Favourite Corner #3 Almesforde Somerset: 1730s

It was Christmas 1995 and I had taken the train up to Taunton, done my customary jog past this lovely cottage (I picked the 2009 picture from StreetView before all the officeblocks went up):

... and then to the former site of the Somerset Record Office where I ruffled through DD/FF/7 concerning my yawnworthy Speed ancestors of Ansford. At the time they had not been fully catalogued and amidst the following marginally interesting documents

• Mortgage by demise of lands at New Close, Ansford for 500 years 1771
• Assignment of Edward Speed's mortgage. 1779
• Conveyance of premises at New Close, Ansford 1800
• Copy wills of Edward and Murry Speed (1780s)

 ... was the Will of Edward Murrow 1732! Now I already knew the name 'Murrow' as a given name but didn't stop to linger on the frontispiece. Within nanoseconds I was in the document and reading. I could see that Edward's granddaughter Sarah Speed (my ancestor) was named, and her apparent mother Elizabeth (Mrs Speed), a daughter of Mr Murrow.

The marriage for Sarah Speed's parents (William and Elizabeth) had not eventuated, and would cause plenty of confusion when it did, especially as I failed to read the Will correctly. I'm guessing the Will and above Deeds were retained by a local solicitor (Dyne Drewett of Castle Cary?) and so escaped the bombing of Exeter in 1942. Thank you, solicitors! (Not a phrase I utter regularly.)

Murrow left land at Ballage, Weekway Close, New Close (above) and Cary Moor. I should really attempt to work out where the land came from. Rather wonderfully, Weekway at Wyke passed to his daughter's second daughter's illegitimate only child, another female, named Agnes. (The information that Agnes held Wykeway came to me from Agnes's knowledgeable 4xgreat-grandson Derek Williams, b. 1929.) However the 18th century zapped her in other ways: she passed away in childbed of her fifth son at forty.

Once I had cooled down, I located baptisms immediately for Mr Murrow's three surviving daughters on the microfiche of the International Genealogical Index in the searchroom. But marriages for all three girls were missing, barring the remarriage of the eldest girl (to our Mr Speed).

Edward Murrow was survived by his wife, and eldest child Elizabeth, who were joint executrixes.  His third daughter Mary was heavy with child, and died a week later.  Frances Murrow had predeceased her parents, leaving daughters by her husband Stephen Widdows.

And the names of the grandchildren gave pause for thought. As expected: the four Speeds (Sarah, William, Betty, Edward) then there were four Widdows girls (Dinah, Martha and two others) plus little Grace Dyke and her soon-to-be-born sibling. EXCEPT that there was a twist in the tale.

Dinah was (1) Elizabeth's daughter by a first marriage, not Frances's, and (2) married the widower of aunt Mary (not long in the grave) within two years. And you can read about her and her son here and here.

It may be that you can read the rest of the notes on this tree. I have left off the character, life and eventual murder of Frances's last surviving daughter, Martha, as her sad end would certainly hurt the tone of this female-strong blog post.

Upwardly mobile

This needs no explanation as we progress through each generation:

1) Ned Dick, haulier, Ansford, Somerset, baptised 1735 the poor relation

2) George Dyke, apprentice to a tailor, Milborne Port, born 1779, perhaps the only son

3) Charles Dyke, tailor and draper, Lyme Regis, born about 1811 (baptised age three)

4) Charles W. P. Dyke, tutored in Chardstock by an Oxford graduate, later had a military outfitters somewhere nr Finchley road, born 1845

5) Oswald M. Dyke, Colonel in Indian Army, born 1878 in Lyme Regis, married Vicar of Sidbury's granddaughter

6) Richard C. Dyke, Colonel in Indian Army, inherited Bicton Old Rectory, married in Nepal

7) Wife of His Excellency the Ambassador of the United States of America (past)

Favourite Corner #2 Northcountry: 1830s

In this series we are looking at favourite corners from within the family tree. I think it is nice to focus on a particular group who lived in a definable place and time. So here is this 'time-shot'.

If you have your reading glasses with you, you may be able to detect some of the stories within. The majority of these were resurrected and resuscitated in 2008 after a considerable period of time had elapsed.

References and sources (some):

• Death certificate 1844 (PDF) for John Gibson (1844) at South Shields: General Register Office, England & Wales
• Newcastle Courant 1844. Newspaper report into the death of John Gibson, following his knee being trapped between two wagons and his death about a week later. The inquest was held in a public house, but not the Waggoners Arms ran by his brother.
• 1851 census for Lower Birthwaite (later Windermere) shows Annie Gibson (c. 15) living with her aunt Margaret and husband James Atkinson (then childless).
• 1841 census for Westoe, South Shields shows John Gibson, Jane and Annie living together before the events three years later disrupt this unit forever.
• Photographs of John and Jane Johnson sitting together laughing and secondly in front of their farmhouse with their sheep in the foreground, gathered from opposite ends of the country (private: scans held)
• The story of "Granny from Old Town" in email correspondence c. 2010 from the son of the great-great-granddaughter of Jane, which lady had remembered her mother (b. 1885) referring to this 'Granny'. At the time no-one knew the significance of those words.
• Tommy Oliver and friends in Ryton, Crawcrook & Greenside Through Time, 2013, Nick Neave, John Boothroyd, Amberley Publishing. The photograph appears to be have been provided by Greenside local history group.
• Marriage record for John Gibson and Jane Dodd, 1836, Allendale. Northumberland Archives.
• Marriage record for Annie Gibson, 1856, Windermere. Cumbria Archive Service. Annie grew up on the banks of the Tyne. It must be she who provided the information that her father was a 'putter' which has been deliciously mis-heard as 'butler'. (My thanks to Phil Taylor for working this one out.) He was also listed as a 'farmer' by my great-aunt in the 1980s but this would be an elided reference to Annie's stepfather.
• "Eloped with the gardener". This is a note from Linda Noble in email to me in 2008. Linda descends from the Dodds (her mother was a Dodd) and must have known the story. She was a retired librarian based locally, so would not have just made it up!
• Planted sycamores [at Scalehouses]. This is from a letter by Caleb Watson of Scalehouses, Cumberland, to his brothers' family in Australia, in 1890. The images were posted on the website of John Watson which none of us appear to have noted down. John passed away in 2020 and at some point I will locate his great site on the Wayback machine, if I can find a record of the name!
  

Favourite corner #1 Somerset: 1830s 40s 50s

The trouble with family history is you have everybody's story in your computer, so which ones can you pull out? This family group is a snapshot in a period of time, a time-shot if you will. The very last events depicted, George the dentist in hot pursuit of the princess Aimee Crocker, did not occur until around 1908, but I could hardly resist including it.

The majority of the rest of the events we are looking at 1830s, 40s and 50s.

As this is the blog equivalent of the picture round, I'm going to have to let you make out the text and connections as best you can. Suffice to say we have a lot of stories and story elements, depicted above, from the women in the family. I have held back and not revealed what happened to the next generations. That is a whole other story, but you can try here and here.

