Hi I need to encourage as many of you as possible to come to the Yorksgen holiday in August for some if not all the time so I thought I would start a thread (I hope) on gems to be found in archives. Here is my first one. I had been told my a cousin that a great uncle was a gardener possibly at Newby Hall near Ripon. Some years ago I contacted Newby Hall and found that their archive was lodged at WYAS Leeds. One Yorksgen holiday I took myself off there. On going through their catalogue I found the gardener's notebook. Lo and behold my Stephen FOSTER had been a gardener there. He had kept the records. I found weekly entries for several years relating to the work done in the garden, the weather conditions and the wages paid to the gardeners. The date was in the run up to WW1. They started with 4 gardeners and by 1914 there were 3. In the years that I saw Stephen never had a pay rise. As he was paid the most, I presume he was head gardener. This level of info is unlikely to go online. It was great getting to read it and to touch the notebook that Stephen himself had kept. My next objective is to visit the actual gardens. Has anyone else got any gems? If anyone is interested in coming to the holiday, please contact me not the list. Thanks Chris

Hi, My gem from 2013 was actually meeting in York two first cousins once removed, they were from my Father's family whom we hadn't known. However, my best gems come from the people I meet at the Yorksgen holidays, they are very friendly and helpful. Which reminds me can you please put me down, tentatively, for the two weeks next year, I really missed all of you this year? Dave will be walking in Scotland for the whole of August so the date is really convenient for me. Thanks Lorna -------------------------------------------- On Mon, 1/12/14, CHRISTINE WILLOTT via <[email protected]> wrote: Subject: [YORKSGEN] gems in archives To: [email protected] Received: Monday, 1 December, 2014, 9:29 PM Hi I need to encourage as many of you as possible to come to the Yorksgen holiday in August for some if not all the time so I thought I would start a thread (I hope) on gems to be found in archives. Here is my first one. I had been told my a cousin that a great uncle was a gardener possibly at Newby Hall near Ripon. Some years ago I contacted Newby Hall and found that their archive was lodged at WYAS Leeds. One Yorksgen holiday I took myself off there. On going through their catalogue I found the gardener's notebook. Lo and behold my Stephen FOSTER had been a gardener there. He had kept the records. I found weekly entries for several years relating to the work done in the garden, the weather conditions and the wages paid to the gardeners. The date was in the run up to WW1. They started with 4 gardeners and by 1914 there were 3. In the years that I saw Stephen never had a pay rise. As he was paid the most, I presume he was head gardener. This level of info is unlikely to go online. It was great getting to read it and to touch the notebook that Stephen himself had kept. My next objective is to visit the actual gardens. Has anyone else got any gems? If anyone is interested in coming to the holiday, please contact me not the list. Thanks Chris ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message