Solves with the name Ann

 A lot of coups in the family tree have been people with the name of Ann:

Ann Gibson born 1836 Northumberland. I was not the solver, but it transpired she was visiting her previously unknown mother in the year 1861 accompanied by her two eldest children. Very helpful. Solve: census

Ann Morgan born 1761 Glamorgan. Her unmarried daughter's estate duty papers from 1859, a hundred years later, lead me to the will of Ann's sister Mrs Pengilly and from that we can reconstruct Ann's whole family tree. Solve: IR27 series

Ann Phillips born 1797 Glamorgan. She was Ann Morgan's great-niece. It looked like she possibly left Wales for Utah in the 1850s. The key document here was her second marriage certificate which confirmed all the relationships. Solve: certificate

Ann Thomas born 1817 Glamorgan. She presumably left her husband and family in Wales and sailed for Utah in the 1860s to join her daughter. This was from the 1871 census which showed her absent and later 'dead'. Comparing DNA test results for Utah- and Wales- based descendants confirmed this. Solve: AncestryDNA

Ann Hooper born 1839 Somerset. She is in the 1861 census with her mother, but what next was a mystery. We found her marriage in Bristol 1866 to Mr Penny. And then a surprise remarriage in Wincanton 1869 to Mr Read. I think the method was combing the 1881 census for her birthplace. Solve: census

Ann Perry born 1761 Cornwall. She married age 19 to Mr Jennings and I had no idea where she was from. Looking again at the witnesses, I noticed a chap called Thomas Rogers. This little clue was enough to work out he was Ann's stepfather. And thus piece the whole thing together. Solve: CornwallOPC

Ann Shaw born about 1773 Derbyshire. She married age 16-18 to Mr Gee died the following year and I had no real idea where she was from. Though I had a couple of guesses. Her widower possibly remarried a cousin and the clinching evidence was William Shaw's administration from 1815 that seemed to link together the two families. Pending further proof. Solve: LichfieldAdministrations

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, Millicent, is definitely the daughter of Ann Marsden.

The first wife, Ann, 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. [Update: looks like it *might* be right as our William was baptised as Shore in Holmesfield in 1748, then of Cold Aston aka Coal Aston.]
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 (1796). One day we may know more. Update: Ann Gee's female line is officially extinct.

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.

----------------- 

* 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. Also, I initially thought she was named after her father's first wife, now we see they were *both* named after the second wife's mother!

** 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?

 ----------------- 

Additional source information

Marriage of Alice Damms to Benjamin Thompson, 1802 at Sheffield.

Marriage of Ann Damms to William Elliott, 1798 at Bakewell. 

Update: Ann Damms widow of George Damms died at Nottingham in 1859 leaving a will and an estate of nearly £1,500.  She names Josiah Elliott and Thomas Gee, 'nephews', as her executors. That will could explain what happened to George's sisters' family, so will try to get for less than £16 !

 

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.

Newly available Worcestershire record from 1715 helps 8-great-grandpa mystery

Early November 1715 was not a great time to be getting married. The Jacobite army was in full swing in northern England and that might explain why the marriage record is missing. The parish registers for Chaddesley Corbett seem to be missing from August 1715 up until 1717.

Thomas Kidson's wife Sarah had been buried in April, having borne him several children. His next child would be Hannah Kidson baptised 1718, but there would be unique circumstances surrounding her birth. It was not simple. The picture is murky.

Thomas Kidson became a churchwarden in his home of Kinver, Staffordshire. The population may have been just a few hundred as it went from 1500 to 2000 over the nineteenth centuries. He has several hundred yards of pinfolding (nail making). Thomas's will shows some sense of importance wishing to be interred 'in a decent manner as becomes a person of my degree'. He leaves his property to the sole management of his friend John Hodges. To Mary the mother of Hannah, Richard and James Kidson 'the two beds and beding and four pair of sheets which are in the chamber I now lye', plus more including interest of money that is in Mr Fullilove's hands. Mary is also to receive the tubs and furnace belonging to his brewing business, plus pots kettles saucepans and trenchers. This suggests she ran a public house with him. I think his will was made in contemplation of death. It being July 1740 he'd be 55. There is a nice turn of phrase 'I leave to the discretion of my family now at home all the rest of my effects to be disposed of by my executor'. It starts well, but the sentence was presumably dictated by the said executor, who clearly wanted a free reign and was somewhat trusted by those present.

Thomas had older children Mary, Thomas, John Kidson and Sarah Johnson by his first marriage as a teenager to Sarah Davies.

But in November 1715, a marriage licence appears for 'Thomas Kitson widower age 30 of Kinfare Staffordshire to Jane Barford age 25 spinster of Chaddesley Corbett'. This is another rushed marriage, and it must have ended in tears as Thomas is having my ancestor Hannah barely three years later with a new partner Mary, with whom he lived but to whom he was never legally married.

So at last we have something of an explanation, that Thomas was legally married to someone else, namely Jane.

This record https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/63053/records/97528 
is found in the Worcestershire, England, Marriage Licenses, 1661-1949. 

All change at the Tavern: re-assessing tree leads to changes

For years I've wondered if you really belonged, Harriet Jones, wife of whip-thong maker Thomas Jones of Deritend, Birmingham. Your grandkids made it into my book (page 207 in fact). And your daughter Harriet Jones Hawkins was the first woman to say NO to plural marriage in a law court in the state of Utah, in 1891. She sounded like she ought to belong.

I have several DNA matches to Harriet's husband, Thomas Sunderland Hawkins, but let's remember he was the plural marrying one, so it's perhaps not surprising that half of Utah claim him as their dad. 

The problem started with Thomas Brasier baptised 1742, a customs and excise man. His entry in the IR27 death duty indexes as 'Branscer' names his wife Elizabeth and Elizabeth's own IR27 entry (1852) (turns out to be their daughter), names Joseph Newey as executor. Dr Taylor kindly sent me a copy of Elizabeth's will dated 1828, and listing five nieces, granddaughter of Thomas: Elizabeth Aston, Hannah Wood, Fanny Flavel, Harriet Newton and Eliza Newton.

These events were in and around Dudley, also Cradley Heath, Stourbridge (Old Swinford), Clent and Sedgley. It took a trip to The Hive Worcester to find Eliza's baptism in the right year as Norton, while Fanny is 1851 is recorded as Flavle and indexed as Flook. But it was Harriet that caused the pain.

For some reason I don't appear to have been very logical about my research, waiting until Nancy Brasier (another unmarried family member)'s will (1863) popped through in September 2018 before getting going in earnest. Nancy had the Druid Tavern in the town.

Also, I quickly decided Harriet Newton was born 1803 in Cradley and had married Thomas whipthong Jones in 1826. At the time I didn't have Harriet's baptism, but it did clash with aunt Elizabeth's will (1828) which declared her unmarried.