Some references and sources:

• Letter from Thomas Haine to his married sister Mary Haine in Ohio 1837 re Farmer Whittock 'fell never to rise no more (private: scan held)
  
• Letters from Sarah Maby to her half-sister Mary Haine in Ohio c. 1842 re Feltham sisters in service and 'the newly weds' (private: scan held)
• Parson Woodforde's Diary unabridged {1769}
• Letter from George Crocker to his relation c. 1908 re pursuit of the US Crockers (private: scan held) (Aimee referred to in error as Aida in the chart)
  
• Fred the alcoholic baker: common knowledge in the family. Discussed at Symes/Hockey reunion c. 2005 Somerset
• Marriage certificate for Jane Feltham (1838) at Christchurch, Bristol: General Register Office, England & Wales
  
• Death certificate (PDF) for Ann Welch (1862) at Smarden, Kent: General Register Office, England & Wales
• Passenger lists for 1855 showing Hannah Roddam, Thomas Roddam and Ann Cotty sailing from England to USA
• FindAGrave for the cemetery at Buffalo Gap, South Dakota
• Past and Present of the City of Springfield and Sangamon, Joseph Wallace, 1904 re Joe Feltham arriving with his sister Hannah, from Bayford 'Beyford'.
• 1841 census for Millbrook, Ditcheat confirming Ann Feltham is living with (uncle) Joseph.
• 1841 census for Cucklington showing Hannah Feltham as servant to the vicar

From Bollington to Macclesfield in 25 years: a Cheshire journey in family history

Very many moons ago I knew I had to get to Bollington. But which one? I decided it was the one just outside Macclesfield, a settlement of cotton spinners and weavers.

Back in 1992, I must have written to my great aunt (born 1903), and her (subsequent) executor sent me a handwritten transcription of a Will, still in the family, dated at the testator's death bed, December 1856.

This Will of my 4x great-grandfather never made it to probate (oopsy!) but informed me that my distant aunt Esther Carline (b 1816) had recently died at nearly 40, leaving a family. From the wording it looked like she had married James Fox.

Still a school kid I hot-footed it down to the reference library in town and located the Derbyshire microfiche. <pre internet><pre internet> There was the marriage of Esther and James, 1839 at Matlock parish church. And baptismal records for nine children, ceasing at her death.

Next, still without leaving town, I combed the probate registry for the Foxes. I could not find James but surprisingly I did find Esther:

I'm not sure how long this all took, but within six months of receiving that letter from my great aunt, I'd tracked my new aunt Esther to Bollington, Cheshire.

Well actually I hadn't as she'd died back in Matlock, but it looked like her husband had left town, presumably with the nine kids in tow, to begin a new life among the cotton mills of Cheshire.

That's it! Nothing more to know. Until eventually eventually, probably late 1995, I get to visit the Census Rooms in the basement of the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane, London.

{{{ time has passed, tick tock }}}

Finding the Fox family in the 1861 census of Bollington, near Macclesfield, was a big moment. There were NO surname indexes. I did have information from a researcher, Joan Measham, in Matlock, that the Fox family had definitely left by 1861. (Derbyshire had an excellent census surname index.)

The resulting census entry had me completely confused. James Fox was shown as married (to wife Mary), and among their nine children were names I'd hoped to see, others I'd never heard of and more that were missing.

