News on developments in the research underpinning this website. See also the update history on the home page and the library index for a full list of articles. Go the About page for updates on the study and of structural changes to this website.
News Updates 2011-2014
Oct 2014 - The Herefordshire Skyrmes
Jun 2014 - Skyrme One Name Study, Canadian records
May 2014 - Bigamist, Robert Randall Skyrme
Mar 2014 - Skyrmes of Llangwm. Burton Ferry
Jul 2013 - The Pembroke Story, Pembrokeshire archives
Mar 2013 - Llangwm Ferry
Jan 2013 - Current work
Nov 2011 - New publication: The Skyrmes of Manorbier and Penally.
A Start on the Herefordshire Skyrmes
OK - I am well behind where I had hoped to be on the writing of the 'Skyrmes of Llangwm'. However, a lot has happened since the last news in June:
1. I've taken advantage of limited time free access to major websites, particularly for overseas records to capture as many instances of Skyrme as I can. This includes US records and Australian records. In addition, more material is coming online all the time, including WW1 records, parish registers and fascinatingly school registers. For example George Ryland Skyrme, whose family moved from Pembroke when his father David got a job on the railways, left Chester School at the age of 14 in 1913 to work in a grocer's shop.
2. I've dealt with several interesting queries that have involved research. One was from a schoolteacher in Herefordshire whose children are doing a project trying to find out more about the soldiers from the village of Letton who fought in WW1. The ones I were challenged with were Albert Skyrme and Thomas G Skyrme. I could find no references on CWGC.org (Commonwealth War Graves website), but then things fell into place, when I found records that suggested they may have survived the war. The enquirer revisited the Letton memorial plaque which said "men from this parish who served [my emphasis] in the great war 1914-1919". Arthur's Army record partly survives and shows him serving in France in 1916 and 1917 with the Royal Field Artillery.
3. I'm for ever grateful for little tid-bits that correspondents pass on. One, for example, wrote "did I know about the involvement of Skyrmes and Herefordshire cattle". I had found news articles about Skyrmes who migrated from Herefordshire, but a little gem I found that gives all the background is "The History of Herefordshire Cattle". It has quite a few sections on how John Skyrme furthered the pedigree. Another, William Skyrme of Dewsall (1739-1804) is described as a "distinguished pioneer". Another entry says:
"In April, 1805, the whole of the cattle belonging to Mr. Skyrme of Stretton were sold by auction when he retired from business...the stock is without exception some of the finest sorts of breeding cattle in the Kingdom."
The full book is available at the Internet archive at https://archive.org/details/historyofherefor09macd.
4. Because I have started work on the Skyrmes of Herefordshire (initially the Vowchurch cluster), I have joined the Herefordshire Family History Society, and have already purchased one set of Monumnetal Inscriptions (for Vowchurch). This gives more precise details of individuals and dates of death. In this particular area, Samuel was a common boy's name of the Skyrmes.
5. I also did a follow-up Pharos course in July - a One Place Studies course. One place studies are part local history, part social, economic and demographic analysis, and part biographical. For my location I choose Llangwm, so the data I found on the course will help add context to the current work on the Skyrmes of Llangwm. It brings home to me the importance of the fishing to the community (most Skyrmes were fishermen, mariners or ferrymen). The most lucrative catch was oysters, though herrings and cockles were also fished. Llangwm's fisherwomen were renowned. They would carry baskets full of oysters on their head and walked the 5 miles to Pembroke via Burton Ferry to sell them to dealers from Kent for the London trade.
6. Finally, I still have many newspaper entries to process. There were several about Daniel Skyrme (1820-1904) of Llangwm. It seems he was quite a character often finding himself in brawls. However, he met an untimely death. "FARMER BREAKS HIS NECK: A Shocking Fatality near Haverfordwest" ran the headline reporting it. Apparently he was dismounting from his horse and fell and broke his neck, dying instantly. The report describes him as "a superannuated dockyard man, had latterly taken to farming, and was widely known and respected." The irony is that he was just returning from obtaining a death certificate for his sister (which one I have not yet ascertained).
June 2014
Three significant things have happened this month:
1. I signed up for an online course on Advanced One-Name Studies. This is a 6-week course run by Pharos Teaching and Tutoring which also includes an assignment to be completed by mid-August. This has broadened my perspective on the scope of this website. It has highlighted the need to understand more fully the origins of the surname, its distribution over time, and variants. For example, although Skirm was a common variant in England in the 1500 and 1600s, it is virtually non-existent now, yet it pervades in the USA. The challenge is to identify when and where it migrated. I have some clues that it was to early settlements in Virginia. If any of my US colleagues have better information, then I would like to hear from them.
