No village too small

Having drawn up your family tree it looks a bit on the bare side with all those dates and little else. Its now time to start looking for the fruit on it. As well as for your own interest this will enable you to put some flesh onto the bones of any skeletons found in and out of the cupboard.

There are many sources available but the two main ones easily found at the Reference Library in Free School Lane and in the Lincoln Archives are Kelly's and Whites Directories. Depending on where you live governs the amount of information contained in each publication. For a large town or city such as Lincoln or Boston there may be a complete street by street index of all inhabitants but if you are unlucky enough to have an ancestor who was an agricultural labourer and who lived in a village - and most of us are - then information is not so easily come by. The Directories normally only list the principal inhabitants such as landowners, farmers and those in trade. An entry which is quite typical is this one for Sotby of 1856 from White's Directory

Directory

Coote George, carpenter

Goddard Thomas, parish clerk

Tripp George, shoemaker

Tripp John, vict. Nag's Head

Weatherhog Joseph, shopkeeper & smith

Post from Wragby

Farmers

Baggerley Thomas

Borringham William

Curtois William

Scholey Edward

Scholey Thomas

Stovin George

Frederick Kelly published a Post Office Directory for Lincoln early in the 19^th century and it has carried on until recent years. Don't forget the point I made a few weeks ago that you can't believe all that is written without checking on the original source. As you look through the many years of directories you will notice that what is written does not change a great deal from year to year and with so many villages in Lincolnshire it was not easy for the publishers to check the data. One Kelly's Directory recorded that the was a church in the village of Grasby in 950AD. Over the years I have tried to find the original source of this information without success, but out there somewhere there could be a reference which someone found and putting two and two together came up with three. Information in one directory was sometimes found in a rival publication.

The majority of the population were of course, labourers working on the land and in the mam this multitude was not recorded. To be included one needed a trade or to own land. Reprints of some Directories are still available. Whites 1856 Directory of Lincolnshire and more recently Whites 1872 Directory both make interesting bedtime reading. For those in trade Pigots and Bennets are both good sources with reprints still coming out. Inside you can find adverts such as:-

Cross Keys inn - Grasby

George Roskilly - proprietor.

cyclists & parties catered for. also horsebreaker &

waggonette proprietor. runs to Brigg Thursday

waggonette & dog-cart for hire.

The information found in a directory will include the population taken at the last census, area of land and its rateable value, and items of interest about the village such as:-

SOTBY, an old village of thatched houses, on an acclivity, 5 miles east of Wragby, has in its parish 152 souls, and 1604 acres of land, mostly the property of Robert Vyner, Esq. Lord of the manor. The church (St Peter) is a discharged rectory, valued in the Kings Book at £9 0s l0d, and now at £193 per annum. The Lord Chancellor is patron, and the Rev, John Bainbridge Smith, of Ranby, is the incumbent.

Even the smallest of places gets a mention and they don't come much smaller than this:-

MORTON, in the vale of a rivulet, 9 miles S W by W of Lincoln, is an extra parochial house and estate, containing 6 souls and 710 acres of land belonging to Mrs Solly, and occupied by Thomas Pilgrim, farmer. It anciently belonged to the Knights Templar of Eagle Hall., and usually returned with Swinderby parish.