It wasn't until 2022 that Worcestershire's brilliant parish registers were uploaded to Ancestry. So today I see that Harriet was actually baptised 1809 in Oldswinford and was thus hardly likely to marry in 1826. Further that others are right that the whipthong maker's wife Harriet 'born 1803 Cradley' was baptised 1803 Deritend the son of a couple from Cradley and environs. 

And further that the marriage of Harriet (as 'Darton') in 1835 Edgbaston to Mr Ward, a japanner in the jewellery quarter looks spot on. With her first children named after sister Hannah and her husband Frederic. There is just the small issue of Harriet Newton baptised 1807 Old Swinford (daughter of Samuel) to eliminate.

I had hoped that the Estate Duty Registers for 1863 would confirm Harriet's last name: but as she got less than £20 from her aunt Nancy's estate the clerks weren't fussed about her last name and it's shown as 'Newton'.

This all absolutely explains why there were never any DNA matches from the whipthong maker's daughter in Utah. It has taken far too long to spot this and indeed to type this up, so I'll press send, and consider any points of clarification or useful images, later.

Also:

Henry Newton baptised 1800 turned out to be the grandfather of Thomas Davies (1861) born to an unmarried couple who himself turned out to be the mysterious 'wire drawer' named on the World War One marriage certificate of a son in Leeds.... whose grandson I had found an identified as 'J.D.' on GEDmatch on I think chromosome 6. It was all very labyrinthine.

William and Hannah Newton turned out to be born 'mother Susanna'. More to follow... 

 

Move over Somerset: Staffordshire is the new kid in town (pt 1)

In my youth it was easier finding out what was happening in horse-drawn Somerset than it was finding out what was happening on ITV. And the former was far more wholesome. I had only to hop up a few stairs above 'Next' and the faded leather-bound volumes in the disused probate registry opened so very easily. No remote control needed.

A gain 'here' equalled a piece of information 'there' as all the families east of the Mendips were connected somehow. You just had to find the right button. At 17 one slightly snowy December, I hopped in my elderly Fiesta and took those ancient addresses and went to visit them. Cousins were still there. Ralph Bush (born 6 November 1900), dairy farmer was still alive, nearly doing the tonne. Extraordinary to think that even the car I was driving has lately turned 50 - on some scrapheap somewhere.

But it all had to end. Reunions and memories and beautiful big trees and photographs, gravestones and stories....

Once the Haine Reunion 2005 had happened in Ohio, it was our swan song. The county had no more left to give. Just roads and endless car-ry traffic-fumed angry London visiting road filled roads. Once-pleasant cottages hard juxta'd onto the endlessly rolling tarmac, sucking in more unhappy Londoners bemoaning the stagnant lonely air. Old family strongholds selling up, and nowhere for anyone to live.

What a relief to escape. I was a genealogical nomad for a while, enjoying the links to Wales, to the Peak District, the Lake District fringes and for a while to Colombia. The joy of studying old maps proving far more reliable than smoky old lorry-belching Somerset. Goodbye old friend!

But then one day, a new county raised its head, and things would never be the same again. 

Wrong trees: what to do

There should be a question mark at the end of the title. This is a problem from a few years ago. It felt remarkably personal when there were enquiries about family history through to email, post or even Ancestry message.

There were only four areas of confusion that I can think of right now:

• Hannah 'Robinson' the wife of William Bagshaw of Eyam - born 1792 Chesterfield. There was no baptism that fitted. Thanks to a timely message from Barrie Robinson in 2014 which showed that the William Bagshaw who married Hannah Robinson was alive and well in Sheffield in 1841. And that left the door open to exploring other options. Ultimately Hannah turned out to be Hannah Gee, with baptism, family background and DNA all happily confirming this, and most online trees now do reflect that.
   
• Elizabeth Marshall wife of William Hugo. Ancestry trees are torn on this one. Most have her as born about 1781 in Egloshayle the daughter of John Marshall and Ann Guard. She is actually (as many trees show) born about 1775 in Bodmin the daughter of John Marshall and Jane Stephens. The key piece of evidence for this is the will of John Marshall of Bodmin.
  
  
• William and Jane Hambly of Redruth, Cornwall. The prevailing mood in the 1990s was that this couple had married in 1753 in Duloe, Cornwall rather than in 1757 in Redruth. Furthermore, nobody had clocked that she was a widow nee Jane Bohemia. Most trees do now recognise this and there is proof in that William jr's will names his half-sister's daughter as a niece.
  
  
• Ruth and Rachel Grist of Hemington, Somerset married George Crees a gardener in Bath in the period around 1820. For a while there was doubt that these two were sisters. This seems to have been resolved. I am sure Crees would have been around at an interesting time in Bath's history.
   
• Thomas Haine born 1822 in West Pennard. Because his first marriage took place in Batcombe, Somerset, archive staff suggested that Thomas might have been born as Thomas Haimes (or similar) in the parish, and until the 1881 census was released showing the correct birthplace, the Batcombe Thomas was thought to be everyone's forebear. In addition the family had wrongly suggested Thomas had a middle name of Talbot, which due to careful tree pruning by the family, has been close to eradicated: although see the next point.
  
  
• Ancestry.com has a weakness for made-up middle names for our forebears. It will unfortunately not challenge these and even encourage their proliferation. It might be possible to challenge this by inserting 'NoMiddle' as the middle name.

It is a relief to know that these are now mostly resolved. Possibly human nature and the Ancestry algorithm eventually favour the correct information: but that is by no means certain.

Counties of interest: where my ancestors were

This quick post shows the counties my ancestors occupied.

Somerset, Cornwall, Glamorganshire, Lancashire, Norfolk, Derbyshire, and Westmorland are the main counties from the last 150 years. Going back to 3xgreat-grandparents, we need to include Kent (birthplace of Maria and the place where her parents later lived), Pembrokeshire and Monmouthshire (birthplaces of my Welsh forebear's parents), Northumberland (birthplace of John), County Durham (home of John and Jane).

Going further back we find Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Cheshire (haunts of my 5xgreat-grandfather Nathaniel), Cumberland (4xgreat-grandmother Jane and husband), Wiltshire (ancestor born there 1660s).

And then there are ancilliary counties of Nottinghamshire (home of James Fox of Gotham widower of Esther), London (where two grandparents are born), (South) Yorkshire, Devon and Suffolk (where ancestral couples marry), Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire (seemingly where two ancestors originate), Carmarthenshire (home of my Mortons), and arguably Breconshire (where another ancestral couple marries) - but that is now part of Powys which I would be uncomfortable shading in given that we're talking just across the border from Glamorgan.

If we take out County Durham, Suffolk, London and Kent (all somewhat questionable as long-term places of origin), it's been pointed out that I'm remarkably "western half of the UK", with Norfolk very much the outlier.

Nottinghamshire was a capricious inclusion: not only did Esther Fox never live here (she also never lived at Bollington near Macclesfield), but a distant uncle John Barton (1770) was publican at the Warren Arms, Stapleford in the county and succeeded there by his son. I don't have much about Esther-not-in-Notts: she has been well blogged but mostly concerning her time not-in-Cheshire here, here and here.

