Richard Cleasby – philologist

By Unknown – This image is available from the National Library of WalesYou can view this image in its original context on the NLW Catalogue, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70051718

Richard Cleasby was born in 1797 and was baptized in Stoke Newington, his parents were Stephen Cleasby and Mary Wilson, both originally from Westmoreland. Richard was privately educated in London where he gained a classical education.

His father Stephen was a highly successful Russian broker and at the age of 15 Richard joined his father’s office and began to learn the trade. But by 1824 he had found that office life was not for him and asked his father to allow him to travel to Europe to pursue his interests in philology and literacy. He was privileged in that he had the money and backing of his parents to travel and learn as much as he could. He seems to have taken full advantage of this opportunity. I find it impossible not to mention the almighty chasm between his privileged life and that of the majority of the population at the time. I wonder how his father got the opportunity and circumstances to accrue such wealth.

After much travelling through Europe Richard embarked upon the mammoth task of writing an English/Icelandic dictionary.  In January 1840 he formed the plan of his Icelandic-English Dictionary, starting work by April.

The poetical vocabulary, prepared under his direction by Sveinbjörn Egilsson, was ready for publication in 1846. By 1847 Cleasby had set up type specimens of the dictionary. It was planned to complete the work at Copenhagen. This was put on hold by the sudden death of Richard from typhoid, he had long been sickly, suffering from a liver complaint which caused him to visit German spas (particularly Karlsbad) for recuperation purposes. He also travelled to England and Copenhagen frequently and had people employed in each place to write down his dictation.

After his death and the short term loss of some of his papers, Guðbrandur Vigfússon in 1864 took over the Dictionary.

The dictionary was finished in 1873, and published with a preface by Henry Liddell, and an introduction and memoir of Cleasby by George Webbe Dasent who had lobbied the Clarendon Press for backing. I am grateful to Dasent for his introduction as it gives an insight to Cleasby’s character and to what he did and who he met on his travels.

The introduction includes extracts from his diary that paint a colourful picture of his personality, he was a blogger!

An interesting journey

Hobnobbing with the Grimm brothers, who were also philologists, their stories were traditional folk tales that they translated.

An amateur piano player Mendelssohn

A visit to his family. I may start saying peregrination instead of journey!

The plans for the dictionary are set in motion.

I’ll leave Richard there for now or I will have no time for other Cleasbys, I think there will be few, if any, with so much detail about their lives and accomplishments.

Sources

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Cleasby,_Richard_(DNB00)

https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Cleasby%2C%20Richard%2C%201797%2D1847
<class=”booktitle”>An Icelandic-English Dictionary Richard Cleasby, Gudbrand Vigfusson
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NTVoAAAAcAAJ&pg=PR61&dq=richard+cleasby&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiXub-ku7vnAhXWUhUIHT-SDHYQ6AEIZzAI#v=onepage&q=richard%20cleasby&f=false

 

Cleasby wills

I have started to add wills and admons from Cleasbys to my website. So far I have only touched on those from the West Yorkshire archives, although all are actually in North Yorkshire so far.

John Cleasby 1730
Edward Cleasby 1793​
​Annas Cleasby 1802
​John Cleasby 1809
Mary Cleasby 1845
​John Cleasby 1848
Anthony Cleasby 1850
John Cleasby 1857.

If a profession is given it is farmer or yeoman. About half of them leave their mark rather than a signature.

The wills are valuable sources of family information, the will of Edward Cleasby for example gives his sons’ names James and John and his brothers Anthony and David. John Cleasby (1809) gives his son’s names and his daughters’ married names.

So far no vast fortunes being bequeathed but the will of Mary Cleasby (pictured) leaves her daughter a new bedstead, feather bed and bedding and “any other little odd thing in the house that she fancy to have” which maybe shows a little of Mary’s character and her relationship with her daughter of whom she seems fond.

Source

Source Information

Ancestry.com. Yorkshire, England, Probate Records, 1521-1858 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.

