A request for help was published in the Bristol & Avon Family History Society magazine by the owner of a sampler sewn by Elizabeth Sophia BLAYDS of South Stoke Vicarage, Somerset on 8th Dec 1843. The owner was looking to reunite the sampler with its family.
During the summer of 2021, Gorgon Stone Conservation was employed to perform what they thought to be a simple paint stripping job on a Georgian building in the centre of the town, only to discover three different layers of old signage underneath. The company carefully removed the paint to reveal a wonderful glimpse at some of the former lives of this unusual curved property, situated at 1 Market Place (formally 25 Bath Street) in Frome, Somerset. I was intrigued to know what I could find out about the businesses on the old signage, uncovering over 200 years of history, stretching all the way along from 24 Bath Street to 1-3 Market Place.
A “little” bit of detective work caught my eye on the Bristol & Avon Family History Society’s Facebook page in mid-Jan, regarding a Captain JOSEPH CHARLES NEWTON, possibly of Bristol, who died in Epping, Victoria, Australia in 1903. I wondered what I could find out.
A new bit of detective work caught my eye during October with a request from Maureen Humphries for help identifying James GULLIVER who died in Bath, Somerset in 1915, and his daughter Mary (Maureen’s great-grandmother) who was born in Bristol in 1879. Could I track them down in census records?
The houses along Tennyson Road were built in 1897 on land leased from St. John’s Hospital. The lease began on 21st December 1895 for 499 years, and there were 33 houses built in total. Using census and electoral records, it is possible to trace the occupants of 7 Tennyson Road from 1899 (two years after it was built) to 1939 (three years before it sustained serious war damage and was rebuilt), more or less covering its existence in its original form.