If I was allowed unlimited collateral connections, then Dorset would feature (uncles William Porch Creed married here in 1828 at Melcombe Regis Weymouth and William Speed the same in 1758 at Dorchester).  

Coming from the other direction, the Huttons and the Dibben sisters take care of many/most English counties, while Isabella Kroll's unexpected marriage in Keswick in 1907 knocks out 13 countries in Europe and beyond with surprisingly little effort.

A good place to end this blog post.

 

Connecting in South Wales

My Hunters and Harrises were from Cornwall.

The Ponsfords and Hanneys were from Somerset.

The Cadogans and Francises were from West Wales.

They all connected in the tinplate works and associated industries around the north of Swansea in the mid-1800s.

My grandfather being from Morriston, Swansea, I knew about many of the family connections. But it is only a bit more recently - thanks to some puzzling DNA matches, and dare-I-say to online trees, that the full picture is emerging. Well some more of it at least.

We knew that the Hanney Silver Band popped up twice - once as my grandpa's maternal half-uncles and secondly as marrying his father's cousin Mary Ann Harris.

I was pretty sure that the Cadogans appeared two times, or three depending how you count, as my grandpa's uncle Tom married a Cadogan and then Tom's cousin Francis married Jessie Ponsford Cadogan as his first wife. The two Cadogans being cousins.

I hadn't appreciated that Francis's nephew David, who married a daughter of Sid Turner, had also married into the Ponsfords. As Sid was a maternal cousin of Jessie and her sister Annie. This helped explain why Sid's daughter was able to put me in touch with Jessie and Annie's grandson back in 1993.

Then we come to the DNA. Why on earth were my Hanney half-blood relatives showing up as DNA matches to the descendants of Elizabeth Rodda Harris, who married in 1869 to Samuel Hynam? It turned out that Samuel's aunt Hannah had married in Marksbury to James Hanney senior, progenitor of the clan in Swansea. (It further emerged that one of the couple's grandsons had married Annie Ponsford Cadogan.)

It emerges that the Hanney cousin was connected to Samuel Hynam possibly up to five separate ways.

Examining the wider Hynam tree just now, I discovered two things:

1) that when I rang Miss Hynam in the Swansea phone book in 1992 I had very good odds of reaching the right branch of the family, as the family though large had sons who mostly left the family area

2) that there are some good candidates including a Lily Hynam living in Coventry who might have invited my mother for an ill-fated visit in the late 1950s

I am almost certain that there most be other hidden connections. I remembered almost having to apologise to folk in Swansea for being connected to the Hanneys twice in such a muddling way, but now I see it is par for the course...

The Carpenter of 1839: finding his Nephew's Rolling Pin

Exhibit A: You will possibly have to trust me that this document says 'Guillermo Hunter... Carpenter'. It is from untranscribed Notarial Records now fully indexed on FullText at FamilySearch (2024-5).

The thick ink has bled through the pages and the Spanish (we are in Barranquilla, Colombia) is a bit of a scrawl. The year is 1839, and the offered apprenticeship will expire cuaranta y cinco (1845).

Exhibit B: This next document is both older and younger. It is dated 17 October 1993 and was sent to me by a very helpful correspondent from the entangled town of Morriston in Wales. And contains an unexpected sentence I had never followed up.

So in 1915, Mr Hunter the carpenter, nephew of the preceding chap and my great-great-grandfather, gave a rolling pin as a wedding present to Mr and Mrs Turner, who attended the same Wesley Chapel in Morriston.... whose daughter I happened to be writing to about another matter 80 years later.

O rolling pin, o rolling pin! 

Where might the rolling pin be? It is now of course the 2020s, and I am only now digging. The 'youngest sister' I track to her death in Kettering in 2002, and her husband to 2020 (mid-COVID). They had no children but his will gives two possible leads including a likely niece, for whom I now have an email address.

It is highly possible that the rolling pin and nursing stool may well have been jeté'd, but who knows? A photograph of them would be highly interesting. It is of course absolutely fine if they've long since disappeared, but it won't hurt to ask.

So from 1839 to 1915 to 2002 to now is quite a few hops. But maybe the Carpenter of 1839's nephew still has some of his woodwork in existence this year of 2025? We shall see.

Update: the first enquiree has no knowledge of the nursing stool or rolling pin... 

Full-text searches at FamilySearch: in Colombia, Barranquilla

FamilySearch have recently made full-text searches available on their site. One of my first ports of call was to see what new information there might be about the Hunter brothers, who had left England for Colombia in the 1820s/30s, 40s and 60s. The famous engineers Richard Trevithick and Robert Stephenson were there. And DNA had showed that the eldest brother William had settled in, of all places, Barranquilla, at the mouth of the Magdalena River. (Other brothers followed this great river 400 miles inland to Honda, the 'city of peace'.)

At RootsTech 2024, FamilySearch announced a FullText Search product that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help users find historical records. As it happens Spanish is one of the languages covered.

The full-text searches have helped me piece together the family of my long distant uncle William Hunter (1805). He married in Cornwall, England to Ann Trevithick and had children William (1828), Eliza Jane (1829). William jr was listed in his grandfather Trevithick's will of 1840 so we know he was alive then, and Eliza Jane (and any younger ones) thus probably weren't.

In 1839 his younger brother Hugh Hunter (1808) is living in a house in Barranquilla, Colombia. The entry might relate to their father Hugh (1783), but as this Hugh is still there 1869 I don't think so.

In 1845, the full-text searches show me that William himself was a carpenter in Barranquilla, taking on an apprentice carpenter, Antonio Ferreira. He signs his name Guillermo Hunter. (One possibility is that he died shortly after this: that would account for there being no more kids, though wouldn't explain the family's continued wealth.)

It's not awfully easy to read but this is an abstract of a translation of a transcription of a digital image of a microfilmed image of a (photograph of a) bound original volume of notarial records from Barranquilla, Colombia, dated 1839-1840.

William had remarried to a woman who rejoiced in the name of Maria de Los Santos Palacio, perhaps born 1819. He must have died by 1863 and their only surviving children together were listed in a document of 1863: Isabel [Hunter], Eloisa Hunter, Ana Hunter. Isabel is not listed in a crucial land document of 1883 suggesting that she had died, perhaps without issue. From the 1863 document Isabel appears to be a Hunter, and as we shall see there is really no time for her to be William's stepdaughter.

Before we get to the final list of children, there are a couple of twists in the tale.

1) Who is Maria Hunter born about 1890, who married 23 Jan 1916 at the Lady of the Rosary, Barranquilla, to Eladio Ariza. Firstly I cannot see a marriage record at this church (January marriages are rather rare). Maria is a sponsor at the baptism of Ana Hunter's granddaughter (1914). Her death record gives her parents as Pedro Osio and Ana Hunter, seemingly not a married couple. Pedro was actually a neighbour of the Hunter women and sold his house to them in 1888.

