Over the last 5 years before her passing my mother did a massive amount of family tree research.Her family are a very old N.E Essex /Suffolk family that lived predominantly in the Town of Manningtree and Village of Ramsey and their graves/parish records go back centuries .
It turns out that an antecedant grandmother was "The widow Elizabeth Gooding of Manningtree " .She was the 4th Victim of the evil Witchfinder General ;Mathew Hopkin and was convicted during the Civil War at the specially convened Chelmsford Assizes.
Although her supposed crime was consorting with the Devil and Suckling an Imp ;trumped -up of course she was also charged with wishing the death of two oxen having made confession to Hopkin under torture and "watching "
Hopkin was self appointed as Witchfinder General and responsible for the execution of 400 men and women in 3 years -not only did he charge parish councils huge fees but assumed responsibility for the disposal of the Estate of the executed which he swindled.He picked on spinsters,maiden aunts and widows as they were easy prey with no or little family to fight their cause.
We were Goodings on my mother's side until approx 100 years ago.
This was in the 1640s .......wow ,what a terrible world it must have been.
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The date is 1637.
I ran my fingers over the letters and wondered who carved them, what they were like, what their life was like when Charles I was on the throne. Whoever carved out their initials with a chisel on this very beam at this exact spot where I was standing was from another planet almost. A world so unlike ours that it may as well be. They are gone now.... long long gone, yet the man's carving is still there - I ran my fingers over it and felt a connection somehow through the centuries. I doubt he would have thought for a second as he carved out the little serifs on the 'H' that in 380 years time, his work would still be there and a stranger from the future would be looking at it and wondering who he was.
Offset "(Emp) - a little heavy on the hyperbole."
@Dominic must be fascinating to know that much about your ancestors. I was actually watching the Witchfinder General film on the Horror channel the other night. Sure it's a pretty hokey and very dated film but the story behind it is grim stuff when you realise it's all real.
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"Suckling an Imp" ?
She sounds like my kind of gal.
Asking for a friend
Offset "(Emp) - a little heavy on the hyperbole."
A modern version...