York

4 Comments Posted on by dapperdaveanddinkydi Family history

Who would we find?

Day 4 was a busy day driving around Wiltshire visiting villages searching for links to our ancestors. Our fearless driver, Ben finds his way through narrow lanes, in and out of tight spots. I’m so glad I’m sitting quietly in the back seat.

Our first destination was Winsley where we found nothing bud did think about my 3rd great grandparents, John YORK and Sarah SHINGLE who married on 29 November 1798. Then in South Wraxall, it was my GG Grandparents, Hannah HUDD and George YORK who married.

Views of Winsley

We then drove through Hawkeridge which seems to now be an industrial estate. It was there that Thomas ALLEY, my 4th Great Grandfather was born to Henry & Jane ALLEY on 14th October 1700. Near there in Holt, on 6th April, 1817 my GGG Grandparents William HARRINGTON & Ann POWELL were married.

Westbury was our next stop and it was coffee time. Fortunately we found a little take-away shop open & it had beautiful carrot cake. We walked down the street to find Holy Trinity Church. I just loved this tree – I wonder how old it is

How old is this tree in Westbury?

The church we found was The Parish Church of All Saints. Whereas we were looking for The Holy Trinity Church. It was a lovely old church and we searched the graveyard for any names from our tree.

Taken from “A Short History”
The church was quite large and had many beautiful stained glass windows.

We stocked up on groceries in Westbury and then found the Baptist Church on our way out of town but found nothing of importance there. We couldn’t leave town without seeing the famous Westbury white horse and here it is:https://www.britainexpress.com/counties/wiltshire/ancient/westbury-white-horse.htm

Then we were off to Dilton Marsh where we found St Mary’s Church where my GG Grandmother was baptised on 21 October 1808.

Kay, George & I in front of the very font! Wow!

We searched for gravestones we might recognise but found none. It’s very sad to see the state of so many graves and graveyards.

We then moved onto the Dilton Baptist Chapel where my GGGG grandparents, Thomas ALLEY & Martha TAYLER were married on 15 September 1730 and my GG Grandparents, john GOULD & Ann MILLARD were married on 24 September 1827. Their son, Alfred GOULD was baptised in the church on 26 March 1832.

Dilton Chapel

There were many graves here and we took photos of those with names we recognised. There were many MILLARDS & as we check our family trees we will probably find some that match.

Sunday roast at The Hollies in Dilton was next and was delicious!

Then onto North Bradley where we were hunting the GULY or GULEY family. We found the very large grave of Gifford GULY & his wife Ann TADD. It was most impressive!

Gifford GULY & Ann TADD with a Vault memorial.
St Nicholas Church with the GULY Vault

We found other GULY graves too and will try to match them to our tree but it was time to head back to Freshford to put our feet up. What a day!

5 Comments Posted on by Family history, Genealogy, Searching for ancestors in Wiltshire, Travel

Travelling again

It’s been ages since I’ve blogged and even longer since we’ve been out of Australia but over the last couple of days we have safely, but wearily, travelled to the UK and we are now very comfortably settled into our home for the week in Freshford, a beautiful little village in Somerset. It’s just over the border from Wiltshire; which is why we are here.

Also with us are my Canadian cousin Kay & her husband Ben and my niece, Georgina (George as she likes to be called) and her husband Graeme from Geelong in Australia. They are all from a ‘Victoria’, just not the same one.

So why are we here? We three women are all descendants of Frederick Ernest ALLEY and Rose YORK and we have traced the ALLEY and YORK families back to somewhere around 1750 in Wiltshire. We are on a pilgrimage to go back in time and to visit the places where they lived and died. More of that in the following days.

George, Graeme, David & I travelled by train from Paddington to Bath Spa on the Bristol line on the Great Western Line through Swindon which was very relevant to our current search. There we met up with Kay & Ben and since our hire car wasn’t ready we caught taxis to our home for the week.

We have a delightful 6 bed home in Freshford and the whole area is so pretty. Here are the Victorians chatting (the men about football and the women sharing family pics) meanwhile David was catching up on the news from home

This is “The Freshford Inn” where we had a refreshing ale and a delcious dinner last night. David and I were very weary so we came home to bed (only 200m or so but very steep) and left the others to party.

It promises to be a wonderful week and we are all looking forward to tomorrow when we meet some of our relatives who still live in England. What fun!