When I am working on a family study for my OPS, I use many different sources, family history search engines, censuses, parish registers, newspaper reports, academic papers – anything which throws additional light on the family I am looking at. In my mind, the variety of different sources helps to build a bigger picture of the family and how they conducted their lives and adds to the interest, rather than simply a list of names and dates.
As regular readers may remember, in my first piece on the Alsop family I referred to an interesting paper I had found which related the skills and training of mill wrights to the development of engineers in later times, as they were accustomed to complex machinery and the need for accurately made parts so that the moving machinery operated smoothly. I had noticed that there seemed to be a number of Alsops/Allsops/Allsopps who were millers in the surrounding area, at least from the early 1700s and very possibly earlier.
A recent online search for ‘Alsop + millers’ brought up a few interesting links and one of these was a link for an Allsopp Genealogy website. A very interesting website too, very well set out and extensive and including reference to an Allsopp One Name Study. I sent off an email, mentioning the OPS and my Alsop family study and asking whether the owner of the website had noticed a lot of Alsops who were millers.
I received a very prompt reply from Dennis Allsopp, who is in Australia, he had clearly looked at my posts on WordPress and he asked whether I would allow him to place a link to the study on the website, as he felt that visitors to his site would find it interesting. Of course, I am very happy for this to happen. Dennis described Staffordshire as ‘a hotbed for the Allsop name, especially around Walsall’ which tied in with my findings. He had not observed a great number of millers in his database but did comment that many were shoemakers or cordwainers – which again ties in precisely with my findings!
Not even 12 hours after my first contact with Dennis, he had read, it seems, quite a few of my posts about the Alsops and related those to the family and their place in the Industrial Revolution. He talks, in his link to my blog, about the technical skills of the family and their transition from artisan craftsmen to modern engineering in the Black Country and elsewhere. And, having written about this, he had then added this fabulous image, incorporating names, dates, a mill and machinery , all designed and done in less than a day after I had contacted him! This sort of contact is one of the things which make this study so worthwhile!
So, if you have Alsop links by name or in your family tree, do go and look at the Allsopp Genealogy website, this link goes to the page about the Lost Hamlets but if you click on the home button at the top, there is a huge amount to explore. I am very impressed by (and tbh, somewhat envious of) the technical skills used here.
https://allsoppgenealogy.com/732-2/
Dennis is also working on the Allsopp One Name Study and there is a Facebook page, too where Dennis has also apparently put a link to my study. Thank you, Dennis!
Just to think that I thought the Alsop family would be a quick easy Family Study, a bit of a recreation from some of the more familiar Rowley families – but it seems that every family I look at expands in this way and provides new areas of interest!
rowleyregislosthamlets.co.uk 