The Stockings Were Hung . . .

Most blogs this week have great Christmas themes, from pictures of decorated trees of the past to names of ancestors some family historians would like to have as guests for dinner, to ideas about getting all that information from family members assembled together to celebrate the season.

OK, I won’t disappoint. This one is about Christmas stockings, hung with care in hopes of. . . (with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore).

In the hundreds of photographs in my dozens of family albums, I thought I had many pictures of stockings hung on a fireplace or a reasonable facsimile from past Christmases. I was wrong. There were many trees, all decked out, most with presents scattered under them following Santa’s visits and before children got to them. But there were only a few showing stockings. The earliest I could find – 1974 and 1975 – were taken after all three of our children had arrived. The stockings were pretty basic models to start with but they got more elaborate as the years went on.

 

By 1983 we all had personalized stockings made by my wife, Linda, each with bright Christmas-print fabrics.

 

When our children were married, Linda made additional stockings for the new members of the family.

 

I was curious, as many others are, about how this tradition got started. I don’t recall ever looking into the history before. It never seemed to be important. Only the happy faces of children (and many adults) when they came upon them Christmas morning was what counted. So, like all modern researchers, I looked it up on the Internet.

A 2012 article written by Emily Spivak for the Smithsonian caught my attention, highlighting the story and showing pictures of stockings going back many decades. She related the common story about the origin as being St. Nicolas (the Bishop of Myra at the time) sneaking into the home of a widower with three daughters and putting gold coins in their stockings, which had been hung by the fireplace to dry. The gift meant they then had the wherewithal to attract husbands. I know dowries used to be important but were men so shallow back then that they needed their brides to bring a little cash with them? 

Anyway, versions of this story have been told for generations now. If it is even close to the truth, then the beginning of Christmas stockings would have begun early in the 4^th century, in a little village in what is now Turkey – long before there were genealogists.

There are many side stories about other traditions concerning what was or is put into stockings, too:

·         Oranges are, or were common gifts (Don’t you remember getting those juicy little Mandarin treats?). One explanation is that they are supposedly symbols of St. Nicholas as they are gold in colour.

·         Some regions use boots or shoes instead of stockings. Prior to the introduction of Christianity, Germanic children, celebrating the Yuletide period, would apparently fill them with carrots, straw or sugar for the flying horse of the Norse god, Odin. Odin in return would return the favour by leaving gifts or candy. This old, white-bearded god may have been the model for the Santa Clause we know. The horse’s name was Sleipnir, and it had eight legs!

·         A story grew up in Western Culture that bad children would be given coal in their stockings. There are no reports of it actually happening as it is a cruel thing to do and not, in any way, fitting for Christmas. Perhaps the idea was just used as an enticement to children to be good, just as we tell them today that Santa Claus is always watching to see who is naughty or nice. Or maybe it comes from the use of an Italian candy called Carbone Dolce, which looks like coal. You can find a recipe to make it yourself here.

There is an interesting article from the New York Times published in 1883 about how in the 19^th century the Christmas Stocking had been supplanted by the use of the Christmas Tree – “a rootless and lifeless corpse” according to the editorial writer. The article celebrated the introduction of a new type of decorated stocking, much more in keeping with the holiday season.

Hanging Christmas stockings is a neat tradition to observe now. You don’t have to belong to any particular religion or have any specific familial origin to enjoy it and bring smiles to all family members. They are decorative as well as fun things. You can find hundreds of ideas online now about how to fill a stocking (Is that really necessary?) or what to put in them (Again, this is not rocket science!).

Linda, has made many stockings over the years – for our children, for brothers and sisters, for nieces and nephews and for friends, some of which are shown above. In 2007 our whole family was invited to spend the holiday with our son and daughter-in-law in Florida. While there we were also going to spend some time at Disney World. So she made a stocking for everyone who was going to be there, all with a Disney Theme – 17 of them! They are works of art as well as useful repositories for gifts. Don’t you think?

 

Our children still have and hang theirs each Christmas. Grandma’s stockings have become favourite additions to their seasonal décor and maybe will be family memorabilia one day, too. 

These will be filled by Santa when he makes his stop in Vancouver, Canada.

