I'd like to wish all the members a very Merry Christmas and a healthy and Happy New Year. To those of you who have helped me, I am truly grateful.

A special thanks to, Mr David Watkins! Thank you for starting and maintaining this site! It has been the BEST source of help, to me, in my quest for my Hawkins-Stephens ancestors!!!!!!!!

You are a wonderful and generous group of people!

I wish you great success in your searches!
Cynthia Hawkins Wood
(a.k.a. Llangrove)
Pennsylvania U.S.A.

Thanks for your kind words and I am pleased to hear that the Message Board has been of assistance to you.

We certainly do have a wonderful and generous group of people who help out and I would like to thank everyone who has contributed through out the year for taking the time to do so.

Best Wishes to all of you and I hope you have a great Christmas and that the New Year will be a good one.

The Wassail carol below is a Gloucestershire tradition and it’s been around at least since the 17th century.

Although it is beleived that the Viking invaders gave us the toast " Ves heill " ( pronounced Wes Ale ?),
the Saxons turned it into " Waes thu hal", and later “Wassail !” , literally meaning “be in good health”.
The reply to this is traditionally “Drink-hail !”

Wassailers are carolers who go from door to door carrying a wassail-bowl and singing carols. The wooden wassail-bowl
is typically filled with wassail, a spiced ale. The bowl is decorated with ribbons and garlands. The wassailers expect the
good people in the house to keep their wassail-bowls full !

So to members of the Board - "Wassail !"
Happy Christmas and a Peaceful New Year

S

The Gloucestershire Wassail Carol

1. Wassail, Wassail all over the town!
Our bread it is white and our ale is brown:
Our bowl is made of a maplin tree,
So be my good fellows all -- I'll drink to thee.

2. The wass'ling bowl with a toast within,
Come, fill it up now unto the brim.
Come, fill it up that we may all see,
With the wassailing bowl, I'll drink to thee.

3. Here's to Dobbin, and to his right ear,
God send our master a happy New Year;
A happy New Year as e'er he did see --
With my Wassailing Bowl I drink to thee.

4. Here's to Smiler, and to her right eye,
God send our mistress a good Christmas pie;
A good Christmas pie as e'er I did see --
With my Wassailing Bowl I drink to thee.

5. Here's to Fillpail, and to her long tail,
God send our master us never may fail
Of a cup of good beer; I pray you draw near,
And then you shall hear our jolly Wassail.

6. And here any maids? I suppose there be some --
Sure they'll not let young men stand on the cold stone;
Sing hey, O maids, come troll back the pin,
And the fairest maid in the house let us all in.

7. Come, butler, come bring us a bowl of the best,
I hope your soul in Heaven will rest.
But if you do bring us a bowl of the small,
Then down shall go butler, bowl, and all.

If you want to listen to a version, go here !
http://www.bbc.tv/gloucestershire/christmas/2003/10/wassail.shtml

and if you want to make some, be it the Oz summer (!) or New England winter ...

Recipe for Wassail

3 red apples
3 oz brown sugar
2 pints brown ale, apple cider, or hard cider
1/2 pint dry sherry or dry white wine
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
strips of lemon peel

Core and heat apples with brown sugar and some of the ale or cider in an oven for 30 minutes.
Put in large pan and add rest of spices and lemon peel, simmer on stove top of 5 minutes.
Add most of the alcohol at the last minute so it heats up but does not evaporate.
Burgundy and brandy can be substituted to the ale and sherry.
White sugar and halved oranges may also be added to taste.

As this year draws to a close, on a site whose primary interest is the Past and we reflect on our own recent past, may I wish all contributors and readers a Merry Christmas and Peaceful New Year.

I would also like to wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful new year.

Special thanks to David Watkins for this wonderful site which has provided me with so much information on my Griffiths/Meek/Hatton bunch. Also Slowhands who is a mine of information and a treasure to have on this site.

Seasons greetings

Jenny x

I, too would like to wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy new year and to thank David Watkins, Slowhands and everyone else who has helped me over the past year Wassail!
Sylvia

Me to and to all our sleeping ancestors without them there would be no interest. thanks to friends made through the site.

Looking forward to 2007.

Health Happiness, and a little Wealth to all

Barbara Lloyd.

Once again a year draws to a close....

A site whose primary interest is the past - where and how people lived - and remembering those who went before us.

And as we reflect on our own recent past, may I wish all who use this site a Merry Christmas and Peaceful New Year.

Slowhands,
Well said, may I join you in the same wish.
Dewey

Hi
I would like to wish everyone a happy Christmas and a good new year and to thank you for all the help I`ve been given in the past year, especiaaly slowhands
Sylvia

Add my name to the list. Any help I can give and any help I receive

I can only say thank you.

Looking forward to 2008 - I am going to go to The National Archives at Kew.
I wonder what I shall find.

Happy New Year Everyone.

Barbara Lloyd

Hi

I would like to say a special thankyou to everyone who has helped me on this site in 2007 and wish you all A Wonderful Christmas and a Healthy and Happy New Year. I still have lots more research to do and look forward to hearing from you all in 2008.

Kind Regards

Alison

Best wishes to all for the Festive Season. This site gives me so much pleasure. It seems no time ago that I stumbles upon it, but in those days the posts were few and far between.
I often wonder how a fellow Aussie from W.A came to be the administrator, and I'd love to know more about that helper to all, Slowhands.
I'm still waiting for that breakthrough that will give me a clue to the parents of my G.G. grandfather, James Layton (Leiton, Leighton) who claims to have been born at Pauntley, but has left no trace. The search goes on........

I often wonder how a fellow Aussie from W.A came to be the administrator, and I'd love to know more about that helper to all, Slowhands.

Slowhands is certainly is a helper to all and deserves a medal for all the help he kindly gives to everybody. I somehow think we will al have to keep wondering who he really is but no doubt he has his reasons for keeping that to him self.

From the outside it could seem to be a little strange that a fellow Aussie from W.A is administrator and webmaster for this Web site. I suppose it comes down to the internet not having any borders and it does not matter where one lives if he has an interest in a particular subject.

I been asked the question a few times and your latest request has prompted me to put a few words together and tell how it all came about, this I will post under a separate thread.

Again your hard work is appreciated Slowhands. I've looked at this posting, can you explain what "hard cider" is to those of us who live outside cider country? Thanks.

Hard Cider is what our transatlantic cousins call traditional "English" cider.- to differentiate (un fermented )apple juice

There's me thinking it might be farmhouse Scrumpy !!

--
Ἀριστοτέλης A Gloster Boy in the Forest of Dean ><((((*>