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dougmurphy0's latest comments
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6th Oct 2021dougmurphy0 commented on:
Retiring to Norfolk - best place to live?Hello Mavis! Just bumped into your note from 2019, and wanted to share my experience about, "Will the people speak to me?" From, my experience, YES! I am an American of PALMER descent from Norfolk (Crostwight, Honing, Dilham, Smallburgh) whose family emigrated to the USA in 1850. I was born in northern New York state, and currently live/work out on the plains of Nebraska, so I know cold, but not like you do. I also have thoughts of retiring to Norfolk, though not immediately. PALMER is an incredibly common name in Norfolk, so we probably aren't related. Still... In 2011, I had a business trip to London that extended over a weekend, so I drove out to see the towns where my ancestors came from. On Saturday, I wandered around the churchyard in Stalham photographing tombstones from another side of my family. I was greeted by a gentleman who was the unofficial village historian, and ended up spending hours on his sun porch leafing through the original church records from the 1700's and 1800's as well as pedigree trees he had extracted from them. On Sunday, I arrived at the parish church outside Dilham right after services ended, I had a wonderful chat with the vicar, and received a personal tour of the church and the ruins of the old priory, which are both a few hundred years old. (My ancestor, Elizabeth PALMER, married Philip DYBALL in 1803, who was the parish clerk for Dilham.) Late in the afternoon, I was photographing family tombstones in the churchyard at Hickling, and was approached by a friendly lady out walking her dog. She noticed which stones interested me, and asked if I was related. When I said yes, she told me that her friend married a PLATTEN (another side of my family), they lived in the village, and if I waited a few minutes, she'd escort me there and introduce me. I spent a wonderful evening getting to meet my father's 3rd-cousin and his wife. Best of all was hearing the stories of when his father spent two years in the early 1920's in my hometown, living and working for my great-grandfather and his brothers. Priceless! So yes, the people are friendly if you have a midwestern friendly approach to them. But I suspect that a cold New York attitude would not be received as warmly. I am not normally on this site. If you wish to respond, my e-mail address is [email protected]. --Doug Murphy Omaha, Nebraska, USA [email protected]