 These four are now waiting for Santa to arrive in Beijing, China.

We still have ours, now hanging on the fireplace of our new condo. I am not sure Santa will have time to come here this year, though, especially with no kids around! We’ll enjoy the season in other ways. And yes, mine is that loveable character Grumpy!

To all of my readers here, please have a very . . .

And to all a good night!

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is the Editor of Relatively Speaking, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Genealogical Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated.

What do your children want to know about your family history?

Many genealogists I know are starting to think about how they can interest and involve younger members of their family in their activities. Most societies are wondering where their future members will come from to continue their programs. Is that because we are all getting older and are worried about what will happen to all those years of work and the tons of information we have collected?

Whatever the reason, it’s not a bad idea to engage young family members in the pursuit of knowledge about their ancestors. They might learn something about themselves as well as about their history.

As the Editor of Relatively Speaking, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Genealogical Society, I just helped publish a whole issue dedicated to Youth and Genealogy. We had a variety of papers about how to get children started, what benefits there are to introducing them to genealogy and an outline of a new program initiated by our Society. There were even stories written by children themselves about their own backgrounds. The contributions were both interesting and informative. A list of the feature articles is at the bottom of this post.

In the process of sourcing and assembling material I learned quite a bit about what is out there for parents, teachers and others who want to show children what they do and how they do it, with respect to family history. Three genealogical societies in Canada now have programs on their websites that are helpful:

·         Alberta Genealogical Society – http://www.abgenealogy.ca/genealogy-for-youth The AGS Genealogical Project for Children and Youth. The first resource within this project (intended for children aged 6 to 9 years of age) has just been released on-line. Enjoy exploring!

·         Ontario Genealogical Socitey – https://www.ogs.on.ca/lessonplans.php The OGS Family History Lesson Plans Project for elementary and secondary students began this past summer with the intention of connecting OGS with students by providing educational resources to educators.

·         Victoria Genealogical Society – http://www.victoriags.org/school/ The VGS Genealogy in the Classroom webpages provide lesson plans with resources such as printable genealogy forms and free online genealogy games.

I would be interested in hearing about other groups around the world that have similar genealogical programs for children and youth.

Anyway, back to the question I posed as the title of this post – perhaps the best way to get children started in looking at family history is to ask them what they would like to know.

How many people have you come across who have told you they wished they had asked their parents and grandparents about their experiences and personal histories? Have you muttered that to yourself as well on occasion? Now most of us spend countless hours and funds trying to find many of the answers that people we knew and grew up with might have been able to provide.

Don’t let your descendants make the same mistakes. Go ask your children and grandchildren what they would like to know about your/their family. They might surprise you by showing an interest in what you have done and learned and want to know more. Do it right now!

Here are the Feature Articles that are in the latest issue of Relatively Speaking (Volume 43, Number 4, November 2015). Let me know what other, similar papers are out there and I will help spread the word on this blog.

·         Sowing Winter Wheat: Introducing genealogy and family history to children and youth by John Althouse

John comments on the value of introducing children to the exciting adventure of family history research and introduces the new AGS project, Genealogy for Youth, which offers many resources to help teach children about their current and extended family.

·         Family Adhesive: The value of family history for children by Janet Hovorka

In this article we are shown how involving children in family history pursuits actually helps to teach them discipline, foster self-esteem and create strong relationships within the family.

·         The Search for Captain Roy Brown by John J. N. Chalmers

John relates his search for information, in particular the grave site of WWI war hero Roy Brown. At the same time a young student, Nadine Carter, was also in pursuit of the same information, and uncovered important facts about Captain Brown. This story is about her achievements as well.

·         Is Family History for Children and Youth? by Helen Gwilliam

Helen offers commentary and advice in having children participate in genealogical activities in which they can gain experiences and practice valuable skills that will help them in the future.

·         Mystery by Anne Baines

Anne’s grandson was invited to help research an ancestor and ended up finding new information that helped answer questions about the relationship between two branches of their family.