My first census entry and it was a blended family! I didn't know what all to make of it.

~~~~

In the words of Dr Dre, that was 95. It's now 2021 and I'm back in Cheshire again, not in pretty (stunning!) Bollington, but finally doing battle with Macclesfield itself. Who will win, me or it.

In the 1980s I recall a tv show Beat the Teacher hosted by Bruno Brookes, in which pupil "Jonathan from Macclesfield" wiped out his competition, without mercy.

I recalled that cousin Sandra in Macclesfield, Esther's descendant (duly sleuthed) had been beyond wonderful in resolving the second-most complex of Esther's clan.

But this paled into the background now as I was up against....

Joe Turnock.

Joe Turnock was a rogue. A charmer, a ladies' man, no stranger to ducking, diving, wheeling, although not dealing. And my 3x great-grandfather.

After siring my forebear out of wedlock (thank you DNA), a spell in clink and then widowhood, he had chosen Macclesfield on which to inflict his next promise. Vows of marriage were exchanged there with hard-working widow Ellen, Mrs Stafford.

He would absolutely have recognised the surname, as it was Stafford Gaol that had control of his liberty just five years prior.

He's at home in Macclesfield in 1861 in a textbook nuclear family and then pouff! no further trace. I did spot the signs that Ellen his wife was doing just fine, however.

Did Joe die in 1862 as many artless family trees suggest. Of course not. Did he have more children around the countryside: undoubtedly.

But this week from Cheshire itself came part of the answer. "Ellen kicked him out!" Macclesfield, quite literally, said "no". Thanks to Ellen's descendant (duly sleuthed) for this nugget.

I certainly didn't think that I'd be back in this area, genealogically, and now that Joe Turnock has departed stage left, we can return our thoughts to the nine children of Esther Fox (affectionately remembered) who assuaged or augmented the grief at the loss of their mother by swallowing sobs over the relentless noise of the cotton mill machinery in the charming and peaceful town of Bollington, near Macclesfield, 1861.

(not Bollington near Chester!)

DNA: 1845 surprise. Found: one lion

I just got notification that Elizabeth O'Neal's April blog party is on DNA and Genetic Genealogy. Today is the last day of April, so I'm getting my skates on, and serving up an appetiser for the party.

Here we go:
My family tree hasn't changed that much in recent years, but in February it put in a polite but firm request to change permanently and irrevocably.

The big old "gap" in the family tree where Unknown Male had a child with my Millicent Bagshaw, in 1845, just got answered.

I was working through my clusters from Ancestry DNA, and as you know, finding groups of people who didn't fit anywhere, but who did belong *somewhere*, together.

It feels like I'm in the movie Madagascar, with me trying to find the Lion at the centre of a party. At the moment I'm just seeing and hearing a group of chipmunks boogying on the outside. They only match 20 centimorgans (cM).

We're not getting any closer to the Lion. Ok, so these folks were kind enough to do the DNA test and might not like the "chipmunk" analogy. They had pretty basic family trees and one guy had no tree at all. But his name was "Len Millwood" and that name, Millwood, appeared in the tree of the other person in his cluster.

Up the Millwood tree we go, then we find dozens of shared Hammersley connections, descending from Ellen Turnock (1798) who married Mr Hammersley. Not all belong to the same cluster and very few have online trees. In one case "Ralph J Lorenz" (living in USA), I muscle up and examine every single gentleman of this name before landing on one from Staten Island. Bingo his grandfather's marriage record mentions the name Hammersley.

I discover the Turnocks are the epi-centre of the clusters but all these dozens of 20cM matches ain't helping me determine which one is Unknown Male. Many of them don't feature in clusters being right in Ancestry's cM cut-off.

Turns out, it was Joseph Turnock (b. c. 1823), sometime stonemason, maybe thief, and most definitely a labourer. Twice married: then disappears. He's our Unknown Male. The Lion at the centre of the party.

We suspect the deed was done in the street market in Buxton, Derbyshire, April 1845 about 15 miles equidistant from both parties.

Joseph's ancestry hails from north Staffordshire, England, around the Moorlands, which has been great to evoke. I'm even hopeful we can make an educated conjecture on an another illegitimacy three generations prior: the Unknown Male responsible for Miss Innocent Goostrey (1754), Leek.

Once again I'm very grateful for all those (new) cousins who took the Ancestry DNA test, were sporting enough to engage with me, and who Absolutely bear no resemblance to any of these characters in the major blockbuster cited above.

Midlands ancestry and GEDmatch (UK)

I've been trying to make sense of SNPs and centiMorgans, segments, chromosomes and phasing. Reading about eastern Polynesian endogamy has been helpful with some real life examples of how genetic material may be inherited.

What Are The Odds from DNApainter is proving fairly straightforward, though is limited (it says) when each result shares an average of <40cM with the tester: 90cM is better. And I'm not sure what its views are on endogamy, complex relationships within the extended family, or generally "sticky" DNA (without there necessarily being endogamy).

I've tested with Ancestry DNA, which has been highly informative, reassuring and maddenly suggestive. I'm in the process of exploring the benefits of uploading this data to other sites, this month it's GEDmatch.

Yesterday I focused on a family group in Leeds. Ancestry very helpfully confirmed that our shared origins were in the Midlands (which I interpret as Staffordshire and the conurbation where Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire all met). I say confirmed, as I'd already guessed this from the useful data at GEDmatch.

I'd have been unwise to look at this match, despite the "Midlands" tag, without knowing two things, that Peter (from Leeds) matched Mrs C (from Liverpool), that as well as matching each other they matched us. And secondly, and most critically, that all three parties actually share some precise segment of the same chromosome.

For both of these requirements, I needed GEDmatch. In fact it was at that site where the shared segment in question, and its three holders, was identified. The amounts shared are small (and so not resulting in a cluster of matches at Ancestry). It is nonetheless a cluster though, one that could easily have been missed.

I'm glad I persevered. Mrs C had popped up in another triangulation exercise on the site a week prior, so I'd already done the digging and knew her connection to us. We both descended from Jonathan Gee (origin: Hyde, Cheshire) and Sarah Brasier (origin: Kinver and Enville, Staffordshire).

GEDmatch's new triangulation, therefore, hinted quite strongly that the Leeds family also descended from this couple, or from one or more of their parents/grandparents. Further back seemed unlikely as we'd be talking ninth cousins, which, with very little endogamy present, seems unlikely for matches of 11cM plus.

The Leeds family's tree was largely spoken for and not looking very Midlands. The Yorkshire part did not fit with a gradual drift up from our Chesterfield branch. I couldn't see any geographical overlaps over the period in question.

I was intrigued by the final grandparent: Mr Davies from Wales. Closer inspection of the excellent tree showed that this chap's birth record was very much missing in action. But his Dad, of the same name, was a Wire-Drawer.

My antennae says Midlands, for that occupation. Exactly what we need. I'm still short of biographical detail, but going back through his tree, I saw some names I recognised. This wire-drawer was from Kinver, and descends from the only surviving brother of Sarah Brasier (born 1751).

You can bet I'm keen to establish full biographical detail on this branch, as it strongly appears we can paint in those 11 or so centiMorgans as being from Kinver.

I have more reading to do. More records to find. But all this is just a warm-up flex and stretch before I take on Ireland. Am I ready? After 11 May maybe, as our local café's famous Irish breakfast will be back on the cards.

Thanks GEDmatch, by the way. I'm genuinely tickled to have 7x great-uncle waiting in the wings to be a bona fide relative, particularly one right at the heart of the Industrial Revolution in the Midlands (for better or for worse).

Where did you go, baby Evans?

This wee laddy was born on 8 September, 1851, in central Merthyr Tydfil. His father was a pattern maker in the ironworks. I was really very lucky to find this certificate. My thanks to the staff at the Register Office for locating it.

 When he was three months old he and his family unit all took to sea from Liverpool to New Orleans. Quite a route. They were Mormons: the first in the family to go out to the New World.

Although... his mother's sister's husband's father was there - Mr Giles died in December 1851 at Council Bluffs on the banks of the River Missouri, on his way West, to Utah, at least 80% of the way there, but still 900+ miles to go.

