There’s been mixed results with regard to the Salisbury Cathedral records. Unfortunately, there is no record of Henry Parry’s burial. But although the burial register appears to go back that far, it is a later copy, so the fact that it shows no entry for him doesn’t mean there wasn’t one originally. After all, why copy a register unless it is in a state of disrepair? Perhaps some other contemporary evidence will turn up from elsewhere, otherwise it looks as if that query will never be resolved.
However, I did learn of an inscription that I didn’t know about before – it’s also “lost”, since the stone can no longer be identified, but at least I have the text for it. This was for Francis Parry, of the Close, Salisbury, who died in 1662, “a man universally esteemed, who in the maturity of life yielded to nature…aged 77.”
An abstract of his Will is in the probate abstracts book and he’ll be appearing in a sub-branch of the Golden Valley pedigree, once I put that on the web site.
I was going to say, “It’s been over two weeks now, with no progress on the web site problem” – but today’s check on whether I could upload anything succeeded! I was so surprised, I almost forgot what I wanted to upload. The DNA information is now on there, as well as a separate page for details of site updates. I haven’t added the rest of the probate abstracts yet – the whole probate area of the site could really do with some rewriting, so it’s a matter of deciding how much of that to do first. In some ways, the fact that I can now upload to the site again seems bad timing – I’d almost decided to take out a domain name and develop a new site because of the problems. Now I have to decide – shall I just “tweak” it or shall I go for a major change?
One of my contacts recently sent an article about Blanche Parry from the Birmingham Post – it’s a shame that, although the reporter had obviously seen Ruth’s book about Blanche, he’d still got her father’s name wrong (Miles was Blanche’s grandfather, not her father. Her father was Harry.) I wonder how many people were interested enough in the details to have now been misled.
I noticed the National Archives have the RN Officer's Service Records available. There’s 30 Parrys amongst them, including a few familiar names. It’s often interesting to look at how occupations run in families – I wonder how many of the Admirals and Commanders will turn out to be related to each other!
Thinking of “new”information, there have been several sites mentioned on the Forum recently, but I haven’t had time to follow those up yet. Perhaps there will be some good results to share in my next post.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Lost monuments and other activities
There have been several things I’ve set out to write about over the last few weeks but time has been flying by again.
We had a holiday and, although I hadn’t planned to do any research, I try not to miss any opportunities. So it was that I found myself in Owermoigne church, looking for a memorial to Leonard Parry, who was rector there when he died in 1614. In his Will, he asks that he be buried in the chancel, specifying the words he wanted to be carved upon a plain stone. However, there was a notice in the church porch with some of the church’s history and the only stone mentioned as having been in the chancel was for the rector who followed Leonard. The loss of some artifacts as well as a number of memorials to the lords of the manor and “former rectors and their relations,” was noted though, so it appears that events over time, especially the rebuilding of the church in 1882, have taken their toll.
At least I did find his name on the list of vicars.
Leonard was rector from 1567 – 1614 and it must have been an interesting time. According to the noticeboard, although the rectory is thought to have existed since the thirteenth century, most of the present building dates from the time of Elizabeth (who reigned 1558 – 1603). The villagers were well known for their smuggling activities in the past – with the squire and parson also being involved. Beams in the rectory dining room are reputedly from a wreck of the Spanish Armada (1588) and the rectory cellar contains a bricked-up window through which the parson used to receive his share. Oh Leonard, if only you could come back and tell tales!
Later we visited Salisbury Cathedral. Here, I hoped to find a memorial to Henry Parry, who was Chancellor & Canon resident when he died about 1570 and in his Will requested to be buried under the pulpit. But a search of the recorded tombs shows no record of him. Perhaps there will be other records, such as the registers, which will confirm his burial at least. That’s something still to be investigated.
But back in June, I wrote about the lost gravestones of a mayor of Coventry and his wife, Mary Luckman, formerly Parry. I also knew that a memorial plaque in Church Knowle to another Leonard Parry, who was rector in that parish until 1623, had been lost when that church was renovated. Considering these two "new" losses, it shows the importance of recording things as they are today, as well as researching the past - perhaps I should be doing more on the current Parrys, after all.
I’m still catching up with emails from when I was away. One of them was from a researcher whose ancestor, Abigail Griffiths, was a servant of John Parry of Ewias Harold. In 1724, he left her all his houses & lands in Longtown, Clodock, with remainder to her brother David. Mindful of a talk on “hidden kin” at the Guild AGM, I am keeping an eye out for anything which might indicate she was related to him – especially since there were several David Griffiths in Longtown by 1800, owning land near to my Parrys. In fact, the son of one of them married a sister of my 3xgt grandfather so who knows, perhaps the Griffiths and Parry families intermarried in the same way the Vaughans and Parrys in that area seem to have done, keeping property "in the family".
But as usual, I couldn’t resist doing a search for any new information which might have appeared recently, and I spent some time on the site of the Ewyas Lacy Study Group. They are in the process of adding manorial surveys to the site, which will be a great help in identifying the lands held by Parry families. The area is a “hot spot” for Parrys, so I could quite happily spend hours on this site, and the similar site of the Longtown Historical Society Archive.
I saw a second hand book recently that looked interesting – “Thirty Thousand Yesterdays,” by Ann Parry. Ann was David Lloyd George's last Welsh Secretary, and the book was described as being “full of political and social events of the era before WW2”. But it is a much more “personal” book than I expected, starting with her early years in Anglesey, and listing the entries from the family bible. Those have enabled me to identify the family in three censuses – 1881 at RG11/ 5593/30/5, 1891 at RG12/4679/96/10 and 1901 at RG13/5296/95/6. I’m looking forward to reading the book through properly.
At the moment, still being fairly disorganised with the study, it’s sometimes easy to lose track of what information is referenced to where. I happened to look at the help pages for the Parry mailing list & message board just before my holiday and was dismayed to realised they were directing people to the Perry DNA project - since they had been written before the Parry DNA project commenced and, at that time, Parry was included as a variant under the Perry project. Changing those was a priority once I returned home.
I would like to say that I have also now updated my own site to include the details of both the project at Family Tree DNA and also the DNA group at Ancestry. However, having got all the pages written, I now find that my ISP has problems with the upload server, which is preventing any changes. “It should be fixed in 4-6 days,” they say. So how come people on the cable forums have been complaining of the same issue for the past two months? I might not have been updating the Parry pages frequently over that time, so hadn’t discovered the issue earlier, but I may have to consider an alternative web site if it can’t be resolved fairly promptly.
Other news – I realised that I had missed the deadline for one of the marriage challenges. Fortunately I only have two entries for that district but it was a bit frustrating. I have now submitted details to three others with deadlines looming, with just one more to do. The Parry probate abstracts would now be on my site if I could upload anything. To go with them, I decided to put up the pedigree of G S Parry, who originally produced them. His pedigree appears on one of the LDS films – I didn’t find it myself, I just happened to be sitting next to an acquaintance in the local FHC some years ago as she was flicking through the film to find the item she had ordered it for, when she suddenly exclaimed “I’ve found a Parry pedigree”! I got a copy and filed it, only later discovering the connection to the abstracts. But I am glad I decided to produce his tree because it meant I got out my file of assorted notes and pedigrees that I have been sent over the years. The very next day, I received an email from a new contact who wrote to say that a 4 year old Doris Parry shown on my 1901 census listings was his grandmother. As I followed the family back through the other censuses, I realised something was familiar, so I picked up another set of sheets from the pedigrees file, relating to research carried out between about 1930-1950 by a Roy Edgardo Parry, regarding Parrys in Gloucestershire. Again, this had been sent to me some years ago by another researcher and I had filed it until the time I got around to working on pedigrees. Roy Edgardo Parry only turns out to be the brother of this researcher’s grandmother. Instant tree back to 1700! In trying to check who it was who sent me those sheets originally, I found an email from 2004 when a non-Parry came across my site and decided to let me know about the developing site for Longhope village, a place with a graveyard full of Parrys – guess where the family is from!
With another of the recent new contacts turning out to be a descendant of the Jones-Parry family that I have a pedigree on my site for, it seems like a lot of separate pieces of information might suddenly start fitting together.
We had a holiday and, although I hadn’t planned to do any research, I try not to miss any opportunities. So it was that I found myself in Owermoigne church, looking for a memorial to Leonard Parry, who was rector there when he died in 1614. In his Will, he asks that he be buried in the chancel, specifying the words he wanted to be carved upon a plain stone. However, there was a notice in the church porch with some of the church’s history and the only stone mentioned as having been in the chancel was for the rector who followed Leonard. The loss of some artifacts as well as a number of memorials to the lords of the manor and “former rectors and their relations,” was noted though, so it appears that events over time, especially the rebuilding of the church in 1882, have taken their toll.
At least I did find his name on the list of vicars.
Leonard was rector from 1567 – 1614 and it must have been an interesting time. According to the noticeboard, although the rectory is thought to have existed since the thirteenth century, most of the present building dates from the time of Elizabeth (who reigned 1558 – 1603). The villagers were well known for their smuggling activities in the past – with the squire and parson also being involved. Beams in the rectory dining room are reputedly from a wreck of the Spanish Armada (1588) and the rectory cellar contains a bricked-up window through which the parson used to receive his share. Oh Leonard, if only you could come back and tell tales!
Later we visited Salisbury Cathedral. Here, I hoped to find a memorial to Henry Parry, who was Chancellor & Canon resident when he died about 1570 and in his Will requested to be buried under the pulpit. But a search of the recorded tombs shows no record of him. Perhaps there will be other records, such as the registers, which will confirm his burial at least. That’s something still to be investigated.
But back in June, I wrote about the lost gravestones of a mayor of Coventry and his wife, Mary Luckman, formerly Parry. I also knew that a memorial plaque in Church Knowle to another Leonard Parry, who was rector in that parish until 1623, had been lost when that church was renovated. Considering these two "new" losses, it shows the importance of recording things as they are today, as well as researching the past - perhaps I should be doing more on the current Parrys, after all.
I’m still catching up with emails from when I was away. One of them was from a researcher whose ancestor, Abigail Griffiths, was a servant of John Parry of Ewias Harold. In 1724, he left her all his houses & lands in Longtown, Clodock, with remainder to her brother David. Mindful of a talk on “hidden kin” at the Guild AGM, I am keeping an eye out for anything which might indicate she was related to him – especially since there were several David Griffiths in Longtown by 1800, owning land near to my Parrys. In fact, the son of one of them married a sister of my 3xgt grandfather so who knows, perhaps the Griffiths and Parry families intermarried in the same way the Vaughans and Parrys in that area seem to have done, keeping property "in the family".
But as usual, I couldn’t resist doing a search for any new information which might have appeared recently, and I spent some time on the site of the Ewyas Lacy Study Group. They are in the process of adding manorial surveys to the site, which will be a great help in identifying the lands held by Parry families. The area is a “hot spot” for Parrys, so I could quite happily spend hours on this site, and the similar site of the Longtown Historical Society Archive.