·         Immigrants to Canada: A family history project in Grade 5 Social Studies by Marion Rex

Marion introduces several student authors who put together stories of their own families for a Grade 5 class project. Their contributions are as follows:

o   Our Acker Family’s Journey to Canada by Colin Acker and Allison Martens

o   Escape From Czechoslovakia: The Bouz Journey by Leah Kinahan and John Bouz

o   Isley Family Descendants by Andrew Kennedy

·         Let Them Contribute: How today’s youth are engaging in the genealogy space by Amanda Terry and Devin Ashby

Amanda and Devin describe many programs and activities available to children and youth that help them learn about genealogical research. They also offer advice to parents and others about directly involving young people in genealogy.

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is the Editor of Relatively Speaking, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Genealogical Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated.

Trends in Ages of Death in Cornwood Parish, Devon

In a previous post I mused on how old, on average, people were when they died in Cornwood Parish, Devon, in particular those members of my own family. Devon is where my paternal line came from, or at least lived for over 300 years. Cornwood is a rural area in southwest Devon – no big towns, no industry. It has always been a relatively quiet place, with most people occupied on the land. In recent, post WWII years it has become somewhat of a bedroom community with residents commuting to Plymouth to work. Notwithstanding all that, the population has not changed much since the early 1800s.

The main cemetery is located at St. Michael and All Angels church and here people of many denominations were buried. Whether the age at death trends are similar to other areas I don’t know yet. I will probably do a similar summary of adjacent parishes, some more urban in character, to see.

Figure 1 shows the total burials in the parish since 1811. Ages at death were rarely recorded prior to them so no trend can be seen. Burials more than doubled during the first few decades likely as a result of growth in population. Baptisms also grew over four-fold from the early 1700s before peaking out about 1820. From around 1850 both baptisms and burials declined, at least as far as the church records go. That may be partly due to people moving away from the church in their daily lives. We do know that, as of 1837, birth, marriage and death records had to be recorded in civil records so parish church registers lost some of their usefulness except for active parishioners. We also know that the population of the parish did not diminish into the 20^th century. But that’s another story. What I think we can deduce is that the general statistics and ratios in the church burial records represent those of the overall community.

 

The two things we might have expected are that death among children would have declined and the average age at death might have climbed over the last two hundred years. The graphs do not disappoint in that regard.

 

What did surprise me, although I should have realized this before since I have worked with the parish BMDs for so long, is that over 50% of the deaths in the decade 1821-1830 were children under the age of eleven, most under five years old. Even 30% by 1841-1850 seems high but unchecked diseases such as measles, typhus or tuberculosis, took their toll in those years, especially on the young. Similar trends exist for older age groups: the ratio for those 11 to 20 dropped from 10% in 1851-1860 to less than 1% in 1981-1990; for those 21 to 30, it drops from 14% to near zero; for those 31 to 40, from 10% also to less than 1%.

Judging by the trends shown for other age groups, there is no doubt that people lived considerably longer in the later decades. By 1981-1990, 35% of burials were of people who had reached their 80s. Another 5% were 90 or over, an age rarely seen in the early 19^th century. The main working class ages, 41 to 60, stayed about the same across the years but the proportions of people aged 61 to 80 buried in the 1980s more than doubled between 1830 and 1990, as might be expected.

The decade of 1911-1920 saw a jump in the number of deaths of people from infant age to the early twenties. A number of young adults died in 1918, many of them women, so the spike might partly represent deaths from the Spanish Flu pandemic. Certainly some of the burials might also have been of servicemen who died during WWI. Most of the children died in 1911, although not all in a short time period, so that may rule out an epidemic. The sample is just too small to really know what was going on but it’s worth looking at further.

One can read a lot of things into trends of births and deaths. Analyses like this are worth doing for family historians as it may give them another perspective of life in the communities in which their ancestors lived. In Cornwood, we can say that the burial numbers reflect a growing improvement in the health of residents with small peaks generally representative of epidemics which occasionally attacked the community. Such events were rare after the discovery of vaccinations and improvements in water and waste treatment.

It was in interesting little exercise. Most of my ancestors fit right in with the averages which is why I wanted to look at the numbers to start with. Next I will review some nearby parishes that contain more urban settings, to see if similar trends exist.

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is the Editor of Relatively Speaking, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Genealogical Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated.