The written word is back: in praise of letters

I tread a different path from Churchill's daughter Lady Mary Soames, who recently eulogised the late letter, whose estate has been entailed to its fast thoughtless cousin, E Male.

I have had some success in contacting family relatives by letter, from across the chasm of time, and a couple of hundred miles and several regional accents in space. It can take as little as half an hour to find a cousin on the internet these days, and yet you can make your letter look as if you've been scrabbling through gravestones and quaint newspaper cuttings to beat a path to their door.

People will on the whole be very happy to have a letter from you, but it may take time to reply, and they may never get round to it. It could take a couple of years for a reply to arrive, perhaps from a grandson or cousin who is given the letter at a later date.

I might upload some sample letters that have worked, to this blogosphere. However, there is no template. Success could be as high as 70%, and it depends on a few factors:

1) Making sure the letter is properly personalised, tailored to the recipient. I tend to do a slightly different style for men than I do for women.
2) Making sure you have the right address and that the recipient is still alive and is in fact the person you seek.

3) The letter needs to make sense to the person receiving it, which means:
• Giving a bit of a handle on what kind of person you are through tone of voice, old world courtesy or by clearly siting yourself at the friendly end of the inquisitive/psychotic spectrum
• Mentioning some names, places or an occupation which will ring bells with the recipient and put them at ease, or give them a warm fuzzy glow
• Remembering that people are enormously trusting and won’t doubt you, particularly if you are penning your letter by hand with a British residential return address
• Avoid starting your letter with ‘Dear Mr Starcher, I am studying all the Starchers in Englandshire, and my book is priced keenly at £19.95 making an enormous coffee table gift for you and a loved one’... or anything that looks like a sale/con/chain letter

4) Leave the door open to future communication, but don't indicate that you expect anything. Make some options for their response subtly apparent: they can email back, use the self-addressed stamped envelope, 'add to the tree', write back a short note, pass the letter on to cousins who ARE interested, or they can decide not to get in touch at all. Once you've established contact, do maintain it, and be prepared for a second wave of revelations. You might find sending out a questionnaire could be useful. I’ve never done this myself, but , but I've seen examples where it has worked. Questions might be: What was your father's occupation. At which addresses or streets did the family live? What did your parents do during the War?

5) Select your target carefully: there are myriad considerations. Do you write to the eldest or youngest child, man or woman, those living near or far from the ancestral homeland? Are there any upsetting facts which will determine to whom you write and what you tell them? The ideal candidate is about 40, has watched Who do you think you are? has seen the Genes reunited ads on Friends reunited, is female, has a parent living (perhaps nearby), has time to answer your letter, has a working computer (or no computer at all), is at home a fair bit, isn’t busy when your letter arrives, lives near to the ancestral homeland but not in it, has occasion to have pleasant recollections of impressions of the past, and has a story of their own that they can (proudly) tell. They might also be interested in history, or they might live near good walking country. I found a piano teacher living on her own in the Peak district, and I was sure she would reply, as indeed she did. Our ideal correspondent needs not to have inherited property by stealth, else they possess the parallel attribute of barking frostily at callers ‘how did you get this number?’

6) If you must call, get ready for rejection, and run through roleplay endlessly until you feel sick. I've done this twice as an adult and felt very ill before and elated after. The two key people I called were fairly useful (invaluable at the time), but in hindsight I’d picked the wrong targets. Write letters instead.

Good luck with your letters - I'm sure they will go down very well.

Glossop folks

Glossop folks
I started out with 13 Bagshaw siblings – now I’ve run them all to ground except one who was yet unmarried at 46, so I’m not too worried about her – but where did she go I wonder!
The children were: John, William, Mary Ann, Edmund, Sarah, Ann, Ellen, Mary, Millicent, Hannah, Elizabeth Jane, Edmund, Joseph Nathaniel
DIED YOUNG
Mary Ann – not living in 1841
Edmund – not living in 1841
Edmund – not living in 1841
Joseph Nathaniel – confirmed by deaths index for 1840
We know that nine children were living in 1843 from their father’s will and we know that these must be: John, Ann (from gravestones), Sarah, Mary, Millicent, Hannah, Elizabeth Jane from the 1851 census. William and Ellen were still alive in 1841 living respectively with their parents, and sister Ann. This does not prove that they were still alive in 1843 (and thus two of the nine), but we now know this to be the case anyway.
GRAVESTONES
John – buried with his parents, date of death given as 1855 which ties him in as husband to Tabitha Handley and needle grinder in Sheffield. Also his youngest sister Jane was living with him there age 10. Died before his mother
Ann – buried with her parents, given as wife of Hugh Carr, who’d married at Bakewell in 1839. Died 1859, before her mother. Thanks very much to wishful-thinking.org.uk for getting my started with these siblings.
CENSUS
Ellen – found in 1861 census as Ellen Hannan in Birmingham. Subsequently found her marriage and a remarriage both in that city, and the full story including her move to Stoke-on-Trent, where the majority of her descendants still live. She named two children after her parents and her father’s occupation as miner is given on her marriage. Died 1878.
Mary – had a daughter Hannah Berresford who appears as niece in the 1881 census with her aunt Hannah. Tracking back to the 1871 census we guessed that her mother was Mary Bagshaw and we then found Mary’s marriage in 1866 in Sheffield which proved this. Mary was then 42, and had already had a son out of wedlock many years earlier. Died 1873.
MARRIAGE RECORDS
Hannah – (died 1901)
Jane – found their double marriage (at Eyam) in 1861, the year after their mother’s death. We then found them in the census and could see Jane had many daughters – one (Hannah) became the wife of one of the Carrs, linking the two families together further. Died 1916 – having survived many of the next generation. She lived in Slatelands Road, Glossop, hence the subject of this post.
PROBATE
William – the last to be run to ground, William. We found the record of his probate entry on Ancestry, conducting a probate index search for Bagshaws in Derbyshire. This document not only proves his death details (in 1848 in New York State), but links him firmly with his Eyam origins, and identifies him as the father of Elizabeth Bagshaw Benson. Finally it provides a current address for her mother twenty years later, under her new married name. Died before his mother.
LASTLY
My own great-great-great-grandmother, Millicent, who died 1881. We knew what happened to her.

