The Shepheard One-Name Study

Having finally decided to embark on a one-name study of the name Shepheard I now have to formulate what the limits might be in terms of variants. In an article in volume 12 Issue 4 of the Journal of One-Name Studies, (October-December 2015), titled The Shepheard Surname: An Unlikely Name for an ONS?, I indicated that I thought there was merit in such a study, but only for the specific spelling of my name.

So, that is what we will do! I say “we” because I intend to enlist my daughter to assist in the recording of data and organizing of a website. That will reduce my work-load (Yeah, right!) but mainly it will ensure that there is someone to take over when I am gone. There is no rush there.

In the study, I will consider including other individuals with variants in spelling, but only if it can “be demonstrated that individuals with those different names had ancestors or a significant number of other family members who spelled their name as Shepheard.” One example in my family was first cousin, five times removed, John Shepheard (pictured below), who I like to say was born with an ‘a’ and died without it. I wrote about him the in the JOONS article.

 

Baptism, marriage and burial records for John Shepheard (1815-1898) of Cornwood parish, Devon

The next matter is to decide where to start; that is, what geographic region will be reviewed first. The natural place is Devon, England, where my direct line originated and where I have data back to the early 17^th century. As I demonstrated in my 2015 article, the county represents the highest concentration of people with our version of the surname into the 19^th century. Censuses from 1841 to 1871 showed the largest number of Shepheards of any county in England. That turned over in 1881 when Middlesex took over as number one.

Records for many Devon parishes only go back into the 1600s. Only three parishes have information further back than 1550, so our data for early families is limited. In Cornwood parish, where my ancestors lived for several hundred years, almost all records kept in the parish were destroyed in a fire in the churchwarden’s house in 1685, resulting in virtually nothing past that year.

By far the greatest proportion of Devon Shepheards were born in Modbury parish. Baptism records there go back to 1601. Between then and 1730, there were 265 Shepheard baptisms listed (2.04 per year). During that period there were also 102 marriages of Shepheard family members, 56 men and 46 women. There are several variants of the surname in the parish but they are intertwined and I have assumed that, because of the small size of the parish and the concentration of individuals, they are all related and members of the Shepheard family. From 1720 to 1820, there were only 83 Shepheard babies baptized in the parish (0.83 per year). I do not yet know why the numbers were falling off.

I have been going through English census records, surveying the lists by county and year. I am in the process of downloading images of the census pages that show Shepheard individuals from which I can start to construct families. I am also obtaining the pages from baptism, marriage and burial registers across England that list every individual Shepheard, as far back in time as there may be available.

With even just one spelling variation, there is an enormous amount of information available. The first year (few years?) of this study will likely be just identifying sources of information and compiling the records that show where individuals and families lived. As well as where they are now.

I am sure this is going to be both interesting and frustrating. The main goals are to find Shepheard families as far back in time and possible and, hopefully, determine how or if they are connected.

Wish us luck!

Webinar Participation

I had the pleasure earlier this month in presenting my talk about Genealogy and the Little Ice Age to two groups. One was in Seattle at the one-day conference put on by Unlock the Past. I was joined there by international experts, Blaine Bettinger, Maurice Gleeson and Cyndi Ingle.

As a special bonus, registrants to the conference can view all of the presentations on the Legacy Family Tree Webinars website. It is not too late to sign up. As Unlock the Past has announced in their latest newsletter. Details can be found for late registration on the Unlock the Past website. In addition to getting access to the 10 presentations, the price also includes an entry into a prize draw and a AU$90 discount coupon (approximately the full value of the livestream registration cost) on an order of Unlock the Past’s genealogy ebooks. A great deal!

As they say, “UPDATE 18 September 2018 – the conference and livestreaming itself has ended. You may still book for the recorded sessions – until 30 September 2018. The recorded sessions, will be available from (or before) Thursday 20 September 2018. A link and code to access these will be given to all who have registered. You will have access to the recordings for a month after you receive information on how to access them. Those who pre-booked or registered on the day for the in-person conference at the library may add access to the recordings for just the US$20 price difference.”

As a presenter, I only got to hear a few of the other talks as we were split into two rooms. I am looking forward to now hearing the rest.

Regular subscribers of Legacy Family Tree Webinars have access to the recordings as part of their annual membership. So, if you are already part of that wonderful resource, I hope you will sign in and watch all of the Seattle conference talks.

The Seattle conference and my presentation in Alberta this month offered me an opportunity to introduce my book, Surviving Mother Nature’s Tests, to more genealogists. I am eager to spread the word about how habitat has played an important role in the lives of our ancestors and that many decisions they made with respect to relocating may well have been due to the physical circumstances in which they lived or because of disasters that befell them.

Readers may purchase my book directly from Unlock the Past (Gould Genealogy & History), including an electronic (PDF) version. Print copies can also be purchased from me for Cdn$40 (plus shipping cost for those living outside Calgary, Alberta). Anyone interested can email me at survivingmnt@gmail.com to inquire about ordering.