2) In about 1866, William's widow Santos Palacio gives birth to a son, Generoso A Mendoza Borja, who lives to nearly 100 and whose death record states his father was Manuel Borja. In 1888 the young man is now over 21 and of his own free will declares that he has no right whatsoever to the property that his mother gave to his half-sisters Eloisa and Ana Hunter! Pedro Osio features in that document too.

So the combined children of William Hunter (1805) and Maria de Los Santos Palacio (~1819) appear to be:

1. William Hunter (1828), alive 1840. No further mention.
2. Eliza Jane Hunter (1829), seemingly died by 1840.
3. perhaps more Hunter children by first wife, born in Barranquilla? If so it's likely all had died by 1840.
4. Isabel Hunter, perhaps born 1840-1842. Died by 1883, likely with no children.
5. Ana Hunter, perhaps born 1845. She married in 1863 to Mr Mendoza of Caracas, Venezuela but if I'm reading the 1893 document correctly had separated with concerns for her safety by 1875, and returned to Barranquilla. Her daughter Modesta Maria was born in 1876 and the puzzling Maria Hunter in about 1890. She seems to have died the exact day that her property interests pass to Modesta, in 1913, though (if it's her) her age is given as '42'.
6. Eloisa Hunter, perhaps born 1856 though I suspect 1842. Her son and seemingly only child Fernando Silva is born in 1876 and dies a few months before her in 1930. Both their years of birth are reconstructed from the ages at death. I think Eloisa was actually quite a bit older than this, almost certainly older than Ana. This is somewhat of a relief as originally we had no idea if Eloisa was actually a child of William (1828)! Eloisa likely married a cousin (Fernando Silva Palacio) and his age is essentially unknown too, so we cannot use that as a guide.
7. perhaps other Hunter children who die - note that we seem to be saying the last kid was 1845 and then there was a 20 year gap (and new husband) until the next one....! 
8. Generoso A Mendoza Borja, born about 1866 and survives until 1965! Based on these sort of dates, a child born in his sixties could still be alive.

Incidentally one or two of Eloisa Hunter's descendants are DNA matches to myself, and to a few known of the wider Hunter family (in Australia), which is what cottoned me on to the Barranquilla story in the first place.

Maria De Los Santos was a widow in 1863 and 'de Mendoza' (i.e. married to Mendoza) in later records. She was alive in 1883 and likely died by 1886, when her property is described as owned by 'her successors'. Although on reflection that is open to interpretation... say if she transferred the property in anticipation of death, but didn't actually die!

It is still a bit odd that Maria (grandma) sat and watched her daughter marrying a Mendoza in 1863, then promptly (maybe) did the same thing and had a son in her late 40s. While her daughter's marriage foundered and was childless during this epoch.

And it is equally odd that Eloisa went ahead with a transfer of land on 20 Aug 1913, apparently the same day that her sister died. 

But the remaining question though is WHO is Maria Hunter's mother! I see three options. (We know she is stated as 'Ana Hunter'):

• Ana Hunter born about 1845. Given that her mother's son Generoso was born so late in life, it is certainly not impossible that Ana had a child 27 years after her marriage, and didn't bother giving Maria the name Mendoza. Ana had separated long ago from Mendoza and Osio had finished having children (1886). It seems the most likely explanation. She does stop signing herself 'de Mendoza' at some point: likely couldn't be bothered. The age '42' for her death in 1913 would be a ridiculous yet simple clerical error, perhaps from copying up rough notes.

• Ana Hunter born about 1871. This is assuming such a person existed - who died age '42' in 1913. Who is SHE then? Could be the child of Isabel Hunter (then late 20s if living), or of the ghostly William Hunter (1828)? Surely she could not be an older child of Ana Hunter (1845) as that person would have the name Mendoza as Ana's other daughter did. This apocryphal character would be the right kind of age, I suppose, to have a child with Pedro Osio or his son of the same name if living with her aunties. The main problem with this is 'where is the date of death then for Ana (1845)' if not 1913?

• Modesta Maria Mendoza Hunter! born about 1876. This would be a big plot twist, and would imply that the 14 year-old had a child with the neighbour (or his son) AND that the child listed her father correctly (on death certificate) but NOT the mother (putting grandmother Ana instead). I don't see this as very likely. Apart from being contradicted by the evidence (i.e. mother is 'Ana Hunter' not 'Modesta Mendoza') the family seem quite prim and proper, and also not afraid of recording hard facts in writing rather than covering them up. 

The family keep on trading houses into the next generation. The houses were of cane, wood and mud and on calle de Bolivar street, and calle de San Juan. I think they may have all now gone but here is an old photo of calle de San Juan from pepecomenta.com.

Signature of William Hunter (1805) - for many decades we thought we'd lost him, until he turned up as the husband of Maria De Los Santos in Barranquilla in a tree of a DNA match. I think we can safely say that all four Hunter brothers came out to Colombia... and left their bones there.

Note that you would need a FamilySearch login to access these links, and recall that Spanish names do not confirm to American style of naming, e.g. Jackie Kennedy Onassis (aka Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy) would in Spanish naming style be Jacqueline Bouvier Lee, with her mother's surname Lee appearing at the end...

On Finding Dinah... or Dinah Might!

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...

Hang on isn't that the iconic opening shot of Daphne Du Maurier's novel Rebecca (set in the true residence of beautiful Menabilly, Cornwall?)