I saw a second hand book recently that looked interesting – “Thirty Thousand Yesterdays,” by Ann Parry. Ann was David Lloyd George's last Welsh Secretary, and the book was described as being “full of political and social events of the era before WW2”. But it is a much more “personal” book than I expected, starting with her early years in Anglesey, and listing the entries from the family bible. Those have enabled me to identify the family in three censuses – 1881 at RG11/ 5593/30/5, 1891 at RG12/4679/96/10 and 1901 at RG13/5296/95/6. I’m looking forward to reading the book through properly.
At the moment, still being fairly disorganised with the study, it’s sometimes easy to lose track of what information is referenced to where. I happened to look at the help pages for the Parry mailing list & message board just before my holiday and was dismayed to realised they were directing people to the Perry DNA project - since they had been written before the Parry DNA project commenced and, at that time, Parry was included as a variant under the Perry project. Changing those was a priority once I returned home.
I would like to say that I have also now updated my own site to include the details of both the project at Family Tree DNA and also the DNA group at Ancestry. However, having got all the pages written, I now find that my ISP has problems with the upload server, which is preventing any changes. “It should be fixed in 4-6 days,” they say. So how come people on the cable forums have been complaining of the same issue for the past two months? I might not have been updating the Parry pages frequently over that time, so hadn’t discovered the issue earlier, but I may have to consider an alternative web site if it can’t be resolved fairly promptly.
Other news – I realised that I had missed the deadline for one of the marriage challenges. Fortunately I only have two entries for that district but it was a bit frustrating. I have now submitted details to three others with deadlines looming, with just one more to do. The Parry probate abstracts would now be on my site if I could upload anything. To go with them, I decided to put up the pedigree of G S Parry, who originally produced them. His pedigree appears on one of the LDS films – I didn’t find it myself, I just happened to be sitting next to an acquaintance in the local FHC some years ago as she was flicking through the film to find the item she had ordered it for, when she suddenly exclaimed “I’ve found a Parry pedigree”! I got a copy and filed it, only later discovering the connection to the abstracts. But I am glad I decided to produce his tree because it meant I got out my file of assorted notes and pedigrees that I have been sent over the years. The very next day, I received an email from a new contact who wrote to say that a 4 year old Doris Parry shown on my 1901 census listings was his grandmother. As I followed the family back through the other censuses, I realised something was familiar, so I picked up another set of sheets from the pedigrees file, relating to research carried out between about 1930-1950 by a Roy Edgardo Parry, regarding Parrys in Gloucestershire. Again, this had been sent to me some years ago by another researcher and I had filed it until the time I got around to working on pedigrees. Roy Edgardo Parry only turns out to be the brother of this researcher’s grandmother. Instant tree back to 1700! In trying to check who it was who sent me those sheets originally, I found an email from 2004 when a non-Parry came across my site and decided to let me know about the developing site for Longhope village, a place with a graveyard full of Parrys – guess where the family is from!
With another of the recent new contacts turning out to be a descendant of the Jones-Parry family that I have a pedigree on my site for, it seems like a lot of separate pieces of information might suddenly start fitting together.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Ongoing Projects
Why are some activities easier to do than others? At the start of the year, I wrote about trying to get some extractions or transcriptions done most days before dealing with any incoming mail. That tactic certainly worked with the probate abstract book, which was transcribed by March. The second stage of work on the details from the book, inserting tabs so that the information could be pasted into a table, was almost compulsive – the sort of task that is so easy to do in preference to anything else, that it’s probably a good job that, that is also now finished. The results have been pasted into excel and just need some rearranging and categorising to make them useable.
The process set me thinking about the different requirements of tasks on the study and how to achieve the most progress. There are many activities to be carried out for a one-name study. The primary task may appear to be the amassing of a large collection of data on the name. But that data then needs analysing, and conclusions developing from it, which should be published in order to advance research on the name. There will always be some overlap of these tasks, especially since one rarely finishes data collecting, as new sources become available. But for a small study, the bulk of the data collection can be carried out before the other stages and, in some cases, the study can effectively be “completed” – having traced everyone by the name back to an original source. There may be new developments to explore, such as the use of DNA for genealogy but, if you only have a few hundred names in any census, the basic work doesn’t take long.
For a large study it’s different. If you waited until all the basic data was collected, it would probably be your descendants carrying out the other stages! So it seems important to work on several stages at the same time.
Thinking about the nature of the activities, there are some which I describe as “mindless” - even if they take a long time to complete, it doesn’t matter since they can be picked up easily and paused at any time, and don’t take much effort to carry out. Other tasks require a bit of planning – perhaps they are still easy to carry out, but must be tackled in one go (eg where the data is only available for a limited time, or where any break in the extraction process would result in a different set of reference numbers and make it difficult to match up the data), or else they just require more thought in order to get them right (as when designing a web page to best explain a particular point). For most of these tasks, the final goal is known – it’s just how to get there that’s the issue. But then there are those tasks which require a great deal of thought and application, often without knowing quite what the final result will look like (as when I tried to find a way of mapping a modern Parry distribution with a program designed for 19c information).
So, for the different types of activities, it’s not just the time available that influences whether they get done or not – it’s also attitude. Do I feel like putting in that level of work, at that time? Am I up for a challenge, or do I just want something simple that will give quick results? I once read that it’s more effective to start a new project before finishing the previous one – the reasoning being that starting and finishing are the hardest parts and, if you finish a task without something else on the go, it gets harder to start something new. (Of course, it is important to ensure the original task does actually get finished!)
But, again, it's the principle of overlapping tasks, rather than tackling them consecutively.
So why this ramble about tasks? Basically, it’s the reasoning behind the structure of the ongoing projects list which follows. I’ve not really thought about the nature of the activities of the ONS in this way before – it’s just been a list of things to do, one after another. But structuring the activities, with priorities taking account of the nature of the tasks, could be a more effective way of making progress.
So, the ongoing projects:
The probate abstracts book is the main task but it has moved into a “thought required” activity, since the structure of the eventual database needs some consideration. And, although there are some simple corrections to be made to the original transcription before posting that onto the web site, page layout and linkage of related abstracts needs thought.
There are actually two new transcription tasks - census entries and BMDs. Since both of these will take a long time overall, having two provides a bit of variety. They are also both subdivided into smaller activities:
BMDs – the starting point is typing up the certificates received from the marriage challenges. As that moves into combining those with results already received in a variety of electronic forms, and submitting them to the Guild marriage index, the basic transcription task will become the civil registration indexes not yet transcribed.
Census – all of the index information is already extracted so this is the continued transcription of the additional details, starting with “my” three counties. Again, as this task moves into a “thought required” activity once a county is completed and the process of matching individuals across census years begins, the transcription will move on to adjoining counties.
The other current activities that require some thought are updating the web site with information on the DNA research, and with the “Fess families” details derived from the display in April.
And, while I’m doing that, the “serious thought” subject – how to connect up information on the web site so that people can easily find out what is available for any individual.
And now the projects are "in print", look out for their progress.
Three weeks ago, I said that, by the end of the week, I intended to have caught up with all the outstanding tasks. Clearly I didn’t achieve the goal, since I have only just posted the current projects list, but I also “failed” with regard to correspondence – probably the major difficulty of every large ONS and the reason that some people choose not to register their studies. Producing an initial response to people isn’t (usually) too difficult but, having had 25 new contacts since the start of the year, it is the later exchanging of information that can take up the time. And I still have several queries that had to be put aside about six months ago.
But setting the goal helped so my next one has to be catching up with that outstanding correspondence, whilst still keeping up with any day-to-day occurrences. And, while on the subject of those, here’s the news from the last couple of weeks:
I spotted a couple of Sir Edward Abbott Parry’s books on ebay. In looking for more information about those, I found an interesting article by Susan Watkin, detailing his work.
I received details of three more marriages from the Marylebone marriage challenge during June. There are 5 challenges to sort out items for, but none of them are places Parrys are common in so it shouldn’t take long.
I had a nice surprise when a Guild member took the trouble to send me a death notice from a newspaper – and then followed that with 13 17c marriages she’d found on a visit to the Westminster archives.
The Queensland Convict Transportation Registers were mentioned on the Forum – 58 Parrys and 1 Parrey transported. Details from the assizes will be a good subject to research at some time but that will have to go on a “future projects” list.
Finally, a couple of comments from correspondence:
Octavious is a fairly uncommon name – but I’ve had two queries recently involving it. The searches I’d carried out for the first query helped me identify information on the second promptly, despite the spelling varying between “ious” and “ius”. It’s helpful when things coincide like that.
I’ve also received emails from both new and renewed contacts regarding the Golden Valley family, which have resulted in me browsing the Patent Rolls for early information, as well as rechecking some of the coat of arms details. There are some contradictions in the reference works with regard to which families certain Parry quarterings have been ascribed to, so sorting that out will be part of the “fess families” research.
The process set me thinking about the different requirements of tasks on the study and how to achieve the most progress. There are many activities to be carried out for a one-name study. The primary task may appear to be the amassing of a large collection of data on the name. But that data then needs analysing, and conclusions developing from it, which should be published in order to advance research on the name. There will always be some overlap of these tasks, especially since one rarely finishes data collecting, as new sources become available. But for a small study, the bulk of the data collection can be carried out before the other stages and, in some cases, the study can effectively be “completed” – having traced everyone by the name back to an original source. There may be new developments to explore, such as the use of DNA for genealogy but, if you only have a few hundred names in any census, the basic work doesn’t take long.
For a large study it’s different. If you waited until all the basic data was collected, it would probably be your descendants carrying out the other stages! So it seems important to work on several stages at the same time.
Thinking about the nature of the activities, there are some which I describe as “mindless” - even if they take a long time to complete, it doesn’t matter since they can be picked up easily and paused at any time, and don’t take much effort to carry out. Other tasks require a bit of planning – perhaps they are still easy to carry out, but must be tackled in one go (eg where the data is only available for a limited time, or where any break in the extraction process would result in a different set of reference numbers and make it difficult to match up the data), or else they just require more thought in order to get them right (as when designing a web page to best explain a particular point). For most of these tasks, the final goal is known – it’s just how to get there that’s the issue. But then there are those tasks which require a great deal of thought and application, often without knowing quite what the final result will look like (as when I tried to find a way of mapping a modern Parry distribution with a program designed for 19c information).
So, for the different types of activities, it’s not just the time available that influences whether they get done or not – it’s also attitude. Do I feel like putting in that level of work, at that time? Am I up for a challenge, or do I just want something simple that will give quick results? I once read that it’s more effective to start a new project before finishing the previous one – the reasoning being that starting and finishing are the hardest parts and, if you finish a task without something else on the go, it gets harder to start something new. (Of course, it is important to ensure the original task does actually get finished!)
