every scanned image myself and do the transcription on the basis of knowledge already accrued. At least this way there will be a greater chance of people searching for their ancestors in getting a proper match.
Anyway, enough moaning. What's happened this week?
Well, the surname KEMP arose twice. First an email arrived from Carolyn Kemp in Canada who has been researching the Kemp's in Whitstable and says she has a number of connected Whitstable names amongst her data. It will be interesting to see if there are any connections with the names others are looking for. Secondly I was coding a link to the Whitstable Life Boat site when I realised that their Helmsman is Paul KEMP. In addition their Launching Authoriser is Brian HADLER (I believe the same one that is listed in the Lawson/Foreman text.) and another Helmsman is Brian FOAD. I reckon it's a pretty good bet that these guys are descendants of some of the people we have been sifting through from the late 1800's.
I finally sorted out getting the start of the Oyster Gedcom live when I managed to get some data onto Rootsweb. Of the 140 records I put up less than 100 actually got entered. I think this was because some of them had no date of death and the system cleans out living people. I shall be having another look at the settings in my genealogy program before I have another attempt. If you want to see my 1st attempt go to:
http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=oystergedcom
We started with the Shingleston's and will go back, forward and sideways from there. They connect to the Foreman's, they to the Gambrill/Gambrell's, Foad's, Brownings, Collars and so on. As we connect the core into each line we can add that line and so it will grow.
Also this week I picked up a couple of old postcards showing damage after the 1897 storm/flood. These were published in the early 1900's by W. J. Cox of Whitstable High Street who appears in our Gazette pages of the late 1800's. The two cards in question were amongst the one part of the collection of Wallace Harvey, a local historian and councillor who published many books about the town, that he didn't leave to the local museum. The continuity of this inspires me. The pictures will appear on the site in due course when I've located the exact positioning from where the original photographs would have been taken.
Next Sunday is Remembrance Day. Oystertown.net will be laying a wreath at the War Memorial for those whose made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of their relatives and descendants who are now scattered around the world and cannot be there in person. A page will be added to the site with pictures to enable you to visualise the event as if you were present.
I thought it was about time I changed the Picture Gallery on the main page. It was supposed to change weekly but how time flies when you're having fun. Anyway there's now some pictures of the harbour taken in the summer to warm you up as the days grow shorter. To all of you in the southern hemisphere we feel quite envious at the moment. Still, who wants a barbie on the beach at Christmas anyway?
Had a shock on Thursday when I was told that I couldn't lay a wreath at the memorial on Sunday unless I had prior written permission of the Royal British Legion. I'm not going to comment on that because I'm sure it has more to do with some law about public rallies than something they would impose themselves. In the news this week apparently they are being sued because one of their members accidentally pricked a child's skin whilst pinning on a poppy. Is this the sort of crazy world that our ancestors gave their lives for? Nevertheless we will still get the pictures as promised. (And maybe pop back when everyone has gone for a quiet moment alone).
The postcards of the 1897 floods are now on the site in the 1890 index.
Someone who is related to the treasurer of The Oyster Fishery Company who in the 1800's absconded with all the money is concerned that when the story is published it might upset some people. I pointed out that we may all have some skeletons yet uncovered and this story is fundamentally important to the history of the town. If he hadn't done so we might not have the present owner of the company trying to sell of bits of our (sorry, his) beach to the highest bidder. But that's another story....
As part of my job I often have to deal with customers in their homes. This week I was mainly around Whitstable on holiday cover. To my delight I met many older people including a Camburn and a Dunn who were able to fill me in on details of the town before my time. This reminded me just what a depth of knowledge there remains in the town about the 'old days', but also how important it is to get this information logged for future generations. I also met a grandson of William George Joiner, one of the ships masters/owners of many vessels including the FLIRT (not the one that floundered in Dorset). You can imagine my delight when he produced a photograph, taken in the early 1900's showing William and crew on board the RAPID. I've decided to practice taking pictures of pictures with my digital camera as you cannot expect people to let such family mementoes out of their hands for copying, whilst they might allow me to photograph them.
Sunday: Attended the Remembrance Sunday Service. It turns out that I would have needed permission to march to the memorial as part of the organised event, there was no problem otherwise. In retrospect I should have organised things earlier, but there you go. The service was very moving and all the more poignant for me this year as I begin to find out more about our men who lost their lives.
Pictures and words will be on the site attached to the WW1 page in the 1910 index by the end of the week. In the meantime you will see that the WW1 page has changed with some links added to the CWGC page for that person, and where I've been able to find local headstones the links to the pictures of these as well. Some of the names are harder to prove on the CWGC site, so I've only included the one's I'm certain about so far.