Why did the Evans family go, given the risks - of starvation, drowning, hypothermia, infectious diseases, violent incidents, death in childbirth? Well they wanted a better life, in their version of the promised land. And they did not know that Mr Giles had died. Folks back home did not learn this for a year!

The good news is the Evans family started early. With Spring just beginning as they arrived in New Orleans there was a good chance they would make it upriver to Council Bluffs by June and the long walk to the Salt Lake valley in handcarts would be, should be, concluded before the onset of Autumn, and the chance of blizzards. One blizzard could wipe out a small party.

The problem is.... Well the problem is, the Evans family didn't make it to Utah. Something happened on the way.

Saints by Sea: the Kennebec passengers

Saints by Sea: what happened next to the Kennebec passengers

A voyage on a steamboat, the Saluda in 1852 going up-river

Aftermath: telling the steamboat story. What I cannot find are precise references to Native Americans in the area, nor of diseases such as cholera and yellow fever attacking folk. I cannot trace the parents making it to Salt Lake City. It is possible that William Evans, now just six months old and likely weaned, when the steamboat exploded, might have been adopted in Missouri, Iowa or just possibly by Native Americans....

How did we find the babyfather of my forebear (born 1846)?

Just how did we do that?

Recently, after centuries of silence, we heard from beyond the grave, from the bio-father of my Grandma's grandma, Ellen Bagshaw (1846-1901). Ellen has been dead a long time and was a tough cookie. There was some kind of encounter nine months prior to her birth, most likely off the market place in a town like Buxton in early Spring after a cold winter. The protagonists were foolish, fecklish and delirious youth of 23 and 20, intent on embarking on a bit of comfort in the sun, which the sands of time would forget. Something from a Hardy novel. Ellen herself was the antitheses of these qualities and devoted serious time to ensure her own family's future. We had never considered her biological father to be a real breathing person, but he was.

So, here is the news:

My DNA matches screamed Staffordshire, but I didn't have any Staffs ancestry? Piecing together trees of varied 20cM matches led me through new surnames to the Turnock family of Leek and thus an unknown burglar 3xgreat-grandfather (had fling in 1845- Derbyshire).

Let me say, there was no papertrail at all. This 'father' just vanished on arrival. DNA did resolve this, but I definitely could not have predicted this would happen, in advance. So, just how did we do that?

The wind was just 'in the right direction', and a number of factors lined up in making this possible. I am listing them here, and may revise this over time*, and after reflection:

1. We would have a surname of the babyfather that is very rare: there are 36 times as many "Mortons" around than these Turnocks, for example.
2. The quality of parish register and census data for the area where this group lived, North Staffordshire and southern Cheshire, was excellent, which combined with a rare surname made family tree reconstruction easy. 
3. We had chosen to test on Ancestry which has a very large database of testers and a very user-friendly interface. I also had a current Ancestry subscription which would help when it came to looking at the trees of matched people.
   
4. I knew the rest of the family tree very well, so as researcher I could eliminate lines that had nothing to do with it, and could also identify an 'alien' group of distant cousins as worthy of exploration.
   
5. I had no other known ancestry in Staffordshire: that would have muddied the waters considerably.
   
6. Ancestry was adamant that we had ancestry in the Potteries, Staffordshire. This meant that I had to take the information seriously. (I had been seeing Staffordshire-based people appear as matches for months and had ignored them.)
   
7. Close relatives of the 'babyfather' (his siblings) had 'umpteen' descendants; and unbeknownst to me, a large number of them had tested (at least 40 I'm thinking) of whom a high percentage shared portions of DNA with us (20 people and rising).
8. My relatives unwittingly 'favoured' this ancestor rather than other ancestors of the same generation - one does not inherit equal amounts of DNA from grandparents, still less from those in previous generations. (Reference to 'sticky' DNA removed.)
   
9. A member of an earlier generation had tested - and this increased the number and quality of matches by an order of magnitude. Without this, I may not have established a connection and the last point would not apply.
   
10. DNA matches themselves were largely co-operative and moderately chatty, enabling a few wrinkles to be smoothed or removed in the family tree.
11. I also had three days spare and some experience of this work already, which meant clues were not overlooked but rather exploited, pet theories were ruthlessly demolished and had trained myself to keep going even when there was no obvious path to success.
12. I had some experience of tracing families which meant those folks with blank trees, limited trees or wrong information could still be identified as part of the family. This was necessary as only 4 of our matches had the name Turnock in the tree.
    
13. I had access to a clustering tool which 'flagged up' groups of living cousins that were connected to each other by DNA. In fact, slowly working through this tool's output had me pause (for several weeks) as the 'flagged' group could no longer be ignored.
    
14. I was familiar with the concept of 'shared matches' with a reasonable grasp of probability, kinship terminology, genetic inheritance, the 'ThruLines' software.
15. And finally, a lone descendant of the 'babyfather' by a subsequent documented marriage was linked by papertrail to him, and had a demonstrably greater portion of shared DNA with us than anyone else from the line, meaning I could attribute parenthood to this gentleman rather than to any of his brothers/nephews.

*Light edit 2022.

Hillbilly Elegy

Having just read Hillbilly Elegy, by J. D. Vance, I was heartened to see that my Middletown, Ohio, cousin, Lily was connected through the arteries to the same people, Vance writes on. Lily’s daughter married a man from Jackson, Breathitt County, Kentucky where ‘a women ain’t fully dressed without her gun’. I’m proud of that connection. Times ahead would prove tough and forty years down the track they had one heck of a fight on their hands to keep the family together. Lily sent my great-grandparents in Wales blankets during the War. They were good people.

The Charwoman at the Poorhouse

Jenny Jory was born 1789 the 'baseborn' child of Jane Jory (then 25). I had thought that Jane was my forebear, but it turns out mine is two years younger and from Truro, 5 miles away.

The problem seems to have been the London Road just a ten minute walk away. All her children were born out of wedlock, and it seems by different fathers.

1. James 1808 (dies age 11)
   
2. Lissey Brown Jory 1813, father John Brown, farmer, Ninnis
   
3. Mary Perry Jory 1816, father George Perry, farm labourer, Bodmyn Prison (dies age 33)
   
4. James 1819, father Richard Lanyon, farmer Lamsear (dies age 26)
   
5. Simon 1825, father William Bartis, labourer of uncertain location (dies age 15)
   
6. John 1828, father John Cock, farm labourer, Churchtown in the parish

In most of these Jenny is described as charwoman, Butts Poorhouse or charwoman of Killivose

John Brown is worse as two months later his other illegitimate is born of Elizabeth Roberts, another charwoman in the parish (at Downs Tenement), who has illegitimate twins by him three years later (1816) by which time he is in 'Bodmyn Prison'. Elizabeth too has other illegitimate children (also with several children are two other charwomen, Honor Keast and Ann Batten).

The parish does a good job of naming the fathers. John Jory the youngest child becomes a farm servant and moves away.

Jane dies age 80 at Mile Stone House (or Hendra) in the parish, 1870. She lived for the last years with her son John who was a lead miner.

Four Gone: A Disappearing Act

I have several people on the family tree for whom there exists just a birth or baptismal record, and nothing else. Yet the most puzzling disappearants, are a group of four. Outside of wartime, you don't expect to lose sight of a whole group: there ought to be a trace somewhere. The cast of four are:

1) Edward Pascoe, who signed his name Pasco. Occupation unknown, son of a butcher. Age unknown. All that is known is he married Mary in 1839 at Golant St Sampsons Church.

2) Mary Pascoe, born Mary Hitchens in 1806 at Gwennap. She had first been married to William Hawkings who was a blacksmith and later a schoolmaster, living in the parish of Tywardreath. I can at least divine that he had an accident, occasioning the change of occupation and likely leading to his premature death. Two friends, perhaps, assist the widow claiming his funds.

Now for the final pair of our party, Edward's two stepdaughters by Mary's first marriage:

3) Elizabeth Hawkings, baptised 1831 at Tywardreath.

4) Ann Hawkings, baptised 1833 at Tywardreath.

The next event we have is the marriage in 1839 and there is no sighting in Cornwall for them in census of 1841. Vanished!

Where could they have gone?

The story is intrigued by the Will of Mary's sister, Ann Hendra (nee Hitchens), dated 1877, some years later. She singles out her two nieces that had the name 'Ann' including Ann Hawkings. Baptised as Ann Hendra Hawkings, she is listed in the Will as Ann H_______ Hocking. Now I have no way of knowing if this is a true transcription, which I'm reading on the 'enrolled copy'. I suspect it isn't as the testator should have known the Ann H_______, as it was her own name! This casts doubt on the 'Hocking' too. Had Ann married, or is this a misreading of Hawkings? The aunt doesn't bother putting the married name of the other niece (Sarah Ann Verran) suggesting she might either not know or care about such details. One of Mary's sisters is named, despite being in Australia (this fact of course not being provided) suggesting that Mary was likely dead prior to 1877.

I have combed records. I have eliminated "Ann Hendra Uren" in Michigan. I have consulted obvious indexes. I looked in Avoca (where two Hawkings relatives lived), the Clare Valley (ditto the Verrans) and Whitby Ontario (ditto more Hawkings relatives). (I may have missed a shipping record). These folks are eluding me.

I glanced through 200 baptisms and 250+ marriages to home in on "John Pascoe the butcher", father of Edward, but he is not becoming apparent.

I wonder a bit about South America. If that was their destination, it will be a hard ride through the records to find them.

I hope to consult the Estate Duty returns for the aunt's estate: massive volumes inaccessible at the National Archives.

It would certainly be a feather in my cap to locate these folks: but it will be a waiting game thanks to this Disappearing Act.

It's a No

Mary Ann Trewartha born 1805 in Redruth, left a widow at 22, and infant son dying shortly thereafter, where does she go. For awhile the lure of Mary Davey (nee Trewartha), who died in 1891 in Long Gully, Victoria, appealed. She was alleged to be 85. Although she marries as Mary Andrawurtha, her children all have the mother's maiden name of Trewartha. Curiously though this Mary never uses the 'Ann'.

That's because It's a No. Mary Andrawurtha is not (of course) Mary Ann Trewartha, she is a girl born at Gwithian 4 years later, whose sister, Mrs Bray also registers children with mother's maiden name 'Trewartha'. Mary Ann is still out there.

...

Mary Ann Trewartha born 1805 in Redruth, left a widow at 22, could have children in Redruth registration district in the late 1830s, early 1840s, who would be registered with mother's maiden name Trewartha. I go through all 56 births and eliminate each and every one.

It's a No from the birth and marriages indexes.

...

William Hunter baptised in 1828 in Camborne, might have died in 1882 in Bendigo. I get his death certificate and he's from Northumberland. No-one yet has put this information on a family tree, but then, neither have I.

So that was a No.

...

William Hunter baptised in 1828 in Camborne, could possibly be the 'Frederick William Hunter' born about 1828 in Cornwall who dies in 1900 in Balmain, NSW, being previously based near Geelong.

But it's a No.

Looking at the evidence it's apparent that he's from London with a brother named Charles, as shown in this dear little announcement in the Argus of 3 February 1853: 'Should this meet the eye of Charles Curtis Hunter, per Sir Francis Ridley, he will hear of his brother Frederick William Hunter, by applying at the Freemason's Tavern, Geelong...'

...

I wonder which theories will get exploded next?

We are Abroad

Hugh Hunter, the reliable mine carpenter in Redruth, had four sons: William, Hugh junior, John and Jabez. All four went aboard, but the manner of our knowing this differs. No shipping records. (Hugh is granted an interview in a biography of Richard Trevithick who was about his age, but whom he outlived four decades, still working.)

William (1805) - the will of his father-in-law Thomas Trevithick in 1846 makes it clear that William's teenage son is abroad somewhere, ergo William is/was too. The implication is that Trevithick knew which part of 'abroad' we are dealing with, even if I don't. I am very inclined to think he was recruited by Robert Stephenson to go to Colombia.

Hugh (1808) - for this character we are obliged to look at the letter from Mr Smith of St Ives (1997) to myself which reports that he came back to Cornwall and never said where he had been. This cannot be any of the others as I know or it was known (distinction needed) where the others went. Hugh, no.

John (1819) - for this we have the probate registry to thank. I found this entry some years ago but the story has twisted and changed shape since. That is for another blog. The Will of John Hunter of the parish of Illogan in the County of Cornwall Carpenter deceased who died 31 January 1861 at Colombia in South America was proved at the Principal Registry (23 October 1861) by the oaths of Hugh Hunter of Illogan aforesaid Carpenter the Father and Edward Bullock of the same place Yeoman two of the Executors. This was linked to the railway engineer, Robert Stephenson, being desirous of recuperating abroad, and selecting the gold and silver potential of Latin America and Cornish wit, for the purpose.

Jabez (c 1821) - we are back to oral testimony for the youngest brother. His son specified the name of the town in Colombia where he had spent his formative years. We are to assume that the father died there, as the son returned to Cornwall and later shared a room with my own Grandfather.

I do not think the bones of any of these sons of Cornwall reside in these isles. We are Abroad.

A break in 1925: no descendants of Queen Victoria born

1925 is remarkable in the twentieth century as not a single one of the descendants of Queen Victoria (and of her husband Albert, the Prince Consort) appear to have been born in that year. In consequence, there is a gap of twenty months following the birth of the younger Lascelles son in 1924, until the birth of his cousin, HM the Queen Elizabeth II (then Princess Elizabeth of York) in 1926. The family were taking a break. However, Margaret Thatcher was born in 1925. Thanks to Susan Flantzer for her work in compiling a directory of these.

You could argue it took 86 years from the date of Victoria and Albert's marriage (1840) to achieve 'genealogical singularity', with every year from 1926 onwards having a descendant being born (as far as is known). I will take a look at an example from my own family to see if that point has been reached.

[Ok so checked and Martha Scott married 1808 in Somerset, has at least a thousand descendants born. She hit the genealogical singularity in 1864 after 56 years. And we're excluding her husband's illegitimate child. I had a note some years back saying 'in 1957, her older sister's descendants overtook Martha's in terms of total number born'. That is not true. Martha has eaten her sisters for genealogical breakfast.]

The genealogist Anthony Wagner counted the first Tudor princesses' descendants and formed some interesting conclusions about the two sisters. He also wrote Pedigree and Progress of which an interesting follow-up is here: https://worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.edu/3.1/laichas_column.html

Great-grandmothers who outlived their tribe

Sometimes the generations die in the wrong order. I give some historic examples from the family, below (the last one is a mediaeval Royal example). All of these had other family who did survive them.

1) Catherine Baragwanath born 1701 married age 23 to Martin Trewhella I.

her son Martin Trewhella II, died 1774.

her grandson Martin Trewhella III died 1789

her greatgrandson William Trewhella died 1790

Catherine herself passed away in 1799 in Cornwall aged 97.

2) Ann Dodd born 1758 married age 22 to John Charlton. 

her daughter Ann Charlton (Gibson) died 1831

her grandson John Gibson died 1844

her greatgrandson William Gibson died 1844 (before John)

Ann herself passed away in 1847 in Northumberland aged nearly 90, and was perhaps survived by her elderly husband.

3) Jane Creed born 1830 married age 20 to James Chappell.

her son (Oscar Chappell died 1934) 

her grandson Oscar Henry Chappell died 1916

her greatgranddaughter Gladys Chappell died 1900

Jane herself passed away in 1925 in Somerset aged 95 having survived many other children and grandchildren, and her elderly grandson-in-law (ten years her junior).

4) Katherine Neville born about 1400 married aged under sixteen to John Mowbray.

her son John Mowbray died 1461

her grandson John Mowbray died 1476

her greatgranddaughter Anne Mowbray died 1481 (child bride of a prince in the Tower)

Katherine remarried (the diabolical marriage) age about 65 in 1465 to John Woodville (the Queen's brother) aged 19 whom she also survived. She herself passed away in late 1483, likely in London.

Aunts and uncles who emigrated

These are the aunts and uncles who emigrated up until modern times. I have included Sarah as she was a front-runner, and she helped pick up the pieces after the failed emigration to Delaware county 'Delcony' immediately following. No less than half of Thomas Creed's surviving children made their way through the clearing-house of London on their way (mostly) somewhere else.

Stephen Creed's emigration to Tasmania started well - he married a Scots lady there, but owing to an indiscretion on the part of their eldest son, they were forced to leave the island in the 1860s for a fresh start elsewhere.

Each of the other emigrations no doubt warrants a story, which we shall get, eventually.

1820s
Sarah Boyce - to Islington, London
Thomas Creed - to Delaware county, New York (assumed)
Elizabeth Edney - to Montego Bay, Jamaica
Edward Martin - to Jamaica

1830s or 40s
Thomas Creed - to Trumbull county, Ohio
Elizabeth Symes - to Trumbull county, Ohio
Matthew Creed - to Trumbull county, Ohio
Richard Marshall - to Port Hope, Ontario
James Creed - to Hamilton, Ontario
Philip Dawson - to Ste Brigitte de Laval, Quebec
William Bagshaw - to Rochester, New York
Martha Morris - to Brooklyn, New York
David Francis - to Manhattan, New York
Mary Nancollins - to Grant county, Wisconsin
Jonathan Barnett - to Grant county, Wisconsin
Francis Harris - to Grant county, Wisconsin
Elizabeth Scandling - to Jo Daviess county, Illinois
James Harris - to Houghton county, Michigan
Stephen Creed - to New Norfolk, Tasmania
John Shugg - to Yackandandah, Victoria, Australia
Mary Bresinton - to Sydney, NSW
Matthew Bowden - to Real del Monte, Mexico
William Seccombe - to Peru
William Hunter - to (somewhere!)

1850s
Eliza Perry - to Bendigo, Australia (oops missed her off)
John Hunter - to Columbia, South America

1870s
William Smith - to Jamestown, New York
Julia Tobin - to Boston, Massachusetts
Catherine Brodie - to Boston, Massachusetts
Margaret Nagle - to Boston, Massachusetts

1900s
Frank Bayley Lowry - to Westminster, Orange Free State
Leonard Scott Creed - to Cape Town
Edwin Haine Creed - to Fredericton, New Brunswick
Thomas Francis - to Gas City, Indiana
Arthur Smith - to Australia (enquiries pending)
Nance Drummond - to Glasgow
Catherine Bell - to Bangor, County Down

Whither the Blacksmith's Daughter?

Elizabeth Edwards was the blacksmith's daughter. Although hers is a common name, and she was born back in about 1846, I was not content to let sleeping dogs lie. Being the cousin of my Grandpa's grandmother, she needed to be found.

The start is bucolic enough, living at home age 4 and then 14 with her parents, and the younger siblings as they arrived, at the busy blacksmith's shop (Jim's Shop) on the main road perhaps, at Pengelly Cross, in the hamlet of Trenwheal, parish of Breage. There's a lovely retreat in the area now.

This happy idyll down by the water's edge, the River Hayle flowing close by, was doomed to end, of course. Whilst Elizabeth's younger sister (still toddling around) would remain in Cornwall until the 1950s, for the older sister we are looking at a different future.

In May 1866, the banks crashed, and the worldwide price of copper tumbled shortly thereafter, not aided by the earlier discovery of copper in South Australia. The following year, well we shall see.

Let us just reflect a minute on what life was like when Elizabeth was born (1846).

West Briton newspaper, 26 February 1847: I was informed by a respectable person from the parish of Breage, that a family of eleven persons… had scarcely any other food for several days than at dinner time, when they boiled the baking kettle filled with water, which they thickened with a little barley meal, to which they added salt and a turnip.

She had been born into the parish of Breage, admittedly not as poor as just described. Her father being a blacksmith near the main road would ensure a horse needing re-shoeing could pay for a meal on the table. Yet whither Elizabeth - there were several routes to explore what became of her. Could we find a marriage in one of the parish churches in Cornwall? Could we find a mention of her marriage (the blacksmith's daughter) in the newspapers? Were there any suitable death records for her in Cornwall? Did her parents make mention of her in their Wills? Are there traces of her family in the censuses in England, perhaps with aunts or uncles? Were there any unexplained DNA matches which could link to her?

The answer to all of the above was negative. We now proceed to examine the marriages in Cornwall, firstly those in Helston registration district (which included Breage), but first a gratuitous Poldark-themed map of the area:

Firstly, John Jose married in 1862 to an Elizabeth Edwards, most likely in the register office. The couple marrying with them, the Rules, resided at Ashton in Breage, but we cannot find the Joses. They remain possible.

Secondly, John Williams married in 1866 to an Elizabeth Edwards, most likely in the register office. I have not had any luck pursuing them, so they too remain possible.

Thirdly, William Dunn married in 1867 to an Elizabeth Edwards, most likely in the register office (along with the Penalunas from Crowan). An Ancestry tree suggests this couple emigrated to a coalmining county of Pennsylvania, USA, and death certificates for their children there confirm the parents 'William Dunn and Lizzie Edwards'. Importantly, this Lizzie is the right age, though sadly dies in 1897 age about 50 (date not known, year found on gravestone). This needs unpicking further as it might be right.

...

We now try to un-prove the Dunn marriage.

Against the Dunn marriage: what about our Elizabeth's cousin, a girl of the same name just a year younger who is living in Crowan, the very parish where the Penalunas reside? And with a stepmother living next-door to those very same Penalunas in the 1871 census for Crowan?

In favour of the Dunn marriage we have: the naming pattern of the children (slightly favours our Lizzie), Lizzie's age as given in the two US censuses, the fact that Dunn is living very near her in the censuses leading up to the marriage, and the evidence of the baptismal record (to follow).

Suffice to say, we have established sufficient proof, though we may yet purchase the marriage certificate to be certain. And now we return to the fateful years 1866/7.

Be aware that the American civil war, with its demand for brass buttons, copper canteens and bronze cannons and the Crimean war, had both recently finished. 'Copper-bottoming' of boats required less copper and more zinc. The value of copper nearly halved to under £80/long ton (source: wintons.com).

Today, cities, rail networks, wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars all use copper but these things were far in the future.

For now the Dunns were done. In 1866 the price fell, in 1867 Lizzie became pregnant hence the rushed (?register office?) marriage, and in early 1868 their son was baptised at Trenwheal Methodist Church (around the corner from maternal grandparents). She and her small family emigrated that year or the next to Carbon county, Pennsylvania.

The above map confirms that Beaver Meadows, where the Dunns settled, was coal country. This useful map came from Tales of the Towpath learning material suitable for schools in the area.

By 1880, William Dunn was a 'mine boss', later plumber, and his sons would become engineer, miner, public works clerk, moulder (at one of the iron foundries in the Lehigh Valley). Three of their sons died of heart trouble, so it is not unreasonable to assume that Lizzie's death at 50 was from this cause.

One troubling episode would have been the Great Fire of 1875 by which time Lizzie was 27 with four young children. Across the Lehigh valley at Mud Run in the Hickory Hills, a westerly wind caused ten miles of destruction as fire burned mills, houses, logs, timber, and standing trees.

Back home in Cornwall, her little sister was still only sixteen, and was destined to remain there until her death at 95, what a contrast. Her time would come though, called upon to act as mother to their brother's orphan children.

The blacksmith's daughter, whichever one you pick, would not live the tranquil life as depicted in our first link, above.

You can read more about Carbon County, Pennsylvania, where the tinner became coal miner, 'boss' and then plumber at https://culturedcarboncounty.blogspot.com. There are the slightly risical dramas surrounding the naming of the towns of Weatherly and Jim Thorpe (formerly the more historic Mauch Chunk), which can separately be read.

Getting Away with it in Helston?

When Richard Jenkyn died in 1766 he left a Will and much industry, ably transcribed here by St Erth's Dee: https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~sterth/genealogy/wills1764_70.htm#Rjenkyn

Who was that niece Eliza Collins? I gave myself five minutes just to resolve her and move on.

Twenty minutes later, Eliza has been put to one side, as something entirely else is going on. . .

Richard first married Margery Row in the parish church in 1733 and their son was baptised the following year, and I haven't examined dates. The son dies and is buried in 1737 and 1738 (sic). There may be a daughter in 1741, but there will be no surviving children.

(By the way, if you lived in Helston you could choose whether you utilised the church there or the parish church at Wendron.  Eventually Helston would be split off.)

