The family of Jonathan Gee, the canal-builder

Jonathan Gee was baptised in 8 May 1743 in the parish of Hyde, Cheshire, the son of Nathaniel Gee. An older boy named Jonathan had been baptised there on 11 May 1737 to the same couple, but he had died. (This boy by pure fluke is literally within touching distance of his brother on the same page of closely written baptisms.)

The parish registers do not give the mother's name.

There are several possible marriages for Nathaniel Gee:

Nathaniel Gee married 30 Dec 1734 to Mary Brundrett (widow), both of Manchester

Nathaniel Gee married 17 Jan 1721 at Stockport to Sarah Benison

Helping with our decisions is the following list of baptisms in the area:

George Gee baptised 1 Jun 1722 Stockport to Nathaniel and Sarah

Sarah Gee baptised 15 Nov 1723 Stockport to Nathaniel and Sarah

Mary Gee baptised 29 Apr 1726 Stockport to Nathaniel

Hannah Gee baptised 27 Aug 1733 Hyde Presbyterian Chapel to Nathaniel and Sarah of Werneth

Jonathan Gee baptised 11 May 1737 Hyde Presbyterian Chapel son of Nathaniel, weaver at Werneth

Jonathan Gee baptised 8 May 1743 Hyde Presbyterian Chapel son of Nathaniel of Werneth

In the 1700s and 1800s it was not unusual for a brood of children to be born over a period of twenty years. When I first started family history I thought that was impossible. It is certainly a bit odd that the best candidate for Jonathan's parents married 22 years prior to his birth. But we can see that the move from Stockport to Hyde does rather account for a break in the family (1726-33), and the youngest Jonathan is a typical 'late child', perhaps occasioned by the onset of the menopause, forgive the modern biological intrusion.

There may be further children baptised at some place or chapel unknown in the years 1726-33, where perhaps records have not survived.

The name Gee is staggeringly common in the area, with the settlement of Gee's Cross sending all our compasses, spinning just around the corner. Nathaniel Gee the preacher and school-teacher of Dukinfield is not thought to be the same man. A couple named Nathaniel and Martha Gee are having children in Gorton, Manchester in the 1740s, and a dreadfully stubborn set of online trees are now 'recommended' by Ancestry as being Jonathan's parents. Ours is not to reason why.

Nathaniel Gee features in a tax assessment of Werneth 1785, but this was a hatter of Romiley, our Nathaniel had perhaps already died in 1780. We ran aground somewhat on the sheer popularity of the name in the area. He is certainly named in the will of his brother-in-law Jonathan Bennison, innkeeper at Werneth, 1749 which is available here: https://www.findmypast.co.uk/transcript?id=GBPRS%2FCHS%2F748053455

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We can assume that Jonathan had some technical aptitude, learnt at his father's knee. (There is a Scottish engineer whose name escapes me presently, that combined the efforts in his workshop with babysitting his orphan son, by having the son on one knee.)

A quick search suggests that Stockport, Macclesfield, Bollington and Congleton were silk-weaving towns, aided in time by the presence of the rivers Dane, Bollin, Dean and Goyt to provide a moist environment and power to drive a mill's waterwheel. It appears that cotton was not imported to Britain until the 1750s.

My guess is Jonathan (1742) might have had a lucky break working on one of the early canals in the Manchester area, perhaps the Bridgewater Canal, 1759 (act of parliament) -1761 (grand opening of at least part of the route).

The first documented canal on which Jonathan worked as a contractor was the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal 1766-1771, a full 75 miles south of his home town. It really doesn't appear that Jonathan will be heading back to Cheshire. He was to forge great friendships and partnerships with Midlands men, particularly Thomas Dadford Sr and Jr, a Catholic family from Wolverhampton.

Further reading about Jonathan, and the work of the canal contractor (part gang-master, part engineer-in-waiting) compiled by Peter Cross-Rudkin, is available here - I also append a link to Thomas Dadford's entry, featuring Jonathan, in the Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland (2002):

https://www.rchs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/J207_27-Canal-Contractors.pdf
https://booksc.eu/book/53010505/bd477f
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jeOMfpYMOtYC&pg=PA166

"The Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal runs through softly undulating West Midlands countryside. It skirts around the edges of Birmingham without ever becoming truly urban."

What a beautiful description.

It was here, at lock 17-19, Marsh to Hinksford, that Jonathan met his bride, Sarah Brasier of the village of Swindon, in the parish of Wombourne. Swindon today sits right on the canal, and the Green Man public house is waiting for your custom. I have a photograph of my muddy feet in the pub (February 2018) after a cold walk from Kinver, six miles south. The public house was associated with the Brasier family.