Whilst on the subject of pictures all of the ones I take are archived in their original resolution (file size about 470k). For web purposes I have to reduce the size and quality to less than 10K. If anyone wants one of the original pictures sent as an email attachment just let me know.
Lastly, I've just found out that Harbour Place, often seen as an address in the census records was the beginning of the road now known as Woodlawn Street.
Another busy week.
I finished the Remembrance Day Service page and uploaded it at:
http://www.oystertown.net/31109rd.html
It will also be linked to from the additions section of the front page until the next update.
I would have liked to have made the images larger and used more of them but I was concerned about the load time on a slower connection. Although I have Broadband access at work my home connection is dial-up so I am soon aware if page sizes are getting too large. Anyway, you can read the report of the service laid out chronologically with pictures to match. I hope that I have done justice to our fallen heroes.
This week I received Carolyn Kemp's family gedcom and two pictures. One of Albion House, 17 Harbour Place, Whitstable and one of the Kemp family. Both pictures from the 1890's. The quality of the pictures are excellent and I decided to find the house and photograph it. I am sure I found where it was, but now it has been replaced by a block of flats and only part of one wall leaves any evidence that it once existed. We all come across brick-walls in our searches but not normally so literally!
Carolyn's gedcom is engrossing. I imported it into my genealogy program half expecting it to corrupt or miss chunks of detail, but it behaved perfectly and I was presented with the history of the Kemp's in Whitstable and beyond. There are, as you would expect, many marriages into other Whitstable families amongst the details. These I will tell you more about when I have discussed them with Carolyn but for now I will say I am quite excited by this treasure trove.
A few other names came my way this week which have been listed and will be used as soon as I find any link to them.
As you may have surmised I am quite a novice at this genealogy thing. I have always tended to teach myself as I go until I feel confident in my knowledge. Well, I thought it was about time I came out of the closet and started mixing with some family historians face-to-face, so on Friday I attended a meeting of the local branch (Canterbury) of the Kent Family History Society. I didn't really know what to expect but I was welcomed in my anonimity as a guest. I found them a very freindly bunch of people from all walks of life. The meeting was packed for a talk being given by Richard Ratcliffe entitled 'My ancestors went to London'. He kept us enthralled for an hour with the story of his tracking down members of one of his lines. We were all put at ease when he started, "I have been carrying out family history research for 34 years. I have been stuck for 33 years!". He talked through his brick-walls and the skeletons that he discovered. At the end of the talk I felt totally comfortable with being there. His experiences mirrored all of ours. I shall be joining the Society. Whilst there I met Derek and Joan Drury from Whitstable who are researching their NICHOL(L) ancestors, a useful contact made!
Also this week I have been musing the problem of what to do with all the pictures of local headstones that I have on my computer. I have come up with a solution that will appear on the site at the end of this week. Basically I've started an index page of names, dates and ages from headstones that I have images from. If anyone finds a match then they can request the image by email. I know that some of the names I have already listed are amongst the interests of some of the people this mailshot is going to so we'll see if it works when it goes on-line in the Genealogy Section. I'm hoping that as the list grows it will bring in more people interested in the same names as you whereby you can help each other fill in your missing details. My reward will be getting you all linked together and maybe coming up with some living relatives for you.
Lastly, an admittance of an error in a previous newsletter. I wrote that the WW1 memorial and the Remembrance (yes, I can spell it now) Day Service were accessible through the 1900 index. Not wishing to advance world history by ten years I have, of course, put them in the 1910 index where they belong. As I know that there seem to be a high level of teachers reading this I shall go to the corner of the room and put the dunces hat on until next week!
A manic week at work cut into my 'hobby' time this week. Despite that I uploaded the index page of the start of the catalogue of Memorial Inscription images at Whitstable Cemeteries. This is at:
http://www.oystertown.net/whitmi.html
There is also a link to it in the Genealogy section. I have started with details of pictures that I know some of you will be interested in. Please read the notes on the page as I am anxious not to offend anyone. The page will build as I take and catalogue more pictures and now as I have worked out a grid for the cemeteries I will be able to give a more precise location for people to find the graves. The first of these is at:
http://www.oystertown.net/mrcemmap.html
and is a simple page that can be printed out for anyone visiting Millstrood Road cemetery to enable them to locate any of the graves listed.
