South Eastern Gazette 28th October 1856.
Petty Sessions, Monday 27th October.
Albert John Emptage and John Martin, two lads under ten years old, were charged by the owners of the “Ondine” fishing lugger, with stealing a quantity of biscuits from that vessel.
When we embarked on our project looking at the Early Emptages, we decided that we needed a way of grouping the early parish register entries for births, marriages and burials into families. We hoped that there would be enough information in the wills and testaments of our ancestors to help us.
We were delighted to find more wills than we had imagined and, though the olde English writing and language (in Latin for the very early wills) takes time to interpret and transcribe, we are making progress.
Following the death of his mother and the incapacity of his father, when Stanley was just eight years old he found himself in a Boy’s Industrial Home in Lewisham, south London. He suffered under its very harsh regime and was removed to the Training Ship Exmouth.
Although there was discipline, it wasn’t harsh and the boys were taught skills which would fit them for their future lives. Stanley thrived and was able to develop his music skills and make music his career.
Thomas was called upon to do his duty and hire out his cutter to the Navy Board, to help service the English fleet at war with France.
If you hire something out, you expect to be paid for your time and expenses especially when, during the period of the hire, you’ve not had any other form of income and have incurred debts on behalf of your country.
Thomas, like many other people at the time, found himself having to argue with the Navy Board in order to be paid.
Patron saints are heavenly advocates for nations or places, occupations and professions or people. Perhaps the most well known is St Christopher, the patron saint of travellers.
I think that it is time for family historians to have a patron saint who they can call upon in times of stress and bewilderment. But who should it be? Who would favour our particular interest?
Regular readers of this website will be aware of the incredible effort we put in to researching the facts concerning our ancestors. Of course, the further back we go, the more difficult it becomes.
Sometimes we draw reasoned conclusions and other times we may advance an hypothesis based on the somewhat limited evidence we have gathered as we’ve travelled through time.
Roger Emptage has gathered together a number of Emptage strands and presents his hypothesis here. Enjoy!