Original data: West Yorkshire Wills and Probate. Peculiar of Knaresborough (Honour Court), Wills, Administrations and Inventories. WYL1012. West Yorkshire Archive Service, Morley, Leeds, England.

West Yorkshire Wills and Probate. Archdeaconry of Richmond: Probate Records. RD/AP1. West Yorkshire Archive Service, Morley, Leeds, England.

 

 

Cleasby – what came first the name or the place?

From a Vision of Britain

For my second blog post towards my one name study I’ll talk about the meaning of the name Cleasby.

The general consensus is that it’s a geographical surname originating from Old Norse, the “by” ending meaning farm or settlement. The first part comes from the forenames either Kleppr or Kleiss.

The village of Cleasby in North Yorkshire, lies just over two miles from Darlington 30 miles from the area in Westmoreland where my Cleasby ancestors came from.

The question has to be: did the Cleasby family come from Cleasby or was Cleasby named after them?

Some sources say that the name starts with Harsculph Cleasby when land in that area was passed on from Enisan who died in the 12th century. However Harsculph’s father was William de Cleasby so it sounds like the place was named after Harsculph rather than the other way round. By the way Harsculph was also known as Harsculph Rufus and distantly related to William the Conqueror.

Sources

British History Online

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/yorks/north/vol1/pp158-160

National Archives

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/81087f6a-dc98-4f0b-bc93-ca66fe3c259b

 

 

 

 

One name study – why Cleasby?

I am very excited to be embarking on a one name study, I have felt for some time that my research needed to be more focused and also that I should be doing something for other family historians, a one name study was appealing but the question was, what name?

I visited the Guild for One-Name Studies at Family History Live in 2019, I was advised to look for a name with between 500 and 1000 names in 1881. My maiden name of Jackson was clearly not going to be a contender.

The names Stevenson and Walker were eliminated for similar reasons, I also having taken a DNA test wanted to study a name that I had DNA connections to as well as a paper trail. This took me back to my Great Grandfather with the name Airey. Although not a common name I felt it was a little too common for my first attempt so Airey is on a back burner for now.

Going back two generations took me to the name Cleasby which fitted nicely into the quantity criteria. I’d also made a little start, tracing the descendants of my Great x 4 Grandfather Richard Cleasby.

My discovery of my Cleasby ancestors had been an adventure in itself, a brick wall with the name Cleasby behind it! It culminated in me finding DNA matches who also descend from Richard Cleasby and his wife Ann.

Ironically I had never heard the name Cleasby until about five years ago and I am yet to meet anyone with that name. However, I am fascinated to find out where they came from, what they did and where they ended up.

So let the project commence.

 

 

 

 

 

Bad trees drive out good

Times move on and while I will continue to talk about my direct ancestors I have decided to widen my blog to cover other matters relating to family history.

I want to give my view on the much debated issue of public versus private trees. This is constantly debated on social media and I never join in because often it distracts from the purpose of the group, but this is my blog, feel free to read and comment or ignore, it’s up to you!

I remember from learning Economics at school that there is the phrase/theory that “bad money drives out good” so if you have counterfeit money or even old tatty bank notes they are the ones you spend, passing on the problem to someone else, who in turn spends them and keeps them in circulation, whereas the real money gets banked or kept in your purse or wallet. It’s called Gresham’s law.

It’s the same with online trees, particularly on Ancestry where they are easy to create. People create a tree and make it public because they want to share what they have found (or because they don’t know they can make it private). Some people research thoroughly and find sources to verify each ancestor they add, others are very slapdash, have children born after their parents’ death or even before their parents’ birth, people added just because they have the same name but with no other justification, you get the picture. Others steer a middle course, adding ancestors that are plausible but perhaps not proving absolutely that every addition is correct. People also post photographs on their trees, bringing their trees to life.

The problem arises when people start copying from other trees and then doing their own incorrect research, so add good information to a bad tree. This leads people to rush for cover and make their tree private, so there are less good trees to views – bad trees drive out good.

