I spend a lot of my time rooting around the damp undergrowth of the internet, like a pig looking for truffles. Sometimes you find them and sometimes you dont. And sometimes you can pick up a faint scent. Often it is fascinating stuff but it doesnt really lead anywhere. You know there is a story there,but you just haven't got enough material. Details have slipped through the fingers of history.A gravestone is the most important item. There is no point having a story but having no headstone. That has been the central part of the project since we started. I have been known to cheat when I have found a really good story. I did this with Martha Nash from Swansea. We know where she was buried but the grave itself has disappeared. It was such a sad story I wanted to publish anyway. (See the November 2008 edition of Welsh Country Magazine)But generally there isnt much point if I havent got a headstone or a substantial story. But, as I say, sometimes...I came across this little story some months ago. It comes from 1607, which means that a grave is almost an impossibility. It might have survived if it was that of a nobleman, but as the grave of an ordinary person? 400 years ago? No chance.The story comes from Hanmer in Flintshire and concerns Elinor Evans who was a maidservant. She had injured her ankle and a surgeon named William Jones was called. She had financial assistance from her friends and neighbours to pay for treatment. It cost 30 shillings. You can judge for yourself whether she got value for money.You see, it did not go well. Once he had the money the surgeon neglected his duties. In a short tyme (her) legg and bonn did putrifye and petrishe. Now personally I would regard this as bad news. Elinor did too.She called him back and gave him more money, this time to perform an amputation. For those of you who know Flauberts Madame Bovary there are certain echoes here. But it gets worse. He now decided to devote more time to her than he had originally, for he did so perswade and entise (her) to yeald and consent to his leud and fleshly desire that he begat her with child. Perhaps in those pre-anaesthetic days it was the only way he had to take her mind off things. Perhaps his best hope of success came with a woman who might struggle to run away, but perhaps I am being unkind.Jones had been bound over to appear at Denbigh Great Sessions, since he was being pursued for maintenance and he had gone into hiding. Sadly I dont know any more than this, but it certainly adds a little something to the traditional doctor/patient relationship.But if Elinor had had access to those amputation tools the story might have ended very differently.