By the way, after every update to the site, the included search engine is re-spidered. This means that it is a useful tool to see if any more ocurrences of a name you are interested in are now on the site. This brings me to another technical point - the use of email addresses. To protect you all I do not put any of your addresses on the site (except those that are protected on the message board). If I were to do so then the spiders of email spammers would collect them and start sending you all sorts of unsolicited mail. My computer at work already has to sort and delete around 50 of these 'offers' a day and it's a pain in the neck. If you require the email address of anyone contributing information to this site I will pass it on via a private email, once permission is granted.
In saying that I came across a problem this week in following the rule. Carolyn Kemp kindly allowed me to publish her gedcom details as part of the Oyster Gedcom. She did though ask if her email address could be made available so that anyone who had a link to one of her 'people' could contact her. I managed to overcome this by naming her and her email address as a source when I imported the Kemp details into the Oyster Gedcom in such a way that her address is shown but not as a direct clickable link. Therefore all the spiders should ignore it and anyone who wants to use it can manually copy (or cut and paste it).
So now you all have access to the enlarged file at:
http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=oystergedcom
I'm certain that you will find connections within this file and even if you don't it's fascinating just to see the sort of information that Carolyn has accrued. If you do find a link then please let Carolyn know. Obviously what I would like is your data to add to it. This in turn could provide more connections for others and the feedback might just help us all fill in our own missing information.
Some of the families are not yet linked to others. For some time the gedcom will be like a jigsaw with isolated sections completed. Also it may for a while have duplicated pieces (ie I've inadvertantly included Carolyn's gGrandfather twice, but I will correct this). Eventually I hope the picture will become clearer - the picture of those families of Oyster Dredgers, Mariners and Boatbuilders of Whitstable and where their descendants are today.
Talking of these people, I came across a Mrs. Frend this week. As soon as I saw the spelling of the name I knew her husband's family were descendants of the Frend's during the time we are researching and so the poor old dear got the third degree. It turned out that her husband, now departed, was the last of the Frend family that worked with the sea. For the 40 years before he retired he worked for Anderson, Rigden and Perkins - the last of the Whitstable boat-builders. I gleaned some useful information from her linking the past to the present. She has, tucked away, the last remaining of three models her husband made as replicas of local fishing boats or barges. I can see a photo opportunity coming up!
During a quick check on what sites have put a link to ours I was particularly pleased to see that Guston Primary School (Dover, Kent), have included our Beach Alley page as a useful example for children fulfilling a task on Victorian Times and using census data for their research. The past will indeed live on through the next generation.
I didn't imagine it!
About 18 months ago, whilst looking for AUSTIN ancestors of my wife's, we came across a grave in All Saints of a William AUSTIN who had died in Chicago, USA in 1872. He had no connection to my wife's family but I was so intrigued that I made a mental note of it. Then this week whilst going through the Kemp gedcom I came across him again. He was born in Whitstable, died in Chicago and buried in Whitstable. I'm sure there's a lesson in this somewhere, perhaps along the lines of when I tell my wife "You'll never know when it will come in useful." after she asks me when I'm going to empty the 'junk out of the garage. She seems to think that the car is supposed to go in the garage. I love her dearly but she does have some funny ideas! Me clearing the garage out is about as likely as me clearing my brain out. They're both seemingly full of junk, but you never know.... And in anycase, as I reminded her, I've kept her for 30 odd years just in case she came in useful one day. The nurses in casualty had a good laugh as they removed the saucepan off my head!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A message from Suzannah Foad:
"A Gentleman called Bob Quinn from California has asked if we can keep an eye out for any Brannan's. His Grandfather was W Brannan who was the Driver of the Whitstable Fire Engine at the turn of the century. Also any Quinn's. None of it needs to make sense he says, just forward anything we find."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------An interesting and useful site: If you are looking for anyone on a ship that might have been registered at Swansea try this site:
http://www.swanseamariners.org.uk
It is built around an impressive search engine and a lot of information is there if you get a match. If you don't just try 'FLIRT' in the ships search box and you'll see what I mean. Bryan Richards who runs the site has asked me if I can help with the correct spelling of George Beamy Joiner. Is it Beamy or Beeny, also an apprentice with a surname Beeny or Beamy? he asked. I don't know, perhaps someone with Joiner links in their line might have a clue..
