Canals around Coventry

Hello, Hawksbury Junction canal video. I've started it around the map talk, but please reset to see from the beginning.

Hawkesbury Junction is a delightful place, particularly on a nice day. The Greyhound Inn is an excellent pub that serves good beer and good food. The only downside is the background rumble of the M6. You can get there fairly easily by public transport by using a 22 bus to Grange Rd and then a short walk under the motorway to the road which is actually called 'Sutton Stop'.

In tracing my family I know that my 4x great grandfather was christened in 1796 in the Parish of Coventry St. Michael and married in June 1816 at Exhall parish church when his occupation is listed as "boatman". This leads me to wonder if the family worked on the local canals and if it is possible to trace people who worked the canals around this time as a lead to going further back. Our family name is West and as there are many families with this name listed around this date in Coventry accurate connections are difficult to discover so any pointers would be gratefully received.

Hi knocker1247, welcome to the forum There is a canal boat register here, showing some Wests. Hopefully one of those into family history tracing might be able to help.

Hi Helen F and thank you for the link. Unfortunately it appears that records don't seem to go back further than 1876 and my great grandfather died in 1836. Not sure how to trace back earlier and really I am only guessing that the family may have had canal connections as his marriage banns record him as "boatman".

That's a pity. The CFHS will probably have other resources, or at least know where to access them. Past a certain point it gets very hard to trace people, simply because properties weren't numbered and while you might find names in parish records, if it's not a unique name, you can't easily pick which one is your relative. I know that my sister delves into siblings of ancient family members and wills to determine the right branch to follow but much of that requires looking at the original documents. A lot of Coventry records have been destroyed over the years. The index for the records for the Herbert archive can be searched here but again, without a unique name it might be hard to tease out a relative even if they're recorded there. Re St Michael's parish registers, you'll probably know that they're held at Warwick. I haven't got Warwick's web page to hand for info but it will be online. Online newspapers can be useful searching for births, deaths and marriages and you can have access for different amounts of time. Sorry, not terribly helpful but family tracing isn't my thing.