It starts with the Bindlosses..they had the coolest name

First, allow me to introduce myself through my various interests.

History, paleontology, archeology , genealogy

All, in different ways,  related to the study  people who came before us...or as the blogger on this page..before me.

Genealogy, for example,  has not been the consuming passion of my life...but it is interesting,

Who' s lurking in my background, I wonder.  Any princes or leaders..or agitators or horse thieves.

There's a story in my own family about horse thieves...told by old Irish great uncles who never ever embellish a tale just impress the grand nephew..right???

Well I'll try to find that guy later.


So let's be honest, we're all hoping for a little bit of DNA linking us to some colourful piece of history but usually the story turns out "ordinary". We never consider those "ordinary" stories  got us physically and emotionally to where each of us is today..

Here's an story my grandmother told me while my mother sat at the table trying not to gouge her eyes out with a safety pin. See my mom had heard my grandmother's stories FREQUENTLY.

It comes from Northern England ...Lancashire ..in the a little place called Kendal.

When Granny was young her mother, who'd been a ladies' maid ( how Downton Abbey of her)   married into family  related by marriage to another better known, better connected family in the area.

And in honour of this connection my great  grand mother, the former ladies maid, used to take Grannie and her sister to listen to what were called...The Bindloss Bells.

True story...I can totally see my great grandmother dragging her daughter to a town to hear  clanging of church bells because the well known Bindlosses had donated them.

 

Great Granny....kind of a snob

Now what to pull out of that story.

Well first off how many Bindlosses do you know. I don't know any either.



And so I was off roaming around the free websites for information because somewhere in my DNA is the gene marker for cheapness.

So what was I able to find out about the surname, Bindloss.

" The surnames Bindloes, Bindloss, Bindless - from Old English BINDAN "to bind"
and Old French LOU "Wolf"" - C.R. Humphrey Smith. Esq

English surnames often described the bearer's trade or job...in this case looks like to do with wolves.

So possibly some of my  distant ancestors trapped wolves which is a whole history unto itself.

In Northern England, wolves were hunted for their pelts and because they threatened  livestock.   The livestock reason we hear today whenever there is discussion around a wolf cull.

Well in late medieval England they "culled" so well wolves were reported as extinct in England during the reign of Henry VII.

In our more environmentally conscious age we likely do a lot "tut tuting" about "man's cruelty" but  for farmers with herds of sheep and, you know, a bow to protect them, the local wolf binder was a friend

  POV matters. It's all very well for me to harrumph at my distant distant ancestors but I have a thermostat, warm synthetic clothing and a supermarket . A wolf in my backyard would be a call to wildlife management and an iphone pic posted to Facebook.

But like I said by the 1400's there were no wolves so anyone who's livelihood depended on them had to move onto some other trade.

The first Bindloss in my own line I can find is a William Bindloss born in 1494.  Just to give that date a "lamppost" as it were Henry VII reigned from 1457 to 1509 so William was born just three years after Henry's second son AKA Henry the VIII. 

What were they doing? Don't know exactly. 1494 is a heck of a way back but I think we can make a few educated guesses.

I know from later records that William's son Christopher was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I and apparently it had to with his establishment of a secure route to get his "woollens" to London.

Wool had been one of the area's primary interests since the 13th century and it appears this branch of the Bindloss tree found success in wool.

A wool shorn from sheep which  increased with the extinction of the wolf.

Ahh the circle of life..

 You will note I haven't got to the "Bells" yet, the original story that send me off on a trail that led to "wolfbinder"

 

A descendant of William and his son Christopher became Mayor of Kendal.  During Queen Victoria's Jubilee he and his wife donated the money needed to install 11 bells in the clock tower in Kendal.  On June 22 1897 Mrs. Bindloss pulled the string that started the new clock and rang the first chime.

You know what's interesting.  My grandmother was born in 1889.  She would have been 8 years old.
Her sister a couple of years younger.

Were these the clanging "church bells" she was dragged to to hear and still complained about as an old lady.

Possible.  I'll never know for sure because my grandmother's recollections were those of a  girl who'd lived quite a life since those bells were rung.

But it's a fanciful thought that what  my grandmother remembered as a tiresome event was the small English town celebration of  Queen Victoria's jubilee.   

Lesson of this story...sometimes your kids aren't impressed by the same stuff you are.

 

This little diversion for me is what I think of as a "family trail". This is one thin trail, to the best of my knowledge, from one ancient ancestor that eventually led to me.


Just for the record, I kind of like chimes and bells.  Someday I ought to travel to Kendal and listen.

or check youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz7tc9a7xk4

 

and for the story of my 2nd cousin 5x removed

 

http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/nostalgia/10051572.Beloved_mayor_left_his_mark_on_the_town/