Shirehorses, originally uploaded by familytreeuk.
Wordless Wednesday
Shirehorses, originally uploaded by familytreeuk.
Category: Cambridgeshire
Shirehorses, originally uploaded by familytreeuk.Surname Saturday: MODEN
The surname of Moden appears twice in my ancestry and several other times through marriage.
My two ancestral occurrences are both on my maternal side, and even though they only live less than 10 miles apart (sometimes less), I’ve yet to find any link between the two branches.
Branch One: Coveney and Ely
The most recent ancestor of mine with this surname was my Great Grandmother Susan Jane Moden (1896-1981). She was one of seven children born in Ely to Edward Moden and his wife Mary Ann (née Cross) (pictured).
Edward was born in Coveney, Cambridgeshire, about 4 months after his father’s death (also an Edward Moden) in 1867. It was his mother’s later marriage to David Seymour that brought the Moden branch to Ely.
Edward’s (junior) wife Mary Ann owned and ran a shop on the corner of Cambridge Road and Barton Road until her death in the 1950s. The building remained a shop until the 1980s when it then changed in to the private house that it is today.
The earliest Moden ancestor that I can find is in Coveney in 1792, marrying Margaret Nicholas.
Branch Two: Haddenham and Wentworth
The other Moden family appear to live in Haddenham during the 1780s. Like the Coveney branch, the history before this point remains unknown and perhaps this is where the connection between the two branches occurs.
My earliest ancestor on this side is William Moden (1781-1839). He married Esther Whitehead and later to Elizabeth Howard.
During the 1830s, the family shift from Haddenham to Wentworth.
This branch intertwines with the Clements, Dewey and Boulter branches at Wentworth and like Branch One, includes several Dewey/Moden marriages.
The name has appeared in many different guises, which makes it a challenge to trace. I’ve seen it noted as: Moden, Morden, Moten, Modan, Moreden, Moodan, Mowdan and even Martin.
Wordless Wednesday
Newman funeral group 1925, originally uploaded by familytreeuk.
Surname Saturday: FRANKS
Surname Saturday – the Franks family from Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire.
The surname of Franks is part of my paternal family and my last direct ancestor to bear the name was Sarah Jane Franks, who was born in 1803.
Sarah Jane married my Great x 4 Grandfather Daniel Watson Giddings during 1825 at a church in March, Cambridgeshire. The couple settled down to produce eight children, which included a short-lived set of twins born in 1841.
Sarah’s sister, Mary Ann Franks (born in 1800) married Daniel’s brother James, but she died in 1824. James remarried, but then died in 1840.
A lost church
Sarah’s origins are a little ambiguous – looking back to the 1871 Census for March, Cambridgeshire, she states that she was born in that parish. However, go back 10 years to 1861, and Sarah states that she was born in “Coppenforth, Norfolk”, which does not appear to exist.
However, just a few miles from March is a parish called Coppingford – so this is likely to have been (or where she thought) her place of birth.
Coppingford’s parish church was destroyed prior to 1707, after which the villagers used the nearby church at Upton. It is likely that church records from Coppingford prior to this date were also destroyed.
By the time of Sarah’s birth, the population of Coppingford was just 53 persons. By 1931, this had dwindled to 29 persons.
Without church records or gravestone clues, the real identity of the origins of this surname are clouded, unless records for Upton can open a window on Sarah’s family.
Surname Saturday: GOTHARD
The Gothard family are part of my maternal ancestry.
The most recent Gothard in my ancestral line was my Great Great Great Grandmother Mary Gothard (pictured) who was born in Witcham, Cambridgeshire in 1847.
Her parents were William Gothard and Sarah Hawkins, and she had eight known siblings.
My Great Grandmother remembers that the surname was spoken sometimes as ‘go-therd’. This makes me wonder whether the surname is an occupational one with ‘go-therd’ being to goats, what ‘shep-herd’ is to sheep. Whatever the origin of the name, I’ve only been able to push the Gothard family back (so far) to this William Gothard, born in 1816.
In a must-be-related branch of the Gothard family from just a few miles away, descends a photographer – Warner Gothard.
His work was so highly respected that he opened 4 ‘Day and Electric Light Studios’ in Barnsley, Dewsbury, Leeds and Halifax. He pioneered the ‘Montage Postcard’ and became a photographer for the British Royal Family.
A blue plaque has been erected in Barnsley on the shops and offices that he erected in the 1920s, and to commemorate his achievements and his gift of Seckar Woods to the people of Barnsley and Wakefield.
Common variants seem to include: Gotherd, Gothard, Gottard, Goatherd.
Wordless Wednesday
Farming, originally uploaded by familytreeuk.
Surname Saturday: COOPER
Alfred and Harriet Newman, originally uploaded by familytreeuk.
The surname of COOPER appears in my paternal ancestry. The most recent bearer of this name in my ancestry was Harriet Cooper, my Great Great Grandmother who was born in 1854 in Ely, Cambridgeshire, England.