There are two main types of complaint that cause people to make their trees private.

Copying of photographs – I agree it is polite to ask before you copy a photograph, although arguably it is a public tree so it can be construed that you are willing to share. My photos have been copied on several trees and I have no problem with that. I was pulled up once when I copied a picture and asked if I was related to the tree owner. I explained the relationship (Great Grandmothers were cousins) and we had a friendly correspondence after that. I make a point of asking permission now, but Ancestry do make it easy for you just to save someone, photo and all to your tree, so I don’t understand the surprise when people do just that as it’s probably what Ancestry intended.

Copying of people from a tree – again if your tree is public what do you expect? The issue is that people copy to their tree and then trace back incorrectly or copy information from incorrect trees. People’s response to having their ancestors put on an incorrect tree is to make their tree private. The result of this is that there are less “accurate” trees out there, so bad trees are (like money) driving out the good. This makes the bad tree suggestions appear in hints, Thrulines etc. exacerbating the problem.

Keeping your tree private from the word go – in a way I understand this, people have spent a lot of time and probably money researching their trees (particularly if this was in the pre-digital era) there is a reluctance to share with an upstart. I have found that these people are usually co-operative when I can prove a genuine interest, show research I have done and add information from my own branches. But why do you research your tree if you don’t want wider family to have access, people who are genuinely interested and may need a little help, people who maybe can’t afford an Ancestry subscription or to order multiple birth certificates or in these days DNA testing kits.

You may have picked up that I am in favour of public trees, as well as the bad trees driving out good, I believe in them for the following reasons.

I have spent a lot of time on my research, I’d like others to find it of interest and benefit. People who look at trees on genealogy sites are interested in family history, they may not know much about it but they have some interest or they wouldn’t be there.

If my tree is correct I’d like to share it. Hopefully the more discerning researcher will view my tree and if it differs from other trees they will be able to see by my use of sources and background information that I am likely to be accurate. Or if they aren’t sure they will ask me to prove my tree is correct. This has happened to me once, I was asked for the paper trail for my tree, I was happy to provide this and it made me do a thorough overhaul of this particular branch. I’d welcome more of this sort of interaction.

If my tree is incorrect I’d like people to tell me so I can put it right. People don’t do this often enough in my opinion. I had one comment that I had an ancestor on my tree who in fact had never had any children. I was a little surprised but found that I had an ancestor with two fathers (Ancestry lets you do this), I had copied details from an old pedigree which had turned out to wrong in places – old is not necessarily right.

and here’s the thing – your well researched private tree may not be right!

There are several reasons for this:

Infidelity – DNA has proved that what many people took as a given was not the case, I had a massive surprise in my own tree. Family traits I thought I had inherited, resemblances to other family members where all co-incidental.

Ancestors not telling the truth – Grandparents bringing up Grandchildren as their own child, I have one example of this in my tree (not a direct ancestor) that I knew about. I’ve also found a case where a Grandchild was baptised twice once by the mother and once by the Grandparents, but how many more slip through unnoticed because they are unnoticeable?

Spouses with the same name – I’ve found a case of a man who married three Marthas, all the deaths and marriages were between censuses but presumably the family knew by word of mouth that more than one wife was involved. Pre-census I am not sure how you would ever prove it except possibly by DNA matching.

Two people with the same name – just that, because you have a baptism in the right area at the right time doesn’t mean for sure you have the right person, your ancestor’s birth may not have been recorded, you may have found a cousin with the same name, even unusual forenames can run in families.

So by keeping your “perfectly researched” tree private you are potentially missing the opportunity for someone to, dare I say it, point out a flaw in your tree because they were maybe given some information by word of mouth that they have been able to check out.

DNA testers need trees

There are three main reasons people take a DNA test:

• An interest in ethnicity
• Seeking an adopted family
• Expanding and confirming a family tree

Those testing for ethnicity purposes may be very disappointed (but that is another story) they may well be surprised by the results and want to investigate further by looking at their matches’ trees, this can’t be done if trees are kept private.

