Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- A Place That Matters To You

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

 It's Saturday Night again - 

time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):

1)  What geographic and community places matter to you?  

2)  Pick one place (building, village, town, city, county, state/province)  and describe your connection to it and why it matters.

3)  Share your selected place in your own blog post, or in a comment on this blog post, or write a Substack post, Facebook Note, or in some other social media system.  Please leave a comment with a link on this post so others can find it.

Here's mine:

I have so many places, but one that I always hark back to is Hilperton, a village in Wiltshire, England that is near Trowbridge. So I choose Hilperton!

My connection to Hilperton is through my maternal grandmother, Alma Bessie Richmond, whose father, my great-grandfather Thomas Richman/Richmond (1848-1917), was born in Hilperton on 10 June 1848 to James and Hannah (Rich) Richman and baptized on 16 June 1848 in St. Michael's and All Angels Church in Hilperton.  

My 2nd great-grandparents, James Richman (1821-1912) and Hannah Rich (1824-1911), were both born and baptized  in Hilperton and married there in 1845.  

My third great-grandparents, John Richman (1788-1867) and Ann Marshman (1784-1856), were married in Hilperton in 1811.  

And the line goes back several more generations -- there were Richman persons baptized in the early 1600s in Hilperton.  The line also has other surnames -- Rich, Parsons, Rawlings, Hill, Hiscock, Angel, Harding, etc.

Why is it special?  My reasons are:

• My wife Linda and I visited Hilperton, and St. Michael's and All Angels Church, in 1993 while on vacation in England. We experienced an Anglican worship service in the church, observed the bell ringing before the service, talked to the rector, the church warden and several other people after the service.  I walked around the small graveyard around the church and the main streets. 

• My ancestors were real people who contributed to my own DNA, who experienced history and life's ups and downs, and invariably tried as hard as they could to succeed in life and pass traditions, knowledge, and genes to their descendants.
• The St. Michaels and All Angel Church in Hilperton is where several generations of my family worshipped, married, were baptized and buried. 
• A place can explain a family's history.  My Richman's were weavers, farm laborers, coal haulers, butchers, etc.  Common folk, not rich by any means! 
• My Richman ancestors worshiped in the Anglican church in Hilperton, and Thomas's family, Bessie Richmond's family and my father were Episcopal church members in Massachusetts. 
• Hilperton connects my American Richman family to my English heritage.  They are my most recent immigrant ancestors.  I have many England-born ancestors from the early 17th century, but Hilperton is the one I've visited and researched the most. 
• Hilperton is much more than a dot on a map. It is the setting for generations of births, marriages, deaths, work, family relationships, and everyday life. Its parish church, its farms and cottages, its roads, and its changing economy provide clues to the world my ancestors knew.
• I don't know everything about their lives. But I have tried to learn about the place where they lived, investigate the records they left behind, and explore the circumstances surrounding their departure for America.

Links to the biographies and family stories of Thomas Richman/Richmond, James and Hannah (Rich) Richman, John and Ann (Marshman) Richman, and John and Rebecca (Hill) Rich are on my Randy's AI and Genealogy page, and in the Compendium of Family Biographies, Stories and Videos For My Richmond/White/Rich/Oatley Lines post  on this blog.

I asked AI Google Gemini 3 to write a short poem about my Hilperton ancestral place:

Hilperton, My Ancestral Home

A village nestled in Wiltshire green,

Where generations lived their lives unseen,

Where Richman families made their start,

And left their footprints on my heart.

Through country lanes and church bells' chime,

They raised their children, passed through time.

Their joys and sorrows, work and strife,

Were woven into threads of life.

Then came the year eighteen fifty-six,

A voyage across the ocean's mix.

They left behind the home they knew,

For distant shores and futures new.

I have walked those winding streets,

Their past and mine in Hilperton meet.

Across the years, across the sea,

That village still belongs to me.

For roots run deep where stories start,

And places live within the heart.

Hilperton, though far from where I roam,

You are my ancestors' home.

—and part of mine.

                          =============================================

The URL for this post is:  

Copyright (c) 2026, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Share it on X, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below. Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com. Note that all comments are moderated, and may not appear immediately.

Subscribe to receive a free daily email from Genea-Musings using www.Blogtrottr.com.