2. Ian Skyrm has passed over the registration of the Skyrm(e) One-Name Study. Although I have only within the last two years expanded the research of Skyrmes beyond my own family tree, Ian has been doing it for more than 10 years. However, he can devote less time to it than previously, so he has magnanimously asked me to take over the baton. I feel privileged to do this and am enormously thankful to him for sending a CD with all the research he has done to date. His excellent work is being amalgamated into my databases and research and updates included on this website. However, as is the case with all Guild registered studies, if you have a query on the study, or want further details of your Skyrme ancestors before they are published on this website, then please don't hesitate to contact me.
3. Canadian Records. To celebrate Canada Day (1st July) Ancestry.ca offered a few days free access to its Canadian records. Although I had already got some records from various sources, I took full advantage and plugged many gaps. One area of fascination was finding a family of Skyrmes in Port Alberni in British Columbia, a place I had passed through a few years ago. As well as census information I found outgoing passenger lists and immigration details (an example is shown in the thumbnail, right). Other Skyrme families were farmers near Revelstoke in BC. A One-name Study is truly world-wide and although the majority of Skyrme(s) are found in the UK, there have been reasonable numbers in the USA, Canada and Australia since the 19th century. See also the section on distribution and frequency.
May 2014
Much of the recent work has been cross checking the Llangwm tree that I have been developing with those from other sources, such as contributors to Ancestry. This has helped uncover some individuals I have missed and also given spouses names where I had none. On then going back to find why I had missed them, it is the usual problem of mistranscribing (e.g. Skyrome). Also, quite often there were conflicting dates, or the wrong John Skyrme allocated to a family pair, which meant double-checking my sources, to ensure that I was right and the contributed tree wrong. Anyway, writing up is now well under way and hopefully this summer, the first release of The Skyrmes of Llangwm and the Cleddau will be published on this website.
One of the most fascinating stories that I uncovered is that Robert Randell Skyrme apparently married a bigamist! Robert was a descendent of John Skyrme of Llangwm. In 1870 he married a Mary Phillips in Haverfordwest, and they then moved to Cardiff. He died aged 44 only 5 years later. The story that broke the news of Mary's bigamy appeared in editions of the Cardiff Evening Express on 23rd and 30th December 1893. Having married again in Cardiff, she came to court seeking maintenance from her third husband Thomas Williams, a train driver who had moved away to Cowbridge. When Mary, described as "a woman of substantial proportions" first came before the court, the magistrate accused her of drinking and "in a disgraceful condition, unfit to give evidence". When the case resumed one week later, Thomas's lawyer in his defence, brought forward Mary's first husband Daniel, whom she married when 17. This proved that he was still alive when she married Robert, and that therefore her subsequent marriages were illegal. So was Robert Skyrme aware of Mary's situation, and that therefore his marriage was null and void, or did he die in ignorance?
I've also been processing records and photos that I took while in Pembrokeshire last year. One headstone in the black Tar cemetery at Llangwm, gives the names of two sisters Elizabeth (died 1973 aged 86) and Frances Beatrice (died 1989 aged 101). By working the family tree downwards I have found them to be two of the 11 children of John Nicholas Skyrme (1858-1937) and Sophia nee Bowen (1859-1935). They were both spinsters and Elizabeth was for many years a local schoolteacher.
March 2014
Work continues on the Skyrmes of Llangwm. However, with more collections coming online all the time, several sources, e.g. WW1 army records, have been searched to extract details of all Skyrmes. In particular the recently launched Welsh Newspapers online has many Skyrme stories which provide some valuable context for my research. I have also been working through steadily baptism and other records for some Skyrme clusters in Herefordshire, notably Vowchurch, Here are some of the highlights from recent months:
- From watermen to shipwrights - Many of the early Skyrmes in Llangwm were fishermen, mariners or ferrymen. However, as Pembroke Dockyard expanded, many went to work there. I have now identified 9 who worked there in the period from 1861 to 1901. And most walked there every day. They walked about 3 miles along the lanes to Burton where they would catch a ferry to the other side and walk a further mile to the dockyard.
- Because of records deposited in Pembrokeshire archives we know quite a lot about Peter Skyrme (1837-1892). There is, for example, an immaculate hand-written mathematics schoolbook. Obviously he didn't like the long daily walk so he took his family to Church Street in Pembroke Dock, where 6 of his sons also became shipwrights.
- The Cardiff Weekly Mail of 12th August 1899 describes how John Skyrme (b. 1858) was walking to work at the dockyard on the previous Saturday (no 5 day working then!) and witnessed a lightening strike which killed one of his three fellow workers.
- Also meeting an untimely death was Daniel Skyrme (1820-1894), a farmer who broke his neck while dismounting from his horse. Newspaper reports show that he also had a few scraps with the law - and neighbours - during his lifetime.