Elsewhere in Helston lived Joan Eva, unmarried, she's aged around 22 and begins to have a large string of illegitimate children each and every one triumphantly written 'Bastard' in the parish registers. These commence in 1738 and continue till about 1751. The inference would be that she had a steady partner, married to someone else.

Coincidentally, Margery Jenkyn dies in 1763 and in January 1764 (or 1765?), her widower, Richard Jenkyn is marrying to none other than Joan Eva!

Richard dies a year or two later, and Joan appears to survive listed as a pauper at her death in the fullness of time.

Her children? Joan junior marries and settles in Newlyn, while Richard (coincidental name?) settles in St Hilary. Neither probably will have much to do with their birth mother. The remaining siblings die soon after birth, although the eldest is not traced.

I'll not exactly sure what I think. Innocent til proven guilty, perhaps!

Elizabeth is Not Missing: Cornish origins revealed

A matriarch is really important to a family, and we had one, Mrs Elizabeth Rodda (nee Pascoe) mother of at least eight, right at the top of the tree. And that was the problem, who was she? Could we go back further?

For a long time I thought she was born around 1774 based on a death certificate. The document wasn't very convincing as the lady left a surviving husband,whereas our Elizabeth was a widow. The date 1774 was based on childbearing years running 1795 to 1817 - but it was simply incorrect. I even had a candidate baptised at Wendron, who I know now is... wrong. I wasted time digging around a James Pascoe (b. ~1790), based on a DNA theory - that too was mistaken.

This is the census entry which put me straight:

1841 Benner Down, Crowan: Elizabeth Rodda 69 minor, Elizabeth Rodda 20

It's short and sweet. She's a lot older than I was expecting (born about 1771) and lived much longer than I anticipated. But she was the only candidate left - with a burial at Crowan on 1 July 1847. Unusually the age at burial exactly matches this early census record.

(Her daughter and namesake is wrongly aged, being a good 15 years older than stated - maybe that's why I'd skated over this record in the past. She married the following year, perhaps reluctantly, and died in childbirth, but nonetheless great to know what happened to young Elizabeth, too.)

Finally, we can lock down a baptism for Elizabeth Pascoe, married in 1795 at Crowan to William Rodda. She was baptised 28 April 1771 in Wendron, daughter of Edward Pascoe and Elizabeth Thomas. 

Because she died in 1847, this explains why my Grandpa's great-aunt, born that year, was given the name Elizabeth Rodda Harris. Checking the dates and baby arrives just six weeks after grandmother's burial.

My grandfather did not know this matriarch, but he did sort of know his great-aunt (by reputation). So we can say that he knew someone born right at the end of Elizabeth's life.

-----------------------------------

Let's rewind the clock and hurtle back to the 1760s before Elizabeth was born. I have a transcript in my hand, the Will of one Richard Jenkyn of Helston. He was a blacksmith, twice married, but with no surviving children. He knew his time was coming, and made and executed his Will in the late Spring of 1766. He names various relatives including brother-in-law William Thomas, a tinner in Wendron, and by imputation, his niece, one Elizabeth Thomas of Wendron.

Wait - we have seen this name before. That's right, she's mother of our Elizabeth, and by comparing the dates, I can see she marries six months later, in December 1766.

So Elizabeth is not missing. We have two events book-ending her life, the Will of 1766 (the year which led to her birth five years on), and the birth of Aunty Rodda in 1847 (six weeks after her final breath).

We will obtain her death certificate, the right one this time, and continue to explore the early Wendron origins...

Pass me the Tabasco: the Pascoes and Iveys of Crowan

Obviously we needed a silly title, but I really did need that Tabasco sauce. I was poking around looking for clues I'd missed on my Ancestry DNA list of matches. We'd cracked a few high level ones, including Mick Hofna*, who I'm convinced is not related at all simply entered his name for a female friend (as they both joined social media the same day). That one was a bit of a run-around.

Yesterday we had gpagmaw which took me slightly longer to figure out. Or was it slightly less? gpagmaw is 'of course' Grandpa and Grandma W. Luckily they had a slightly similar version of this nickname as a Pinterest handle which listed their full names right next to it of Mr and Mrs W..... of some place north of Chicago. It was Grandma W. who was the connection, her husband was pure Polish stock, while her mother's obituary named her and then scouting through the various family lines. Nope, nope and nope, till we got to, ah-ha! Sarah Pascoe (born 1822 in Crowan Cornwall) and her husband Richard Ivey, emigrating to Wisconsin. Thank you very much.

Let me just say that gpagmaw had NO TREE, had not signed in forever, and no clue on the Ancestry page as to where she was based, excepting that she had 20%+ Norwegian forebears which does kind of scream midwest. Midwest = interesting = could she be Cornish? = yes!

American DNA matches with only a hint of the county in question in their ancestry are just my favourite. Most of Gma W's line are anything-but-Cornish (ABC), and of course how do I now For Sure that we connect this way?

Well, running through other folk on Ancestry who have Iveys from Wisconsin in their midst we find three other descendants of the Richard Ivey and Sarah Pascoe by two of their children, and guess what, they share matches with me and Gma W. Importantly, they too have no other known Cornish ancestry. I think that's good working proof for now, till we roll out the chromosome browser at some future date. I could be using DNAGedcom to have 'added' those other matches of Gma W. to the story but that would have taken just as long and - sometimes the less technical assistance the better.

We have our story. Now it's time to reveal that I have Pascoe ancestry in Crowan. (And no Iveys at all.) Elizabeth Pascoe marries in 1795 in Crowan and ...

... in the time it takes to tell the story, the dial has moved. I do not in fact have any Pascoe ancestry in Crowan. (Sarah Pascoe later Ivey, your story might take a little longer to come out.) Here is the census entry which changed everything, leading me to discoveries which fail to link Elizabeth to James (and his daughter in Wisconsin).

1841 Bennertown, Crowan: Elizabeth Rodda 69 minor, Elizabeth Rodda 20

For years I must have ignored this entry, with so much that doesn't fit the family tree, particularly if not entirely that young Elizabeth is thirty rather than twenty. But wiping away that blemish, THIS is my Elizabeth Pascoe, wife of William Rodda, and I can prove it. (Next blog relates an astonishing set of connections from before she was born...)

My carefully crafted Pascoes of Crowan guesswork crumbles away to nothing. Crowan, formerly Eglos-krowenn, I am leaving you behind in the rear-view mirror for now. It's time to go back, further back, to Wendron, half as big again, which where we need to go next.

Jenning Up (again)

Something made me this morning take a second look at my Sarah Hunter 1782 who married twice and moved away from Redruth. Big discovery at the time but really wanted to pin down her daughter Mary (1806) who also married twice - did she go to Canada or Australia? No further did I get. Took me about 30 minutes to put down my work.

OK - James Rodda born 1799, did he die in infancy or age 34. Quickly put that down as well. Time for another Cornish family.

Next up then, the Jennings family, where we had a bit more luck. Having untangled them a few years back, I wanted to soak up the success and find some DNA matches on Ancestry. I went in search of surnames which were good enough to seach on - Kemp, Opie/Oppy, Tozer, I was getting nothing. I was crying Foul! as these guys definitely emigrated and someone should match my line, someone....

(A brief interlude to explain ancestor Ann Jennings married her beau Francis Harris three weeks before Trafalgar, ONLY problem is he witnessed marriages of two ladies named Elizabeth Jennings in double-quick time thereafter ... only ONE of whom was his wife's sister, what a boggler.)

Back to business. So I examined the tree again. Looking into the next generation I saw that my Elizabeth Jennings 1786 had a granddaughter that married into the Knuckey family - let's plug that name into the search bar on my DNA page. Hello, what's this, the wrong Knuckey chap, but Benjamin Knuckey married in 1858 NSW to Esther J. JENNINGS. Turns out she is a niece of Elizabeth who I omitted from my Untangled Tree diagram. So their descendant, Christine can be tied in as my 5th/6th cousin with 10 centimorgan match.

Wham - just sorted that out, and big surprise number two came knocking. Something's up, Jenning up. IF Christine is a cousin then WHO is cousin Frank strolling in at 33 centimorgans which is arguably more? And absolutely definitely and truthfully who on EARTH is his forebear, just sitting there on the page, Mary Ann Harris born 1818 in Camborne?? To boot, her father is named as Francis??

