Yateley Families
Did rural families tend to live in the same village over many centuries?
My generation learnt in school that poorer rural families tended to remain within a small local area over many centuries. Thinking back, the reasons for this perception are probably routed in teaching about the manorial system of feudal England, that serfs and villeins were tied to their masters by service. In later centuries, children were taught, if poor people strayed then the poor law system tended to return them to workhouses in their home parishes. Certainly the family which gives me my own surname remained within a small group of parishes in rural Shropshire for at least five centuries. But is this true for Yateley?
FACT OR FICTION?
In 2001 the Yateley Society decided to try to find out the answer to this question for our annual Local History Exhibition to be mounted for Local History Month in Yateley Library. We are a bit like Time Team investigating archaeology on on Channel 4. They have "three days to find out". For our local history projects the Society generally has "three months to find out" before we move on to another topic. In 2001 we wanted to find out if typical Yateley families had live here for several centuries
The Society's 21st annual 2001 exhibition was called 4 Yateley Families. We chose to research one family from each of four socio-economic groups:
- FITZROY family representing the aristocracy
CAVE family representing the gentryBUNCH family were the artisansGODDARD family had the highest number of births recorded in the baptismal registers, were mainly described as 'ag. labs.' in the Victorian six census, and were mostly described as 'labourer' in the parish records.
Click on the links to each of the four families, or click on NEXT for further background on Yateley families, and new research (2007)
- CASE STUDY: Mrs Jean McIlwaine - St Peter's Church Archivist
Jean McIlwaine's mother was Sybil Catherine OVER born 23 May 1914 at Church Lodge on the Minley Estate. Most of Jean's maternal ancestors lived in and around the old parish of Yateley which, until the 19th century, included the whole of Hawley, Cove and Minley. The parishes ajoining YATELEY (1636) were FRIMLEY (1590, orginally part of ASH 1548), FARNBOROUGH (1584), ALDERSHOT (1571), CRONDALL (1569), ELVETHAM (1638), EVERSLEY (1559), FINCHAMPSTEAD (1653) and SANDHURST (1603). Dates in brackets are those from which the parish registers survive.
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