Hi Janet, Just a couple of points: DNA testing is popular in the UK but probably only within certain family history groups. I am a member of the Guild of One-Name Studies where DNA profiling is seen as an important tool when establishing family groups of the same surname, as you hope to do. Many people in the Stroud area were non-conformists. In Horsley Shortwood Baptist Church had a larger congregation than the parish church but some people attended both places of worship. There was also a Quaker Meeting House and another Independent chapel nearby. Up to a point well into the nineteenth century there was a legal requirement that the marriages of non-conformists [but not Quakers] had to take place in the parish church. Actually there are three points; The parish was the body that took responsibility for those living within its bounds. This was the form of local government at that time. The parish overseers changed from year to year and could include anyone of good standing within the parish. A parish rate was collected from householders, agriculturalists and industrialists in order to give money in support of those who had fallen on hard times. There is much more to this topic but I hope this will help a little. Cheers, Janet In a message dated 27/01/2011 21:47:50 GMT Standard Time, JANLWH@aol.com writes: Janet, Thanks for the information. I will keep it in mind as I check. I am hoping the YDNA results will help too. The only problem with that is that most of the Wall men on the Family Tree DNA Wall project are from early America and haven't been traced back to England. However, if my brother matches my friends Dad, we will know that we are related at some point because she has documented proof to the Stroud Wall line. I wonder if the DNA testing is as popular in England as it seems to be in the US? I should have mentioned that my Wall's were Church of England both in the Parish records for my Wm. Walls birth in Tarlton and much later as an old man alone (as the sons had gone to Wales to work) in Biddlestone as being on Parish relief. Did one have to be a Church of England parishioner to get this? But I will check the Baptist church records. At one point, I ran across a birth to a Wall family where the child was born in the cottage in the meadow, I believe, and the father was a Shepard. Janet In a message dated 1/27/2011 4:23:47 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, JANETHESKI@aol.com writes: Hi Janet, at the time of the decline in the woollen industry I doubt that out of work weavers went to America as the American War of Independence had taken place some time previously. However, Australia was being developed as a British colony and welcomed immigrants from the old country at that time. It may be that some out of work weavers turned to agriculture but other industries may have absorbed some of them. For instance in Horsley Isaac HILLIER set up a business manufacturing products from pork at about this time. The mills found other uses such as making walking sticks and substantial thick card. In my own family some were involved in the woolen industry, as weavers and as mill owners but others were butchers, publicans, and brushmakers. Those who worked in the woolen industry tended to stay put but others moved to some relatively distant places: Bath, Bristol, Birmingham and London. There are a number of people named WALL in the Shortwood Baptist Church [Horsley] records. Horsley/Nailsworth is about four miles south of Stroud. Best wishes, Janet In a message dated 27/01/2011 20:46:41 GMT Standard Time, JANLWH@aol.com writes: Janet, This information is valuable to me also. I am searching the WALL family from Tarlton in 1792. John and Nancy Wall were parents to my 3rd ggf William Wall born in Tarlton 1792. As an adult, he married and lived in Biddestone, Wiltshire about 11 miles away as an AG worker. I can find no other Wall families in Biddestone. It is like he just showed up there from somewhere else. There is only one other Wall family in Tarlton in the 1790's and none on the later census's that I can find. I am trying to find where this WALL family was from? There must be parents and aunts, uncles and siblings living somewhere! I am trying to connect to the WALL families in the Stroud area who were in the wool business. I am in contact with a descendant of this Wall family in Stroud here in the USA. I am having my brothers YDNA tested and she is having her father's done. There may be a link. We will see. I see you wrote that Uley saw the sharp decline of it's wool industry in the early 18th century and many families moved to far away places like Australia and America. Perhaps, some moved to other close by villages to work in the Agriculture business as mine did. I will browse thru the Parish records of Uley to see if I find any Wall families. That is if these records are available! Thanks for the information. It has given me a new direction to search. Another, Janet In a message dated 1/26/2011 12:55:30 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, JANETHESKI@aol.com writes: Hi Janine, Uley is a picturesque small village near Stroud that was once highly industrialised. Uley blue was used for the uniforms of the British Navy. Most of the Gloucestershire woollen industry was lost in the first part of the eighteenth century. The weavers were then on hard times and many emigrated to Australia, sometimes with financial aid from their home parish. On many occasions the places where they settled in Australia were given names that reminded them of places they were fond of in England. It may be that some chose to use an English place name as part of the name by which they were known. This latter is conjecture on my part... Cheers, Janet Heskins _____________________________________________ Gloucestershire Family History Society: www.gfhs.org.uk Gloucestershire Archives: www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=15434 Gloucestershire BMD Index 1837 to 2005: http://ww3.gloucestershire.gov.uk/bmd/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GLOUCESTER-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message _____________________________________________ Gloucestershire Family History Society: www.gfhs.org.uk Gloucestershire Archives: www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=15434 Gloucestershire BMD Index 1837 to 2005: http://ww3.gloucestershire.gov.uk/bmd/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GLOUCESTER-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

On 2011/01/28 11:39, JANETHESKI@aol.com wrote: > Up to a point well into the nineteenth century there was a legal requirement > that the marriages of non-conformists [but not Quakers] had to take place in > the parish church. From 1754 to 1837. Or thereabouts :-) You can can see the changes in the Parish registers. From 1754, witnesses were required. From 1837, Father's names were added. -- Regards, Mike Fry Johannesburg