SURE ENOUGH, I had ignored Mary Ann Harris baptised 23 February 1817 in Crowan, daughter of Francis and 'Hannah' (really seemingly Ann). She gets married nowhere near, I'd never looked for or given her a minute's thought and she turns out to be one of my closest relatives. Eeks!

Thanks to Christine in Oz and cousin Frank (still in Cornwall!) for doing the DNA test and giving me some embarrassing successes this morning. I was so normalised to the idea that Cornish DNA work was impossible, but frankly with 33 centimorgans matching, I am well pleased to add these folk onto the tree.

(But very embarrassing to note that Mary Ann Harris's husband has been on my files for FOUR years as the informant on her father's death certificate, 1855, which lead I had completely ignored!)

The tree which I was so proud of, that resolved the Jennings or at least bits of it is here:

Epic Epilogue. These things come in threes, right? Nosing around one more time on Ann Perry who marries 1780 in Crowan. Who is she? I rule out both the suitable baptisms in Wendron, ironically as we shall see.

Ann Perry baptised 1759 Wendron daughter of William and Jane marries I am comfortable in saying to William Symons at Constantine the next parish over, and there she stays. Naming pattern fits and there are suitable burials yet to be pinpointed for her.

Ann Perry baptised 1760 Wendron daughter of Bennet and Elizabeth marries in 1790 in that parish, relatively late to Sam Prisk and a suitable burial is found: sure enough her children include several named for her parents.

WELL, I promised you an epic epilogue, so what is going on. I examined the witnesses at the 1780 wedding of my Ann Perry (to Mr Jennings) one more time. Henry Odger is an old-timer, attending all the weddings he can, perhaps he's the parish clerk. Thomas Rogers however, who marks his mark (X), is no such man. In fact he doesn't do that much in Crowan at ALL.

Forgive me then for taking a deep and personal interest in the above event which just landed on my screen. For the cost of a click, I am seeing what I would describe as a Very Interesting Entry. My brain and my mouse are competing with each other. Not sure which one wins, but Thomas Rogers is of course..... a stepfather! I barely need the additional WHOMPH of evidence which is that he was a 'tinner at Crowan' upon his marriage, AND that Dunnet was a widow. Double whammy.

Work is ongoing (as they say on the nation's roads) to do more digging. No baptism is found for Ann, but that's no worries. ERRRR, actually, yes there is! Far be it from me to judge, but I smelt a big old rat. Of course Ann Perry is not the child of the second marriage to ROGERS, but NOR is she the child of the first marriage to PERRY! This is becoming the best mystery Agatha Christie didn't write. Ladies and gentleman, may I present to you the baptism of Ann Perry, who marries at Crowan in 1780... (and the common ancestor of all the above DNA matches)

HMM except there IS a baptism of Ann Perry 17 May 1761 Wendron after all (child of John and Dunnet), on the Bishop's Transcripts, so looks like the 1753 baptism is an earlier child (who maybe died young or maybe married in 1781 in Phillack). Dunnet, by the way, allegedly dies at age 96.

The fantastic Feltham sisters

 Edward Murrow - Elizabeth - Sarah - Sally - ANNA.

Anna was the tenth child, and only ten when her mother died. At 24, she was just three days shy of childbirth when she walked up the aisle at Ditcheat church, her ailing father perhaps accompanying her, and so she became Mrs Feltham.History repeated in that she too left a young family when she died at 40.

Thomas Feltham was a carpenter left with the following children: Ann 15, Susan 13, Jane 11, Hannah 8, Joe 2. They were not particularly religious baptising their children in clumps of two, except Ann who was of course baptised at the mother's parish of Ditcheat, a bit of time after the wedding. They lived in a cottage at Bayford, in the parish of Stoke Trister.

Undoubtedly the sisters had a tight bond as we shall see. Hannah and Joe would ultimately emigrate together. Ann and Jane would marry the same man, while Susan's eldest child (motherless too) would make her home with Hannah, and Ann would raise Jane's daughter having married her widower.

We peep into the world of the Felthams in 1840 when a farmer's daughter writes from Lamyatt to her sister in Ohio. Ann and Jane we learn are working for their uncle Joseph Whittock, farmer at Millbrook, Ditcheat. They would be domestic servants and Ann is still there the following June in the 1841 census, on the shelf.

It turns out that Jane had married in Bristol, to Richard Welch and the next letter refers to the newly weds settling in Ditcheat. Unfortunately Jane died four years later.

Around this time Joe Feltham (21) emigrates with his older sister Hannah to Springfield, Illinois, to work as a carpenter. We know this as his son's biography confirms it. It's 1844. She had been a highly competent maid at Cucklington Rectory, a short walk away, and most likely served as housekeeper. The arrangement cannot have lasted long as while Jane dies in Somerset, wedding bells ring out for Hannah in Illinois just two months later.

There are three more remarkable events to witness

1) 1847. Richard Welch, Jane's widower, remarries to her older sister Ann Feltham (now 37), who goes on to produce several daughters including at 43 the only Welch child who will continue the line. These will be the Millers of Ditcheat, ladies in a brief hiatus between their father's death and emigration to New Zealand.

2) 1855. Hannah returns to England from Illinois, now Mrs Rodham, accompanied by her young son Tom, who survives the crossing only to die back in the States. She must be tending to her widowed father, Thomas, who dies weeks later. Mrs Rodham returns like a will o' the wisp, back to America.

3) 1860. The year is unclear but it is after 1858 and before 1861. Susan has been dead ten years, and her family emigrate to South Africa where they will live an interesting and prosperous life as grocers and provision dealers to the silver- and gold-miners of Kimberley Town in Cape Province, numbering Cecil Rhodes among their customers. But, and there is always a but, tale remained there of a 14 year old girl who 'took the wrong boat'.

We return to 1855 to clarify matters. Accompanying Mrs Hannah Rodham back to the States was her 15 year-old niece, Anna. She emphatically had not got on the wrong boat, and we imagine had been in service to her grandfather, Thomas Feltham. She made a home with her aunt in Springfield before marrying at the age of 21 several years later.

So we have:

Ann - who by the way died a sudden perhaps gluttonous death at a richly furnished farmhouse in Kent miles from home, being found dead by a fifteen year-old servant girl (as she had once been). No longer the poor relation, on the shelf, but respected wife and mother. Though not by all. Marrying her sister's widower had cost her the home parish of Ditcheat where she'd so suddenly arrived in 1810. She could not stay to tend her infant daughter's grave but remained in exile. Her issue survive in Sydney NSW courtesy of her granddaughter Hope Smith.

Jane - died age 27 and buried in Ditcheat. Her only child had fits in later life, married a second cousin in the time of the hiatus and the line dies out.

Susan - died age 38 and her family lived in Kimberley, South Africa; and let's not forget, in Illinois courtesy of her eldest child.

Hannah - the ambitious one. Her descendants do trundle on, and in fact through her daughter, the female line continues. Hannah died at 53 like so many of these women.

Joe - including as a courtesy, but being male is outside the scope of this story. He marries a Frenchwoman and settles in Buffalo Gap, South Dakota, and family flirt with Alaska unsuccessfully while another worked the forests of western Montana and dallied with life unsuccessfully.

May I say that Ann, at the heart of our tale, buffeted by fate, born in February 1810 so soon after the wedding, was born a Very Long Time Ago, and was dead by the time of the American Civil War. But as her son-in-law was born in 1861, and lived a long life (unlike Ann) we can exploit a quirk of the generations. There is a photograph in 1945 or thereabouts showing two lovely twin girls in Sydney (who are still alive I might add). In this photograph is their elderly great-grandfather, holding them!, just a year from death, and he is the son-in-law of Ann, born 1810. And of course I have met one of these twins, so we are just hop, skip and a jump from these fantastic Feltham sisters of so long ago.

Poor relations they definitely were, and we do not know their father Thomas Feltham's characteristics, but I remain delighted to see these ladies pickled in amber for us, hard-working ladies of their time, who moved from a life in service onwards to better themselves.

I wish to close with a photograph of a peaceful scene of a farm in Victoria, Australia, sheep safely grazing and one of Ann's descendants in charge of proceedings. But it would be an invasion of their well-deserved privacy, so I shall not.