But, again, it's the principle of overlapping tasks, rather than tackling them consecutively.
So why this ramble about tasks? Basically, it’s the reasoning behind the structure of the ongoing projects list which follows. I’ve not really thought about the nature of the activities of the ONS in this way before – it’s just been a list of things to do, one after another. But structuring the activities, with priorities taking account of the nature of the tasks, could be a more effective way of making progress.
So, the ongoing projects:
The probate abstracts book is the main task but it has moved into a “thought required” activity, since the structure of the eventual database needs some consideration. And, although there are some simple corrections to be made to the original transcription before posting that onto the web site, page layout and linkage of related abstracts needs thought.
There are actually two new transcription tasks - census entries and BMDs. Since both of these will take a long time overall, having two provides a bit of variety. They are also both subdivided into smaller activities:
BMDs – the starting point is typing up the certificates received from the marriage challenges. As that moves into combining those with results already received in a variety of electronic forms, and submitting them to the Guild marriage index, the basic transcription task will become the civil registration indexes not yet transcribed.
Census – all of the index information is already extracted so this is the continued transcription of the additional details, starting with “my” three counties. Again, as this task moves into a “thought required” activity once a county is completed and the process of matching individuals across census years begins, the transcription will move on to adjoining counties.
The other current activities that require some thought are updating the web site with information on the DNA research, and with the “Fess families” details derived from the display in April.
And, while I’m doing that, the “serious thought” subject – how to connect up information on the web site so that people can easily find out what is available for any individual.
And now the projects are "in print", look out for their progress.
Three weeks ago, I said that, by the end of the week, I intended to have caught up with all the outstanding tasks. Clearly I didn’t achieve the goal, since I have only just posted the current projects list, but I also “failed” with regard to correspondence – probably the major difficulty of every large ONS and the reason that some people choose not to register their studies. Producing an initial response to people isn’t (usually) too difficult but, having had 25 new contacts since the start of the year, it is the later exchanging of information that can take up the time. And I still have several queries that had to be put aside about six months ago.
But setting the goal helped so my next one has to be catching up with that outstanding correspondence, whilst still keeping up with any day-to-day occurrences. And, while on the subject of those, here’s the news from the last couple of weeks:
I spotted a couple of Sir Edward Abbott Parry’s books on ebay. In looking for more information about those, I found an interesting article by Susan Watkin, detailing his work.
I received details of three more marriages from the Marylebone marriage challenge during June. There are 5 challenges to sort out items for, but none of them are places Parrys are common in so it shouldn’t take long.
I had a nice surprise when a Guild member took the trouble to send me a death notice from a newspaper – and then followed that with 13 17c marriages she’d found on a visit to the Westminster archives.
The Queensland Convict Transportation Registers were mentioned on the Forum – 58 Parrys and 1 Parrey transported. Details from the assizes will be a good subject to research at some time but that will have to go on a “future projects” list.
Finally, a couple of comments from correspondence:
Octavious is a fairly uncommon name – but I’ve had two queries recently involving it. The searches I’d carried out for the first query helped me identify information on the second promptly, despite the spelling varying between “ious” and “ius”. It’s helpful when things coincide like that.
I’ve also received emails from both new and renewed contacts regarding the Golden Valley family, which have resulted in me browsing the Patent Rolls for early information, as well as rechecking some of the coat of arms details. There are some contradictions in the reference works with regard to which families certain Parry quarterings have been ascribed to, so sorting that out will be part of the “fess families” research.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Probate Abstracts update
One of the (free!) books I picked up at the WDYTYA event was a catalogue from “Personalia”, who are dealers in all sorts of historical artifacts. It is fascinating to browse through something like this, since it gives an insight into the past, as well as containing many names (no Parrys though). One of the sections I found particularly interesting was about Momentos – predominently mourning brooches and rings. I have come across many references to mourning rings whilst transcribing the probate abstracts book but had never realised what forms they could take. You can see examples on their web site - Mourning Jewellery and Momentos
With regard to the probate abstracts, the basic transcription of the book was finished in March and I am in the process of converting the information into a suitable form to paste it into a spreadsheet or database. Having it in an electronic form will make it easier to search, but a spreadsheet format will also mean information can be rearranged easily which should make it more convenient for spotting connections between the various abstracts. At the moment, the conversion is what I call a “mindless task” – adding in tabs between information such as names and the key terms of “executor,” ”witness,” etc., so that the information will paste easily into a table. It doesn’t take a lot of thought but, every so often, something catches my attention. One such moment was when I spotted “Thomas Luckman, of Coventry, printer” in the abstract for a Mary Parry, spinster of Warwick, whose Will was written in 1783 and proved 1791. It wasn’t just the place name, but also the surname which caught my attention – and an article that appeared in the local newspaper a few years ago came to mind. It concerned the loss of some gravestones, amongst which was one belonging to a former Lord Mayor of Coventry, Thomas Luckman, and his wife Mary, who were buried in St Mary’s in 1784 and 1813 respectively. The gravestones had been moved during excavations at Coventry’s first Cathedral and had later disappeared. You can read the newspaper report here.
According to the newspaper, Thomas Luckman’s wife, Mary, had formerly been a Parry and, when I first saw it, I just noted it as “a Parry, to be followed up ‘as and when’,” since I had no further information on her. But now I have the abstract information, which links her in to a family, since it describes Mary Luckman as the niece of the testator (although it doesn’t actually mention that she was a Parry).
And it’s possibly not just any family – but one of those families who may eventually be shown to belong amongst the “fess families”. One of the other beneficiaries is a cousin, Martha Parry of Barcheston Mill, and there has been a suggestion by other researchers that the Barcheston Mill family connect to those of Aston Somerville, who did use that coat of arms. So there is a picture building up of interconnecting families – I just need to prove that there were definite relationships between them, rather than just associations. But it does seem like it’s time to stop bemoaning the fact that I have no family locally to research – they may not be my own family, but, as Parrys, they’re close enough.
As a final note along those lines, as I rechecked the Segar Parry information today, I discovered that some of the records for that family are held at Warwick record office – yet more relevant information just about on my doorstep!
It’s a good job that I have finally caught up with recording the last few months activities and can now start to look forward to the ongoing projects.
With regard to the probate abstracts, the basic transcription of the book was finished in March and I am in the process of converting the information into a suitable form to paste it into a spreadsheet or database. Having it in an electronic form will make it easier to search, but a spreadsheet format will also mean information can be rearranged easily which should make it more convenient for spotting connections between the various abstracts. At the moment, the conversion is what I call a “mindless task” – adding in tabs between information such as names and the key terms of “executor,” ”witness,” etc., so that the information will paste easily into a table. It doesn’t take a lot of thought but, every so often, something catches my attention. One such moment was when I spotted “Thomas Luckman, of Coventry, printer” in the abstract for a Mary Parry, spinster of Warwick, whose Will was written in 1783 and proved 1791. It wasn’t just the place name, but also the surname which caught my attention – and an article that appeared in the local newspaper a few years ago came to mind. It concerned the loss of some gravestones, amongst which was one belonging to a former Lord Mayor of Coventry, Thomas Luckman, and his wife Mary, who were buried in St Mary’s in 1784 and 1813 respectively. The gravestones had been moved during excavations at Coventry’s first Cathedral and had later disappeared. You can read the newspaper report here.
According to the newspaper, Thomas Luckman’s wife, Mary, had formerly been a Parry and, when I first saw it, I just noted it as “a Parry, to be followed up ‘as and when’,” since I had no further information on her. But now I have the abstract information, which links her in to a family, since it describes Mary Luckman as the niece of the testator (although it doesn’t actually mention that she was a Parry).
And it’s possibly not just any family – but one of those families who may eventually be shown to belong amongst the “fess families”. One of the other beneficiaries is a cousin, Martha Parry of Barcheston Mill, and there has been a suggestion by other researchers that the Barcheston Mill family connect to those of Aston Somerville, who did use that coat of arms. So there is a picture building up of interconnecting families – I just need to prove that there were definite relationships between them, rather than just associations. But it does seem like it’s time to stop bemoaning the fact that I have no family locally to research – they may not be my own family, but, as Parrys, they’re close enough.
As a final note along those lines, as I rechecked the Segar Parry information today, I discovered that some of the records for that family are held at Warwick record office – yet more relevant information just about on my doorstep!
It’s a good job that I have finally caught up with recording the last few months activities and can now start to look forward to the ongoing projects.
Web site update
I used the “fess families” as the basis for my display at the Guild’s AGM in April. The display for the Solihull seminar in February went well (so I thought!) and I gained a few ideas from talking to others there, as well as just from the actual process of producing the display. But that display had been a more general introduction to several aspects of the study so I narrowed it down to concentrate on just the fess families for the AGM display. Having done that, the information I produced should act as the foundation for pages on each of the fess families to go onto the web site. Back in February I also received a copy of the Will of Bishop Edward Archibald Parry, formerly Bishop of Guiana, which I will transcribe. He was the son of Edward Parry, Suffragan Bishop pf Dover, whose tomb at Canterbury can be seen on the “fess families” page on my web site.
Getting the web pages updated is important – they have suffered from the busy-ness of the last few months and don’t even have details of the DNA study or DNA group on them at the moment. The only page I have added recently concerned my grandfather’s “emigration” to Canada. There is more to be added even to that page but the incentive for producing it was hearing about the Ontario Genealogical Society’s annual conference which was being held in London, Ontario. I notified a Canadian researcher about the page, in case there were any opportunities for making it known to people. Nothing came of that but at least it meant I produced the page (sometimes deadlines do work!)
Going back to the Guild’s AGM in April – since it was held down in Devon, I was able to obtain information on Parry events in that county, which I typed up once home. This was an incentive to systematically extract the IGI entries for the county. Tackling the IGI properly is on my “to do” list, but I know from doing Devon that it will be a long job. One of the difficulties with English counties is going to be the number of Perry entries, since they are treated as a variation of Parry on the IGI. Some of the early variants could be even more problematic, since searching for “ap Harry” produces all the “Harry” results. I will perhaps have to work on an exact search for Parry and hope that I can cover all the variants separately. There’s certainly plenty of scope for confusion, especially where there are instances of different surnames that have the same origin and which may be interchangeable in particular time periods - one of the probate Abstracts is that of an Ursula Harry, who then remarried to a Harrison and who also had a son in law, David Parry.
So that's three different surnames which all have an origin derived from “Harry’s son.”
Getting the web pages updated is important – they have suffered from the busy-ness of the last few months and don’t even have details of the DNA study or DNA group on them at the moment. The only page I have added recently concerned my grandfather’s “emigration” to Canada. There is more to be added even to that page but the incentive for producing it was hearing about the Ontario Genealogical Society’s annual conference which was being held in London, Ontario. I notified a Canadian researcher about the page, in case there were any opportunities for making it known to people. Nothing came of that but at least it meant I produced the page (sometimes deadlines do work!)
Going back to the Guild’s AGM in April – since it was held down in Devon, I was able to obtain information on Parry events in that county, which I typed up once home. This was an incentive to systematically extract the IGI entries for the county. Tackling the IGI properly is on my “to do” list, but I know from doing Devon that it will be a long job. One of the difficulties with English counties is going to be the number of Perry entries, since they are treated as a variation of Parry on the IGI. Some of the early variants could be even more problematic, since searching for “ap Harry” produces all the “Harry” results. I will perhaps have to work on an exact search for Parry and hope that I can cover all the variants separately. There’s certainly plenty of scope for confusion, especially where there are instances of different surnames that have the same origin and which may be interchangeable in particular time periods - one of the probate Abstracts is that of an Ursula Harry, who then remarried to a Harrison and who also had a son in law, David Parry.
So that's three different surnames which all have an origin derived from “Harry’s son.”
Past research
Another recent addition to the British Origins site was the “Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries 1890-1980”. After looking at them, I almost wrote an entry entitled “sometimes I could scream!” because amongst the entries was one saying “I have now definite proof …”(of a particular Parry’s parentage) but it didn’t indicate what the proof was. It’s like researchers who write saying “I know….” but when you ask how, it turns out that they don’t actually know at all. Such comments serve to remind me of the importance of documenting sources, and also of attempting to ensure that what I research is distributed and available for others to build on. But it is frustrating to think that much of what I am working on has already been researched by others in the past. Yes, past research does need re-examining, especially as new records become available, but how much better it would be if we could keep building on it, instead of having to rediscover it.
Sometimes we do need to correct past research though. I wonder to what extent that will be the case when I have followed up what I call the “fess families” – those Parrys families laying claim to the coat of arms “a fess between three lozenges”. Back in March, a researcher sent me a link to an article on the Gazettes Online web site, concerning an insolvent debtor, Segar Parry . This is a site that I plan to go through systematically when I get time but I can never resist following up such items. There were two lines of enquiry that resulted. Firstly, I discovered another entry which stated “Cornet Robert Burdett, from half-pay of the 25th Light Dragoons, vice Segar Parry, who exchanges, receiving the difference. Dated 29th March 1819”. Now, I don’t understand the military arrangement that is going on here and so still need to find out about that. But, back in December 2006, I received an email asking about a James Burdett Parry, baptised 1828 in St Marylebone to a James and Amelia, so finding the names Burdett and Parry linked together in some way could be important. An additional point of interest on this line is that there is also a John Burdett Parry. Unfortunately, he was born about 1808 in Herefordshire, and is in that county in the censuses so, although his wife comes from Middlesex, there doesn’t seem to be anything to connect him to the James Burdett Parry. It could all just be coincidence but it is something to be looking out for.
The second line of enquiry that resulted from following up the Gazette article came from the reminder that I have already come across references to the combination of Segar and Parry with regard to heraldry. According to a story that I have yet to prove, one of the daughters of William Segar, Garter King of Arms, married a Parry. The Parry wasn’t keen to apply for a coat of arms but his later descendants did. Looking at my own listing of Parrys from Burke’s General Armory I found “Parry (Segar-Parry, Little Haddam, co. Hertford). Ar. a fesse betw. three lozenges az.” – so that makes this family one of those I should be including amongst my “fess families” investigation.
And it certainly looks like it will require investigating – I am fairly sure that the Segar Parry was the son of a Nicholas Segar Parry and, using a combination of the IGI and the probate abstracts, it appears that the family may have traced back to Flintshire.
So how come the Herefordshire Arms?
Sometimes we do need to correct past research though. I wonder to what extent that will be the case when I have followed up what I call the “fess families” – those Parrys families laying claim to the coat of arms “a fess between three lozenges”. Back in March, a researcher sent me a link to an article on the Gazettes Online web site, concerning an insolvent debtor, Segar Parry . This is a site that I plan to go through systematically when I get time but I can never resist following up such items. There were two lines of enquiry that resulted. Firstly, I discovered another entry which stated “Cornet Robert Burdett, from half-pay of the 25th Light Dragoons, vice Segar Parry, who exchanges, receiving the difference. Dated 29th March 1819”. Now, I don’t understand the military arrangement that is going on here and so still need to find out about that. But, back in December 2006, I received an email asking about a James Burdett Parry, baptised 1828 in St Marylebone to a James and Amelia, so finding the names Burdett and Parry linked together in some way could be important. An additional point of interest on this line is that there is also a John Burdett Parry. Unfortunately, he was born about 1808 in Herefordshire, and is in that county in the censuses so, although his wife comes from Middlesex, there doesn’t seem to be anything to connect him to the James Burdett Parry. It could all just be coincidence but it is something to be looking out for.
The second line of enquiry that resulted from following up the Gazette article came from the reminder that I have already come across references to the combination of Segar and Parry with regard to heraldry. According to a story that I have yet to prove, one of the daughters of William Segar, Garter King of Arms, married a Parry. The Parry wasn’t keen to apply for a coat of arms but his later descendants did. Looking at my own listing of Parrys from Burke’s General Armory I found “Parry (Segar-Parry, Little Haddam, co. Hertford). Ar. a fesse betw. three lozenges az.” – so that makes this family one of those I should be including amongst my “fess families” investigation.
And it certainly looks like it will require investigating – I am fairly sure that the Segar Parry was the son of a Nicholas Segar Parry and, using a combination of the IGI and the probate abstracts, it appears that the family may have traced back to Flintshire.
So how come the Herefordshire Arms?
Working together
One of my friends from the States asked recently whether a DNA sample would help with his branch. It is such a shame that he isn’t a Parry, since I don’t doubt he’d have become the second member of the DNA study. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he looks out for Parrys who may provide samples for me. Collaboration has been a recurrent theme as I’ve considered the events of the last few months. I had a pleasant surprise after thanking a Guild member for their work on one of the marriage challenges. It turned out that they’d noticed some Parrys in records they were working on, so I soon received a file of Parry marriages from Sussex. It sometimes happens that people send me files in versions that are more up to date than my programs will open so I have to request the details in an older version. But in this case, not being particularly technically minded, I didn’t even recognise the file type (an odt file) and none of my programs would open it. However, a search on the internet indicated that Google docs would do so. I’d not used that system before although I had viewed the spreadsheet a Guild member set up, in order to let other members view the entries for the challenge he was carrying out. It occurs to me that sharing files through the system could be a potential method for encouraging collaboration amongst Parry researchers, especially on things such as the census records, or civil registration and certificates. Since there are so many Parrys in those records, working together is possibly the only way even the basic information will be collected in less than my lifetime.
Generous genealogists
I received 23 copy marriage certificates at the end of May, the results of Stage 2 of the Bristol Marriage Challenge. That’s 40, out of the 48 Bristol district entries up to 1871, that have now been accounted for. (The 51 marriages shown on FreeBMD is an exaggeration due to transcription errors). The details from several of these latest ones will be of interest to other researchers but I need to get them typed up first – not all of the challengers send out results electronically since some prefer to transcribe directly from the registers onto blank “certificates”. But, having received well over 300 certificates since I started submitting entries to the challenges, I’m certainly not going to complain about a bit of typing up.
I went to the WDYTYA? LIVE event at the beginning of May and spotted a few Parrys in some second hand books. There weren’t enough references to justify buying the books, but staff on the stall were kind enough to let me transcribe the entries. It reminded me of the first time I asked a bookseller if I could do that – it was soon after joining the Guild, so the concept of one-name studies was still new to me, and I’d found one or two entries in each of several separate booklets of apprenticeship records. Again, there wasn’t enough to justify buying them, but I wasn’t sure what kind of response I might get from the bookseller, a gentleman easily identified by his hat. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that, in return for just putting the series of books into order in their box, I was free to transcribe anything relevant. It was only in April, when the bookseller died, that I learnt of his past contributions to genealogy. Howard Benbrook’s recollections of Don Steel probably encapsulate what many of us visitors to the fairs experienced, and Stuart Raymond’s his wider contribution.
No wonder he had understood the one-namer’s goal.
I went to the WDYTYA? LIVE event at the beginning of May and spotted a few Parrys in some second hand books. There weren’t enough references to justify buying the books, but staff on the stall were kind enough to let me transcribe the entries. It reminded me of the first time I asked a bookseller if I could do that – it was soon after joining the Guild, so the concept of one-name studies was still new to me, and I’d found one or two entries in each of several separate booklets of apprenticeship records. Again, there wasn’t enough to justify buying them, but I wasn’t sure what kind of response I might get from the bookseller, a gentleman easily identified by his hat. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that, in return for just putting the series of books into order in their box, I was free to transcribe anything relevant. It was only in April, when the bookseller died, that I learnt of his past contributions to genealogy. Howard Benbrook’s recollections of Don Steel probably encapsulate what many of us visitors to the fairs experienced, and Stuart Raymond’s his wider contribution.
No wonder he had understood the one-namer’s goal.
Monday, June 09, 2008
Medieval soldiers
A new database was mentioned on the Forum at the end of May - The Soldier in later Medieval England, which covers the period between 1369 and 1453. I didn’t expect to find any Parrys in it (and I didn’t), since these dates are before the name developed as a surname.
However, it does have 5 ap Harr(y/i) and 9 ap Henry entries, as well as other names which are possibly early variations (such as ap Herry) or that researchers have contacted me about (like Appenreth). Most Parry families will have started through an “ap Harry” and amongst the progenitors of the Golden Valley Herefordshire family are John ap Harry, and his brother Thomas, who are reputed to have fought at Agincourt. I already knew that a Thomas ap Henry and a John ap Henry are listed in Anne Curry’s book about Agincourt, as having taken out indentures to serve on the 1415 campaign. But here I find that, in 1415, a Thomas ap Harri and a John ap Harry both appear on a list as “sick”. There is then both a Thomas and a Henry ap Harry fighting under Edmund, Earl of March, in 1417, and a Thomas ap Harry under Richard, Duke of York, in 1441.
Of the ap Henrys, a David, two Jeuans, a Gwilym and a Ricard, were all under the command of John ap Rys et al, in 1415. A David and a Jeuan were also listed as sick. Then, in 1441, a Davy fought under Sir Lewis John, and a Philip under Henry Bourchier, Count of Eu. In the 1415 campaign, there was also an archer, John ap Herry, listed under the command of Griffith ap Jeuan Iscoid. This is notable because the John from the Golden Valley family was occasionally listed as “ap Herry”, but, since he was sheriff of Herefordshire around 1400, I imagine he is unlikely to be fighting as an archer in 1415.
I noticed a (probably irrelevant) fact, that all of the ap Harrys were men-at-arms whereas the ap Henry entries are all just archers (or “archer foot”). That some individuals do appear as men-at-arms is itself a promising sign, given that the Parrys from the Golden Valley were armigerous. But it is clear that more information will be needed to make sense of the various entries. Thomas ap Harry was supposedly killed at Agincourt (according to various Golden Valley pedigrees) so there are probably many people of the same names. The project details do mention that the research team will be linking records and building up career profiles, although such details does not appear to be accessible through the web site. This is something I will need to enquire about – I certainly don’t have the experience and knowledge to work on these records, even if I did access the originals.
The results generally are very interesting to browse through – one gets some idea of why names such as Powell are more common than Parry nowadays, of how many Welsh soldiers were involved in the armies, and also some idea of the differences in frequencies of particular names in England and Wales (eg there are 30 Harrys to only 4 ap Harrys, whereas there are 37 Howells, but 88 ap, or “appe”, Howells.)
I just hope that further information will be obtainable on the ap Harry/Henrys and also others who appear in the pedigree books as relevant in some way, such as “David Gam”, who died at Agincourt, supposedly saving Henry V’s life.
However, it does have 5 ap Harr(y/i) and 9 ap Henry entries, as well as other names which are possibly early variations (such as ap Herry) or that researchers have contacted me about (like Appenreth). Most Parry families will have started through an “ap Harry” and amongst the progenitors of the Golden Valley Herefordshire family are John ap Harry, and his brother Thomas, who are reputed to have fought at Agincourt. I already knew that a Thomas ap Henry and a John ap Henry are listed in Anne Curry’s book about Agincourt, as having taken out indentures to serve on the 1415 campaign. But here I find that, in 1415, a Thomas ap Harri and a John ap Harry both appear on a list as “sick”. There is then both a Thomas and a Henry ap Harry fighting under Edmund, Earl of March, in 1417, and a Thomas ap Harry under Richard, Duke of York, in 1441.
Of the ap Henrys, a David, two Jeuans, a Gwilym and a Ricard, were all under the command of John ap Rys et al, in 1415. A David and a Jeuan were also listed as sick. Then, in 1441, a Davy fought under Sir Lewis John, and a Philip under Henry Bourchier, Count of Eu. In the 1415 campaign, there was also an archer, John ap Herry, listed under the command of Griffith ap Jeuan Iscoid. This is notable because the John from the Golden Valley family was occasionally listed as “ap Herry”, but, since he was sheriff of Herefordshire around 1400, I imagine he is unlikely to be fighting as an archer in 1415.
I noticed a (probably irrelevant) fact, that all of the ap Harrys were men-at-arms whereas the ap Henry entries are all just archers (or “archer foot”). That some individuals do appear as men-at-arms is itself a promising sign, given that the Parrys from the Golden Valley were armigerous. But it is clear that more information will be needed to make sense of the various entries. Thomas ap Harry was supposedly killed at Agincourt (according to various Golden Valley pedigrees) so there are probably many people of the same names. The project details do mention that the research team will be linking records and building up career profiles, although such details does not appear to be accessible through the web site. This is something I will need to enquire about – I certainly don’t have the experience and knowledge to work on these records, even if I did access the originals.
The results generally are very interesting to browse through – one gets some idea of why names such as Powell are more common than Parry nowadays, of how many Welsh soldiers were involved in the armies, and also some idea of the differences in frequencies of particular names in England and Wales (eg there are 30 Harrys to only 4 ap Harrys, whereas there are 37 Howells, but 88 ap, or “appe”, Howells.)
I just hope that further information will be obtainable on the ap Harry/Henrys and also others who appear in the pedigree books as relevant in some way, such as “David Gam”, who died at Agincourt, supposedly saving Henry V’s life.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
I may regret writing this…
But since, if I don’t aim at something, I won’t achieve it, I have now made this the "catching up" week. By the end of it, I aim to be able to write about the ongoing current projects, having cleared all the outstanding tasks from the past few months. Such tasks include not just general study activities (the ever-increasing filing, as well as writing some extended emails) but also blog entries about things that have happened recently on the study.
So, today’s catch up entry – DNA groups on Ancestry.
Early in May, Ancestry enabled DNA groups to be set up for surnames. Although there is already a Parry DNA project at Family Tree DNA, it seemed a good idea to set up a group on Ancestry as well. Some subscribers to the DNA lists seemed concerned at the thought of several projects existing for one surname but I think, as a one-namer, I’m more concerned about reaching Parrys wherever they are – we can sort out the practicalities of how to compare all the results later!
And the decision seems to be paying off since another Parry has requested to join the group already. One advantage of the Ancestry groups is that people who have tested elsewhere can submit their own data. I started the group by inputting my Parry results from a male relative and it is great to finally see a comparison of two sets of Parry results. Not that they match, but it’s a start.
The Ancestry groups also allow for the sharing of files and for carrying out discussions, so they do fill a gap in the existing provision, since FTDNA only show results of tests by them, and the only other discussion areas are the normal surname message board and mailing list, neither of which do I want to become dominated by dna issues.
So, another small step along the path to making sense of the Parrys.
So, today’s catch up entry – DNA groups on Ancestry.
Early in May, Ancestry enabled DNA groups to be set up for surnames. Although there is already a Parry DNA project at Family Tree DNA, it seemed a good idea to set up a group on Ancestry as well. Some subscribers to the DNA lists seemed concerned at the thought of several projects existing for one surname but I think, as a one-namer, I’m more concerned about reaching Parrys wherever they are – we can sort out the practicalities of how to compare all the results later!
And the decision seems to be paying off since another Parry has requested to join the group already. One advantage of the Ancestry groups is that people who have tested elsewhere can submit their own data. I started the group by inputting my Parry results from a male relative and it is great to finally see a comparison of two sets of Parry results. Not that they match, but it’s a start.
The Ancestry groups also allow for the sharing of files and for carrying out discussions, so they do fill a gap in the existing provision, since FTDNA only show results of tests by them, and the only other discussion areas are the normal surname message board and mailing list, neither of which do I want to become dominated by dna issues.
So, another small step along the path to making sense of the Parrys.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
“Later” – the Surrey Will Abstracts
Have you ever noticed how flexible the word “later” can be?
The Surrey Will abstracts contained 66 Parry entries, plus a few variant spellings, although some of these were duplicate indexing of the same items. I ended up noting 71 individual names, derived from 45 Wills, only 5 of which related to Parry testators. Out of the others, 26 had Parrys as a witness, or just as a name with no further details, so there was insufficient information to do more with those for now. I was hopeful that the other 19 would be “connectable” in some way, since there were relationships given, but searching for connections produced mixed results. The Will of Andrew Tremills (or Tremetts) was the best – this links in with 5 entries from the Parry Abstracts book and, although I had worked out the likely relationships between those people, Andrew’s confirms the details and gives me his daughter’s maiden name - not that I can find the marriage of a Whitney Parry to a Tremills/Tremetts, but that’s another issue.
Of the other abstracts:
Edward Jones of Bermondsey mentions deeds which are with John Parry, exec. of (Mr) Samuel Loyd – and an abstract of a Samuel Lloyd’s Will appears in the Parry Abstracts book. Unfortunately, the executor of Samuel’s Will was a Charles Parry, but he does have a brother John, so it still looks promising.
In 1696, Mary Nobes of St Saviour Southwark left money to her son-in-law Roger Ingram, and her granddaughter, Hannah Parry, wife of Samuel Parry, and I can find a marriage between a Samuel Parry and Hanna Ingram on the IGI in 1693.
Elizabeth Collins of St Olave Southwark 1682 left her best holland apron and cambric handkerchief to Penelope Parry, wife of Thomas Parry of St Olave Southwark, gentleman. She also left the rest of her estate to Richard Parry, Thomas Parry and William Parry at 21. No relationships were given. However, a Thomas Parry of St Olave, with a wife Penelope, does appear in the Parry Abstracts. They only have a son Thomas, but he mentions children of his siblings (without naming the children). So just hints at connections there, with a lot more to investigate. One key point for me is that the siblings are late of Breconshire, so here we are dealing with the gradual spread of the Parry families away from my main area of interest to elsewhere in the country.
Finally, I was interested to see that both the Surrey Abstracts and the Parry Abstracts book contain an abstract for Knevet Parry of St Olave, which was proved in 1603 – and that there are differences between the two abstracts even on the witnesses’ names. So often with a one-name study, it is easier to deal with secondary sources, since they are more accessible, but this is a reminder of the importance of checking the original records wherever possible.
So that’s the Surrey Abstracts - and the “update on where things are at with the study” will have to wait until “later.”
The Surrey Will abstracts contained 66 Parry entries, plus a few variant spellings, although some of these were duplicate indexing of the same items. I ended up noting 71 individual names, derived from 45 Wills, only 5 of which related to Parry testators. Out of the others, 26 had Parrys as a witness, or just as a name with no further details, so there was insufficient information to do more with those for now. I was hopeful that the other 19 would be “connectable” in some way, since there were relationships given, but searching for connections produced mixed results. The Will of Andrew Tremills (or Tremetts) was the best – this links in with 5 entries from the Parry Abstracts book and, although I had worked out the likely relationships between those people, Andrew’s confirms the details and gives me his daughter’s maiden name - not that I can find the marriage of a Whitney Parry to a Tremills/Tremetts, but that’s another issue.
Of the other abstracts:
Edward Jones of Bermondsey mentions deeds which are with John Parry, exec. of (Mr) Samuel Loyd – and an abstract of a Samuel Lloyd’s Will appears in the Parry Abstracts book. Unfortunately, the executor of Samuel’s Will was a Charles Parry, but he does have a brother John, so it still looks promising.
In 1696, Mary Nobes of St Saviour Southwark left money to her son-in-law Roger Ingram, and her granddaughter, Hannah Parry, wife of Samuel Parry, and I can find a marriage between a Samuel Parry and Hanna Ingram on the IGI in 1693.
Elizabeth Collins of St Olave Southwark 1682 left her best holland apron and cambric handkerchief to Penelope Parry, wife of Thomas Parry of St Olave Southwark, gentleman. She also left the rest of her estate to Richard Parry, Thomas Parry and William Parry at 21. No relationships were given. However, a Thomas Parry of St Olave, with a wife Penelope, does appear in the Parry Abstracts. They only have a son Thomas, but he mentions children of his siblings (without naming the children). So just hints at connections there, with a lot more to investigate. One key point for me is that the siblings are late of Breconshire, so here we are dealing with the gradual spread of the Parry families away from my main area of interest to elsewhere in the country.
Finally, I was interested to see that both the Surrey Abstracts and the Parry Abstracts book contain an abstract for Knevet Parry of St Olave, which was proved in 1603 – and that there are differences between the two abstracts even on the witnesses’ names. So often with a one-name study, it is easier to deal with secondary sources, since they are more accessible, but this is a reminder of the importance of checking the original records wherever possible.
So that’s the Surrey Abstracts - and the “update on where things are at with the study” will have to wait until “later.”
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Parry in the FA Cup Final
I was just watching the start of the FA Cup final and spotted a Parry in the line-up – Paul Parry, who plays for Cardiff City. You can read more about him on Wikipedia.