What's that got to do with my mother's unexpected grrrrrreat auntie Dinah, born perhaps in 1712? Well everything, as we shall see.

~~~

In the days of Christmas 1998 the newly installed Lady Rashleigh of Menabilly is setting out the enormous tables in the orangery for an intimate but international dining party. 

I, Writer, am galloping down a railway side path in an ugly part of Taunton, bearing extraordinary news from the 17th century, lately just in.

I arriving panting at the station and board it hoping I will not lose my discoveries. Were they real, or just a phantom dream brought on by too much Christmas treats?

The Internet has just reached England. It boarded our shores and one of the first e-mails I fielded from it informed me that my ancestors were James and Miriam who married at Ditcheat Somerset in 1777. Thankyou, internet! I wish I could have managed without you, but we'll accept this one electronic support in our quest to conquer the 1700s unaided. 

Stepping back through the pages of the IGI, in an ancient format called "microfiche", by good fortune Miriam's birthplace had been well catalogued. Her mother's and grandmother's names were found but the trail went cold. We simply couldn't tease out any more on Elizabeth....., mother of Sarah Speed (1722), grandmother of Miriam.

At this point I favoured the open cast mining method of research. Boarding the train I proceeded to empty every single reference to the Speed family onto the metaphorical floor. 

The record office were aghast at someone using their surfaces during the traditionally quiet Betwixtmas season, and I had to wait about three Mars bars before the pile of ribbony papers and parchment emerged from the Strong Room. 

Time had been a faithful guardian and I was now deep in the 1700s. No turning back now. The Speeds of Ansford, Somerset were at my purview.

Like a rocket I was instantly thrust back two further generations. I could feel the G- Force as I struggled to hang on to 1998. I was being pushed deep underwater. 1898..  1798... 1758... the parchment opened at the year 1733.

Edward Murrow, my new ancestor, was dying and he wanted his many scattered lands given to all his female descendants. Not one was to be forgotten. 

His fondness for youngest daughter - due a-childbed any day now- was apparent. He wouldn't live to see her die in that childbed in a matter of a few weeks time. 

He had already lost his middle daughter and the granddaughters he listed made for quite a list. I reached for my pencil: Sarah Speed (tick!), Elizabeth Speed, Dinah Widdows, Martha Widdows, Elizabeth Widdows, Mary Widdows and Grace - daughter of George Dyke.

I could find baptisms for all bar Dinah who OBVIOUSLY was the eldest sibling of those Widdows girls and NOTHING to do with my Sarah or the Dykes, right? Right?

I wasn't getting much of a reply from the papers. The ribbon wrapped around the parchment and I was back in the reading room with moments to go before legging it for the train.

Dinah got forgotten. There was no birth, marriage or death for her, so it stands to reason she basically didn't exist. A genealogical fluke. A flick of the pen made in error, a misunderstanding, mishearing a dying man, forgetful of details, just another inaccurate name in the records?

Undaunted I crossed the to the local library which housed Parson Woodforde's Diaries, 30 years after our man's death. He lived in my ancestral Ansford. Time to opencast  his writings. The young parson was forever doing battle with my forebears it seemed. Sarah, now a widow,  accosted him for a headstone for her late husband. Cousin Martha had been his school mistress and was later murdered by his close friend. Small wonder the parson took his leave of the district and began a new life in Norfolk. 

But before he left he cryptically wrote a note for me. "Ned Dick the carrier is the nephew of Edward Speed."

Ned is Edward Dyke son of our George Dyke and his mysterious wife  Dinah - no marriage found. 

Of course when I sit down with the evidence, our Dinah emerges. She was not the older sister of the 3 Widdows girls. 

She must instead be the child of Elizabeth Murrow 1692 from her unknown marriage to Mr Withers. It's as Mrs Withers that Elizabeth marries at Wells Cathedral in 1719 according to a volume of licences by Jewers.

So she's Dinah Withers, and born 1712 if we work backwards from her age at death. Aged 21 when her aunt dies in childbirth, she is quickly on the scene and marries the grieving widower George Dyke. For many years I'd assumed this was scandalous but now realise it was merely the family looking to resolve a difficult episode. 

(Decades later I find the marriage as Mary Withers in the unexpected parish of Batcombe, thanks, belatedly to the Internet, which arrived very late to this party.)

So she's an aunt, and through her son Ned the carrier (Amazon delivery driver of his day), she creeps socially back up the stations little by little. George apprenticed to a tailor, Charles has his own drapers shop in Lyme Regis, Charles junior runs a military outfitters in Marylebone. Then we thunder ever closer to the aristocracy and to Menabilly. We have a colonel, an ambassadress to Reagan and at last, the Châtelaine of "Manderley", the beloved fictional home of Rebecca, lived in by its author. 

Dinah has taken us here by sheer Genealogical brute force. Is it possible that Dinah has any more surprises? Dinah Might. Dinah does. 

Postscript:

Dinah's other descendants had the Cock at Hemel Hempstead and from them, there is an archdeacon or canon in Leicestershire. 

I never could find Sarah Speed's son John born about 1742, where on earth was he? Turns out,  baptised in nearby Castle Cary with the poor priest - doubtless mesmerised by Sarah's sister - unfortunately recording the infant's mother as Dinah. (Not our diaretic parson who was fending off the rest of the family across the river Brue.)

A woman who we nearly forgot about, but who has reasserted herself onto the family tree.

Thanks for the memories auntie Dinah x

Are you sitting comfortably? These are your new aunties from Somerset, 1856.

In 1992, the retired bursar of Wells Cathedral School read out the will of Priscilla Creed (1856) to me down the phone. I was in for some shocks. The bell tolled for Priscilla at Pilton church and after the actuary had calculated how many years her children might live for, and paid off the Tasmanian son, we get down to business:

There were six daughters and their names were spellbinding: Ann Tabor widow, Mary wife of Thomas Dauncey, Elizabeth wife of William Creed, Sarah wife of Edward Indoe, Priscilla, Jane wife of James Chappell.

Tabor, Dauncey, Indoe, Chappell.  And these were close relatives. My great-grandpa would be Elizabeth's grandson: it looked like there was no getting away from that. I was a bit puzzled that Elizabeth was a Creed who married a Creed, but I needed to get over it, and fast. There were all these aunties to explore...

By the good offices of Aubrey Brown, founding member of Somerset & Dorset Family History Society, I received in the mail, print-outs of the 1881 census entries for Ann Tabor's sons. Through the probate indexes I could easily find the Tabors still living and farming in Somerset. (Though not for long: when I visited them unannounced in 1994 they were sadly just selling their dairy farm.) I even saw the portrait of 'battle-axe' daughter Mary Ann while carousing through Somerset in my motor car in winter 1994.

Mary Dauncey, Sarah Indoe and Priscilla would have to wait a bit, and there was no rush. Each of them had just one or two children whom nobody could quite recall: just being outside of living memory.

But the youngest auntie, Jane Chappell is still unresolved right now in 2025. Born in 1830, she was just two when her brother chose to sail for Tasmania, she lived to see her grandson die in World War One, and was a widow nearly 58 years. I was sat in the library in Winchester in 1996 when her death date flashed up on the screen. Exactly 100 years ago in 1925. She was 95, and had survived into the modern epoch.

I had caught a glimpse of her in the old reels of census at the basement record office of Chancery Lane, aged 40 a widow with many of her brood, residing with the Indoes. She had many twists and turns yet, another fifty years of finding a home for herself, outliving almost everyone.

