Place:Ramsey, Huntingdonshire, England

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Ramsey is a small market town and civil parish, since 1974 located in the administrative district of Huntingdonshire within the non metropolitan county of Cambridgeshire. Until 1965 it was part of the separate historic county of County of Huntingdonshire where it was an urban district from 1894 until 1965. The town is north of Huntingdon and St. Ives. The parish include the settlements of Ramsey Forty Foot, Ramsey Heights, Ramsey Mereside, Ramsey Hollow and Ramsey St Mary's. The population of the town, according to the 2011 UK census, was 8,479.

The town grew up around Ramsey Abbey, a Benedictine monastery. The town manor was built on the site of (and using materials from) the ancient abbey and is the seat of the Lords de Ramsey, major landowners in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire.

Ramsey is located closer to the fenlands of the Isle of Ely and Norfolk than the rest of the Huntingdonshire District and this has had an effect on the economy of the town. The mediæval economy was dominated by garden produce, cloth trade and alehouse keeping. Fisheries also played an important part in the fen economy, along with livestock. Throughout the Middle Ages the waterways of the fenland formed commercial transport routes that ran through the heart of the region. Enclosure of land was piecemeal and prompted by the abbey.

After the dispersal of the estates of the abbey into lay hands in the second half of the 16th century, enclosure at Ramsey and neighbouring parishes (mostly in the Isle of Ely) gathered momentum. From the 17th century systematic drainage of the Great Level or Bedford Level (the lower drainage basins of the River Nene and the Great Ouse, covering about 500 sq mi (1,300 km2)) increased the area for hay and pasture which was progressively divided and allotted. The remaining common lands were enclosed by Act of Parliament in 1801.

Original historical documents relating to Ramsey, including the original church parish registers, local government records, maps, photographs, and records of Ramsey manor (held by the Fellowes family, Lords de Ramsey), are held by Cambridgeshire Archives and Local Studies at the local County Record Office in Huntingdon, as well as in the main office in Ely.

Research Tips

• Original historical documents relating to Huntingdonshire are now held by Cambridgeshire Archives and Local Studies at Shire Hall, Ely, Cambridgeshire, CB7 4GS
• The Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire Family History Society has transcribed the parish registers for all the ancient parishes of Huntingdonshire and these can be purchased from the Society as pdfs.
• A History of the County of Huntingdon in 3 volumes from British History Online (Victoria County Histories). This is by far the most complete history of the parishes of the county to be found online. The chapters are ordered by the divisions of the county called hundreds, but each chapter is linked to the volume's content page. Volume 2 (published 1932) covers Hurstingstone and Toseland hundreds (index of parishes); Leightonstone and Norman Cross Hundreds (index of parishes) are found in Volume 3 (published 1936). Volume 1 is a part-volume describing the religious houses of the county.
• GENUKI has a page on Huntingdonshire and pages for each of the ecclesiastical or ancient parishes in the county. These give references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area.
• The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date.
• A Vision of Britain through Time, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions.
• Map of Huntingdonshire divisions in 1888 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time
• Map of Huntingdonshire divisions in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time