GLOSSOP
This was the home of Elizabeth Jane Bagshaw, who had four married daughters. Of the three surviving, only Ann lived in Glossop. Ann’s grandson still live on High Street West.
Millicent Carr (daughter of Ann) had several children born in Glossop, and one of them (Robert Knott) married Eveline Jane Higginbottom in 1911.
Christine Margaret, a descendant through various Margarets and Ellens, from Ellen Bagshaw, has moved back to Brassington, Derbyshire from her native Stoke-on-Trent.

Maternal lines and DNA

This tree shows my father's maternal line.  We knew of Kay Lee and her siblings as relatives, but didn't know they also shared a maternal line, until recently.  Thanks to the gravestone transcriptions for Eyam, the plague village, at www.wishful-thinking.org.uk, which point us in the right direction for Ann; and also my Grandma, whose notes I came across which state that Aunt Lilla was 'a cousin'.  

We are looking for volunteers to solve the next two riddles.  Were Elizabeth and Mary Hill sisters?

And was Granny from Old Town (Jane) the sister of Mary?

It would be nice to resolve these two puzzles.

Finding Edward Jones

I've had some luck with my Bagshaw Carr connection. T G Carr left a will in 1919 naming lots of known relatives and a couple of new ones, particularly one, nephew 'Edward Jones', who had been plaguing me ever since this will arrived in the mail. I have finally found Edward. It turns out T G's eldest sister Martha Ann was the responsible party. The 1881 census for Liverpool makes it all look so easy, provided you knew what you were looking for. Martha A Jones is listed, with a son Edward, plus some daughters too. Her birthplace, Eyam, and age given match also. Still without specifically looking for her as Jones in this particular census you would have come a cropper. She married in Sheffield in 1862 and then remarried at Bootle in 1877 finally becoming the much needed Mrs Jones. I would like to acknowledge Lancashire bmd for hurtling me down this genealogical bobsleigh. I asked it which Carrs had married a Jones and it thoughtfully provided the Bootle 1877 couple listing Martha as both Healey, a corruption of her first married name, and Carr, her well beloved maiden name. I've found a Jones child, Erminie, wife of Harold Robert Butler. I plan now to run Edward to earth despite his fiendishly common, or in Heirhunters parlance,'bad', last name.

I have now found Edward's baptism and marriage and made a dangerous assumption that he had a son lately living in the Wirral, bp: 26 Oct 1879 St Martin in the Fields Liverpool; marr: 23 Jun 1901 St Athanasius Kirkdale, Liverpool.  I will now get the will of his sister which would struggle to add to the recent haul.

Update: the sister's will and existence confuses everything. Her heiress Ilene is upset at the illegitimacy involved. A third sister's existence in Manchester is stated and proving hard to iron out. Edward Jones, our original man, got his son through Wharton and lived to see his super-feminist granddaughter Barbara G Jones (Walker) born.

I believe in free will(s)

These were obtained *for free* at London LDS family history centre in an afternoon on Tuesday 11 August 2009.  Who says you have to pay for family history – this would have been £90 in wills had I bought them (which I never would).  It’s amusing that the biggest leads came from the references to ‘Jane Williams’ and ‘Mary Price’.  Ok Mary had a massive telltale middlename of ‘Orledge’ which made it sodding impossible *not* to find her, and her helpful will names all seven children in full which again made misidentification really tricky – particularly as there just weren’t many Welsh Prices still less English ones in English Enfield Lock.  Jane Williams was a bit less of a cheat.  Sure I knew from the context that Jane was born a Hambly in Gwinear, Cornwall, 1826 so using some of this information helped me find her marriage (Jane Hambly, Samuel Williams, 1847 Cornwall) and the rest of this information plus the husband’s name duly discovered, to find her in 1861 Hampshire (Jane Williams born about 1826 Gwinear, wife of Samuel) and then with the family details listed to find her in the 1881 census where she is just Jane Williams born about 1826 ‘in Cornwall’.  Eeks!  Again very few Williamses in Hampshire, still less Cornish ones.