However, not particularly being a fan of football, I have decided to spend the afternoon exploring the Parry entries from the recent addition to the Origins site - Surrey Wills Abstracts 1470-1856. Because these are fully transcribed abstracts, it is possible to find entries where Parrys appear within the content of the Will, or as a witness, rather than just those Wills made by Parrys. This should be a great help in putting together family relationships – I have already spotted one for an Andrew Tremills (or Tremetts), who seems to be the father-in-law of a Whitney Parry who appears in the Parry Abstracts book.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to post some results later - along with an update on where things are at with the study, since it has been rather a long time since my last posting!
However, not particularly being a fan of football, I have decided to spend the afternoon exploring the Parry entries from the recent addition to the Origins site - Surrey Wills Abstracts 1470-1856. Because these are fully transcribed abstracts, it is possible to find entries where Parrys appear within the content of the Will, or as a witness, rather than just those Wills made by Parrys. This should be a great help in putting together family relationships – I have already spotted one for an Andrew Tremills (or Tremetts), who seems to be the father-in-law of a Whitney Parry who appears in the Parry Abstracts book.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to post some results later - along with an update on where things are at with the study, since it has been rather a long time since my last posting!
Friday, February 15, 2008
The year so far
It’s the Guild’s Midland Seminar tomorrow, which should be an interesting day. There’s the opportunity to put on a display about our studies so I thought I’d have a go, as a "trial run" before doing one for the AGM Conference in April. I was planning it as a general introduction to the Parry ONS but now I am wondering whether I ought to link it more to the seminar’s topics.
I received a renewal reminder from Ancestry recently. Last year I made use of a special offer in order to get a good rate on the World subscription but, with it going up to the full rate this year, it’s a good opportunity to take stock of what information is on there and how valuable it really is. Whilst I do collect all references to the name, many of the thousands of entries available on Ancestry relate to records such as newspapers and published histories – items which are time consuming to extract from and largely add just biographical detail. But my priority must be the building up of the framework of who was alive when – something more effectively achieved through the vital records of births, deaths and marriages, combined with the censuses to identify where they all were.
Things are progressing with regard to transcribing the Parry Abstracts – I’m now on page 87 out of 104 pages, (abstract 572, out of 689). There are a few I have missed out and will need to return to – I didn’t think I’d tackle some of the Welsh Wills using voice recognition software!
With the concentration on that transcribing, I do still have some correspondence to catch up with, although I have managed to reply fairly promptly to the nine new correspondents who have contacted me so far this year. I have also checked and submitted almost 70 entries to the various marriage challenges.
Findmypast has added the next decade of passenger lists, which included 466 Parrys. Having extracted them using exact spelling, I tried to find variants and those with additions (eg "jnr") after the name – at which point I realised I’d missed the double barrelled surnames. It doesn’t seem possible to search just for those, without knowing who you’re looking for, so I shall have to remember to search on Parry* in future. I also realised that I will need to go back and search for such combined surnames where Parry is the second name, although that is more difficult to know what to search for – the ONS list can be useful for this since searching there for *parry* gives some ideas of possible combinations.
There’s been some interesting items on ebay – Mrs Parry’s livery button; an item relating to Parry’s Hotel, in Ambala (Haryana / India) (probably some connection to the company now known as EID Parry); postcards of Parry Sound which led me to discover the difference between Parry Sound and Parry Harbour (aka "Parry Hoot", as lumbermen gathered there to avoid the "dry" town of Parry Sound, where the sale of alcohol was banned by the "Beatty Covenant"); and a business card for "Irvin & Parry Gunsmiths" of Philadelphia, Pa, who made "the Parry Antomatic Single Trigger for Double Guns" (don’t think I’ll be adding one of those to my collection!)
As usual, the Forum has been a good source of websites to explore. Recently there have been some Boer War sites posted – perhaps I should let some of the sites know about my Dad’s research into one of our relatives, since he does appear on them. Richard Heaton has also updated his newspaper site, which currently has 69 Parry items on it. He’s talking about researching local newspapers at the seminar tomorrow.
Now that’s possibly given me an idea for a more appropriate display.
I received a renewal reminder from Ancestry recently. Last year I made use of a special offer in order to get a good rate on the World subscription but, with it going up to the full rate this year, it’s a good opportunity to take stock of what information is on there and how valuable it really is. Whilst I do collect all references to the name, many of the thousands of entries available on Ancestry relate to records such as newspapers and published histories – items which are time consuming to extract from and largely add just biographical detail. But my priority must be the building up of the framework of who was alive when – something more effectively achieved through the vital records of births, deaths and marriages, combined with the censuses to identify where they all were.
Things are progressing with regard to transcribing the Parry Abstracts – I’m now on page 87 out of 104 pages, (abstract 572, out of 689). There are a few I have missed out and will need to return to – I didn’t think I’d tackle some of the Welsh Wills using voice recognition software!
With the concentration on that transcribing, I do still have some correspondence to catch up with, although I have managed to reply fairly promptly to the nine new correspondents who have contacted me so far this year. I have also checked and submitted almost 70 entries to the various marriage challenges.
Findmypast has added the next decade of passenger lists, which included 466 Parrys. Having extracted them using exact spelling, I tried to find variants and those with additions (eg "jnr") after the name – at which point I realised I’d missed the double barrelled surnames. It doesn’t seem possible to search just for those, without knowing who you’re looking for, so I shall have to remember to search on Parry* in future. I also realised that I will need to go back and search for such combined surnames where Parry is the second name, although that is more difficult to know what to search for – the ONS list can be useful for this since searching there for *parry* gives some ideas of possible combinations.
There’s been some interesting items on ebay – Mrs Parry’s livery button; an item relating to Parry’s Hotel, in Ambala (Haryana / India) (probably some connection to the company now known as EID Parry); postcards of Parry Sound which led me to discover the difference between Parry Sound and Parry Harbour (aka "Parry Hoot", as lumbermen gathered there to avoid the "dry" town of Parry Sound, where the sale of alcohol was banned by the "Beatty Covenant"); and a business card for "Irvin & Parry Gunsmiths" of Philadelphia, Pa, who made "the Parry Antomatic Single Trigger for Double Guns" (don’t think I’ll be adding one of those to my collection!)
As usual, the Forum has been a good source of websites to explore. Recently there have been some Boer War sites posted – perhaps I should let some of the sites know about my Dad’s research into one of our relatives, since he does appear on them. Richard Heaton has also updated his newspaper site, which currently has 69 Parry items on it. He’s talking about researching local newspapers at the seminar tomorrow.
Now that’s possibly given me an idea for a more appropriate display.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Starting as I mean to go on
An empty house today was a good opportunity for clearing emails and work on the study.
Whilst checking ebay notifications, I came across a reference to a “Lorris and Roger Parry”. Further investigation revealed Roger Parry (1905-1977) was a French artist. The “Lorris” turned out to be a Fabian Loris rather than “Lorris Parry”. But given that registered one-name studies carry out worldwide research, it is great to find someone in a country where the surname rarely occurs.
There are also references to work by 20 other Parry related artists on the artnet site so I shall have a look through those later.
Ebay can be an interesting source of information – I didn’t know a Parry wrote a “Cyclopaedia of Perfumery”. There’s also another French connection, as a Parry-Vielle limoges box is listed. I don’t know the reason for the Parry in this company’s name and it looks as if the company’s website is unavailable so no source for their history there. But searching for more information on them did net me 4 Parrys from a list of voters in Placer County, CA, in 1890. Although I did decide not to sidetrack to explore all the other companies that are found by searching www.parry- on google. That's an activity for another day.
I didn’t actually submit any entries to the Liverpool Marriage challenge, given how many there were for Parrys. However, I did send the challenger a list of them, in case it was useful in helping to narrow down the possible churches for other people’s entries (since I had been able to identify a reasonable number of the churches by using the Liverpool BMD site). Today I received a file back, with over 200 of the exact dates added in, as well as a few of the churches I had not been able to identify. That will certainly be a great help and was a lovely surprise.
In order to ensure the study progresses, I am planning to try doing some work on extractions or transcriptions most days, before replying to correspondence. Today I managed to transcribe the entries for Anglesea and Berkshire from GS Parry’s book of PCC Abstracts. However, I didn’t then manage to finish emails to the three new correspondents (the third new one arrived today) so the plan may not always work.
But at least I’ve tried!
Whilst checking ebay notifications, I came across a reference to a “Lorris and Roger Parry”. Further investigation revealed Roger Parry (1905-1977) was a French artist. The “Lorris” turned out to be a Fabian Loris rather than “Lorris Parry”. But given that registered one-name studies carry out worldwide research, it is great to find someone in a country where the surname rarely occurs.
There are also references to work by 20 other Parry related artists on the artnet site so I shall have a look through those later.
Ebay can be an interesting source of information – I didn’t know a Parry wrote a “Cyclopaedia of Perfumery”. There’s also another French connection, as a Parry-Vielle limoges box is listed. I don’t know the reason for the Parry in this company’s name and it looks as if the company’s website is unavailable so no source for their history there. But searching for more information on them did net me 4 Parrys from a list of voters in Placer County, CA, in 1890. Although I did decide not to sidetrack to explore all the other companies that are found by searching www.parry- on google. That's an activity for another day.
I didn’t actually submit any entries to the Liverpool Marriage challenge, given how many there were for Parrys. However, I did send the challenger a list of them, in case it was useful in helping to narrow down the possible churches for other people’s entries (since I had been able to identify a reasonable number of the churches by using the Liverpool BMD site). Today I received a file back, with over 200 of the exact dates added in, as well as a few of the churches I had not been able to identify. That will certainly be a great help and was a lovely surprise.
In order to ensure the study progresses, I am planning to try doing some work on extractions or transcriptions most days, before replying to correspondence. Today I managed to transcribe the entries for Anglesea and Berkshire from GS Parry’s book of PCC Abstracts. However, I didn’t then manage to finish emails to the three new correspondents (the third new one arrived today) so the plan may not always work.
But at least I’ve tried!
Monday, December 31, 2007
Rounding off the year
As this will be my last posting of the year, a year end round up seems a more appropriate subject than just a "catch up" of December's activities, although I need to do that first.
At the beginning of December, a couple of new databases were mentioned on the mailing lists:
The Dublin 1911 census became available from the National Archives of Ireland – 38 references to Parrys, although five are a family of "Kaye-Parry" and one has Parry as a middle name. Some of the entries were in boats and it took a bit of searching to find the Parrys in these, since there were several images in each set, but I managed it in the end.
Some Seaman's Wills were launched by the National Archives (DocumentsOnline) - 10 Parry records there. Interestingly, two appear to have been made on the same day, for two Parrys who are on the same ship. I wonder whether they are related or whether it is just coincidence.
Another researcher sent me details of the Bendigo Goldfields Petition of 1853, which has three Parry entries.