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Some more names that arrived this week:
"Hi I am the 5th great grandson of Isaac Terry who was born in 1736. His son John was born in 1764 and married a Mary in 1787. His son Isaac was born in 1795 and married Mary Jane Giles in 1818. He was an oyster dredger working for the Whitstable Oyster Fishing Co. In 1851 they were living at 103 Harbour Street. Their son John was born in 1818. He married Frances Hoult, whose family was involved in shipping, in 1841. He also was an oyster fisherman and was at sea for the 1851 Census when he was living at 98 Harbour Street. Their son, also named Isaac was born in 1845. He married Ann Elizabeth. By 1881 they had left Whitstable and were living in Caterham, Surrey. Their daughter, Martha Sara Terry was my grandmother.
I hope this partial tree may be of interest to anyone. Best regards, Peter Pryke"
Thanks Peter, I'll add them onto the Oyster Gedcom.
You may all be releived to find out that this is a much shorter newsletter than the previous ones.
The reason for this is that I managed to get hold of the only existing (except perhaps in the National Newspaper Museum) original copies of the Whitstable Times for 1948, but only for 24 hours, so I've had to work fast.
Scanning was not really an option as my scanner is A4 and the papers are broadsheets, unless I tore out the bits I wanted and scanned them (don't worry, only joking!). Handwriting these bits was another option but I knew I didn't have enough time, so I read through them all whilst making notes, then photographed the parts I could use. My computer now has a folder full of dull, yellowed images of pages that hold some real jewels for future additions to the site.
The real bonus (in family research terms) was that these papers were printed some 67 tears after the 1881 census where the site started collecting information. This means that many of the obituaries in the papers were of people who were youngsters then. This gives us a useful continuity of data.
In addition the obituaries give more information about the mourners and attendants at a funeral that they tend to today. For instance the funeral of Alfred George Shingleston was reported (the nephew of George Shingleston who we started the OysterGedcom with). It gave his address as Cromwell Road, and said that he was Master Builder, having set up his business in 1905. He left two sons and a daughter. The chief mourners were: A.J.Shingleston (son), J.C.Shingleston (son), S.A.Hodge (son-in-law), D.Shingleston (granddaughter), Mr.& Mrs. A.Wood (sister and brother-in-law), J.Shingleston (brother), I. Shingleston (niece), L.Shingleston (sister), G.Wood (brother-in-law), and F.Hudson (brother-in-law).
Isn't this just wonderful information? It gives us so many more names than we had before and links this Shingleston line into others that we have found in later years.
In addition the report names many of the people who attended. These surnames include Goldfinch, Hancock, West, Tilley, and Nicholls. Names that we are all familiar with as we look back into Whitstable's history.
As a little taster of the information I have to transcribe here's a great little piece from August 25th.
The challenge of the Foreman family, the ages of the ten of which total 704 years, has been answered by the Rigden family, who are making claim to the title of Whitstable's "Longest Living Family". The total age of the Rigdens, who comprise the ten children of the late Mr. and Mrs Edward Collar Rigden, is 755 years. Oldest of the family is 86-years old Mr. George Rigden of 80 Victoria Street, the others in descending order of age being Mr. Walter Rigden (83), Mr. Herbert Rigden (82), Mr. Bentley Rigden (80), Mrs. Tillie Kennedy (78), Mr. Edward Rigden (77), Mr. Wallace Rigden (76), Mr. Ozias Rigden (67), Miss Clara Rigden (65) and Mrs. Ethel Grantham (61). All but one, who lives at Morden, reside in Whitstable and they have 39 children. Is there any advance on 755 years? |
A footnote to this piece I can provide is that the Rigden's lost their title within a few weeks with the death of Bentley.
I hope that one day soon a descendant of the Rigden's will treasure this gem and get as much pleasure from it as I did discovering it.
On another matter. I shall never criticise the ability of any census transcriber again. Work of the 1891 Whitstable born people on Ships is going very slowly. It's not just a matter of transcribing, more that of translating. The census papers were all filled in by the masters' of the vessels who may have been able to navigate to all corners of the globe but not all of them could write clearly or spell properly. It didn't help that they only knew their crew by nicknames, but then that's another story we will get to one day. The names I'm correcting include: Jggleden, Jomer, Packer, RabaRt, Shroud etc, and these are the easy one's!
The useful thing I will be able to add to the page when it's finished is the detail of the vessel, such as registered number, tonnage etc. This can be useful for tracing back to ship's lists or when there was more than one vessel with the same name. By the way, I've found two of the Shingleston's working on a Gann boat, the Josephine, in Dover Harbour assisting Frederick Gann who was a diver.
In finishing I would like to thank you for all your emails, keeping sending them, they all give me new avenues to search.
2003 - December.
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