Thank you, Philip and Gary, for your replies. I'd love to know exactly why indiviuals left the village....was it mainly push or pull factors? Probably a mixture of both. But I've always assumed the dip in population, as you said, Gary, was due to migration because of lack of employment in the fields...there doesn't seem to have been massive outbreaks of disease, not enough to account for falling populations anyway. I am hoping that some of our members will be able to supply me with definite evidence that their g-g-?-grandfather got on a ship because he couldn't find work in the village!!! However, I'm pretty sure there was widespread unemployment for agricultural labourers earlier in the century as well: somewhere hidden temporarily in my notes I have a quote from 'Captain Swing' (Hobsbawn and Rude, I think, off the top of my head) which says that at least 60 men were unemployed in Woodchurch in the late 1820s. I must check that again, but 60 adult men out of a total population of about 1100 is big. So I'm thinking that the migration started somewhat earlier and looking at the population figures for Woodchurch, they do start to level off in 1841, rather than increasing steadily as they did in the forty years before. Thanks again, Josie

Hi, Are the burials records for Woodchurch church kept in an accessible place as I feel that my gt gt gt gt granddad will be in there - there are none of my surname with headstones in the churchyard, so I guess that he may well be unmarked. Where are these sorts of records kept? Phil. -----Original Message----- From: eng-ken-woodchurch-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:eng-ken-woodchurch-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Josie Mackie Sent: 25 August 2007 20:32 To: eng-ken-woodchurch@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [ENG-KEN-WOODCHURCH] 19th Century Migration from Woodchurch Thank you, Philip and Gary, for your replies. I'd love to know exactly why indiviuals left the village....was it mainly push or pull factors? Probably a mixture of both. But I've always assumed the dip in population, as you said, Gary, was due to migration because of lack of employment in the fields...there doesn't seem to have been massive outbreaks of disease, not enough to account for falling populations anyway. I am hoping that some of our members will be able to supply me with definite evidence that their g-g-?-grandfather got on a ship because he couldn't find work in the village!!! However, I'm pretty sure there was widespread unemployment for agricultural labourers earlier in the century as well: somewhere hidden temporarily in my notes I have a quote from 'Captain Swing' (Hobsbawn and Rude, I think, off the top of my head) which says that at least 60 men were unemployed in Woodchurch in the late 1820s. I must check that again, but 60 adult men out of a total population of about 1100 is big. So I'm thinking that the migration started somewhat earlier and looking at the population figures for Woodchurch, they do start to level off in 1841, rather than increasing steadily as they did in the forty years before. Thanks again, Josie ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ENG-KEN-WOODCHURCH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message