Seams

My great grandfather was called (according to an essay I wrote age 10 following a phone call with my Nana) William Henry Edny Sims. I've found his marriage certificate and know he was born about 1875. Could I find his birth certificate? *phzzt* I found a couple of potential William Sims' in the census and pursued the mostly likely ones. I found a cousin several times removed of the most likely who told me that Hendy (not Edny, but hey!) was a traditional family middle name. I find this family in various documents displaying an incredibly lax attitude to surname. So far I think I've identified members going by the surnames: Sims, Seemes, Hendy, Hendey, Bobb and Bubb indeed John Hendy Sims, my gg-grandfather, assuming all this is correct, in fact at one time or another used all of Sims, Hendy and Bubb.

So eventually I decide to search for all the William's (any surname) born in the Keynsham Registration district of Gloucestershire (most likely location) between 1874 and and 1876... and I find William Henry H Seams (b. Jan/Feb/Mar 1876) - birth certificate now on order - if that second H is for Hendy I reckon I have my man!!

My Ancestor was a Coal Miner/My Ancestors were Methodists

Over the winter I went to a Family History Fair with my mother and picked up a couple of Society of Genealogist publications, namely My Ancestor was Coal Miner and My Ancestors were Methodists. The latter is pretty much just a list of potential source material and its locations. All very well in its way but not really what I was looking for (especially since it says all the Methodist Baptism, Marriage and Burial records are on the Mormon website and I can't find any of my Methodist ancestors (and I have quite a lot them) there). My Ancestor was a Coal Miner was much closer to the sort of thing I was looking for - combining an overview of the main features of coal mining life with the kind of listing of source material in the Methodist book. In fact its lists of sources are rather better including a good range with sufficient description that I could immediately tell that some might be worth checking for my ancestors. Its discussion of coal mining history is slightly in the style so lampooned by 1066 and all that - lots of little facts designed to tell the neat story of the rise and fall of the industry without much scope for discussion, but then if I'd wanted a definitive history of coal mining in the UK I'd have purchased something different. I was, however, particularly struck by the horror expressed over female mine workers. I can understand why the Victorians got themselves into a bit of a tizzy on discovering women worked undergroud but find it hard to see why someone writing at the start of the 21st century should do so. "Incredibly" muses David Tonks, the author, "it was not until 1 July 1972 that the final two women surface workers were made redundant". What seems more shocking to me, as a 21st century woman, is that the Victorian (and later) reaction was to bar such women from what was, presumably, an important source of family income rather than to ensure that they enjoyed equal protection and equal pay to their male compatriots*.

* NB. I've no reason to suppose they didn't get equal protection (i.e., not much) nor equal pay since Tonks didn't deem it relevant to mention whether or not they worked on a more or less equal footing.

Summerfest

B. and I have not played Fools and Heroes since we discovered I was expecting G. At the time I was playing a front line fighter and though, in theory, you shouldn't receive any blows hard enough to endanger a baby, you'd want to warn people and somehow saying "by the way, the mercenary at point is pregnant", to the monster team seemed a little unfair. Summerfest, however, was being hosted only about an hour from G.'s cousins and G. loves staying there so the time seemed ripe to take it up again. I was inordinately excited about this.

I had, it must be said, an excellent time. The plot, for what its worth (and it was better than many) involved invading Iraq (*cough* *cough* no, sorry Nerese/Khonn) because we didn't like their religion and it all going horribly wrong. Success was to be measured by the extent to which we achieved an orderly retreat. Probably fortunately the satiric overtone was either lost, or ignored, by most of the players. B. and I ended up on an adventure with lots of Demonologists who, typically, spent a lot of time in a secret huddle. They were very good at blasting away demons but B. felt they were pretty useless at solving the riddles we were posed and since these riddles were all aimed at demonologists the rest of us had little to do except complain about them. I seem to have got better at fighting, either that or I've just learned to fight more tactically so I wait for the opponent to attack and then just go for whatever is exposed or, better still, flank them (this means attacking from behind). I'm also in favour of finding someone competant and shouty and then doing what they say because a) that way you don't have to think much, b) where it all goes wrong is nearly always when everyone thinks they know better than the next man. king_pellinor proved an exemplary competent shouty person and as added boneses he bought my character a long sword, a short sword, a studded heavy leather tunic, greaves and braces and a heavy (but not studded) leather hat (*pssst* Pellinor, that's your list for character returns); and ran the bar. We were in the battle together guarding a candle (one of three) and ours only went out once due, obviously, to king_pellinor's leadership skills.

B. actually bought himself a spear so I deduce he also enjoyed himself. I was a bit worried about this. Two days before he had suggested I go alone while he finished the kitchen floor. Since I had foolishly arranged to go to Edinburgh the day before I had to entrust all the packing to him - hence on Friday evening I found we had no food, no chairs and B. had no armour (I did at least pack my kit so I had plenty of leather armour. I had decided to leave my plate mail behind since my character couldn't afford it and its both heavy and mildy rusty). Anyway he bought a spear which suggests long term plans.

The most bizarre thing about Summerfest was the way random people kept shouting "Louise!" and giving me big hugs while Bill looked on blankly. "Who was that?" he would ask. "Oh! they were playing the time before the last time I played F&H". It was a kind of early 90s reunion fest: all that was missing were the Hardy twins, Fiona and a spider demon made from a tent frame.