Frolic!

Back in 1987 when I first walked into Weston Longville churchyard with my Dad and saw a row of gravestones carved with the name Bates - and one with Robert Bates etched into it - I had no idea what an influence that day, that place would have on my life.

Last weekend I organised the Annual Frolic for The Parson Woodforde Society, a jolly jaunt that including joining the congregation for a Harvest Thanksgiving service and lunch at the Weston pub that carries the Parson's name. 

Standing there in Weston churchyard, giving Society members a 'guided tour' of who was who in Woodforde's day was a rather surreal experience. Since 1987 I have come to be a bit of an expert on, er, those buried in the ground in Norfolk!

Slightly more cheery is another consequence of my passion for family tree: meeting long lost or rather never-known cousins.

I was delighted that my Dad attended the Frolic with me this year so that he could meet another new cousin - Midge - and once again catch up with Linda, whom we met in April. Dad and I went to see the lovely Derek and were joined by Midge and Linda - as well as Derek's two daughters, granddaughter and great grandson! 

I have no idea whether, given how distantly related we are, there is even any DNA that we share. What I do know is that these are wonderful people that I would never have met or known without Parson Woodforde and his Diary. And that is worth celebrating with a Frolic!

Stop press: another new cousin revealed - this one in France! 

Under the Parson's Nose...a Bates Family (Re)Union

One of the many joys of family history is connecting with like-minded people, drawing together strands of the family tree that have not been in contact for years, sometimes for generations. And meeting these people in real life.

Last weekend I brought together three branches of my Bates family tree in Weston Longville, the village in which we can all claim to have strong roots.

Sunday lunch in the Parson Woodforde pub - formerly the Five Ringers and the home in which my grandfather's aunt Emily lived as a young woman - was the perfect way for us all to get to know each other, share our own stories and look through old photographs.

Being Norfolk, there were - of course - many connections between us all, beyond our blood ties! It is, even in the 21st century, a small world.

Saluting the Parson, whose diaries were the catalyst for my genealogy hobby, I led the group across the lane to All Saints churchyard and gave a guided tour of the Bates, Gray and Dunnell gravestones to show how we were all related to each other.

We then headed to the site of Bates Farm - long since gone - and where a couple is building their dream home. As we stood at the gate taking photos, the couple approached and asked what we were doing: very swiftly we were all invited on to their property and given a guided tour. A real highlight for all of us.

Above: the Bates family - and supportive spouses - at All Saints, Weston Longville. The plaque on the church porch is Henry Duning, our ancestor. I wonder what he would of make of it all...

Always keep your eyes open!

I first visited Weston Longville in Norfolk in 1987. I was there again last weekend (for what must be 50th time!) to see the parish so familiar to generations of my ancestors - and enjoy a delicious Sunday lunch at the recently renovated Parson Woodforde pub.

Pootling about the churchyard in the late September sunshine, I spotted a grave bearing the name Mary Dunning (left). Yes, my great x 7 grandmother. She'd been there all the time, obviously, as she died in 1773 . . but despite countless hours looking at each stone over the years, I'd never managed to decipher the name.

She lies right opposite the porch door: her husband, Henry Duning, and son David (along with his young wife, Mary) all died in 1738 and are commemorated on a wall tablet right by the doorway of the porch (right) .The tablet says that Henry lies near that spot - perhaps in the same plot as Mary, his wife who outlived him by 35 years.

Moral of the story? Always keep your eyes open and don't be afraid to search, search and search again even when you think you'll found out everything there is to know!

Parson Woodforde Society Committee

I am delighted to be co-opted on to the Committee of The Parson Woodforde Society.

I joined the Society as a Life Member when I was 18, having already had one research feature published in the quarterly Journal, its members' newsletter. A second feature followed...and then I never got round to writing more. However, on my mind's 'to do' list are at least two features that now I am to take some responsibility within the Society, I really should commit to paper.

First, I'd like to write a follow up to the article I wrote about my own direct ancestors whom James Woodforde knew and wrote about in his diaries - John Bates the carpenter and Mary Dunnell and her sons Harry, Thomas and Barnard.

The aim would be to correct some mistakes from previous features and shed new light on some Woodfordean characters.

Then, I wish to turn my attention to the entwined relationsips of several Weston families, including Andrews and Engledow. I have yet to establish that I am directly descended from the Andrews family, but I've discovered that my great x6 grandmother - Woodforde's 'Mrs Dunnell' - was born Mary Engledow and that her sister Bridget was stepmother of Stephen Andrews 'the Elder', one of Woodforde's closest neighbours and a key diary figure.

So - time to get writing!

