When in doubt ask the locals

[Weka]

Sasha needs to do a "where are your ancestors from" for Pippins.
So we have rung around the grandparents, and found out, sometimes having to go back 6 generations to get out of NZ!! Anyhow, her grt grt grandfather was apparently from cust in England, and try as we might, we can't find it on the map. I'm guessing by now it could be a suburb of somewhere, of may even have changed its name.

Does anyone know?



So far we have discovered, England, Ireland, Austria, boehemia, Australia and Croatia. Real mixed blood.

[Kaz]

I've never heard of a Cust here Weka, but when I googled I found one in New Zealand, a part of Canterbury!

[Weka]

Yep, that was my first thought too. Could it be a country or parish or spelt wrong?

I saw the Ireland place spelt 4 rather different ways! But when you sound it out it they all seem to work.

[Workingman]

Well now. I have played with the vowels in Cust to see if there might have been a name change and only a and u turn anything up - Cast and Cust.

Of the names beginning Cast most are referring to castles: Castleford, Castle Howard etc. Only Castley north of Leeds does not refer to a castle. Dead end?

However. when it comes to Cust there have been two Baronetcies: One based on Stamford in Lincolnshire; and the other at Leasehowe Castle near Chester. There is also and area called Custley Hey in Liverpool. The one in Stamford died out in 1677, but the other survived until 1931.

It is not out of bounds for someone working directly for the Baronetcy, or closely connected to it, to describe themselves as being from Cust, certainly not four or five generations back - 100 to 140 years ago.

Slim pickings, I know, but maybe a start. Good luck with it Sash and Weka.

[meriad]

wow Frank - that's fascinating...

[Weka]

It's my grt grandfather, so circa 1880-1910 is my guess.
Looks like Chester could potentially be it.

Who knows though, but for this purpose, that will do. I'll have to have another chat to my mum and see what else she knows.

There's a new TV show on here, hatch, match and dispatch and it's all about the Australian registry office, and they just had someone on tracing their ancestry and they found 3 convicts.
Very interesting.... At this rate I could get into genealogy.

[Workingman]

Ria, Weka, my thinking went along the lines of someone saying they were from Blenheim.

There is no Blenheim, as such, though there is Blenheim Palace, so someone working at Blenheim Palace or connected with it in some way, might describe themselves as being from there, IYSWIM. They could even do it semi-officially.

[meriad]

Funny you say that Frank, because my first thought was that it may have been someone originally saying they were from the Coast of England (with a very broad accent maybe?) But then being an island, there is a lot of coast here so that didn't really narrow things down

[JoM]

It's all very interesting Weka, let us know if you find out more!

Both of my parents have cousins who have traced family trees. Mom's cousin got their's back to the 1800s whereas Dad's cousin traced the tree for my Grandmother's side right back to the 1500s and somewhere in there was a family member from Arkansas (which probably explains the fascination I've always had with the Deep South ).

From what they've said, once you start looking it does get quite addictive.

John managed to trace his grandfather earlier this year. Tom had to write an essay about something historical in the family and all we had was his Grandfather's war medals. MIL didnt know much about her father as he died when she was 2 and they'd been unable to trace any record of him. On looking at the edge of his medals though the family name - Conneelly - had been spelt as Connelly and that did it! Two days later he had print outs of all of his war records plus details of where he'd lived and John, the boys and MIL went to Galway in June and visited his old house, which is now a restaurant so they were actually able to go in.

[Kaz]

Fascinating, isn't it Jo? My friend who does genealogy as a paid hobby did mine for me, after mum and dad died, as a gift, as she remembered them both fondly. It was brilliant, went back right to the early half of the 19th century, through the mining villages of Durham where dad's lot came from, but back via Scotland to Derry in N Ireland where the family had also been miners! On mum's side there was a lot from London, my great granddad who died in WWI had been a caretaker at the Houses of Parliament which entitled him to marry my g-grandmother at St George's Hanover Square, where the MPs get married He used to look after the clock in Big Ben

Some g-g-g-g-aunty was a mantua maker, which is apparently headwear, like hats, a g-g- grandfather had been a horse vet in Westminster. Must be where B gets her love on animals Then there was a long line of farmers, from Metfield on the Norfolk/Suffolk border I love all that stuff, it fascinates me!

Good luck finding yours Weka Have you thought of looking through the online censuses at all? Some are accessible for free, I think x