- Margaret Skyrme (1823-1896), a descendent of one of the Herefordshire branches turned out to be a successful business woman in Southwark. For over thirty years she was a shirt maker and at her peak employed 40 people. Perhaps reamining a spinster helped!
- Richard Edward Elcho Skyrme (1895-1917), son of clergyman Frank Elcho Skyrme and a descendant of William Skyrme (b~1750) of Dewsall, Herefordshire, served with distinction in the Duke of Edinburgh's Wiltshire regiment in World War 1. A 2nd Lieutenant, he served in France and Flanders, took part in the Battle of the Somme and was killed in action at Ploegsteert ("Plugstreet") on 6th February 1916, aged 22.
No doubt as more war diaries come on line we shall find details of places where Skyrmes fought and in some cases lost their lives during World War 1.
As always I am happy to answer questions or to generate narratives and charts of your ancestors from specific branches from my database as I did recently for a particular Albert Skyrme.
July 2013
I had booked a photography course for the end of the month at Dale Head, but it was cancelled. So instead, I substituted some days in Pembrokeshire to get a sense of place. I stayed at a farmhouse B&B in Jameston, which was actually Green Grove (photo), the farm of my great great great granduncle and his descendants for about 50 years in the 19th century. Highlights of the visit were:
- Visiting the places Skyrmes lived. These included Pembroke, Pembroke Dock, Monkton, Hundleton, Manorbier, Penally, Tenby, Lydstep, Haverfordwest, Llangwm, Burton. Often the original cottages were there (though modernised), but in several cases (e.g. Tenby, Monkton), they had been demolished.
- The Pembroke Story - an exhibition in the Old Court House, Pembroke Town Hall, with many old photos and details of the history of Pembroke, Pembroke Dock and Monkton. One exhibit was that of a midwife's register, in which I saw her record of the birth of one of my aunts in Monkton in 1913.
- A day at Pembroke Archives - the staff were most helpful in getting me many records, e.g. of property transactions and wills. An interesting one concerns the death of Thomas Skyrme (1840-1909) who worked on the Corston Estate. An earlier correspondent had suggested that he was killed by a pedigree black bull, but a few months ago I found a newspaper report describing a lingering death from being crushed under farm machinery - arggh (see snippets). A set of records I found related to his widow Mary being paid a pension from the insurance policy of a worker's compensation scheme.
- Visiting Owen Vaughan, a local historian who has amassed a wealth of data in his 40 years of research into his family and the parishes in which they lived. He produced lists of Skyrmes from parish registers, headstones and other records, which I am cross-checking against my database. Most useful to me were lists of Pembroke burgesses, a source I had not come across before.
The net result is a lot of additional material which a) will corroborate (or otherwise) other transcripts and my database; and b) provide useful context for my forthcoming publications. In addition I may add a photo gallery to this website and possibly expand the snippets section to include more detail of the stories such as those of Thomas.
March 2013
During the month the site was moved to a new server, and at the same time updated to be XHTML complaint and using CSS styles for layout. In addition migration has taken place from RootsMagic to Family Historian V5, which allows us to generate more customised reports. That's the technical stuff. On the genealogy front, new research is well under way on:
- The Skyrmes of Llangwm and The Cleddau (photo shows site of Llangwm Ferry, operated for many years by the Skyrme family).
- The family trees have been updated with the latest information on our database
- Finding interesting articles in the British Newspaper Archive on Skyrmes across the UK
- Extending research along the lines of a one-name study to cover the Skyrmes of Herefordshire and further afield (USA, New Zealand etc.)
As each chunk of research is completed, data will be added to this website.
January 2013
Three activities are now in progress:
- A significant update of this website, including correcting the current tree, adding new branches and uploading source material to complement the publication of volume 1 of The Skyrmes of Pembrokeshire.
- Researching the Skyrmes of Llangwm and The Cleddau - this will be volume 2 of The Skyrmes of Pembrokeshire.
- Researching my maternal line, which has another uncommon name Yardy. Since this name is less common than Skyrme (this was a surprise to me), I am researching all Yardys (also spelt Yarday, Yardey and Yeardye ) and preparing a publication Yardys of The Fens (they were found in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Huntingdonshire and Lincolnshire).
November 2011
The main addition has been the uploading of The Skyrmes of Pembrokeshire - (1) Manorbier and Penally. This 48 page document provides good coverage of the descendants of John Skyrme (1749-1845).
Other minor additions to content based on research conducted during 2011, including:
- How well do you know your Skyrmes? - in snippets
- Updated commentary on places, e.g. migration from Pembrokeshire
- Minor updates to other pages to reflect current status