Looking at Filey Genealogy | Looking at Filey

The beginnings of a Filey Tree are on a server somewhere in the United States. I?m hoping to complete the set up and input the first few family groups in the next couple of days. The original intention was to make the database publicly available when it held a thousand or more people but it may be more interesting for you to watch the Tree grow from the appearance of the first small branch.

I have been collecting basic family data for a few weeks now. I looked initially to the 1841 Census and the first family unit of a husband, wife and children in the schedule was headed by William CAPPLEMAN, born 1800. He has the honour of being ?Individual 1? and with wife Mary CAMMISH and children Mary, William, Dinah, Peter, Joseph, Ann, and three others that eluded the census, represents ?Family Group 1?. I have followed these people to the end of the 19^th century and the families produced by the males will be the next to be input. I?m already daunted by the logistics of growing a ?family tree? for a whole town and feel I can only keep a grip on things if the families produced by daughters are set aside for the time being ? until their husbands appear on the data gathering scene!

It would be sensible to continue with the strategy of extracting family groups from the censuses in schedule order until the last from 1901 is safely in the database. I have, though, been given several family trees recently and a couple of ?Starter Families? so I?ve moved these to the head of the queue. Since LaF began I have written about a few dozen families so I will play catch up and enter their genealogical details in the Filey Tree ahead of the census people.

So, waiting in line to follow the first CAPPLEMANs are families LORRIMAN, JOHNSON, DOUGLAS, CRIMLISK and SCOTTER and then the blogged about MAJOR, COLLEY, COLLING, BERRY, WILLIAMSON, MONKMAN, SUGGITT, BOWMAN, BIRD, HAXBY and JENKINSONs ? and many more.

In his History of Filey Michael Fearon offers some population figures. In 1672 there were 77 Households in Filey, say about 350 people. In 1801 the population of the town was 505 and at the 1901 census 3,003. If we just consider the 18^th and 19^th centuries we?re not looking for all that many families. Do your own math from these very basic numbers and see what you come up with but an average completed family group size of six and 3 generations per century suggests that two hundred years of Filey?s history were experienced by perhaps only a thousand core family groups ? those belonging to families that stuck around for two or more generations. Many more individuals will have lived for such a brief time in the town that they dodged the ?Filey census enumerators but if their life stage details can be found in the public record and their family groups reconstituted the Filey Tree might grow to (I?m guessing) over five thousand families and 25,000 individuals at least. A resource with that many records could be very useful for anyone researching the history of their family in particular or the town in general.

I?ll get the Filey Genealogy moving, though probably at no great speed, perhaps adding about 10 family groups per week. If anyone wants to assist with this project please get in touch. Donated family data would be very welcome but constructive comments, questions and suggestions will also help to shape the Tree as it grows. Because I don?t really know what I?m doing there are teething troubles with the new site but as soon as it is working (even if only sort of) I?ll let you have the URL.

STOP PRESS: The site came alive earlier today so if you are curious to see what it looks like in its almost completely raw state click here. A few things to bear in mind: -

1. The design is courtesy of an ?out of the box? TNG template (No.5). I?m going to change the colours a bit, replace the existing placeholder photos with two from the ?Filey Collection? and remove the inappropriate ?blue leaves? decoration. If the Filey Tree does take root it would be good to create a totally unique and original look for the site but that is way beyond my php, html and css skills.

2. The First Family records are incomplete. There?s more information to add and sources haven?t been given yet.

3. Although it is intended to become a Genealogy for a whole town and will therefore be of interest to family historians I?m hoping that as much community history as possible will find its way into the records of Individuals and Family Groups. There will be thousands of potential links between individuals and family groups who were not related by marriage and I hope there will be ways of clearly showing these community connections.

4. I don?t think the email works properly yet so please don?t try contacting me through LaFgenealogy. I?ll let you know when it?s sorted.

5. I?m not going to give instructions on how to find your way around the site because I haven?t looked into all the nooks and crannies yet myself. I suggest you start by clicking on ?Surnames? on the Home Page and go where fancy takes you from there. With so few people ?to choose from it won?t take you far. You may want to click on all the top menu headings but as there is no data in these sections yet it won?t be a rewarding experience. I hope you?ll see the potential though.

Anniversary Note

John William CAMMISH was killed in an accident on the railway 109 years ago and for a long time afterwards his older brother Thomas Ross placed flowers on the grave each Sunday morning. While carrying out this touching duty in January 1908 Thomas saw smoke issuing from the church, raised the alarm and possibly saved St Oswald?s from total destruction.? (See Fire Man, 9^th March.)

Source: http://lookingatfiley.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/looking-at-filey-genealogy/

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