A very belated thankyou must go to Wendy from New Zealand (apologies, Wendy!). Thanks to Wendy, who provided me with photos of some HATTON ancestors and comprehensive WANSTALL and HATTON trees, I have been able to make great inroads into these families. Her information regarding books written by Professor Barry Reay of Auckland University has proved invaluable, and contact with Barry himself lead me to purchase his book titled “Microhistories: Demography, society and culture in rural England, 1800-1930” (ISBN 0-521-89222-8). This focuses on rural society around the Boughton, Blean and Dunkirk areas near Canterbury, and includes wonderful family trees – which include my FULLER and WANSTALL ancestors!
I have started reading another of his books first, though, namely “Rural Englands: Labouring Lives in the Nineteenth Century” (ISBN 0-333-66919-3), which covers rural life in sections of England (hence “Englands”) as a whole.
I have since spent many days (and still am) tracing WANSTALL families – not helped by there being three generations called Benjamin Wanstall, and other cousins/in-laws using the name too! I am also trying to pick my way through a recently found website:
http://wanstallkentandbeyond.com
Go along – and tell them I sent you!
PS. Stats updated
