During September I'll be learning how to trace my family tree. I want to specifically focus on my Dad's side of the family finding out about the name Beadle and how far back it goes.
I've signed up to Ancestry.com for a free trial. As soon as I started looking up my family it became addictive. It's really easy on Ancestry as they have all the civil documents uploaded for you to look through and you can easily search for a family member.
I found my grandad, Frank Stoker Beadle and then his parents, Ephraim and Elizabeth Beadle. I was surprised to learn they'd lived on South Beech Avenue in Starbeck, just one street over from where we used to live in Avenue Grove. That information was on an old electoral register.
Further back I found Ephraim's parents Charles and Eliza Beadle who lived in Knaresborough. And their parents, William 'Old Hallelujah' Beadle and his wife Charlotte. They had 12 children as far as I can tell!! William got his nickname because he was a lay preacher in his spare time trying to spread the word of God. He worked all week as an agricultural worker and often only got a few hours sleep at the weekend after being out preaching.
They lived in Patrington near Hull (still Yorkshire!) As did William's parents Richard and Mary Bedall.
It seems the spelling of the surname varies throughout the years. Beadle, Beadal, Bedell. I think this is due to a lot of records being written down when someone is asked their name which causes names to be written more like they sound.
I got as far back as 1530 when John Bedell was born in Withernwick near Hull.
In 1861 two of Old Hallelujah's sons, George and Henry Beadle emigrated to Auburn in Ontario, Canada where they married two sisters Martha and Emma (Another Emma Beadle!!) who had also emigrated to Canada and came from East Yorkshire too. So there are plenty of Canadian Beadles out there who I share family with.
It was nice to read about my family tree but I really wanted to see something physical too. JD offered to drive me on a pilgrimage to the Hull area so we could look in some graveyards for Beadles. We started with Thorngumbald since that was the district they all lived in around the early 1900s. JD and I pulled up to the Saint Mary the Virgin church and my heart fell. It was a tiny graveyard with only 20 or so graves in it.
I decided to take a picture of the church anyway and stood outside the gates with my phone raised. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the name Beadle on a gravestone! I couldn't believe it. It was David Beadle, one of Old Hallelujah's sons and his wife Ann.
We looked at the rest of the gravestones and found another Beadle. This time it was David's brother Thomas and his wife Isabella. Pretty amazing to find two Beadles in such a small graveyard, but then again OH did have 12 kids!
Old Hallelujah was counted as living in nearby Patrington during the 1880 census of the area so we decided to test our luck by trying there next. The church of St Patrick was a really nice church with a HUGE graveyard.
JD and I searched high and low for a Beadle but none were found. I thought it very unlikely we'd find a grave for OH as he'd died in a poor house, the building had been demolished in 1981. But it was worth a look. I feel lucky the pilgrimage was reasonably local, only an hour or so away!
I really enjoyed my foray into researching my family tree. I'm pleased to find out that we're from Yorkshire as far back as the 1500s. I've always been a proud Yorkshire Lass but now I can say it with more conviction. I was also pleased to find another Emma Beadle on the family tree. I wish my Dad was still around so I could tell him about all this, it was him telling us of his grandad Ephraim that made me want to find out more.
Next month - British Sign Language
