Finally at Home in Holmesfield?

This blog explores the possible connection between two women who married the same man, Nathaniel Gee, in the 1790s. The evidence suggests they may have been related through the Marsden family of Holmesfield. If so, it may identify the otherwise unknown origins of Nathaniel’s first wife, Ann Shaw.

The First Wife: Ann Shaw

In 1792 Ann Shaw married boatman and publican Nathaniel Gee at Chesterfield parish church. It turns out banns had also been called for her at Sheffield as 'Ann Shay'. She was about eighteen and her husband twenty-three. The very next year this first wife dies in childbirth, leaving an only child - my ancestor.

But who was Ann Shaw? She was not born 1774 in Wirksworth: mitochondrial-testing has already disproved that. Ultimately her burial at Holmesfield pulls us in. This is definitely not a Gee stronghold and we pick at it like a cat with wool.

The little we already know is that her only child born 1792 at Chesterfield marries 1807 at Rotherham, settles that year in Eyam and produces a dozen children. Among them is Millicent (baptised 1826) my forebear. But what about before Ann, were there any Shaws in the 1700s, perhaps at Holmesfield?

We want to work around Ann's missing baptism to build her tree. I am not sure what first led me to this couple born in the 1740s or 50s but I keep returning to this marriage record:

William Shaw of Dore (part of Sheffield), marrying 1772 at Dronfield to Millicent Marsden of the Lordship of Holmesfield.

They are both buried at Holmesfield two years apart in the 1810s: William’s residence is given as “Eam” (Eyam) while Millicent’s intriguingly was Chesterfield. We hope to be able to rationalise this 'move' a little later. I like them very much. The combination of places suits our geography very well.

The Second Wife: Millicent Damm

Meanwhile Ann's widower Nathaniel Gee married a woman named Millicent: this caught my attention. Three Millicents in as many paragraphs? She appears to be from Holmesfield. This could be another way in, if the two teenage brides were connected to each other.

Nathaniel's second wife is Millicent Damm also known as Amelia who dies in 1832 aged '56', which just about fits with her baptism in January 1778.  This would make her only 16 at her marriage. But more importantly, she's baptised at Holmesfield, the same place the first wife was buried. What if there was a stunning piece of evidence in the next paragraph?

We're ready for the reveal, the second wife's parents are surely:

Thomas Damm of Unthank in the Lordship of Holmesfield, marrying 1768 at Dronfield to Ann Marsden then of Dronfield town.

Ann leaves a will in 1810, residing rather wonderfully at Unthank in 'the Lordship of Holmesfield and Parish of Dronfield'. Among her children named is indeed Millicent (now Gee). 

Initially I misread the evidence and thought this was a dead end. I thought the will showed that Ann was the widow of Stephen Damm and thus nee Bourne. No, reading Ann's will alongside the baptism records clearly demonstrates her children's father was Thomas Damm.

So: 

The second wife is definitely the daughter of Ann Marsden.

The first wife might be the daughter of Millicent Marsden, and we're about to see that these two Marsden women are surely related. I used to call this 'elegant double-proof', but is it?

Quite undeservedly we stumble on this document that I failed to mine five years ago and which is going to help us.

The Administration of William Shaw

Millicent Marsden had married William Shaw. When he dies perhaps without sons in 1815, his estate bondsmen are William Elliott and Benjamin Thompson both of Brampton Moor and environs. William's occupation was victualler at Eyam. I never thought this through. If their daughter was the first wife (who died back in 1792), then there was actually an heir my ancestor Hannah age 23 the granddaughter and wife of William Bagshaw a lead miner at Eyam age 44. Why is Bagshaw not 'doing the honours' and clawing in the funds? Well:

• I did figure out that William Elliott had married Ann Damm.
• I missed however that Benjamin Thompson had married Alice Damm.

In summary they were not random associates but husbands of Ann Marsden's daughters! This surely indicates that we are dealing with 'one' Marsden family.

It looks very much like nephews by marriage are ensuring that the widow Millicent Shaw is being protected from malliflous interests. If I hadn't gone digging on the second wife I doubt I would have identified these gentleman.  

