Let's Talk Somerset

Laughed out loud when I heard the Bristol accent.
The county of Somerset is where some of the family ancestors came from.

And we do, for sure, come from farmers for generations upon generations.



Some of our English antecedents were wealthy landowners in Upper Woodlands in the area near Frome, which isn't such a long way from the famous Bath, frequented by many travellers. There was a castle surrounded by a moat, on the estate. In 1805 a daughter of these landowners married their gardener or manager, who had been a soldier. It didn't go over too well with her parents and there was subsequent estrangement between the young couple and her family, although when her brother died in 1818, he left some of his valuable worldly goods (like his bed; valuable in those days) to his sister, brother-in-law and one or two of his nephews.

But anyway, I come honestly by my love of flowers.

One's own ancestry is of much more interest than that of others, usually, but my relatives reading this might not have heard me go on about these few details before.

I love the shows on TV that trace ancestry for selected guests. There is a lot of cultural and social history to be learned from them, just like there is from Antiques Roadshow. When it's on, I can't look away.