Knitting Ancestors

Now look what I’ve gone and done….

http://www.family-tree.co.uk/

In this month’s ‘Family Tree’ magazine (October issue), an article about tracing your knitting ancestors.

If you have any ancestry in a fishing port, or along the rivers and canals and inland waterways of the UK… this may be for you!

I took a stroll (metaphorically) through the Dales village of Hawes, (and the Cornish village of Polperro) on the night of the 1841 Census. And there I found ‘knitters’, ‘fancy knitters’, ‘hand knitters’ and ‘knitsters’. And this soul, in Aysgarth:

“Jane Asbridge, 70, Knitting Stockings”

Yore Mills, Aysgarth (2) — Yore Mills, Aysgarth

Censuses were done of a Sunday evening. I could imagine the Enumerator knocking on the door and Jane coming to answer with her knitting in her hand (easier to carry it with you if you have a sheath tucked in your belt and maybe a clue holder about your person too!)

Hopefully, in the article, I’ve given a few pointers as to finding your knitting ancestors.

I have only one known ancestor who is actually listed by a Census enumerator as a knitter. She was my first cousin 3 times removed, Lillian Stephenson who was 12 in 1891 and down on the Shipley census as ‘Stocking Knitter’. Lillian lived with her Westmorland-born grandfather, a carpenter – and hosiery knitting was strong in Westmorland, so I’d imagine that was how a little girl growing up in Shipley, Yorkshire, at the end of the 19thC was hand knitting so actively she had it listed as her job!