Elliott and Thompson were near neighbours of the family at Old Brampton, and relatively well-off as miller and iron moulder respectively. I think they were conveniently placed advocates, stepping in to safeguard the widow Millicent's 'mite' (under £50). Bagshaw would blench at tackling these younger more socially astute men.

If Millicent was the grandmother of Hannah Bagshaw of Eyam that could explain William Shaw living there and relatives fearing that Millicent would be beholden to a greedy grandson-in-law. I suspect that Millicent removed herself from Eyam to live with her niece and namesake (Mrs Gee) at Chesterfield.

She popped herself down the pecking order by doing so. The Bagshaws hold off until the sixth of their nine daughters is born before calling one Millicent (my forebear) ten years later. 

There is another twist in the burial of William Shaw age forty in early 1814 at Eyam, who could conceivably be the first wife's brother.

Complications and False Trails

Several other Shaw and Marsden references appear in the records but seem unlikely to belong to this family.

1. Eyam stonemason William Shaw or Shore constructed the sundial there in the 1770s/80s. I am jettisoning him as there is nothing to indicate we're in Eyam this early.
2. Millicent Marsden baptised 1756 at Hope, Derbyshire looks alluring. Indeed her brother James 1752 has a daughter named Millicent at Eyam. But Hope and Eyam are miles away from Holmesfield, the key place of the time. I suspect coincidence. In fact I cannot be sure of any Eyam references in the family prior to the first wife's daughter arriving there in 1808.

There was also, unbelievably, another Millicent in the weeds. 

Ann Shaw's widower remarried to her likely cousin. Well in the next generation William Bagshaw had been previously married - to Sarah Hague and I'd already looked into her. Sarah's mother had a familiar first name being Millicent Dalton of Totley, who had married in 1775 at Dronfield - Dronfield again?!

Untangling Millicent Dalton’s place in the web may be a step too far for present sanity. Though - footnote - this Millicent's marriage had first been forbidden by the bride's father!

Incidentally, these registers record the hamlets but frequently neglect wives’ names, a hazard when constructing trees.

The Ellis Connection

There is one baptism at Holmesfield that is worthy of exploration: Robert Ellis Marsden (1767–1844), son of John, who much later names a daughter Millicent.

Robert makes the odd move to farm at Teversal, Mansfield with a John and a William drifting around the same area. I reckon he is the namesake of Robert Ellis junior (d. 1737), a wealthy landowner at Dronfield. Were the Marsdens looking to curry favour with the Ellises or was there a genuine connection? They had land in Cambridgeshire of all places.

Whilst I cannot knit Robert Ellis into the Marsdens he does linger as a future puzzle.

Were Ann and Millicent Marsden Sisters?

The central question is unresolved: were Ann Marsden (baptised 1746) and Millicent Marsden (c.1756?) sisters, daughters of Ann's father John Marsden? And if so, was Millicent's daughter that tragic first wife Ann Shaw?

Millicent Shaw is buried in 1817 aged 61, which would make her born c.1756 — young for a 1772 marriage given no special note in the registers but I could be swayed about that. We have already discounted the tempting baptism at Hope in 1755. (The year 'fits' but the family at this point are surely in Holmesfield.)

In theory we have no baptism (for Millicent in 1750s nor her putative daughter Ann Shaw in 1770s), no wills (except for the Shaw document of 1813) and we are trying to nail jelly to the wall.

The most promising route to firm resolution may be mitochondrial DNA. Ann Marsden’s female line ought to carry the same mtDNA as Millicent's if they were sisters.

The first wife has abundant female-line descendants; the second wife's line has proved elusive.

DNA and Future Research

Recent exploration shows that Ann Marsden's female lines are frustratingly thin on living representatives despite prolific daughters and granddaughters. The Elliotts alone managed 10 female line granddaughters but all lines appear to have failed! The following remain of interest to our enquiries: Martha Damm[s] (1782), Maria Damm[s] (1792), Ann Sykes (1800) and Ann Gee (1795). One day we may know more.

Perhaps one of them is the mother of Henry Damms Lindley (1829) who I spotted in some local registers.

