A “shaggy heifer” tale, or “One thing leads to another”
Going off in tangents, so I’ve been told, is a symptom of ADHD. A few days ago, (January 2024) I was merrily researching steamships to complete another project, “The Life and Sea-Faring Times of...
The Linden Tree – The Lindegaard Family History
I wrote this a long time ago and refer to it as “my juvenelia”! I need to revisit it and improve it. It charts the story of how my husband’s family (by the name...
“Free Coloured Persons”: the ancestral story of Charles Walter Cumberbatch
“Going to Barbados” (a euphemism for being “under the influence”.) Benjamin Franklin, 1737. (attrib.) [1] “Barbados is the other place where I like to be.” Cliff Richard. Introduction This is the sequel to “Pamela...
My Pillinger Women: No. 4 – Martha Britton Pillinger and her daughter, Pamela Pillinger Cumberbatch
On 12th May 1850 when a baby girl was baptised at a small village in Somerset called Queen Charlton, her first name may have caused a slight flutter of interest, as it did to...
Colin Pillinger – The ‘rock fan’ who set his sights on Mars
9 May 1943, something was up, my cousin Joyce Comley arrived “to mind me”. She was sixteen and very grand. Children then were supposed to be “seen and not heard” which didn’t suit me...
My Pillinger Women: No. 3 Julia Pillinger
It will be no surprise if I say I am interested in those women who in days of yore, when it was doubly or trebly difficult, managed to have a life outside the domestic...
My Pillinger Women: No. 2 Amelia Pillinger (1835-1882)
In the present year, 2022, Amelia is number 3 in the top one-hundred girls’ names. Before we get to Amelia Pillinger let’s start with…two historical Amelias: The name first became popular when the German...
My Pillinger Women: No. 1 Hephzibah Day Pillinger
The first in my new series of my Pillinger women ancestors starting with Hephzibah Day Pillinger. When I began my family tree back in Palaeolithic times like most newbies I was guilty of racing...
Bristol is a village……or…….Who will I find next?
It has been said often enough that “Bristol is a village”; you will generally meet someone you know, or if you were my Dad, you would “get talking, and know their Auntie Fanny” or...
Crowd funding 19th Century Style…….Jeremiah Pillinger and a tale of two (?) horses…..
Looking for a simple paragraph or two before my executive technical adviser goes on holiday, I dug this up. It proved more than I anticipated. Sorry Kevin: From Bristol Gazette, 5 March 1807: “To...
About Me
I have been researching the social history of the West Country for 45 years. During this time I have collated information on a wide range of people living and working in the West Country including miners, ethnic minorities, petty criminals, sailors, tommies, benefactors, brassmakers and many more. The thing that I find amazing is that ordinary people always lived extraordinary lives. I hope you like my blog that brings together my lifetime of research.
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A “shaggy heifer” tale, or “One thing leads to another”
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