She was the youngest of the (at least) 13 children of Robert Cooper and his wife Elizabeth Fison, again of Ely.
Harriet herself married Alfred Newman, and went on to have 13 children of her own in Ely before dying in 1925.
There were many COOPERs in Ely during this period but it is unclear as to where, geographically, the surname originated as the surname is believed to be one of the ‘occupational’ surnames.
Cooper, as an occupation, derives from Middle English and roughly means ‘maker of barrels’. It was also often used as an anglicised version of the Jewish surname Kuper.
Research has taken me back to the mid-1700s, but with no mention of barrels.
The origins of this surname, as a name are lost in time, and it’s down to me to try and find the origins of the family instead.
Wicken Windmill
This weekend is National Mills Weekend in the UK, and so I decided to head off to one of the few working mills left in Cambridgeshire, in a village called Wicken.
Wicken was once home to my Bishop family during the 1800s, and it is most likely that they regularly looked at Wicken Mill, which stopped being used commercially in the 1930s. In the 1800s, it was cutting edge. Harnessing the power of wind to grind corn into different grades of flour.
Today, our guide showed us how a team of enthusiasts have managed to restore the mill to a working condition where they make (and sell) plain and wholemeal flour.
Climbing up through the levels, I arrived at the grinding level, where two large grindstones sit. Through an engineering feat, corn or wheat is steadily fed to the grindstones. The sails fly past the windows at a regular and fast pace. The stones were not grinding when I visited, but the corn that is hoisted up from the ground floor through trapdoors is fed to the hoppers above the grindstones.
The ground corn, then drops down chutes to the level below, where it drops into sacks.
The windmill, with its sails spinning round in the windy wet fens, felt like a machine charging up a tremendous power. Its wheels and pulleys working together, would have been the hadron collider of the day, but one that helped put money in pockets and bread on the tables of the entire village.
A couple of years ago, and only a few miles away, I visited The Great Mill of Haddenham. That mill is not a working mill but like many is steadily being restored.
Both are beautiful machines, harnessing an incredible power. I hope that the remaining mills of Cambridgeshire can be restored once again to full working order.
Tombstone Tuesday: James, Elizabeth and Willie Gilbert
James and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Gravestone, originally uploaded by familytreeuk.
This headstone stands in the cemetery in Littleport, Cambridgeshire.
The Gilbert family were and are land owners in the area.
The stone shows that Elizabeth and James died close together – perhaps one of a broken heart?
Willie Gilbert is their young grandson.
Elveden and the Brightwells
One of the family trees that I am currently climbing has a bit of an evolutionary name. The most recent incarnations in the late-19th century are ‘Brightle’, ‘Brightley’ and ‘Brightly’ as found in Littleport and Little Downham fenland, Cambridgeshire.
The latter two are clearly pronounced ‘bright-lee’ as in, ‘well lit’, but the first version seems a little odd. Perhaps it still is ‘Bright-lee’ but with just one ‘e’. However, after stumbling across a note that my ancestor John Brightly was born in ‘Elden, Suffolk’, I decided to see what I could find. Not only did he have this changing surname that I wanted to follow, he was also from outside the county – which in my genealogy is quite rare.
I already had a hunch of where ‘Elden’ was but checked it out on Genuki, which confirmed my suspicions.
Much to my delight, my ancestors appeared to be from the same Suffolk village that I had grown up in, gone to school in, and enjoyed living immensely – Elveden, on the Norfolk/Suffolk border. I havent’ lived there for more than 20 years now but this chance coincidence feels like a full circle! Do you ever get that sense of pride or excitement when you visit a place that your ancestor would have known well?
Fortunately, the village is in Suffolk and also classed as West Suffolk, which means that the parish records are deposited at the record office in Bury St Edmunds, so I knew I could easily pay them a visit to check up on the claim of John Brightly’s birthplace.
I found ‘Brightwell’ to be the chosen spelling, and several family members were listed in the births, marriages, and burials – including a Robert Brightwell noted as being a farmer in 1785. ‘Brightwell’ fits with the ‘Brightle’ spelling – if you think of it being pronounced as ‘Bright-all’ – not far from ‘Brightwell’ which with an accent could easily sound like ‘Bright-wall’.
The parish records are copied onto microfiche and it was easy to claim a reader for use. Unfortunately, the mid-late 1700’s registers were subject to some fading (or bad microfiching!) and some dreadfully wafty and artistic handwriting from George Burton the Rector. The earlier entries from the 1600s were immaculate though – clearly written, well organised, and the spelling was perfect.
After collecting up a few Brightwell entries that I could glean from the microfiche I departed, pleased to think that my Brightwell ancestors had lived in a place that I enjoyed living so much, and that I had re-trod their steps quite literally and obliviously by chance, some 200 years after them.
I was also interested to see in the 1700s, that the village was home to three family names that were there when I was a child and I think are still present there today: Harper, Turner and Gathercole – That’s more than 300 years of their family history!
History Repeating 