Back in Time

I've always been interested in history, it's kind of mandatory when you study fashion, looking at the history of clothing and dress through the years. I often have a search online and see what family history can be found out there and recently by Auntie has been doing some reseach into our family tree and it has set me off again.

Now there's so many different sites out there to research family trees, census information and local history, but if you really want to do things properly you have to pay for things like census searches and proper birth certificates. But this weekend I hit on a winning formula of free sites and traced my roots back to the 1700's! Now as my auntie is getting all the birth, marriage and death certifcates I'm not going to duplicate this, we'll just sit down at some point and compare notes - it will be interesting to see whether I got it right!

Tracing my history through my mother's maiden name of Olive in the Manchester suburb of Prestwich (where I was born) we discovered a history of dressmakers, washerwomen and cotton mill workers. The family is built on strong working class men and women living in the poorest areas of Manchester. Linking it into the social history of the time, you can imagine the life in the mills, the scandal of the unmarried mother, the joy of a marriage at the newly built All Saints church. Its a really interesting look at the past and its interesting to see the connections to what I do now.

My studio is based in an old cotton mill in Manchester about 4-5 miles from the area my ancestors lived. My great, great, great grandmother was a Victorian dressmaker, my great, great grandfather a maker-up and his parents cotton mill workers. Its strange how life comes full-circle and when I'm sewing away in my studio it has a strange parallel with times gone by.

Here's s list of some of the websites I found useful for my search:

www.ancestry.co.uk

you have to subscribe for a premium service but you can use their tree-maker for free which is great for recording everything you find and making notes.

www.lan-opc.org.uk

The lancashire parish clerks project - many churches in Lancashire have transcribed their records so you can search births, marriages and deaths.

www.freecen.org.uk

Volunteers have transcribed information from various census online - they are by no means complete but can often show surprising results.

www.1911census.co.uk

Most of the census records are now available online - you have to pay to see the actual records but you can search for free and if you get crafty with the advanced search you can deduce the rest of the household without having to pay! I plan to have a look at the other years when I next get chance!

www.gmcro.co.uk

Greater Manchester County Records Office - a great source of old photgraphs and social history.