On Monday, October 26, 2015 at 7:33:51 PM UTC+1, melanie chesnel wrote: > On Monday, October 26, 2015 at 11:42:30 AM UTC+1, Ian Goddard wrote: > > On 25/10/15 17:44, melanie chesnel wrote: > > > > > Just think stone masons building castles and cathederals v. ag labs > > > > Ag labs, hired from year to year with no home of their own could have > > been quite mobile. > > > I quite agree I was thinking more when ag labs were serfs tied to the manor - I suppose I shouldn't have used the 19th century abbreviation when thinking of the middle ages. > The controlling factor in a persons mobility seems to be their job or the search for work, but I think their character also played a role. Some people are just stick in the mud and others take even the slightest of opportunities to roam. What I find interesting is both my mother and father came from mobile families. Although on the surface my mum's working class northern background was different to my dad's middle class home counties their families were very similar back in the 18th century - one both sides they were butcher's, metal workers of one sort or another, coach builders, shipwrights and carpenters, yeoman farmers and a surprising number owned pubs or were malsters or dealers in beer! > regards melanie chesnel that should read "on both sides" - sorry regards melanie

On 26/10/15 18:44, melanie chesnel wrote: > On Monday, October 26, 2015 at 7:33:51 PM UTC+1, melanie chesnel wrote: >> On Monday, October 26, 2015 at 11:42:30 AM UTC+1, Ian Goddard wrote: >>> On 25/10/15 17:44, melanie chesnel wrote: >>> >>>> Just think stone masons building castles and cathederals v. ag labs >>> >>> Ag labs, hired from year to year with no home of their own could have >>> been quite mobile. >>> >> I quite agree I was thinking more when ag labs were serfs tied to the manor - I suppose I shouldn't have used the 19th century abbreviation when thinking of the middle ages. I think there may have been another factor at work in the medieval & Tudor period, the manorial administration moving people about. 1. I think my Goddard line probably originated in Cowick on the lower reaches of the Aire with a Godard living there in the C13th. By the 1360s they'd reached Rotherham and in the 1379 poll tax there was only one male adult of the name listed in the entire W Riding - I don't know what had happened in Cowick itself although they do seem to have survived the initial onslaught of the Black Death there. He was living just SE of Rotherham. By the early C15th they were in Sheffield which was only a few miles away from Rotherham but in 1425 a Christopher Goddard was included in a list of people living in Emley & Skelmanthorpe about 30 miles to the west. I think the connection was the FitzWilliams who held Emley as a sub-manor of Wakefield but also had holdings around the Rotherham area. 2. The Dearnleys lost their hold on their eponymous settlement near Rochdale in the 1440s after it passed into a female line & ended up around Glossop, Derbyshire. Subsequently at least one branch of the family was across the Pennines around S Yorks and adjoining parts of Derbyshire. Some of them seem to have been connected with the Talbots who had land there but were also lords of the manor of Glossop. 3. The Knutton family would appear to have their name derived from a village of that name in Staffordshire. However the surname is only known east of the Pennines. The early distribution (back to the early 1400s) seems to be around Chesterfield with a very thin scatter through adjacent parts of Nottinghamshire and north into S Yorks. Some of these records are of wills but others are part of the Foljambe documents and although I haven't gone into great detail it looks as if these areas are where the Foljambes had interests. The Foljambes were important in the administration of the Peak District in connection with which they would have been active as far over as Knutton. I think in all these cases individuals of high feudal status were moving tenants around to meet their requirements. Much the same thing seems to have happened to Graham Norton's ancestors as I recall from WDYTYA, in that case moving them from Yorks to Ireland. -- Hotmail is my spam bin. Real address is ianng at austonley org uk