It’s the time of year when all the towns and villages start should
be hosting their village shows. There would be tea and cake a plenty, tombola’s
and competitions for the waggiest dog tail or the scruffiest mutt. I’m sure in
one form or another most people have been to one be it the school fete or the
church bazaar. But alas this year we have to accept that they are not going to
happen as we deal with the events of the world and the impact they are having
on our daily lives.
So how does this link into genealogy? Well your ancestors may have taken part in
the show. They may have run a stall or they may have entered the produce show.
This is when the historic records can give you an insight
into your ancestor’s lives. The newspaper archive combined with the census
results can give you so much information on your ancestors, if you’re lucky.
Now before everyone gets excited this is going to be hit and
miss and depend upon where your ancestors lived.
So how does this work. Well by using the census you can find
out where your ancestors lived. If they lived in a more rural location such as
the villages of the peak district or North Yorkshire (or anywhere similar) then
there is a greater chance of your ancestors participating in a village show.
From the information on where your ancestor lived you can search the newspaper
archive for information on the show. Just type in your ancestors name and the
search the local newspaper nearest to where they lived. Please don’t bother
searching the national newspapers as they hardly ever carried information on
such events.
So what can you find out? Well you may discover that they
were a judge in the show and that they chose the winning onions in the produce
show. You may also find out that they entered the produce or flower shows.
Perhaps your great grandma won a prize for her sponge cake or your great, great
Grandfather grew a massive marrow.
From here you can gain an insight into their everyday lives.
If your ancestors were judges in an event then they were respected in the field
they were judging or they were a respected within the community. For anyone who
has ever read the James Herriot novels in the All Creatures Great and Small
series may remember when James judged the produce show and the pressure it put
on him especially when he knew nothing about judging vegetables. It didn’t help
when the winner was the driver of one of his clients who was found of giving
out expensive food hampers from her dog Trickey Woo!
It also can tell you about the living conditions of your
ancestors. If they were able to enter the produce show, be it flowers or
vegetables then they must have had a garden to be able to grow the produce in.
Not many people would have had access to a garden in the towns unless they
lived in places such as Saltaire or Bornville. Also it means they had the
leisure time in which to tend and grow the produce. This means they were not
just working and sleeping like those in some of the mills and factories. If
they were able to enter a cake into a show then they must have had the spare
income to be able to make a cake that wasn’t going to be used to feed the
family.
Agricultural show results can also be a great source of information.
We’ve all see the great agricultural shows such as the Great Yorkshire Show,
Bakewell show the Royal Welsh Show. On many censuses if your ancestor was a
farmer it may just say farmer and not what they farmed. So if your ancestor
turns up in the show results with a prize winning cow then you know they had
cattle and thus can learn more about what they life of a cattle farmer was
like.
So the village show results in the newspaper can show you
more about the lives of your ancestors than your perhaps thought, but even if
you can’t find their names in the archive don’t be down heartened as if you
know they lived in the village or area of the show then the chances were they
were there and you can find out about what they experienced on that day.