Those seeking adopted family really need searchable trees to work with as they have no tree of their own to compare with, private trees won’t help.

Those checking the veracity of their tree or trying to expand it further using DNA testing rely on other trees to check for shared ancestors. Why make things difficult for people by keeping your tree private when collaboration could be beneficial to both parties?

There is an argument for being a little more relaxed if you want to find connections to DNA matches. Ancestry has a fairly recent tree tagging system, the most relevant tags for “catching” DNA matches while not leading anyone up the garden path are

• Hypothesis – use when you have a theory/hunch someone is your ancestor, maybe based on a series of clues.
• Unverified – an ancestor taken from another tree, seems plausible, right time span, right area, maybe even documentation, but just needing that final bit of proof that it isn’t just a co-incidence.
• Verified – all the above but with that final proof that makes it beyond co-incidence, gets harder the further back you go.

So if you want to catch those DNA matches this is a good way to go, but make sure you use the tags so people know just what they are looking at and will hopefully tag too.

Two public trees?

I am wondering now about having two public trees on Ancestry:

• a verified tree, maybe with just direct ancestors I am absolutely sure about, with sources and links to any blog posts on that particular ancestor.
• a dna tree, including hypotheses and unverified matches, nothing ridiculous but I would make it very clear on my profile that this was the purpose of the tree, I would obviously attach this tree to my DNA results.

But I’m determined to do all I can to stop bad trees driving out good.

What do you think?

 

 

 

 

Richard Cleasby and his dynasty

Richard Cleasby is my 4 x Great Grandfather, I know little about him apart from a few facts:

He was born in 1751, I know this from his death record which gives his age as 74. I know he is my ancestor by tracking back from my Great Great Grandmother Sarah Sellers I also have DNA matches that connect me to the Cleasbys. He died in Manchester and was probably living with his daughter Isabel/Isabella at the time, as she reported his death. Richard’s wife Ann (Cannon) died before the move to Lancashire probably in 1802 in Arkengarthdale.

Ann Elizabeth Griffiths

Ann Elizabeth Griffiths is my 3 x Great Grandmother and from what I can make out from the census returns and one newspaper account her story seems to be a sad one.

She is definitely in the 1861 census living in Wombourne, Staffordshire with her three children, Hannah Elizabeth aged 8 (my Great Great Grandmother), Sarah Ann aged 5 and George Henry aged 3, Ann Elizabeth is described as a farm labourer. Her marital status is difficult to read but I know from Hannah’s birth certificate that Ann was unmarried so all three children were illegitimate.

It seems that for whatever reason Ann Elizabeth found it difficult to cope. In August 1861 she and two of her children, George Henry and Sarah Ann are recorded as being in the workhouse (not sure where Hannah would be). A month later in 1861 a newspaper cutting reveals that Ann Elizabeth (Anne) was imprisoned for a month as a “rogue and vagabond” for abandoning her three children.

The term Rogue and Vagabond sounds rather dramatic but apparently beggars’, crimes were categorised in the following way from 1832 onwards and determined the compulsory prison sentence they received.

• First offence they were termed idle and disorderly – 14 days.
• Second offence they were a rogue and vagabond – one month.
• Third offence called an incorrigible rogue – three months.

So this was obviously Ann Elizabeth’s second offence and she received the correct sentence for her “crime”.

Ann Elizabeth cannot be found on any later censuses, it seems possible that she died in 1864, I will follow this up when I get hold of the death certificate. By 1871 George Henry and Sarah Ann are at the South-East Shropshire District School for paupers and Hannah is working as a servant, both Hannah and George Henry end up in Darlington and lived reasonably long and productive lives from such unfortunate beginnings, Hannah lived until the age of 78 and had eight children (plus two milk children who lived to a healthy old age), George Henry a brick layer lived to 68 and also had eight children, six of whom grew up to adults.