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Do you Have Gypsy Ancestors? How would you know if your great grandparents were gypsies or travellers? Look into your family tree and see if any of your ancestors had these occupations. If so they might have been gypsies. Hawker, pedlar, basket maker, mat maker, brush maker, chair bottomer, tinker, tinman, knife grinder, dealer, peg maker, umbrella mender, chimney sweep, horse dealer. Or have a look at the forenames in your family tree. Gypsies often had usual forenames like Mary and Sam, but they also liked unusual names. Elijah, Goliath, Noah, Sampson, Amberline, Belcher, Dangerfield, Liberty, Major, Neptune, silvanus, Vandlo. Or how about these surnames. Do any of these appear in your family tree? These are the names of some well-known traveller families. Boswell, Buckland, Faa, Hearn, Heron, Lee, Lovell, Smith, Wood, Young These names are also from travelling families: Ayres, Baker, Ball, Chapman, King, Scamp, Sherred, Stokes, Tanner, wheeler, White, Williams, Smith. The name Smith is a common gypsy name. In Romany the name Smith is Petulengro, which means farrier or blacksmith.
The Amazing History of the gypsy people Did you know that for over 100,000 years we were all travellers? Humans have only been living in settlements for the last 5000 years in the UK. The gypsies journey started in India in the 9th century, and took them through Afghanistan, Persia and Greece before spreading throughout Europe. Gypsies first came to England in the 14th century. They were dark and mysterious and lived on the fringes. People thought they came from Egypt. That's where the name gypsy comes from. Of course, they weren't from Egypt but the canny travellers let people believe what they wanted. The population of Travellers has been swelled by Irish people working on the canals and railways, fleeing from the effects of famine and hardship. And from Scottish people driven off the land by unscupulous landlords. Some of the house dwellers who were forced to flee the bombing during the war, took to the road and never returned to living in houses. Travellers used to travel to different parts of the country for seasonal work like apple and potato picking, until work became scarce due to mechanisation. Many traveller men now work in scrap dealing, car dealing, replacement windows and tarmac laying. Some councils have special sites for Travellers. Some are very good, but most of them are fenced off from the rest of the population, and they're usually next to railway tracks where no one else would want to live and where they cannot be seen. Sometimes they are next to factories or high tension power cables. The good things about the sites are running water and toilets. Sometimes, if the sites are full, travellers park on the side of the road, or on unused ground. Water has to be fetched from garages and showers paid for at leisure centres. Before long the police will come and evict the travellers from these sites. Councils will sometimes offer the evicted travellers housing, but most travellers don't like living in houses. The children are used to living outdoor lives, and the houses are often in poor parts of a town. When their relatives visit and park trailers on the kerbside for a few days, the neighbours complain. Rather than houses, travellers would really like a piece of ground to call their own, either to buy or to rent. Some, when forced into houses, will stop for the winter, but in the summer, will go off travelling again.
Gypsy Talk Romany is the colourful and mysterious language originally spoken by gypsies. By studying Romany we know gypsies came from India. Some Romany words can be traced back to a form of sanskrit used in Northern India in the ninth century. This means they must have left India in the ninth century. The word Romany is thought to come from Rom, which originally came from Dom the name of a tribe of dancers and musicians from India. Romany also contains cant words. Cant was the secret language of the rogues in Elizabethan England. 'Mort' is a cant word for woman. And kenna means house in cant. Romany has given words to the English language as well. See if you know which of the words in the list comes from Romany. Mush (meaning man as in "Oy Mush!"), Pyjama, Bloke, Gymkhana, Pal, Nark (meaning a police informer) Anorak, Posh, Cul de Sac, Hanky Panky ANSWERS The Romany words in the list are: Mush - is Romany for man Bloke - is another word from the Romany and the Hindi Pal - Romany for brother Nark - is Romany for Nose ie someone who pokes their nose in. Posh - this means half a crown in Romany, and could be why we say posh. Hanky Panky - Gypsies liked tricks, hakni panki was the name of a con trick in Romany The remaining words are also borrowed from other languages. Do you know which languages they're from?
VARDO - THE GYPSY WAGGON Gypsies and travellers first lived in homemade tents called bender tents. In the 19th century they began to use the vardo, a horse drawn wooden waggon. A young couple would start their married life by buying a vardo, costing from £40 to £150. This wooden waggon would be warm and very strong and last for many years. The young husband would make goods for the wife to sell. She would leave the waggon in the morning and arrange with her husband where he'd park that night. In the course of a working day she'd walk 15 to 20 miles. If her husband and their vardo had been refused permission to stop at the arranged place, he'd leave his wife a message in a secret code. This secret code is called the patrin. It's a system of signs left on the road, which other gypsies will understand. A simple patrin could be a notch on a tree or the stems of flowers broken in a certain way. From this the Gypsy could tell which direction was taken, and how many waggons or families were in the group, even how far ahead they were. Other signs could be left on the wall of a house to show whether the people were friendly or not. In the New Forest bent sticks indicated travellers on foot, and a straight stick meant vans, branched twigs or a spray of gorse told of a family with children. Most Gypsies have gone over to trucks and trailers instead of the wooden vardo now. But you can still see them at the horse fairs of Appleby and Stow. To find out more about the fairs look at Stow Fair next.
Stow Fair Stow Horse Fair has taken place twice a year since 1476. It attracts hundreds of visitors and Gypsies from all over England who come to trade horses and meet old friends. In 714AD The Abbey of Evesham acquired the Manor of Stow. It was in a good place for trading so a small market soon developed. After the Norman Conquest this marketplace grew bigger. When the abbot of Evesham asked Henry 1 in 1107 for official recognition of the market it was readily granted. In 1476 the abbot petitioned for two fairs, one in May and another in October. These two fairs still continue to this day. Today horses are still bought and sold. Boys ride up and down showing off the horses paces. Wooden Vardos, the old waggons of the travellers and gypsies are displayed with pride. Palmists and fortune tellers also ply their trade. If you want to read a story about how gypsy magic might come about, click on Gypsy Magic. |
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