In 2018 I walked from Castle Cary to the little hamlet of Henley, with its own chapel, under Turn Hill, High Ham. I was able to meet a relative but not to solve the real quest: to find a photo of Jane Chappell (1830-1925). I think it will eventually turn up, but who knows where? On my walk I thought I saw the old schoolhouse where her grandchildren would have been taught the three Rs.

I also recently discovered that one of these grandchildren Albert Wilkins (1895-1986), farm worker, was interviewed age 87. But when the Heritage Lottery Fund came knocking in 2005, his voice did not make the online pages. (He was in disk format, so perhaps could not easily be converted to MP3.) The bursar's brother DOES make an appearance in these pages - now at Somerset Voices.

Priscilla perhaps has the last laugh. Most of her descendants are from her great-granddaughter Gladys (1911) who worked at Langport Glove Factory and married Ebbie Cook. They have a large family in the Seend area. They are never going to outnumber Jane's massive descendants (who have conquered Walthamstow, Havant, Decatur Illinois, Evercreech, Wells...) but Seend is one area that Priscilla's line have claimed for their own. And Jane's cannot get a foothold. It is not too far away, so hopefully I can get to the Barge Inn on the canal there one day and see if there's any cousins to say hello to.

Letting the youngest catch-up

While looking into distant auntie Betsy, I wondered about her brother Benjamin's family.

He and his wife had seven children, and the way things turned out has proved very fair in terms of marking each milestone.

Edwin (1839), Jane (1841), Joseph (1842), James (1844), Annie (1846), Sarah (1848) and William (1849). Several of them had the middle name of Haine whilst Jane had the middle name of Eliza. Joseph and Sarah had no middle names at all.

Eldest grandchild: this was from Edwin, child number 1.

Eldest great-grandchild: this was Ernest Court (1898), from James, child number 4.

Eldest great-great-grandchild: this was Kenneth Duffett (1932), from Annie, child number 5.

Eldest great-great-great-grandchild: this was Verna (1960), from William, child number 7.

Eldest great-great-great-great-grandchild: this was Anthony (1989), from Jane, child number 2.

Child number 3 was the first to be widowed (in 1870).

Child number 6 was the first to die (in 1870).

Incidentally child number 1's line became extinct in 2004 and child number 6's in 1954.

The time to next generation is 30 years each time, now bear in mind this is for the eldest. For example I belong to the same generation as Verna but am somewhat younger, so the average time-per-generation for me from Benjamin is 32 years.

We saw in an extreme case how Betsy's average time to next generation was 23 years when measuring the eldest. She was also 20 years his senior. Within a hundred years, Betsy was two generations ahead of Benjamin.

But mostly here I just wanted to remark on the unusual way the distribution of 'firsts' is shared among five of Benjamin's children.

Betsy's daughter v. the queen

We earlier looked at the mysterious case of why 'auntie Betsy' appears to have virtually no DNA matches to us, despite being not that distant a relative and also someone with hundreds of descendants.

The answer was that a typical DNA-tester in their mid-thirties would actually be a SIX-times-great-grandchild of Betsy, meaning they might possibly have none of her DNA whatsoever, and more likely that a half-fifth-cousin 3 times removed to myself is not very likely to match me. We are in effect at the limits quite suddenly of what autosomal DNA can do.

I am not sure I have any matches pertaining to a sibling or half-sibling of my 6xgreat-grandparents. So we close our Betsy-DNA files for now.

But all this attention on Betsy, some of the dates seemed quite familiar. Which got me thinking, how would Betsy's tribe fare in a face-off with the ruling royal family of Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha?

It's the gamekeeper's wife, Betsy's daughter Mary Blacker nee Padfield (born 1818) up against Albert of SCG's wife, queen Victoria (born 1819). I think this could be an easy victory for Mary, given what we found earlier.

Round 1, the children: Betsy's daughter scoops this one easy, first child 1837 vs. the queen 1839.

Round 2, the grandchildren: a bit close for comfort but still falling down to Betsy's daughter for the win: first grandchild, Henry Plumley (1857) vs. Kaiser Bill (1859). I think the royals are genuinely struggling at this point. In a surprise move, Betsy's folk have opted to leave Somerset for London.

Round 3, the great-grandchildren: out of nowhere the queen pulls ahead, Henry Stephen Plumley (1882) is no match for Feodora (1879). Betsy's line has to concede defeat in this round.

Round 4, the great-great-grandchildren: Betsy's daughter just regains the lost ground with Dorothy Blake (1904) up against an unexpected contender Margarita of Greece (1905). The queen has changed her strategy and has inexplicably switched to the family of her second daughter Princess Alice, in an attempt to seize control in this competition.

Round 5, the great-great-great-grandchildren: the queen has absolutely no chance here, the under-prepared royals have no suitable candidate, so Roy Miles (1927) is streets ahead of Margarita's nephew Ludwig (1931).

Round 6, the great-great-great-great-grandchildren: by now both teams are exhausted but Roy's son (1955) is still in the arrivals lounge some time before Maria Tatiana of Yugoslavia (1957).

Both teams have averaged 23 years per generation for a sustained period of 120 years. Well done to the bunch of Londoners for defeating the royals in 5 out of 6 rounds but this race through the generations is yet more evidence explaining why I'm unlikely to have DNA matches to Betsy's daughter, wife of the gamekeeper.

Incidentally, researching this, it seems that Queen Victoria is about to reach the milestone of 1000 living descendants some time around now. I have no easy way of knowing whether the gamekeeper's wife is heading that way herself. Perhaps she has already got there?

The Betsys Best Forgotten

So, Betsy has been driving me up the pole.

She first appeared on a tree drawn by my cousin Janet in 1993. I was very grateful for this tree. And when I went to the archives at Taunton I was able to see the evidence for myself. There she was listed in 1825 as "Betsy, daughter of [my wife] Mary Padfield, by a former husband".

Benjamin Padfield (1808-1891) was so straight-forward, a farmer and champion cheese maker, raised his family well and all learned music. As a boy he was ambitious to play the flute and viol - it's flute and violin but flute and viol sounds much more of its time. He gave apples to his grandchildren if they asked and ran the Sunday school in the village. He was second or third generation Methodist. I was given his photograph in a field exchange somewhere in the Somerset borders: a stout-hearted chap. Also - we have his Journal, his life story.

So for him to have a missing sister is distinctly out of character. His journal makes not a mention of "Betsy", who died when Benjamin was just 18.

Benjamin grew up to marry and have seven children and a rather staggering 50 grandchildren. Of these I counted just now and only a third have living family, quite a small fraction.

Since taking the AncestryDNA test six years ago I have been gifted with many findings, but one thorn in my side has been the absence of any descendants of Betsy showing up as DNA matches.

When we last left Betsy she was a small girl. She was baptised at Leigh-on-Mendip in 1789 and after marrying at 21, she had at least a five year rest before the children started arriving. She didn't have long as she must die at age 38. Quite probably the young couple were living with in-laws - Betsy's much younger half-brothers also endured such a period of 9 years and 3 years respectively.

Betsy had three children who lived to adulthood that we can trace: Mary (1818), Ann (1819) and Joseph (1827), with whom she died in childbirth. At this, the end of Betsy's life, Benjamin was just 18. Is Betsy best forgotten?

