Researching ancestral occupations: gamekeeper part 2

 

                                                These books about occupations are just the beginning of my research

Real life has cut into my research time lately, so I haven't gotten very far with researching the gamekeeping Maidments. The family's time in the game, so to speak, began with the patriarch Elias who lived from 1773 to 1825. I haven't yet found records that can confirm how early Elias took up the profession and it looks like he didn't keep up the work in his older years. As for his sons, I'm currently tracking the censuses in with they were listed as gamekeepers and the places they were living at the time.

Knowing that gamekeepers were employed by large estates, I'm also hunting for resources about large English estates. I'm should to be able to dedicate more time to this quest soon and hope my next blog post will be about the steady progress I've been able to make. A breakthrough would be nice but for now I'll keep following up possible sources. 

Researching ancestral occupations: gamekeeper

 

                                                                                        Image of a gamekeeper

I'm still looking into my Maidment family links and, as many of the men were gamekeepers, I'm looking into that occupation further. According to the information in the Heritage Production book on English Occupations, the gamekeeper was considered part of the village hierarchy giving him status. That makes me think of someone rather settled with a respected place in village life, a life that I used to believe changed little from decade to decade with little movement from place to place.

Only the Maidments moved from place to place, sometimes showing up as labourers and on many occasions their occupation was listed as gamekeeper. Could be the moves were to more lucrative posts or maybe the estates they were employed by no longer needed their services. Then too, it could be that their employers owned more than one estate so moved employees around. It could also be because the man acting as gamekeeper had worn out his welcome.

An extract of an article on Cambridge Core, painted a far different picture of the gamekeepers status. Not only could he bring the law down on poachers and the like, but his peers and those above him in the hierarchy didn't put much stock in his honesty. All this makes me wonder how the Maidments were perceived and if maybe that led to them moving time and time again.

My research is still ongoing and I hope to be able to find out more. According to the Heritage Production book, the Quarter Session records should have information about gamekeepers. Now I just have to consult various sources to find out when and where they lived to figure out which of those records I should delve into. 

Sources:

Christensen, Dr. Penny Researching English Occupations – Professions & Trades. Heritage Productions, Toronto, Ontario, 2003

Extract from The Gamekeeper and English Rural Society, 1660-1830  https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-british-studies/article/abs/gamekeeper-and-english-rural-society-16601830/664EDA50F7F0A3F663233CEBD09D159B

Waters, Colin A Dictionary of Old Trades, Titles and Occupations. Countryside Books, Newbury, Berkshire, 2002

Images:

By Internet Archive Book Images - https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14593150360/Source book page:https://archive.org/stream/withnatureandcam00kear/withnatureandcam00kear#page/n350/mode/1up, No restrictions, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43736289 

 

Clues in the unsettled life of a gamekeeper?

 

                                                                   Books about old trades should come in handy

I've been doing genealogy research for a long time and have amassed a fair number of books on various subjects related to my research. My recent findings had me pulling two books about occupations off the shelves. It all had to do with my 3 x great grandfather who I've finally determined to be Elias Maidment. It took me a while and a few false trails before I was satisfied that he was the man; the target of my DNA search to determine who the father of my 2 x great grandmother, Mary Rideout nee Maidment, was. 

Once I settled on Elias, some of the questions I had about Mary began to make sense. I had often wondered why the censuses had given her birthplace as Gloucestershire when, from what I could determine, she had spent most of her life in Dorset. When I filled in Elias' children I noticed their birthplaces changed a lot, as though he had a profession that required him to move from place to place. Baptismal records didn't list his profession until 1814 when his son Jasper was christened in Enford, Wiltshire. That record showed that Elias was a gamekeeper. As he retained this profession when he later moved to Sixpenny Handley, Dorset it seems likely that his earlier moves might also have been due to his trade.

                                                      A list of the birthplaces of Elias Maidment's children

It looks like those books about occupations will come in handy as I find out more about gamekeepers. It must have been a worthy profession, some of his sons followed in his footsteps. I'm also wondering if the profession of woodman might be related in some way to that of gamekeeper as some of my Rideout clan were woodmen and the Rideout and Maidment lines came together with my 2 x great grandparents, Thomas Rideout and Mary Maidment. Let's see where this line of research takes me. 

Attending an in-person genealogy conference

 

                        The Delta Hotel near the Toronto Airport was the site of the recent Ontario Ancestors conference

In these days of virtual conferences, it seemed strange and extravagant to be registering to show up in-person at this year's Ontario Ancestors conference. It was to be their first foray into the non-virtual world of conferencing post pandemic. In my case, not only would there be a hotel room to pay for but also airfare. Would being there rather than sitting in front of my own computer be worth the extra time and expense?

It was! There is something about being in the same room as fellow genealogists that can't be replicated. Not to mention the shared meals and the temptations of the marketplace. On one night there was also a Burns Dinner enactment in which some of us took part. Unfortunately there was no whisky in the classes we toasted with.