A certificate arrived on the 24th from the Billericay marriage challenge. I also received one on the 28th from the Aylesbury challenge. These were both 100% successes, since there was only one Parry entry in each of the districts. The variation in the number of Parry marriages in the different registration districts around the country will be an interesting subject to investigate when I finally get all of the information collected and can start plotting the distributions of events over time. As with the census distributions, I imagine the analysis will demonstrate how Parrys have spread across the UK from Wales over the years.
So that's a quick summary of the main events since I last posted here, but how has the overall year gone?
My resolution for 2007 was "to be more organised". In some ways, it's quite depressing to look back at the tasks I was considering at the start of the year – transcribing the census entries for my three main counties and getting them online, transcribing some Wills for Llanvallteg in Carmarthenshire in order to investigate the use of a coat of arms, collecting and checking the GRO entries, etc. – and to realise that none of them have been completed.
So I'll concentrate on the positives for the year instead!
I have managed to submit entries for almost 40 marriage challenges.
I have written some web pages to support the mailing list and message board.
There have been frequent extractions from new databases, many of them discovered as a result of the suggestions made on the Guild forum, which remains one of the best resources I know.
I have received and replied to over 300 specifically Parry related queries, of which 56 have been from new contacts (two in the last few days).
And I have started a Parry DNA study.
With regard to the last point, I missed out one event that occurred in December – the arrival of the results for the first participant in the DNA study. These were originally due to arrive during January but I received a notification on 20th December that the initial markers were posted and, by the 24th, all 67 Y-DNA markers as well as the mtDNA results were available. The mtDNA haplogroup of J* seems to indicate a maternal ancestor associated with the spread of agriculture into Europe during the neolithic period - interesting, but not directly relevant to the Parry surname study.
Of more relevance are the Y-DNA results – haplogroup R1b1c, which I understand is part of the most common haplogroup in Western Europe. No exact matches above 12 markers so far in the database, and no Parrys amongst the limited marker matches. But, since the Y-DNA is also that of my own family line, receiving the results has made the end of the year feel like a new beginning.
I have already mentioned that doing more work on my own family will be a goal for next year. Publicising the DNA study further on the appropriate mailing lists and message boards has now been added to that. There's still a lot that I need to learn and understand with regard to the use of DNA for genealogy but hopefully that will come with time – time to read my new resources, "DNA & Genealogy" by Fitzpatrick and Yeiser, and Chris Pomery's new book "Family History in the Genes". I thought Pomeroy was an uncommon name (1523 in the 2002 Office of National Statistics database database, as opposed to 35614 Parrys) but Chris mentions 1400 Pomeroy researchers who have helped him build up the Pomeroy study over 7 years. Thinking of ratios, the equivalent number of possible Parry correspondents could be interesting - perhaps I won't work too hard on the publicity to start with!
Other goals for the year – improving the organisation of the study will continue to be a priority, especially with regard to correspondence. There was talk on the forum recently about managing communication and better use of technology such as google mail. I should also develop some standard letters for administrative issues, such as on the mailing list or for those people who contact me not knowing where to start with research, as well as find a more efficient way of producing responses whilst investigating queries. That might help me to avoid the situation I currently have, of about 15 researchers awaiting replies where I know what needs saying but still have to write it all in a sensible order.
The work on transcribing the censuses for my three main counties will continue – that fits in with doing more on my own family as well as helping several contacts that I have specifically said I will produce pedigrees for. Systematic data collection, especially for the vital records to ensure I make full use of opportunities such as the marriage challenges, will be ongoing. I also hope to publish more on the web site and ensure that it is updated regularly. The Heraldry pages, in particular, will be an early target. And, finally, I intend to investigate using resources such as facebook for contacting people interested in the Parry surname.
That lot should certainly keep me busy in 2008. Happy New Year everyone!
At the beginning of December, a couple of new databases were mentioned on the mailing lists:
The Dublin 1911 census became available from the National Archives of Ireland – 38 references to Parrys, although five are a family of "Kaye-Parry" and one has Parry as a middle name. Some of the entries were in boats and it took a bit of searching to find the Parrys in these, since there were several images in each set, but I managed it in the end.
Some Seaman's Wills were launched by the National Archives (DocumentsOnline) - 10 Parry records there. Interestingly, two appear to have been made on the same day, for two Parrys who are on the same ship. I wonder whether they are related or whether it is just coincidence.
Another researcher sent me details of the Bendigo Goldfields Petition of 1853, which has three Parry entries.
A certificate arrived on the 24th from the Billericay marriage challenge. I also received one on the 28th from the Aylesbury challenge. These were both 100% successes, since there was only one Parry entry in each of the districts. The variation in the number of Parry marriages in the different registration districts around the country will be an interesting subject to investigate when I finally get all of the information collected and can start plotting the distributions of events over time. As with the census distributions, I imagine the analysis will demonstrate how Parrys have spread across the UK from Wales over the years.
So that's a quick summary of the main events since I last posted here, but how has the overall year gone?
My resolution for 2007 was "to be more organised". In some ways, it's quite depressing to look back at the tasks I was considering at the start of the year – transcribing the census entries for my three main counties and getting them online, transcribing some Wills for Llanvallteg in Carmarthenshire in order to investigate the use of a coat of arms, collecting and checking the GRO entries, etc. – and to realise that none of them have been completed.
So I'll concentrate on the positives for the year instead!
I have managed to submit entries for almost 40 marriage challenges.
I have written some web pages to support the mailing list and message board.
There have been frequent extractions from new databases, many of them discovered as a result of the suggestions made on the Guild forum, which remains one of the best resources I know.
I have received and replied to over 300 specifically Parry related queries, of which 56 have been from new contacts (two in the last few days).
And I have started a Parry DNA study.
With regard to the last point, I missed out one event that occurred in December – the arrival of the results for the first participant in the DNA study. These were originally due to arrive during January but I received a notification on 20th December that the initial markers were posted and, by the 24th, all 67 Y-DNA markers as well as the mtDNA results were available. The mtDNA haplogroup of J* seems to indicate a maternal ancestor associated with the spread of agriculture into Europe during the neolithic period - interesting, but not directly relevant to the Parry surname study.
Of more relevance are the Y-DNA results – haplogroup R1b1c, which I understand is part of the most common haplogroup in Western Europe. No exact matches above 12 markers so far in the database, and no Parrys amongst the limited marker matches. But, since the Y-DNA is also that of my own family line, receiving the results has made the end of the year feel like a new beginning.
I have already mentioned that doing more work on my own family will be a goal for next year. Publicising the DNA study further on the appropriate mailing lists and message boards has now been added to that. There's still a lot that I need to learn and understand with regard to the use of DNA for genealogy but hopefully that will come with time – time to read my new resources, "DNA & Genealogy" by Fitzpatrick and Yeiser, and Chris Pomery's new book "Family History in the Genes". I thought Pomeroy was an uncommon name (1523 in the 2002 Office of National Statistics database database, as opposed to 35614 Parrys) but Chris mentions 1400 Pomeroy researchers who have helped him build up the Pomeroy study over 7 years. Thinking of ratios, the equivalent number of possible Parry correspondents could be interesting - perhaps I won't work too hard on the publicity to start with!
Other goals for the year – improving the organisation of the study will continue to be a priority, especially with regard to correspondence. There was talk on the forum recently about managing communication and better use of technology such as google mail. I should also develop some standard letters for administrative issues, such as on the mailing list or for those people who contact me not knowing where to start with research, as well as find a more efficient way of producing responses whilst investigating queries. That might help me to avoid the situation I currently have, of about 15 researchers awaiting replies where I know what needs saying but still have to write it all in a sensible order.
The work on transcribing the censuses for my three main counties will continue – that fits in with doing more on my own family as well as helping several contacts that I have specifically said I will produce pedigrees for. Systematic data collection, especially for the vital records to ensure I make full use of opportunities such as the marriage challenges, will be ongoing. I also hope to publish more on the web site and ensure that it is updated regularly. The Heraldry pages, in particular, will be an early target. And, finally, I intend to investigate using resources such as facebook for contacting people interested in the Parry surname.
That lot should certainly keep me busy in 2008. Happy New Year everyone!
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Parry’s Reptilian Wonders
It can be quite frustrating to discover a Parry reference and then not be able to follow it up further. A few weeks ago, on the One Show, Neil Oliver did a feature about the Royal Menagerie. In the discussion afterwards, they happened to show a photograph of a travelling zoo, which I noticed was called “Parry’s Reptilian Wonders”. I have written to the programme to ask for details about the source of the photograph but have not received a response. Searching the 1901 census site for Parrys who were travellers or had an occupation concerning zoos, circuses, animals, or reptiles, did unearth one possible family when I used “travel*” as the search term. There’s a couple from Lancashire, visiting a house in Worcestershire - William aged 25, with his wife Margaret, aged 21, along with a 7 month old son who was born in Staffordshire. William and Margaret both have the occupation “Travelling Showman”, which could be a promising lead – although I might have expected them to spend the nights in their own wagon, rather than sleeping locally.
But, so far, there are no other clues. So, if anyone comes across “Parrys Reptilian Wonders”, I’d really love to hear about it.
But, so far, there are no other clues. So, if anyone comes across “Parrys Reptilian Wonders”, I’d really love to hear about it.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Another interesting book
I received another "new" book today – the fourth volume of Michael Powell Siddons’ work, "The Development of Welsh Heraldry". It has a photograph of the monument to Blanch Parry at Bacton in it, as well as a photograph of one of the two Parry windows at Atcham (which were removed from Bacton in 1811). I already have photographs of some of the arms at Atcham on my page concerning the Parry families who used the "fess and three lozenges" (here) but I am aware of differences both in the arms shown on the various memorials to Blanch and also in the interpretations of those arms so perhaps it is time I gathered the information from the various sources together.
Interestingly, Siddons also quotes from notes made in 1569, concerning some arms seen "in Mr Parri’s howsse" in Herefordshire - but they do not include the standard Parry "fess and three lozenges" and they do include the arms of Moreiddig Warwyn. Later documents seem at pains to point out that the Parrys do not descend from that Moreiddig but from "Moreiddig of the Golden Valley".
So there’s a puzzle to investigate next year.
To do more work on the Parry heraldry will go with my other New Year’s resolution – to do more on my own family. And no doubt I shall be continuing with the ongoing challenge of "organisation"!
There have been several new databases recently:
US passports applications on Ancestry – I actually remembered to use Parry as a keyword, so picked up 221 entries, as opposed to just the 145 surnamed Parry. Some of the additional references relate to addresses (born in Parry Sound, live in South Parry, Ohio or Parry City, New York, etc) but most of them are people with Parry as a first or middle name, so they’ll be interesting to follow through.
Ancestry also added the Australian electoral rolls (1901-1935) - 4965 entries there. And I noticed the Radnorshire marriages for 1813-1835 which I don’t think I have seen before, so that’s another 56 entries.