~~~~

I can see the thing to do would be to compare Betsy's family with Benjamin, and the best way of doing that is to look at the 1840s. In this epoch Benjamin raised his 7 children, and Betsy by this point had seven GRANDchildren.

Betsy is getting a generation ahead, already, and her family fills the 1850s with still more grandchildren.

Let's compare numbers.

Benjamin's children had their family in the years 1867-1898, producing the 50 youngsters (of whom 17 have surviving descendants).

Betsy's grandchildren had their family in the same period (starting ten years earlier, in 1857), producing 105 youngsters. So Betsy is not only a generation ahead, and doubling her numbers, but is also not thwarted by the low birth-rate of Benjamin's family as we turn the corner into the 1900s.

All of this suggests I should have plenty of DNA matches to choose from, even if the connection is a bit remote at half-fifth cousin.

But there's a problem. Betsy is steaming even further into the future. With Betsy, her eldest daughter Mary and eldest granddaughter Mary Jane all dying by 1890, the phrase 'accelerated lives' comes into my head. Benjamin's half-niece has become a great-grandmother and died, yet Benjamin is still alive.

Betsy's great-great-grandchildren are the same age as Benjamin's grandchildren; she has slipped two full generations ahead. My mother would be the same generation but born nearly 70 years later. And on they race. Benjamin's grandchildren continue steadily until 1901. Three years later and the line of his forgotten sister Betsy is 3 generations further along.

Consequently my own generation are not cycling around the countryside and researching on their laptop. They are dead: long dead! Dorothy Blake (1904-1981) is unlikely to be taking a DNA test. Chances are we are looking 3 generations down from me to Dorothy's great-grandson (born 1986). Such a person is separated from their ancestress Betsy by a whopping eight other people.

Benjamin's line meanwhile are content to dawdle, and to wait for the youngest to catch up. The eldest of my documented third cousins on this line Verna, born 1960 in Canada, belongs to seventh and youngest child William Haine Padfield. Betsy of course achieved this milestone back in 1904.

Not to confuse matters but Benjamin's brother Peter approximately midway between himself and Betsy is by 1960 a generation ahead of Benjamin. Peter also by about 1950 has begun to overtake Benjamin by sheer number of descendants despite having had only 5 grandchildren surviving versus Benjamin's 50. The "Peter" effect is partly attributable to very fertile moves overseas (Australia and Canada) as well perhaps as to some early deaths which meant they were less well provided for, and had to make their own way in the world.

The "Betsy" effect is counter-intuitive. I would have thought that sheer weight of descendants would mean we were overwhelmed with DNA matches. Not a single person from the huge Plumley tribe of Betsy's granddaughter Mary Jane (1837-1890) are showing up. Mind you these are Londoners, not based say in Utah, where numbers of those testing are far higher. I hadn't appreciated how much the 'fast-moving dying generations' were costing us.

Betsy was survived by her mother 13 years and we can read about her mother as this is recorded in Benjamin's Journal. There was an aunt who attained 80 and is living surrounded by grandchildren in the 1841 census. I can actually trace DNA matches more comfortably to the aunt than I can for Betsy.

Coming up to 200 years since she died, leaving no apparent trace in our family's written record, and with her DNA fast disappearing from her descendants as they gallop through their alloted generations.

Do we really think it's time to say that Betsy's Best Forgotten?

Ancestry ProTools

Not having ProTools has been an interesting mental challenge these last few years.

Now they're here, what mysteries have they resolved for me on my family tree?

The 101th person on my matchlist, Dorothy, 29cM had been bugging me. No tree, distinctive Scottish-sounding name. She was a 295cM match to Anne great-great-granddaughter of William Rodda (1799) whose family left Cornwall for Australia. Anne was just 16cM to me but ThruLines had cottoned on to the Rodda link. Actually it had linked the Roddas wrongly, but luckily for me I knew I descended from William Rodda's sister Mary (1808).

Teasing apart those Cornish Roddas hadn't proved easy, and like a hungry tiger I tend to bite off a leg of the tree at a time and then allow that to digest for a couple of years before resuming the meal.

So I am pretty sure that Dorothy is a descendant of William Rodda, and had maybe died this year in Australia, but more than that I'm not sure I could venture to suggest just yet.

~~

The Harrises of Montana were laughing at me. Several children of one 'James Harris' had married there around the turn of the century. I knew that they were from Cornwall and they were all DNA matches. Grandpa's grandma was born a Harris in Cornwall in 1837. This Janie Harris had married at Butte, Montana in 1896 to Mr Lawrence and their great-granddaughter 'Paula' was a high DNA match to us, but who was she?

Luckily ProTools came to the rescue. Paula was shown to be a whopping 95 centimorgans to Marlene over in Canada, and tip-toeing through the tree Marlene turns out to be great-granddaughter of Sarah Harris born 1853 in Camborne, Cornwall. More than likely 3rd cousin to Paula.

Now I'd probably have ignored Marlene but thanks to her evidence we've pretty much locked in James Harris as being born 1845 in Camborne, and several person-hours later, his family tree is super tight and tidy. I still have some questions, like why did his daughter Elizabeth stop being Bessie, and his daughter Beatrice become Bessie instead. And why was it necessary for Janie to be born Eliza Jane.

~~

ProTools has given me some helpful negative results too. After all these years, I really don't think many descendants of Henry Vyvyan Olver and his wife Mary Ann 'Mellieux' have bothered DNA testing. Any that have are not showing up with close matches across any of the kits the wider cousinhood manage.

~~

At 12 centimorgans, I bag my very own descendant of Mary Lane as a personal match to me. This is a big deal as she was born out of wedlock in 1808 in Somerset, and the Bastardy Bond (official document) had named my ancestor Thomas Creed as her father. I believe this to be true. Mary's family took a very different track from the rest and this is a nice personal touch for my tree. Incidentally she marries as 'Ann'! The match has not got much of a bio but I could lock him down as a relly thanks to him sharing 184 centimorgans with a known someone (on another matchlist) - revealed by ProTools. Trying not to use the word 'match' 400 times in one sentence. We need a thesaurus!

~~

Also harking back to the time of Trafalgar, the baptism of Mary Lucas (1804) at Baltonsborough had caused me consternation for years. I had accepted a while back that she was always thereafter known as 'Sarah', though whether this was a clerical error (see previous paragraph) or a volte-face by her parents I do not know. She dies before the 1851 census but one of her children is living with her widowed father in 1841, so I had long suspected. And her son Lucas was baptised as of Westholme, Pilton, same as a likely aunt. The Lucases were related to the Austins who brought rabbits to Australia accidentally-on-purpose.

For years we've had a match named Maria who descends from the Mary/Sarah Lucas person. I've always thought 'how lovely' but had pencilled it away with 'needs more proof'. Well Maria's match B____ is herself a reasonably close match (thanks ProTools) to a chap called Ivor. Ivor has no tree whatseover and is just 10 centimorgans to us but I recognised him straight away as being a descendant of Mary/Sarah's youngest sister born 1819 - who we happen to know was victim of a most unpleasant husband thanks to a granddaughter's memoir which bravely records the domestic violence she endured.

In an ideal world I'd like to demonstrate the descent of B____ from this family group, but that's not on the cards for any time soon.

~~

ProTools still won't show me zero centimorgan matches who form part of the cluster - great pity as this would prevent foolish errors in barking down the wrong family line when working with unknown parentage (one still has to get screenshots from helpful cousins). This was formerly available some years ago in USA as DNA Circles.

ProTools still won't show me 'other side of the moon'/360 degree visibility, i.e. those who are related to a person on AncestryDNA via one of their other family groups. But I wouldn't expect it to, really.

