Part 566p – Smith Robertson Genealogy – Record Number of Visits – GGGG-Grandfather William Parker – Ancient Names of A Location

Good morning,

Well I guess we did it! A Genealogy Hunt hits an all-time high of Visits and Page Views in August. Not bad for a journal blog which doesn't offer anything for free or any type of unrestricted genealogy research. A Genealogy Hunt is my journal of my journey into my ancestral past. According to SiteMeter, total Visits for the month equaled a record 1,063 and Page Views totaled 1,923. Google Blogger Stats shows a different total of 4,030 Pageviews for the month. Don't ask me why there are differences in Page Views, but both reflect a positive trend, and I'll certainly accept that.

In my search for the origins of the ancestry of gggg-grandfather William Parker who was christened 24 June 1787 at Grassington in Linton Parish, Yorkshire, England, I believe there may be a breakthrough to the research. No, I'm not saying that I have discovered and made links to his ancestors, albeit my ancestors, but it might come down to a discussion of semantics and archaic usage of names and places.

On my William Parker Worksheet I have discovered 12 Linton–in –Craven Parish entries that refer to the locations: Gris; Griston; and Grisington. Also there are entries that include Grassington and Hebden. Clive and Colin in Yorkshire have been discussing the issue of these location names, especially a nonexistent Griston in Yorkshire versus the actual Griston in Norfolk. Per Colin "It would seem that Gris, Griston and Grassington are all local dialect name for Grassington…”

This definitely makes sense as from the 12 applicable Register entries there is a span of approximately 40 years. My question was a simple one. Why would a single parish register record a local inhabitant as a person of from a distant location for a period of that many years? Was he a person that was never considered a member of the local community? The application of the archaic labels for the location of Grassington makes one hell of a lot of sense.

And so as the earliest William Parker record dated 1693 I need now to examine the Linton-in-Craven Parish Register for earlier Parker entries.

Enjoy,

Jim