It was great to connect with new acquaintances and I was also surprised to find some familiar faces in the marketplace among the vendors. Some of the gals I knew from the Family History Writing Retreat which I attended last year were there as well as someone from BCGS who had taken the opportunity to explore connections in the general area before setting up her stall at the conference.

I enjoyed my time at the conference and learned much more than if I had stayed home and tuned in on my computer. Not only do I find I retain more when seeing things in-person but I also pick up things from the side conversations and chance encounters. 

Heritage on the ground in Regina

 

                                                                       Rae Street and 15th Avenue in Regina 

I recently took a genealogical journey. One of my stops along the way was in Saskatchewan, a province I hadn't yet stopped to visit. The place was of interest because I'd tracked my maternal grandparents back to Regina where they met and married. I have the marriage certificate to prove it. The certificate was enclosed in a booklet with scriptures, prayer and vows along with the signatures of the guests. But I wanted more. 

How did this Englishman and my Canadian born grandmother of Scottish extraction ever meet? I thought maybe it had happened as a result of the Regina Cyclones of 1912. I ascertained that they were both within the affected zone or at least close to the scene of destruction at the time. It could have happened then but as I tracked down their various addresses during both of their stays in the Queen City, it seemed that a better bet was when they lived within 3 blocks of each other in 1914.

I found out more about the cyclone by checking copies of the Regina Leader Post at the Saskatchewan Archive. A visit to the Prairie History Room at the Regina Public Library gave me access to the Henderson Directories for Regina so I could track down my relatives' addresses through the years. They moved around a lot but in 1914 my grandfather Harold was living at 2301 Rae and my grandmother May was living at 2048 Rae. I finally found the right area of town after my mapping app sent me way on the other side of town. I found the correct area of town while looking for bookstores. In a walk down 13th Avenue which was in close proximity to my hotel, I stumbled across the Rae Street I wanted to find and realized there were only three blocks between where Harold and May had lived making me think that they likely came into contact then. Sometimes just walking the streets in an ancestral place brings more understanding. 

A shift to Canadian research

 

                                                                  Notes I made previously on the Matheson family 

It never fails, I feel like I'm getting somewhere with my DNA studies and following the Maidment line but now I need to shift focus. It's time to get my research ready for a genealogy trip. Unfortunately, I won't be jetting off to Dorset to find out more about my family there. On this trip my concentration will be on Canadian records. Strangely, when I was busy filling out the wrong line of Maidment descendants, a shoot from that line took me off to Canada as well. As yet, my now and, I hope, correct line of Maidments hasn't taken me in that direction. There's still a chance though as other things have gotten in my way so that research hasn't born much fruit yet. Who knows where the correct Maidment line will take me. I have a suspicion that some of the Maidment descendants ended up in Australia. 

For now, I need to concentrate on my Canadian lines. I've done a fair amount of research over the years. So much that I often come across notes that I've made but have totally forgotten about. I was surprised to find a book containing notes that I took from a book that gave me clues on my Matheson family. The book was Angie Littlefield's The Thomsons of Durham. There were interesting details in it about a marriage and death the records for which I've been searching for a long long time. I need to see the records with my own eyes, though, especially as I've found some details in the book that I can dispute. I hope to be a bit further ahead in my research once my trip is done.

Revisiting and revising my Dorset research

 

                                             There are many pages of entries marked with x due to my previous research

Sometimes genealogical research can lead down a plausible trail that looks okay but, when other information comes to light, things don't look so good. That's what happened to me when working on my Maidment line. The 1841 census had shown a Harriet Maidment living with Thomas Rideout and his wife Mary Rideout nee Maidment. With Harriet was a 1 month old son, Henry Maidment. When I found a Harriet Maidment of the same age having other children out of wedlock before finally marrying and changing her name, I assumed it was the Harriet I was looking for. No matter that Henry was no longer with her. Children often died in the first years of life back then. 

When I found a second Harriet Maidment in the 1841 census of the same age as Mary Rideout's sister I knew I had to do more research. The second Harriet I'd found was living with William Maidment who looked to be her father. With the Harriet I'd been researching, on her marriage certificate she named her father as William. Besides that marriage took place in East Stour the 1841 census place for William Maidment and his daughter, Harriet. It looked like it was time to scrap all the work I'd already done.

So, I decided to look for Harriet's son, Henry Maidment in the 1851 census. I remember searching for Harriet Maidment in the same census with no luck but searching for females of marriageable age can be problematic. Maybe being male Henry had kept his last name even if he had ended up with a new family.

I found a likely candidate, a Henry Maidment listed as a nephew with birth year about 1842, living in Sixpenny Handley, Dorset - right county, right age. A check of the listing showed Jasper Maidment as the head. I'm sure the name Jasper had come up with checking Ancestry's ThruLines. With Jasper were his wife Mary A, children: Joseph, Mary A, John, George, sister Jane and nephew Henry. What was more Mary A., Jasper's wife, was born in Ashmore, where Thomas and Mary Rideout lived. Maybe I was on the right track at last.