~~

Mustn't forget the Earl of Stamford! My dear 7th cousin kindly let me take a peek at their matchlist: our ancestors being nail-makers and rabbit farmers from in and around Kinver in Staffordshire. They have a 71cM match MrK (downweighted from 89cM) who along with his cousin I really could not 'place' in the family tree. I wondered if there had been a 'misattributed paternity' event somewhere down the line in Birmingham. ProTools pushed that theory into the hedge.

It found a quiet but helpful match named Lily, who at 17cM was rather low down the list. Yet she was 114cM to MrK. I could now see that their common ancestor was ostensibly the child of John Davenport (1801-45) and his extremely posh-sounding wife (born in fancy London she even had a middle name). John had a fascinating life as Steward to the Grey family of Enville Hall, the earl being grandson of a duke. Davenport's will is witnessed by the under butler. It was a Saturday so he can't have been very well. Ah the newspapers say it was suicide, with a musket, 'despite owning considerably property' in his own right.

Some more digging and actually the match Lily is a direct descendant of the gamekeeper by his wife (situation muddied as the Davies family really really hated getting married), so we don't have complex rivalry from 1837 to try to process. One of the other Davies kids would grow up to be footman at Stourton Castle before nearly marrying my relative and disappearing into thin air.

The gamekeeper was not only a pall-bearer to the steward, but also gave evidence at the inquest per Worcester Herald 1 March 1845.

None of these people would be of interest to me at all, had Sarah Brasier age about 8 not travelled on foot or in a cart six miles north of Kinver to her new home near, possibly in, the Green Man, Swindon. She later met a man working on the canal, which you could hardly miss as fewer than 100 yards from the pub, and age 16 married him at Dudley Top Church on Christmas Day 1767. Ultimately she left the county entirely and died we know not where, but she did bequeath us some of her Staffordshire genes.

We hope to find the answers to more nineteenth century puzzles lying hid in the DNA.

If there's any postscripts, I'll place them here.

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

~~~

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.

~~

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).

Second cousins of my grandparents: a window on times past and right now the present

No question I have fond thoughts of my grandparents. They (mostly) lived in my era, and they also lived in the previous, fascinating, era of the early-mid twentieth century. They knew older people. All four grew up in towns. But even towns weren't that industrial back in the previous generation. Before long you are back in the countryside, which feels a healthier place to research, and definitely easier, even if the lives they lived back then are more illusory. My own history on farms and rural landscapes around Britain in 1990s informs my view, as does the many diaries I've read, some published, some not. The January Man (2018) and Village School (1955) and others just about get us back to this epoch.

Grandparents' second cousins  - they give me a full tour. So let's hop on.

Maternal grandfather (born 1925); these are the second cousins of his I met: Doris Prosser-Evans (first contact 1991 near Swansea), Tom Davies (at his caravan on the Exe estuary 1992), Annie Powell (as I came off the hills 1995 Morriston), Richard Lamont Shugg (missed him 1990s), Barbara Vanstone (c. 1998 Plymouth she's genetically closer than the third cousin that she really is), Jean Hewitt (c. 1998 Weston-super-Mare). I corresponded with several more. And then the final surprise of Hazel by post in about 2004, the final link, granddaughter of the mysterious 'Mrs Hubbard' on our family tree, 15 years before DNA finally confirmed that connection. Her death in 2019 brings down the lights on this generation.

Tom had worked for many years as a pharmacist, with his first day of work age 20 being when war broke out (1939). He and his wife were the first generation to have this thing called retirement, and were contented to be travelling down to the Exe estuary in their caravan.

Maternal grandmother (born 1921); these are the second cousins of hers that I met on the maternal side: Joan Waldron (by post and phone only 1992); Anita Hardenburg (1999 Leatherhead); Mary Lintott (1999 St Albans); Florence Headworth (via son 2006); May Smith (2014 Romford). I didn't meet Florence Headworth but she passed useful messages to me. Then on the paternal side: Dick Padfield (by post and phone only 1992); Hilda Hunt (ditto); Kingsley Padfield (2000 Ashford Kent), and a few others by post, grandchildren of the highly mustached William Haine Padfield (born 1849). The list of the 'missing' on this line is as compelling: Philip Bell, who closed the extraordinary Bell saga in USA, 1977 Oregon, leaving my grandmother as his closest living relative. Also featuring in my blog 'end of the line' is Treasure Peach (third cousin twice over) who had the horrific duty of burning his history, as his line would close no heirs. Muriel House (1895-1993) another third cousin twice over, was '98 and living in Toowoomba' and probably met my grandmother's great-great-uncle Haine in another century and another lifetime. We think there is just one second cousin remaining - sole representative of more than fifty grandchildren - living in Northamptonshire.

May Smith grew up in a close-knit community of streets in Bethnal Green - all now gone, her own mother of Huguenot descent being born in the same property. She was a 'Cockney'. She recounted many of the people that lived in her street in the 1939 register, as well as details of the caravanning they had around Northamptonshire with the extended family. The closest she came to our shared Norfolk ancestry was going to visit Diss in Norfolk where her hard-working father had been born, but on getting home they realised it wasn't Diss, it was Deopham!

Paternal grandfather (born 1902); second cousins were a distant dream for this Irish grandfather, with the earliest mutual forebear being born about 1790. (One such cousin was a potato farmer's wife in northern Maine, long since deceased.) However, an old notebook revealed in 2004 that Loretta Brodie, ancient retired telegraphist, in South Boston USA, from the 1790 line, was likely still alive in 1970. In fact she was not-dead-yet in 2004, but this fact only emerged later. I have now seen the beautiful gravestone she prepared for herself and her family. In 2015, I found a former neighbour, up a ladder, of another second cousin, Peggy (South Boston too), but she had died some time prior. Against the odds though, with a helping hand from Irish late motherhood, a second cousin named Geraldine was living in Massachusetts, little did I know, but this connection was only revealed some years later through DNA after she had died. Old father time has snatched further connections from me, but that's ok, we are going back a lot of years, and have grabbed a few things from him too. We're even.

Maternal grandmother (born 1905); considering her cousins pre-dated Mussolini and Maynard Keynes, I expected nothing on this line: her second cousins in Liverpool, the Draycotts, were long gone. Due to a rejuvenated great-uncle (born 1836), my research led to a surprise second cousin John Ingledow (1921) who I believe I did hear from by email in about the year 2005. I learnt too late that others from this line had recently passed away in Manchester, at an advanced age. Grandma's remaining three grandparents had no siblings, or so I had thought. Then in about 2006 it emerged great-aunt Mary Ann had a young son Walter Gregory living with her, but oh blow! he was eventually identified as a step-grandson. So Grandma's mother Henrietta had NO first cousins, and that was that!

Except in 2021, when the identity of Henrietta's birth grandfather was identified through DNA. Astonishingly, Dorothy and Irene Potts (born 1920s), his legitimate great-grandchildren, appear to be still alive in Canada (2022), in their twilight years. They are grandma's half-second cousins, and a great place to conclude. There will be no more chapters.

Collectively these folk are the vessels by which our 3rd great-grandparents and their history have poured down to us.