I have actually joined the New York Biographical and Genealogical Society to use their resources, most particularly the on-line New York Times dating to 1853, to try to trace famous American lace collections. The lace collections tend to travel in the female line. Often these collections have been donated to museums, but the name of the donor is totally different than the name of the collector. Since I am researching through marriage announcements and birth announcements, etc. in other families than my own, my daughter considers me a "stalker".
I really think this concept of tackling the "tradition" of lace makers migrating from the continent to England through genealogy is very interesting. Esther uses the example of France. Of course, the tradition of Flemish migration to Honiton is one that one often reads about. Yallop supposedly put this theory to rest with an examination of church records in which he claims that names that sound Flemish were already in the church records before the supposed Flemish migration. On the other hand, I think that people were very much more mobile in the past than is generally understood and there could have been immigration feeding back and forth over a long period. After all, no one disputes the story of Colbert luring the Flemish and Italian lacemakers to France while their native countries passed threatening laws to outlaw it. There has been some research regarding flemish Tapestry weavers and their migration focused on individuals. It would certainly be interesting for someone who likes genealogy to try to do the same for a sample or samples of lace makers. Devon To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