Dunnell - shoes, ships

Dunnell is an unusual surname, mainly found in Norfolk and Yorkshire. My link is through great x 5 grandmother Mary Dunnell, born and baptised in Weston Longville (that's the font on the left), Norfolk in 1742. She grew up to marry John Bates and lived until April 1814 - she died just a few days before her brother Barnard, to whom see was close.

When a 'new' Dunnell pops up, I carefully comb my records to see where they may fit in. One link I have yet to prove is with the first woman to gain a medical qualification in Britain, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and her sister Millicent Fawcett, the suffragist. Their mother was reputedly Louisa Dunnell, born 1813, and their aunts Elizabeth and Evelyn Dunnell also married into the Garrett family famous for manufacturing agricultural machinery. The three women were daughters of John Dunnell. Quite a genealogical catch!

However, one link I now believe to be certain of (er, as certain as one can ever be in this game) is between 'my' Dunnell family in Weston Longville and the Dunnell family of Great Yarmouth, later Fritton in Suffolk.

My Mary Dunnell was one of the seven children of farmer Barnabas Dunnell alias Dunning and his wife Mary (born Ingledow); she had one sister, Charlotte born in 1762 just a few months before the father of the family died and who eventually moved to Hackney, Middlesex (left); and she had five brothers: Harry born 1740 (Woodforde employed him as a labourer), Davy born 1745 and died aged 20 years, Barnard born 1747 who became a shoemaker, innkeeper and farmer, Thomas born 1754 who was a carpenter, and Robert born 1756 who also became a carpenter and also moved to Hackney.

Records suggest that a Thomas Dunnell had two sons in Great Yarmouth by a wife called Mary, a David in 1777 and a Robert in 1779. Was this Mary's brother?

The IGI reveals that Thomas Dunnell married Mary Brown at St Andrew in Great Yarmouth in late 1776, so here we have the parents of the two boys. But how could I link these coastal Dunnells with their landlocked namesakes thirty miles away?

On 14 Septemebr 1776, James Woodforde noted in his diary that Thomas Dunnell and Robin Buck ('Mrs Dunnell's man'), helped him with his harvest. Four days later, the diarist was in Great Yarmouth and received a visitor at the Wrestlers in Church Square - Thomas Dunnell (spelled Dunhill in the MS) brought three dozen pencils for which he was paid 3 shillings. Less than a month later, on 13 October, Thomas Dunnell married Mary Brown at St Andrew's church in Great Yarmouth (which I believe to be the church in Gorleston).

Back in Weston (left) the following year, Woodforde notes that Thomas Dunnell and his wife (unnamed) dined in his kitchen with his servants on two dates in February. Woodforde and Dunnell must have discussed greater business than pencils, as by March 1777 the carpenter had been paid £2 15s for making a pair of deal gates for the Parson. So, Woodforde weaves the threads of the story together.

One further mention of Thomas comes in 1807 when his brother Barnard wrote his will and mentions a nephew David, son of his dead brother Thomas.

This David (born 1777) can, I believe, be found in 1841 living at Fritton in Suffolk (not Fritton in Norfolk - confusion due to modern county boundary changes), noted as a shipowner. His wife, Elizabeth, was the Elizabeth Woolby married to a David Dunnell in 1798 at St Nicholas church in Great Yarmouth. Their daughter was Betsy Louisa Dunnell, born 1799 at Great Yarmouth, who married sailmaker William Bristow Sterry in Lakenham, Norfolk in 1819.

David's will is available on the marvellous Norfolk Archives website and states that he was a shipowner of Fritton Hall (!) with property in Fritton and South Town (a trade directory of 1830 named David Dunnell as a shipowner in Southtown). Perhaps there are records of who owned which ships - if there was tax to be paid then there will be!

Written on 28 July 1848 the will makes clear that David's wife and his daughter Mary Ann Stone have already died- and that his daughter Betsy Louisa Sterry and grandchildren by both daughters are his only family.

Elizabeth died in Great Yarmouth district in 1847 aged 68 years which ties in with the baptism of an Elizabeth, daughter of William and Mary Woolby at St Nicholas, Great Yarmouth. Searching wills at National Archives I find that William, a fish curer, died in 1811 and his will names Elizabeth, wife of David Dunnell along with her brother Thomas and sister Mary Lacey.

With David's death in 1849 the Dunnell name in this branch died out. It lived on through his grandsons Robert Dunnell Sterry (died 1870) and Dunnell Stone (born 1839)...I wonder if either of them knew much of their grandfather's shipowning past? Robert, at least, had inherited his grandfather's silver watch.