Researching Coles boating family history

[Caroline Coles]

Hello all and thank you for accepting me into this site.

I am researching my family history, the Coles family from Kirtlington who were a canal boat family in the 1700 -1900's.

I live in Australia and recently went back home and together with my cousin and Ancesty.com have found connections with our Coles family and their canal boating family history, some were lockkeepers and others were boaters.

I am hoping to find more connections here

 

[Tracy D'arth]

Any relation to Coles Morton who built boats at Whalley Bridge in the '70s?

[Ray T]

On 13/08/2023 at 07:56, Tracy D'arth said:

Any relation to Coles Morton who built boats at Whalley Bridge in the '70s?

 

I think the Cole’s family Caroline is after were originally Oxford based. 

 

@Caroline Coles 

Further information with help with tracing family ancestors. Many of the boat people were unable to read or write as the working life never gave the children much, if any, opportunity for schooling. They also spoke with a mixture of accents picked up from the towns and villages on their way. When births, deaths and marriages were recorded the recorder wrote down what he / she heard. In various records I have 5 different spellings of "my" narrow boat Captain's surname, yet they are all the same family.
Also some of the boat people had many children and often used family names. It is quite possible to find cousins with the same name and similar birth dates so it is easy to go off on the wrong track.
I have seen some sloppy family trees on genealogy sites where in one case it had a girl getting married at eight years old.
Back up records in the form of census, boat health registrations, birth, marriage certificates etc., are essential.

 Tracing families is very time consuming and can be an expensive business, taking approximately 200 hours to get back 5 generations. GRO* certificates are about £11 per certificate.
Plus of course the annual fees to ancestry sites. 

So, don't expect people to give away their hard-earned research. I'm afraid if you are really serious in tracing your boating ancestors you have much work ahead of you. Even then it never really ends.
Another lead is cemeteries where boat people are buried, these often give quite accurate dates of births and deaths. Boaters tended to bring their loved ones to what was considered "home port" for funerals and burial. One example being, Braunston in Northampton.

* Government Records Office.

 

A Waterways family heritage:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/379770275469928

Mary Priors book Fisher Row is a mine of information on the history of the Oxford boat people.

Amazon.co.uk : fisher row

CanalBookShop - The website for canal & waterway books, maps and DVDs

Our Shop (eurekapartnership.com)

 

Photo credit NarrowBoat Magazine.

Edited August 14, 2023 by Ray T
Additional information

[alan_fincher]

11 hours ago, Caroline Coles said:

Hello all and thank you for accepting me into this site.

I am researching my family history, the Coles family from Kirtlington who were a canal boat family in the 1700 -1900's.

 

If you want to have the best chance of coming up with accurate research, it pays to be super accurate in anything you say yourself.

 

The first of the canals as we now know them in Britain were not until late 1750s / early 1760s.

 

I therefore can't see that the family you describe could have been a canal boat family 60 years prior to the coming of the canals!

Edited August 13, 2023 by alan_fincher

[system 4-50]

That seems to be unkind.  Perhaps what was meant was 18th century to 20th century, in a more approximate way?

[Ray T]

A brief guide to UK canal chronology.

 

 

Edited August 13, 2023 by Ray T

[Derek R.]

A warm welcome to Caroline Coles, and I hope Caroline is not disuaded from a certain 'inacccurate' comment as above.

 

Thanks to Ray T for the above posts and images.

[Captain Pegg]

I have a few members of the Coles family in my extended tree of boat people connected - as distinct from directly related - to my own family.

 

Thomas Coles b.1842 Kirklington married Louisa Humphries which immediately produces a link to @Ray T’s own ‘Captain’.

 

Their daughter Emma married John Humphries, numerous marriages between the same families being common.

 

Another daughter married into the Hambridge family, like the Humphries another large and widespread boating family.

 

A little more research will produce many other links as most boat people can be connected to one another somehow.

Edited August 14, 2023 by Captain Pegg

[Ray T]

4 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

I have a few members of the Coles family in my extended tree of boat people connected - as distinct from directly related - to my own family.

 

Thomas Coles b.1842 Kirklington married Louisa Humphries which immediately produces a link to @Ray T’s own ‘Captain’.

 

Their daughter Emma married John Humphries, numerous marriages between the same families being common.

 

Another daughter married into the Hambridge family, like the Humphries another large and widespread boating family.

 

A little more research will produce many other links as most boat people can be connected to one another somehow.

 

William Humphries b1846, and his wife Mary Ann Humphries b1851, Louisa's parents, were Mike's Great Grandparents.
Incidentally William & Mary Ann were 1st cousins.

Being "off the bank" I learnt never to criticize one boater to another, because you do not know who is related to who!
To quote a lady boater, "You kick one of us, we all limp."

[Captain Pegg]

42 minutes ago, Ray T said:

 

William Humphries b1846, and his wife Mary Ann Humphries b1851, Louisa's parents, were Mike's Great Grandparents.
Incidentally William & Mary Ann were 1st cousins.

Being "off the bank" I learnt never to criticize one boater to another, because you do not know who is related to who!
To quote a lady boater, "You kick one of us, we all limp."

I’m not sure all the boaters knew who was related to who either. My mum knew a lot of boating families growing up where she did but it’s only through my research that we established she was quite closely related to some of them without knowing if.

 

My junior school class included a Monk, a Hough and a Peasland and I knew I was vaguely related to the former two but it’s only through research that I now know how.