I do have quite a list of sites to check that have been mentioned on the Forum. I have also sent off requests for three marriage challenges this week, as well as recently received results from others, so there is still a lot going on (despite the absence of blog activity).
And, with the DNA study starting up, it looks like 2008 could be an even busier year.
Interestingly, Siddons also quotes from notes made in 1569, concerning some arms seen "in Mr Parri’s howsse" in Herefordshire - but they do not include the standard Parry "fess and three lozenges" and they do include the arms of Moreiddig Warwyn. Later documents seem at pains to point out that the Parrys do not descend from that Moreiddig but from "Moreiddig of the Golden Valley".
So there’s a puzzle to investigate next year.
To do more work on the Parry heraldry will go with my other New Year’s resolution – to do more on my own family. And no doubt I shall be continuing with the ongoing challenge of "organisation"!
There have been several new databases recently:
US passports applications on Ancestry – I actually remembered to use Parry as a keyword, so picked up 221 entries, as opposed to just the 145 surnamed Parry. Some of the additional references relate to addresses (born in Parry Sound, live in South Parry, Ohio or Parry City, New York, etc) but most of them are people with Parry as a first or middle name, so they’ll be interesting to follow through.
Ancestry also added the Australian electoral rolls (1901-1935) - 4965 entries there. And I noticed the Radnorshire marriages for 1813-1835 which I don’t think I have seen before, so that’s another 56 entries.
I do have quite a list of sites to check that have been mentioned on the Forum. I have also sent off requests for three marriage challenges this week, as well as recently received results from others, so there is still a lot going on (despite the absence of blog activity).
And, with the DNA study starting up, it looks like 2008 could be an even busier year.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Ruth’s book launch
I took a day trip to Bacton, in Herefordshire, today, for the launch of Ruth’s book, "Mistress Blanche, Queen Elizabeth I’s Confidante".
I’m really looking forward to reading it, since Ruth has been able to examine, and have transcribed, some documents which have never been available before. So it will be a great addition to the information that's known about this Parry family from Herefordshire, as well as of relevance to anyone interested in Elizabeth's court.
I’m really looking forward to reading it, since Ruth has been able to examine, and have transcribed, some documents which have never been available before. So it will be a great addition to the information that's known about this Parry family from Herefordshire, as well as of relevance to anyone interested in Elizabeth's court.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
The Parry DNA Project
Back in May, I briefly wrote about attending the Guild DNA seminar and about how there probably needs to be a lot more "paper research" before DNA can be used effectively with regard to the Parrys. But following recent discussions on the forum, I decided it was time to act. So, despite the fact that the paper research still needs doing and that I haven’t even caught up with all my emails, I have taken the opportunity to set up a Parry DNA project. Well, actually, Susan from the Guild made all the arrangements, so it is a big thanks to her for doing that. But I am the administrator for the project so now it’s down to me. I still need to update the project profile page, so that it describes the project in more detail. I’ll also need to update my own Parry web pages and the Parry profile at the Guild, as well as let people know about it via the mailing lists etc. But at least the actual testing system is up and running. Information can be found at http://www.familytreedna.com/public/Parry/.
Thinking of the mailing lists, in my last entry I wrote about the lack of activity there – October has now had more messages posted to the list than any month ever, and more than the last five months added together! It is encouraging to see people helping each other. Unfortunately for me, the majority of the postings have been message board postings, and the topic has wandered from its original subject, which means I shall have to work out how to tidy up the threads – something I haven’t particularly had to do before. (But I’m not complaining!)
Some other new information arrived today, in the form of two marriage certificates from the Poplar marriage challenge. One of them, Annie Eliza Parry who married William Edward Orchard in 1866, I have been able to identify in the earlier censuses. These challenge results always provide an opportunity to search for specific people in a way that I probably don’t do when just collecting census information. It often results in me being able to match people up across the censuses. Unfortunately the other marriage result, William Parry who married Emma Croxton in 1869, is a bit more elusive. Interestingly, his father was a James Wellington Parry, who I don’t think I have come across before (a middle name like that would tend to stick in my mind). There are a couple of Parrys with Wellington as a middle name nearer to 1900, but I can’t see any obvious connection at the moment.
Talking of marriage challenges, I did finally get the Bromsgrove entries submitted, as well as a few relating to challenges with only a small number of Parry entries, although I still have another large area, Marylebone, to check through. Sometimes jobs take longer than expected – but other times I just get sidetracked. A few days ago, I considered posting an entry entitled "Good intentions". It was going to describe how I had started the day full of plans to catch up with various emails and get several sets of challenge submissions organised but how I had soon found myself doing other things. This was because, when I started to answer an email from a new contact in Australia, it reminded me that I had not extracted all the Parry entries from the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages.
2251 entries later… (and no emails, challenge submissions or blog entry achieved)
And, as people start their Christmas countdowns, I realise I have less than three months to achieve last year’s resolution!
Thinking of the mailing lists, in my last entry I wrote about the lack of activity there – October has now had more messages posted to the list than any month ever, and more than the last five months added together! It is encouraging to see people helping each other. Unfortunately for me, the majority of the postings have been message board postings, and the topic has wandered from its original subject, which means I shall have to work out how to tidy up the threads – something I haven’t particularly had to do before. (But I’m not complaining!)
Some other new information arrived today, in the form of two marriage certificates from the Poplar marriage challenge. One of them, Annie Eliza Parry who married William Edward Orchard in 1866, I have been able to identify in the earlier censuses. These challenge results always provide an opportunity to search for specific people in a way that I probably don’t do when just collecting census information. It often results in me being able to match people up across the censuses. Unfortunately the other marriage result, William Parry who married Emma Croxton in 1869, is a bit more elusive. Interestingly, his father was a James Wellington Parry, who I don’t think I have come across before (a middle name like that would tend to stick in my mind). There are a couple of Parrys with Wellington as a middle name nearer to 1900, but I can’t see any obvious connection at the moment.
Talking of marriage challenges, I did finally get the Bromsgrove entries submitted, as well as a few relating to challenges with only a small number of Parry entries, although I still have another large area, Marylebone, to check through. Sometimes jobs take longer than expected – but other times I just get sidetracked. A few days ago, I considered posting an entry entitled "Good intentions". It was going to describe how I had started the day full of plans to catch up with various emails and get several sets of challenge submissions organised but how I had soon found myself doing other things. This was because, when I started to answer an email from a new contact in Australia, it reminded me that I had not extracted all the Parry entries from the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages.
2251 entries later… (and no emails, challenge submissions or blog entry achieved)
And, as people start their Christmas countdowns, I realise I have less than three months to achieve last year’s resolution!
Friday, September 21, 2007
Picking up the pace.
I was going to call this entry "What happened to August?" but then it might have turned out to be one of those backward looking, "too many things to do, not enough time to do them" posts, which would not do justice to the recent activity on the study. As it happened, from the point of view of new databases and active research, it was a fairly quiet month and, yes, that was fortunate, since I was busy doing other things.
But over the last few weeks there has been a veritable flurry of activity on the study.
I have sorted and sent off details for all but one of the seven marriage challenges recently announced. Most of them only had one or two Parry entries but the seventh, which I am still working on, is for Bromsgrove. With its proximity to the counties bordering Wales, it was no surprise to discover there are 71 entries to check.
Some members of the Guild have now started to carry out "birth and burial" challenges, as well. So I have my name submitted for three of those.
There have been updates to a few databases, as well as a new site launched. The City of London burials on findmypast now contains 190 Parrys, instead of the 167 that were there when I checked in April. Another decade has also been added to the Passenger lists – there are now 5395 Parrys listed for between 1890-1939. The new site is http://www.bmdregisters.co.uk/, subtitled the Official Non-Parochial BMDs Service. It is a pay-per-view site, at the moment covering items contained in RG4 and RG5 at the National Archives. As some of the Guild members have pointed out, there are some anomalies in the transcriptions, and some of the information is available on the IGI, so it isn’t necessarily worth paying to obtain more details at the moment. But it is certainly a site worth keeping an eye on, as the intention is to add more records and an index pointing to available information is always a help.
Correspondence, as usual, is an issue, with some long-standing items that I need to go through to check the information on, still to be answered. On the other hand, it is an exciting aspect of the study, with 8 new contacts since the beginning of August, several of which are researching Parrys in "my" area. Another pleasing aspect is their own locations – whilst most of my contacts are in the UK, with some American and Australian researchers, two of the newer contacts have been from France and Germany, which may provide some insight into the mobility of certain families. Being able to put the French researcher in touch with a UK member of the same family is an added bonus.
Of course, it is never possible to "clear" the correspondence. I managed to answer five queries one day – and by the end of the day every one had written back to me. Perhaps it’s an indication of the vibrant state of Parry research, although one wouldn’t think that's the situation looking at the Rootsweb mailing list and message board. I must start to regularly encourage more postings on there.
It’s certainly time to pick up the pace.
But over the last few weeks there has been a veritable flurry of activity on the study.
I have sorted and sent off details for all but one of the seven marriage challenges recently announced. Most of them only had one or two Parry entries but the seventh, which I am still working on, is for Bromsgrove. With its proximity to the counties bordering Wales, it was no surprise to discover there are 71 entries to check.
Some members of the Guild have now started to carry out "birth and burial" challenges, as well. So I have my name submitted for three of those.
There have been updates to a few databases, as well as a new site launched. The City of London burials on findmypast now contains 190 Parrys, instead of the 167 that were there when I checked in April. Another decade has also been added to the Passenger lists – there are now 5395 Parrys listed for between 1890-1939. The new site is http://www.bmdregisters.co.uk/, subtitled the Official Non-Parochial BMDs Service. It is a pay-per-view site, at the moment covering items contained in RG4 and RG5 at the National Archives. As some of the Guild members have pointed out, there are some anomalies in the transcriptions, and some of the information is available on the IGI, so it isn’t necessarily worth paying to obtain more details at the moment. But it is certainly a site worth keeping an eye on, as the intention is to add more records and an index pointing to available information is always a help.
Correspondence, as usual, is an issue, with some long-standing items that I need to go through to check the information on, still to be answered. On the other hand, it is an exciting aspect of the study, with 8 new contacts since the beginning of August, several of which are researching Parrys in "my" area. Another pleasing aspect is their own locations – whilst most of my contacts are in the UK, with some American and Australian researchers, two of the newer contacts have been from France and Germany, which may provide some insight into the mobility of certain families. Being able to put the French researcher in touch with a UK member of the same family is an added bonus.
Of course, it is never possible to "clear" the correspondence. I managed to answer five queries one day – and by the end of the day every one had written back to me. Perhaps it’s an indication of the vibrant state of Parry research, although one wouldn’t think that's the situation looking at the Rootsweb mailing list and message board. I must start to regularly encourage more postings on there.
It’s certainly time to pick up the pace.
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