GUEST: A great chat with Natasha Houseman about the Houseman Family Tree

Waffle Free Storytelling

Welcome To The Waffle-Free FAMILY Stories!

In this show, I talk to Natasha Houseman who is digging into, uncovering and exploring her family tree.

We talk about her grandmother's role in getting her hooked on family trees, how she's giving life to the women in her story, the horrible accident that led to one child shooting another, and right at the end, she gives you THE BEST conversation ice-breaker you'll ever know.

In between all that chat, she talks about the tools and techniques she uses to get as close to the real story as possible, and how she plugs the gaps.

The result of all that work is a blog that she shares with friends and family. Here's the link!

Start with "An Almost Yorkshire Family", and explore the Houseman family tree from there.

Here are all the sites Natasha mentioned:

NOTE FROM NATASHA: These first three are location specific, I would strongly recommend a google search including both a village and a surname - this can throw up a lot of useful local sites, especially where the surname is not that common. That kind of search led me to both the first two sites which have helped much more widely than the particular surname and village I started on.

• The direct link to the site where Nidderdale census & parish records have been transcribed. The main site also covers Calverley, Tong & Farnley.
• Genealogy of the Wharfedale, Airedale & Craven areas of Yorkshire.
• The houseman one name study.
• I use this a lot for births, deaths & marriages.
• A wealth of scanned books including old genealogical society publications from the 1800s and older social and local history books such as the Harry Speight books I mentioned.
• The Curious Descendents Club - learning how to write stories and how we met

Links to the particular stories I told:

• How I started.
• Mary Ann Gill.
• Elizabeth Furniss & George Downs.
• Elsie Moody including the photo that I used to resemble.
• Elizabeth Dean and the Butterworth connection.
• Widow paupers including "Wid Swinden".
• The Wellocks

ALSO...A little something special :-)

Natalie Pithers runs The Curious Descendents Club. The story about "Wid Swinden" inspired a gorgeous poem:

For Natasha.

3 small words

The only thing you own.

Your life grey and dimmed,

Existing only in the shadows of men.

Nameless & dateless.

'Wid Swinton pauper'

Reduced to mere marks on paper,

Made by another's hand.

Diminished to an obscured month

On a faded death register

In an old church

And a lost mass grave.

And yet,

You linger.

Your life a ghost in our veins.

I shall take

Your 3 small words

And dig with them.

Dig and dig and dig.

To find you.

I shall trapse

Backwards and sidewards

Through time

Reaching out to call you home.

Wondering if you can hear me.

And even if I never find one more word

To add to your 3,

In the act of searching,

I remember.

Wid Swinton, Pauper.

Fill your mug with something delicious, put your feet up, and join Natasha and me as we talk family trees.

When the story is done, feel free to meander around https://tinakonstant.com/ for more waffle-free tales and other stuff and nonsense.

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Tina

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