So the pattern, because it bears repeating is:

• Holmesfield, Marsdens, Millicents

... and Nathaniel Gee marrying two women who seemingly had a good deal in common:

(1) Ann Shaw c. 1774, grandmother of my Millicent (1826), and perhaps daughter of another Millicent (Marsden)

(2) Millicent 'Amelia' Damm c. 1778, step-grandmother of my Millicent (1826), and surely this part is certain, niece of Millicent (Marsden) Shaw

Conclusion

I should think the chance of the second wife being called the family name of Millicent**, happening to have an aunt named (Millicent) Shaw from Holmesfield, who resided in Eyam/Chesterfield, when the first wife was definitely a Shaw from Holmesfield whose daughter resided in Eyam/Chesterfield... just cannot be chance. This seems a good approach with which to argue the case.

What next?

(1) The next sensible move is to mine Ann Damm’s 1810 will some more, to look again at Robert Ellis's family, and to pursue the faint mtDNA trail through the remaining female lines.

(2) I have stood in Holmesfield churchyard already in a February of yore. I don't think standing there again is going to help - despite this suggestion from AI - which was otherwise very helpful in helping me speak plainly about this complex befuddling web.

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* Nathaniel's daughter Ann (1796) was baptised at Holmesfield, but with his second wife being from there (and allegedly barely 18) it was natural for the first child to be born in the bride's home parish. Incidentally his father also married a woman that was 16 (in 1767) so Nathaniel marrying an 18 year old followed by a 16 year old is odd or even reprehensible in our eyes but see here for background.

** Millicent (1826) could have been named after her mother's stepmother Millicent Damm or her mother's likely grandmother Millicent Marsden - so the mother's stepmother being called Millicent is perhaps not evidence by itself. But seriously, how many Millicents do you know personally?

Suffolk and Leicestershire

My least well known corner of my family I suppose are Henry Smith born 1827 and his sisters. He was from a large family of ten or so and I know nothing of how they were raised. Except that he is catapulted into our family when Miss Mary Flowers, 32 and in trouble, makes the brave decision to marry him on paupers' favourite, Christmas Day, 1850. Three children are quickly rushed out: 1851, 1852, 1853 and Mary is not in the workhouse but still in her uncle's favour at the place he has by right of his wife, Mulbarton Hall. Until the larded owners make their way back from empire construction in India that is. 

Mary vanishes in 1869 into death and we must kiss Mulbarton Hall goodbye never to be seen again.

Now we have leisure 200 years later to look at Henry's sisters. I cannot care about all of them but two stand out from the motley crew: Sarah 1815 and Harriet 1831.

Sarah edged past the precipice of being an unwed mother and at nearly thirty in Lakenham secured her groom Ephraim Goodrum or "good 'un" I should think himself knowing all about being born out of wedlock. They settle as blacksmith and wife at St Margaret Ilketshall and looked after Henry on his becoming a widower. 

Harriet produced the very loyal W. R. Bowgen, obliterated by death but a nexus point around whom these folks collected. They must surely have nearly 300 descendants between them by now. 

And for me the locations are rather wonderful not to mention the romantic inlets of the Waveney and the stories we can hopefully weave. 

Harriet had only two other children, Richard (!!!?) who is extraordinary married three times left six thousand pounds businessmen and three of his children left their spouses another became Mrs Austen (yes that family). And Sophia who died at 26 in Toronto: her family today reside in Lincoln which I knew but also Wigston Leicester and Melton Mowbray which was a real surprise just lately. 

Sarah had a tiny family of four but they solidly took on the north Suffolk area, running large families, smithys and a post office public house or two. A few have DNA tested and match myself. This week we learnt the blacksmith had an extra child in World War Two. So one of Sarah's great grandchildren has actually DNA tested despite as I say this being 200 years ago really. 

Letters exchanged in the 1990s are still on file and every so often a name known from that time appears as genetic match how lovely. Though it hasn't always been easy in the intervening years. A great niece raised in poverty or adopted out, the original contact would never have known.

It's hard to know what personally I've inherited from Henry Smith: hopefully not too much going on his character and some questionable unions in the vicinity. It's a treat having Sarah, Harriet and the strong ties to Halesworth, Beccles, M. Mowbray and all showing you can't change the canvas but you can for sure choose how you look at it.