Up the lift to the first floor

First two nights in Exeter and what a lovely city. It's like being in Italy. I have to translate from English to Canadian for Ron and he blindly hands over money. We walked the city wall and saw A Roman bridge. Today was Lamas Fair and we watched a small parade of school children and a few adults dressed in clothes from various centuries, or invasions. Romans, Vikings, Medieval, early and mid nineteenth century Victorian uniforms. The cathedral here is amazing. It was built in the 12th century, and rebuilt a hundred years later in the gothic style. it made me think of the book by Ken Follett, whose name I can't remember. There are real faces all along the side. The faces of al the saints inside were defaced during the Reformation. I took a photo of a carved panel depicting the birth of Jesus in which all the saint's heads had Ben lopped off, and the lone widwife retained her head. Itwillmake a great cover for my book, if iever write it.

In their own write

If you have access to the 1911 census (which I do) you can look at photocopies of the original documents and see the handwriting of your ancestors. My great grandfather had cramped, fussy looking handwriting, but everything was precise and correctly spelled. He did make one mistake though; he was supposed to fill in the number of years married and the number of live births and living children--his wife had. Instead, he filled the details beside his own name, then crossed them out. His wife was not there. She was in an asylum. If he hadn't made this mistake I wouldn't know for sure that in 1911 he still considered himself married. I also wouldn't have answered that lingering question I have about whether Flora had another child before Violet--a child that she had harmed in some way.

The disappearing Cockrams

I use Find My Past to search all the censuses from 1841 to 1911. In 1841 about fifty percent of the Cockram families in England lived in Devon.  Of 704 Cockrams in England in 1841, 376 lived in Devon, 101 of those in the Crediton area. By 1911 there were no Cockrams in Stockleigh Pomeroy,  just 26 in Crediton, 419 in Devon and 1633 in England. I don't know what this proves, although I believe that most of the Cockrams in England are probably related to us.

When Sarah and her sisters, brother, and mother left Stockleigh Pomeroy to go to London they left behind a brother (James, living on Down Farm). None of the children returned to Devon. James daughter Faith Charity, named for her aunt, seems to have disappeared and had no siblings.

Using my iPad to post

So, when we're in England I'm going to post to this blog with my iPod. I wanted to see how easy it would be. I'm a two finger typist so typing on the screen is quite easy for me. I probably won't type as much, but that's probably a good thing. I just wish there was an easier way to do apostrophes. Here's my family thing for this post: we're staying in the Ring O Bells in Cheriton Fitzpaine, where some of my family originated. Now I'll post.

Mount Felix: The Walton Hospital

During the war, Violet Woods worked as a nurse at Mount Felix, a few  miles from her home in Shepperton. Here she met Claus Nissen, whom she married in 1917 in Staines. In 1919, with baby Brenda in arms, she boarded the Athenic, a sister ship to the Titanic, and sailed to New Zealand, never to see England again. Recently Walton celebrated ANZAC day (April 25) to commemorate the New Zealanders. Read the story. You can check out some photos here.

Harmless imbeciles

Only a couple more weeks, and we're off the England. Last month I sent away for the death certificate of Flora Grace Woods (Smith). Apparently she died of lobar pneumonia at Leavesden Asylum, Watford on October 24th 1916. She was 52 years old and still married. In 1911 she was still at Hanwell Asylum, so I don't know when or why she was moved to Leavesden. I did think, with some hope, that she was moved to an asylum that was not specified as being for the poor, but the only good news was that Leavesden was for "quiet and harmless imbeciles", albeit for poor imbeciles. In 1916 the Asylum was also home to soldiers about to head off to war. Funnily, those that had been to war and been injured were being taken care of by her daughter Violet at a hospital not far away in Staines.