Farmer and Lambden

I was amazed to discover that I have completed Parish Register 6 in an amazingly short period of time. Although this is a really busy season, the time just seemed to be there for me to sit and transcribe a couple of hours here and there. The reading is fairly straightforward (still 17th century writing but the pages are in good shape). I completed the baptisms and marriages up to mid year 1714 (same as the burials from Parish Register 4). There are now 2112 marriages up to September 1714 in St Marys Parish at Andover. Although I have all of this material transcribed it still needs to be proofread which will be a rather time consuming process which I will get at hopefully sooner rather than later so that I can put it up online on the OPC Hampshire website.

When I do Penton Mewsey I will proofread it right away so that I can submit it but it will be considerably shorter and hence easier to proofread - there are fewer names to stumble over! As soon as I complete Parish Register 7 I will move to Penton Mewsey as I am now very keen to read that entire register.

Have I learned very many new items with this last register. There were a lot of Blake names in the register although principally female but it will be good to place them in the correct family name. It also helps me later when I suddenly have a marriage with the female line back into the Blake line which I suspect that the Farmer family may be one of those.

The Lambden family has appeared and they were transcribed on the LDS website as Camden. Easily done I am most sure but it was very heartening to see that family at Woodhouse which is where my 2x great grandmother Anne Farmer was baptized. I also had a surprise with Stock being a place name at St Mary Bourne. Henry Lambden of Stock married Mary Beckly of St Mary Bourn at Andover.

Another New Year's Eve and we have been married for 44 and a half years (almost). Most of our New Year's Eves we have spent at home either by ourselves or with children. Traditionally, we went "home" for New Years either to my parents or Ed's mother's house. But we stopped doing that about twenty years ago now and have always stayed here. Back there is eight hours through some of the worst traffic in Canada (the 401 through Toronto) and it was always an arduous trip which we didn't mind not doing. I think our children know that highway absolutely off by heart - they know when everything is coming where everything is all along the way. They have driven that particular highway so many times in their life.

My next project is to acquire images of our son-in-law's great grandparents and great great grandparents if that is possible. We purchased this wonderful chart and we are only missing his lines before his paternal grandparents, one of my husband's great-grandparents, and four of my great grandparents. I will not likely ever find any of the four although I have a picture of my mother's aunt who apparently looked very like her mother. My maternal grandmother's parents are very unlikely in terms of my finding a picture of them although I know that they looked very like my great uncle and my maternal grandmother. The fourth one there is always a possibility as he lived until 1913 but it would be pure luck!

My new picture frame is certainly proving to be very interesting. Although I could set up seven or eight pictures to look at at a time, that would mean that I wasn't doing any work. This way the pictures just flow past me and I glance over. The odds are in favour that I will recognize some of these images because I knew them as a child but it will take time for me to do that.