Vosper Cousins: March 26 2016 - Research update on the Vosper clan

From: Info Seeker
Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2016 6:16 AM
To:
Subject: Research update on the Vosper clan

Hi Cousins!

I’ve been very busy with working on a DNA presentation I did last week, so I haven’t had much time to devote to our Vosper family history.

I have, however, FINALLY completed an informative (if dry) book (guaranteed to put you to sleep very quickly). “The Ties that Bound – Peasant Families in Medieval England” by Barbara A. Hanawalt. I was inspired to read this as a result of our recent activity into the Gifford family during the Middle Ages. It’s an academic type of book, which describes life for the common folk of England based on Coroners reports. Yes, you read that right!

I learned quite a bit:

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>Inheritance patterns were quite different than I had supposed. One type was Impartible inheritance, where the family holdings were passed down to one person and kept intact. This was not news to me, but what was surprising was the fact that WHO it was passed to changed from ultimogeniture, (the youngest child) called “Borough English”, to primogeniture (the oldest child). Inheritance by the youngest child was preferred in these times, because he/she could then take care of the aging parents. This changed in the 14^th century, when primogeniture was adopted, as the nobility had always done. The other type was Partible inheritance, which is when the estate is divided up among the children.

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>Most land was held in a “manorial” way, with the Lord of the area retaining the title to the land but families living for generations, inheriting their rights to use the land and pay a fee for the use of it to the Lord. (You may have seen “Daisy” railing against this system in the Downton Abbey series) Recall that our 29^th great grandfather, Richard de Clare fitzGilbert was granted 176 Lordships for his service to our cousin, William the Conqueror.

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>Most families could not live on what they raised, and so they often were involved in other money making endeavors. “In Cornwall the size of landholding per family was relatively small (five acres or less), and consequently some supplemental occupations were needed for survival. Tin, lead, and silver mining, in those regions with ore, provided an obvious side occupation that could be engaged in on a temporary basis.”

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>Of special interest to COUSIN JIM, “Surnames became common in England by the end of the thirteenth century, but it was not until the middle of the fourteenth century that a child would be expected to adopt the surname of its parent. The child might be identified by either the father’s or the mother’s surname, so that matronymics were not uncommon. The use of the mother’s name was not reserved for illegitimate children, but, on the contrary, was common when the mother was chief inheritor of her family’s land.” (Page 175) I have added this note as a citation for Mary Vosper. Whether that was still true in the 1700’s is an answer I don’t have.

My reading reminded me of things I had learned about back in my school years, and I was surprised that Ancestry has not included them in the Life Story images. So I created some of my own for:

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>The Crusades – 1096 to 1487

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>The Great Famine – 1315 to 1317

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>The Black Death - 1346 to 1353

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>The English Renaissance – 1520 to 1620

And, unrelated to the book, and because I’m American, I’ve included:

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>Christopher Columbus and his journeys to the New World - 1492

It’s interesting how you look at these events differently when it was the result of your ancestor’s survival of them that makes it possible for you to exist today! Here are the images I’ve put together and who I’ve attached them to.