Updated 8 Apr 2002

WIRKSWORTH Parish Records 1600-1900

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Palmer-Berridge connection


             1    2    3
             4    5    6
                  7

1 Caroline Emma PALMER 1899-1968
2 Beatrice PALMER 1904-65
3 Edna BERRIDGE 1871-?
4 Eliza PALMER 1862-1950
5 Thomas William PALMER 1860-1940
6 Elizabeth MARRIOTT 1831-?
7 Ivy, dau of Edna BERRIDGE
The Pomeranian dog is called Ross.
Behind the shoulders of Caroline Emma
   is the Dun Cow, Glapthorn.
Photo taken 1915-16


Mary PALMER 1834-?
John BERRIDGE 1833-?
married at Benefield 31 Jan 1853
Mary was sister of Charles Henry PALMER
                       1841-1913
Greatgrandfather of:
, Dorset, England


William Henry PALMER
1868-1922
nephew of Mary PALMER
Grandfather of John PALMER

At 12:43 06/04/2002 -0500, you wrote:
Dear Mr. Palmer,
I have just had a brief look at your census returns for Glapthorne and wanted to say how nice it is to find something at last of personal interest when browsing for family tree on the internet. Thank you very much for sharing your research. I shall certainly return to the site when I have my notes infront of me to try and fill in gaps and see new connections.

Maybe you are related to my husband's family somewhere along the line. His gr-grandfather was Albert Edward Berridge, son of Ruth Berridge. Ruth was a sibling of John, Eli, Levi etc. and although Albert Edward is on the census as son of John and Mary Berridge, that is not strictly true, although they obviously brought him up. Before 1881 the family were at Benefield. Mary, wife of John, was nee Palmer, born in Glapthorne and I assume is 529d on your census, as this would be the right age, although I do not know for certain who her parents were. I see that Palmer was obviously an old village name. Eli Berridge married Sallie Underwood, probably 845f, and I am in touch with descendants of theirs.

Once again many thanks and I'm sure I shall take a longer look.

Yours Sincerely,

Lorraine Berridge, Mrs

Hello Lorraine,

I'm so glad you enjoyed the Glapthorn website. Afraid I haven't touched it for 4 years, I'm so deeply involved in a much bigger website for a place in Derbyshire where my mother's family came from, you can browse it on www.wirksworth.org.uk.

You will understand that I'm getting a bit rusty about Glapthorn research, so what I say below may be wrong, but it is an amazing story that I can't resist telling and I think it involves Eli BERRIDGE.

About 1995 I made one of my rare trips to Glapthorn, poked around a bit, then just before I left put my name, address and brief comment in the visitors book in the church. I mentioned that my ancestor Harry PALMER ran away from Glapthorne to work in the coalmines in Shireoaks Notts when he was about 18 (or so the family legend went). About a year later, I got a letter saying they had read the Visitors book, saw my name and address and decided to write to me. They too had an ancestor who ran away from Glapthorn to work in the mines in Shireoaks. His name was Eli BERRIDGE and he went with his friend called Harry! Harry was a pet name for William Henry and only someone who knew him quite well would have called him Harry. So we did some digging into our common ancestors and found that Ivy, a daughter of Edna BERRIDGE, had married into my PALMER family. They also sent me a photo that I have in front of me (and I will put it on my website so you can see it when I've finished typing this). The photo was taken in 1915 and shows the Dun Cow pub at Glapthorn. Edna BERRIDGE was born in 1871 I think, so if this person ties up with someone in your Ancestors then I have got the right Eli! Please let me know.

At one time over 20% of the population of Glapthorn (population 450) bore the surname PALMER. This tidal wave of PALMERs was cstarted by a man from another village who Married a Glapthorn girl and settled down in Glapthorn. The couple had 7 sons, most of whom stayed in Glapthorn and had large families them selves. People used to grumble that the PALMERs had taken over the village! But nature righted itself, and some 10 years ago there was not a single PALMER living in Glapthorn. I've now scanned the photo and attached it to this email in case you want to keep it. Its called PAL-BERR.jpg and is 22k in size. I scanned it at 100dpi, I can scan it with more resolution if you want but it will be much larger. You can also see it on my website by going to www.wirksworth.org.uk/pal-berr.htm.

Keep me posted,

John Palmer, Dorset, England

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