Martin Clark wrote: > Ron Jones wrote... >> Martin Clark wrote: >>> A correspondent tells me that one of her ancestors worked on the >>> canal as a "whiteliner". >>> >>> Does anyone have any idea what this would have been? I assume it >>> wasn't someone who paints white lines down the middle of the canal! >> >> No help, but it looks like an *old* trade. The only refs Google >> could russle up were > [snip] > > Thanks for finding those. There was reference to someone being a > "whiteliner and plasterer" which got me thinking that it was related > to decorating rather than canals specifically. I thought of someone > applying white lime, and found a number of references to people with > "whitelimer" as occupation, so "whiteliner" could be a mis-spelling > and corruption (a bit like the name Ashton under Lyne). > > I found the following on Rootsweb - > question: "he was a Whiteliner (employer), what is a Whiteliner? Can > anybody tell me?" > reply: "Could that have been Whitelimer? > WHITE LIMER A person who plastered walls using lime and water > plaster."
Once you get back a hundred years or so, then the spelling gets iffy.... My half brother tried to do a family tree ages ago, he got back to somewhere in the early 1800's then it all got very difficult - not easy to start with, with our surname - all the family lived in same area (Islington) but the trail dried up - he eventually concluded that the name was probably some corruption of James, people in those days couldn't spell, so just marked an X against their name, so a simple transcription error causes major problems when trying to trace your ancestors. Ron Jones Process Safety & Development Specialist Don't repeat history, unreported chemical lab/plant near misses at http://www.crhf.org.uk Only two things are certain: The universe and human stupidity; and I'm not certain about the universe. ~ Albert Einstein