Sarah Brasier had been baptised at Kinver on 19 September 1751, and popped onto my screen in October 2017. She then bore the distinction of being the youngest known of my 256 6xgreat-grandparents, though that crown has since slipped in favour of her son's mother-in-law (one Millicent Marsden, q.v. infra). It was appealing to note that bus number 256 will take one from Stourbridge to the parish church of Wombourne in 2018, and that was very approximately 256 years since Sarah had walked as a young girl the dusty route north from Kinver to the new home at Swindon, in the parish of Wombourne.

As befits Sarah being one of my youngest forebears, she was only 16 when she married at St Thomas "Top Church" in Dudley on Christmas Day, 1767. Her brother and sister had both fled the nest earlier the same year, marrying on the Same Day as each other - at St Thomas, and at Halesowen.

The Gee children were baptised at a healthy variety of places around the country, a sustained stint near Killamarsh being the construction of the Norwood Tunnel, now permanently out-of-commission, on the Chesterfield Canal. This list is not complete and several of the children seem to have had rather unsavoury offspring. The two eldest feature in a mini-treatise on DNA, below.

* Nathaniel Gee 1768 West Bromwich (m 1791 Chesterfield and 1794 Sheffield)
* Sarah Gee 1770 Wombourne (mother's name given as Elizabeth which has confused seemingly everybody) (m 1789 Wolverhampton)
* William Gee c 1772 Hartshorne Yorkshire
* Jonathan Gee 1776 Eckington Derbyshire: helpfully names a son Nathaniel in ~1808 (after his late uncle)
* John Gee 1778 Eckington Derbyshire
* Thomas Gee 1780 Eckington Derbyshire (buried 1787 Killamarsh?)
* Sarah Gee 1783 Killamarsh Derbyshire (had an illegitimate child locally)
* James Gee 1787 Killamarsh Derbyshire
* James Gee 1792 Cadoxton-juxta-Neath, Glamorganshire
* John Gee 1795 Cadoxton-juxta-Neath, Glamorganshire

Several of the sons were sometimes listed as 'boatmen', Nathaniel (1768) certainly owned a boat on the Chesterfield Canal in the 1790s per the Chesterfield Canal Archive compiled by Christine Richardson: https://www.chesterfieldcanalarchive.co.uk/

Jonathan worked in later life on the Neath Canal in Wales, and I will append a photograph of myself walking its path in summer 2018. There had been a lull in canal-building in the years post-American Independence (1776), so in the 1780s Jonathan may have been kicking his heels amid the foundries of the Derbyshire, which later provided work (and opportunity for murder) for his sons and grandsons.

The 1790s saw the younger family members head to Wales: we don't know if the Neath Canal was built on the back of grief of the loss of his wife Sarah, as her end is not known. The records shine brightly sometimes and then withdraw quickly into historical darkness once more.

Jonathan is buried 18 Jun 1817 as from the Riddings, at Alfreton, and we have not the faintest idea what happened to his wife Sarah. Perhaps she survived him and repaired to the home of their eldest daughter at Raddle Hall, Broseley, or was she lost somewhere in Wales many years earlier, in a burial ground with no surviving (non-comformist) records? More probably.

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DNA. A surprise all these years later is that we have documented DNA from the Gee family, and quite possibly from the Brasiers too.

Line 1 HENRY: Thomas Brasier 1742 - Sarah 1776- Henry Newton 1800 Cradley Heath

Line 2 HANNAH: Sarah Brasier 1751- Nathaniel Gee 1768- Hannah Gee 1792 Chesterfield

Line 3 THOMAS: Sarah Brasier 1751- Nathaniel Gee 1768- Thomas Gee c 1802 Chesterfield

Line 4 JOHN: Sarah Brasier 1751- Hannah Gee 1770- John Turton c 1795 Broseley Shropshire

I descend from Hannah Gee (1792), and there is a single segment of DNA on chromosome seven, which is shared by several Brasier descendants from the four lines identified above. So far we are aware of one or two representatives from each line, but it would naturally be wonderful to learn more about our Brasier origins.

Rather charmingly, John Brasier (father of Thomas and Sarah and their sister Mary), leaves his rabbit warren at Checkhill Common to a family member, as well as a number of implements of nail-making.

We are very fortunate to have such well documented ancestry in South Staffordshire, an area well worth a visit, though I would recommend warmer weather than my visit of February (2018).