Evans above- glazing Neath

Just a plea for any information on William Evans, plumber and glazier, Wind Street, Neath.  He was there in 1811, 1822 and quite possibly some time after this.  He was born 1770-1790 so most likely dead by 1841 census.  His wife Mary (Rees/Morton?) was the niece of Elizabeth (Rees) Pengilly, wife of Thomas Pengilly, Superintendent of the Neath-Abbey Iron-Works.

Pengilly died in 1822 and his widow three years later leaving a few pounds to niece Mary Evans.

The death duty registers show that Mary was the daughter of Elizabeth's sister, and my money is on her being the daughter of David and Ann (Rees) Morton of Neath or Cadoxton.

I descend from David Morton of Merthyr Tydfil who was either Mary's cousin or her brother.

On being, irrr, 26, and facing death duty indexes

Oh what fun we had.  This is the sort of totally gemsmithery you can yield from a day digging at TNA's luscious IR26 reserves.  You don gloves, foam pads and reader-ticket, and then the page-turning records are all yours.

Check out this beauty: next of kin are named as the legatee died in the testatrix's sister's lifetime, before the money could be shared out to her.  This name's Frances Buck's daughter as Mary Lane, which we knew, but not for certain - it also confirms that there were no other surprise children for Frances.

You would look up the testatrix on http://www.findmypast.co.uk's Death Duty Indexes (IR27) which you can do if you know the year the will was proved and the last name of the deceased.  Here is the entry for Rosamond Lane of Wymondham, confirming probate happened in Norwich in 1844 with the magic folio number (241) being given at the end of the line.

You can now go to the new IR26 catalogue at http://haine.org.uk/wills/IR26_catalogue.htm where you can thus identify IR26/1680 as being the one you need - see this snippet as an example.

I had about a dozen IR26 records I wanted to check at Kew and couldn't believe how difficult it was to get the appropriate references.  One had to guess one's way around TNA catalogue by putting in what reference you THOUGHT might cover the required year and surnames.  A few other people had had problems, or had considered making a separate trip to Kew purely to consult the printed catalogue.  I spent two solid days in the heat making it my mission to extract the catalogue entries relating to IR26, which I was successfully able to do.  At one point I was on a train from Doncaster to Newark Northgate, where I knew I had only 3 minutes to change trains.  I shouldn't have even been in Doncaster but I guess I missed my stop.  On this leg of my journey I was standing up, holding the laptop as I used the 20mins and fading battery for yet more valuable processing time.  At one point I was struggling with four 200 MB files, with just my MS-DOS friend 'ssr' for company.

I did get to Kew last week with my reference numbers and a bill (not a phone bill - though it doesn't say so on TNA's site) and saw some pretty awesome records.  My favourite is will of 4xgreat-grandpa Lancelot Gibson who leaves £50 to the representatives of his brother William Gibson, legacy to be paid after the death of his widow.  These are named in the estate duty records as being: Mary Tate, Ann Gibson and two male Gibsons.  I was able to find the marriage of Mary Gibson, Q3 1860 Carlisle RD, to Thomas Tait and corresponding entries in the censuses thereafter which seemed highly likely.  For a long time I thought the 1860 marriage was too late as Lance was dead by then, but in fact though he was dead his estate carried on recording pertinent facts which are completely missing from the will.  I could never have positively identified Mary Gibson were it not for this document, nor would I have known about the Tait connection, as the Carlisle marriage was nowhere near the Gibson heartland.

In the event I found out lots about 'Mary Tate', including obtaining a recipe book written by her granddaughter at the time of World War One.

John Lain's IR26 record listed the children of his niece, who, being a woman was given only a life interest in his residuary estate - the children are certainly not listed in the will

William Whittock's IR26 record shows the children of his late brother, who had died in Philadelphia.  In the will the wording is terse - we certainly don't get the full married names provided here.

So, should anyone ask, YES, it is worth exploring IR26 records, but do make use of finding aids and get organised so that your day at Kew with the old books is a profitable one.

Counting and tabulation

Third cousins

I have

- 3 siblings

- 7 first cousins

- 12 second cousins

then my parents have 56 great-aunts and uncles (or maybe even sixty)....

so we start to get the big numbers

= 160 third cousins

Who else knows how many 3rd cousins they have?

Seize quartiers

To marry in France you ought to know your grandparents' names and all their grandparents' names, too.  Do you?  I do but as one was illegitimate and we lack birth records for the four Irish, going further back would be rather tricksy.

Counting

I can't think of any other things to count, but if anyone can think of any?

My poshest relative is..... Emily Grace Bagnell a barrister's daughter, descended from Edward III and a young heiress with too much money and the consequent short life expectancy

My least posh relative is.... William Smith who was living with his niece, after his father died - she was the housekeeper - when the inevitable happened in Norfolk