I continue to research topics concerning natural phenomena and family history and will write more about the stories and reports I uncover – both on this blog and in articles in various journals and magazines. I am also preparing other presentations for public webinars. Stay tuned!

What happened in the year ….?

We have all seen those booklets for sale in gift shops and pharmacies loaded with trivia highlighting the events of certain years. They are directed at those people who are curious about the activities, people and news stories during the year in which they were born. I have one such publication, given to me by my sister on the occasion of my 60^th birthday (So many years ago!), called Once Upon a Time in the World 1945.

The booklet has information from the year of 1945 about: news stories, fun facts, science & technology, sports movies & Oscars, music, birthdays, zodiac and much more.

The booklet used to reside in the bathroom (euphemistically referred to as the “library”), along with other reading material, where I could occasionally look back on that momentous year, such as the following:

·         among many World War II news stories, in February of 1945, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt met in Yalta to discuss war arms

·         the Nobel prize in Medicine was awarded to Sir Alexander Fleming, Ernst B. Chain and Baron Florey for the discovery of penicillin

·         the Oscar for Best Movie went to The Lost Weekend starring Ray Milland and Jane Wyman

·         the song, Sentimental Journey reached number two on popular music’s Top Ten Hits

·         in August, atomic bombs were dropped on two cities in Japan.

So I wondered what I could find for those years in which some of my ancestors were born. Perhaps looking at the news of the day would give me a better understanding of life then – what important events might have affected day-to-day life or just what might have interested or entertained them.

There is a not-so-surprising amount of information on the internet for any particular year, going back hundreds of years. You might have copies of documents generated in the community, such as parish accounts, in which your ancestors lived that could add to the narrative.

I thought I would start with my paternal 2^nd great-grandfather, John Shepheard. His birth in 1830 was far enough back that it would offer interesting comparisons with the modern-day world but not so far back that finding information would be very difficult.

I thought newspapers would be a great source of information. On December 30^th, the date John Shepheard was baptized, the newspaper, the four-page Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post had all kinds of interesting information on:

·         world affairs – comments on the effect of the French and Belgian Revolutions on trade; the Five Great Powers agreeing “to acknowledge the independence of Belgium”; the King of Prussia adopting “precautions to preserve his share of the plunder of Poland from the epidemic of revolt”

·         government notices – one given setting the date for the Epiphany General Quarter Sessions of the Peace for the County of Devon

·         domestic matters such as – a report on a meeting about Poor Relief; the Quarter Sessions summary for Exeter City

·         results of criminal court matters – such as the sentencing of three gentlemen to transport to New South Wales “for disinterring and carrying away dead bodies at Stoke Damerel”

·         classified advertisements for – real estate for sale and rent; positions available; commercial goods and services; auctions

·         association and club meeting notices and reports – including some information about future fox-hound group meeting dates

·         commercial transactions and market reports

·         birth, marriage and death notices from several areas in Devon and elsewhere

Interestingly, page one of the Post had a series of advertisements for many medicinal products including Butler’s Cajeput Opodeldoc (a remedy for chronic rhematisms, spasmodic affections, chilblains, palsy, stiffness and enlargement of the joints), Improved Pectoral Balsam of Horehound (for coughs, colds, asthmas, hooping [sic] cough and all obstructions of the breast and lungs), Partridge’s Concentrated Pills (for “head ache, giddiness of the head and dimness of sight”), Hart’s White Itch Ointment (for obvious afflictions and which could “be safely used by persons of the most delicate constitution”), Dr. Sydenham’s Antibilious or Family Pills (for “bilious and liver complaints, gout, indigestion, flatulencies, habitual costiveness, spasms and nervots [sic] headaches”), Congreve’s Balsamic Elixir (for “coughs, hooping [sic] cough, shortness of breath and asthma”) and Powell’s Balsam of Aniseed (also for “coughs, colds, hoarseness, difficulty of breathing and huskiness in the throat”). These notes were real eye-openers of the complaints of the times!

It was like reading “A day in the life of. . .!” There were no reports from the Cornwood area in that particular edition of the Post, of course, as Exeter is some distance away and a small, rural parish did not always generate much activity that was newsworthy. I did find some references to the parish in other issues of both the Post and the North Devon Journal published during the year 1830, though. And there was a great deal going on in many other parts of Britain and the world that I have not reviewed yet.

A google search for “events in 1830” had 32,500,000 hits so it looked like I would not have any trouble finding out what was going on that year. Narrowing the search to “events in 1830 – United Kingdom” alone resulted in 858,000 hits. Wikipedia listed a number of events, including:

the death of King George IV and his succession by his brother William IV in June; the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; the last hanging for piracy in London; the Swing Riots by agricultural workers in East Kent who protested against the use of labour-displacing threshing machines; another disturbance called the Otmoor Riots, in Oxfordshire, following the enactment of laws concerning enclosure which disadvantaged many farmers; and, closer to home for me as an Earth scientist, the publication of the first volume of Principles of Geology by the Scottish geologist, Charles Lyell.

Next up – what happened in the year 1792, when my 3^rd great-grandfather was born?