Relationships that survived: despite moves, name changes and time passing...

In May 2019 I made a list of stories, snapshots and situations within the family that demonstrated the longevity of the nature of kin. In this day and age we may be in a tearing hurry to leave all that cousinhood behind, but ties remained then.

Into this blog I will be adding in my 'shuttering down' theory. It's a little complex and has some sketches, so might be a separate entry. Meanwhile, for the archive, here are the connections I found:

The Indoes taking in sister Jane Chappell, suddenly widowed with children in 1871 in Somerset.

The Thompsons in Westmorland, having their "wife's cousin" visit in 1871 in Westmorland.

Martha Bell having her niece's illegitimate child to stay in 1939 in Haltwhistle (born 200 miles away!). It was this entry that prompted the entire blog.

Grandpa being photographed with all the "olds" including Great Aunt Maggie and her daughter up from Cornwall, 1920s South Wales.

Granny's granny (Nellie Smith) mentioning her cousin Margaret in a letter in 1921. Margaret was living in Hildaville Avenue, Westcliff-on-sea with Nellie's aunt.

J. H. Brown of Belfast apparently keeping in touch with his second cousin, Daisy Skinner, who had the two hotels in Bexhill. I have a note to locate him in the 1939 Register.

John Francis leaving some money to his great-nephew James Weeks who had lately arrived in the North Shields area in the 1880s. That caused some scampering about to identify the nature of That relationship.

Gwenllian and Mary Williams, naming their sons Anthony after their late brother, helping to prove the family connection. Mary went a step further and named another son after her uncle Powell. We are just outside Neath in the early 1800s.

Florrie Jones finding a home with her cousin Lilla's granddaughter Edna in Southampton in the 1950s.

Mrs Cocker sending photographic postcards from her home in the Peak District to her cousin's granddaughter on the occasion of her wedding in 1930 in London (my grandparents').

Emma Longden sending a postcard from Sheffield in 1912 to her second cousin Ann in Manchester mentioning a further second cousin (Florrie).

Isaac Ridgway and his second wife finding a home with his first wife's nephew Tom in Sheffield around the time of World War One.

Cathie Drummond travelling from Glasgow to Haltwhistle and then on to the Dales to visit her great-grandmother in around 1890. (As a girl of five she would be accompanied by family members.) And yet my grandmother born 20 years later never met the good lady, OR her daughter (missing out twice over). And then some folk remembered stories of the mother of this great-grandmother, born 1789.

Annie Gibson travelling to the home of her childless aunt Margaret Atkinson, across the Pennines, in 1844 from South Shields to the shores of the Lakes.

William Exton Treasure taking care of his elderly grandmother, Martha, and going to visit her brother uncle William Haine. These folk died in the late 1890s.

Elizabeth, Mrs Grist, being surrounded by at least four of her young grandchildren at the sunset of her life, in 1841 on the Somerset/Wiltshire border. (Her younger sister, my forebear Mary, had already passed on, so does not feature in this peculiarly useful census.)

The Brodies of South Boston staying in touch (somehow) with their second cousins in county Cork. They were organised ladies, working as telephonists and all in the charge of the youngest, who outlived them all and organised the beautiful gravestone. This contact spans the entire twentieth century.

My maternal grandfather who knew so many of his second cousins in the community in South Wales (1930s).

The Dibben girls who were emphatically in contact with one another, even as they rampaged across a dozen counties and married in places where there was either no index, or frankly, no marriage. I think they mopped up the soldiers left over the from the Peninsula War in the Napoleonic era. (link)

Percy Chappell the aunt who named everyone in her Will, including her late cousin Rosa's eldest daughter, 1930s Somerset.

Ellen Oliver formerly Charlton, whom I could not place on the tree at all, yet lived in a household full of Gibsons on the banks of the Tyne at Crawcrook in 1861. She was aunt and grandmother to them.

Reviewing these, I had expected a lot more incidences on the maternal side, which is where I had been researching for longer. Or, as I note, there was the triple whammy of (a) having more time aware of them (b) more consequences having developed from my initial contact and (c) more people were alive at the time of this research giving me a deeper window into the past (or fewer truncated memories).

Having said that the above examples were fresh in my mind when I wrote them. I could probably name a dozen similar such in my Somerset farming folk or perhaps my Cornish mining folk (both maternal), but as they've sat on my tree for nearly 25 years I cannot claim these any longer as a 'discovery'.

Did my grandparents know their second cousins?

My father's father must have been aware of his second cousins, the Brodies of South Boston, New York. How so? Well I suspect he would not have been interested in the least, but when he visited Ireland in the 1950s, his cousin there (in the Garda) certainly had a notebook (which I saw at a distance) and in the address book were the Brodies. The weak link is we do not know for sure that the cousin mentioned the Boston cousins to my grandfather, but I think my grandfather would have divined their existence if not have ever known, heard or recalled the name.

My father's mother saw very little of her paternal side and I cannot imagine she knew any second cousins on that side. (Although one of her paternal cousins must have met the ones in Liverpool, the Draycotts and Hugheses, at a funeral in the 1930s.) Her mother emerged with a cousin briefly before we discounted him. I even had a note that there were no maternal cousins. There were, thanks to our out-of-wedlock origins which emerged in 2021. My grandmother (born 1905) actually has a second cousin, of the half-blood, still living, in Ontario, at the time of writing. Her niece took a DNA test.

My father's mother (continued). Can you tell she is my favourite line? She wrote about her family origins in hardly any depth at all. She knew her mother's second cousin Lilla, as this lady had married her uncle and attended my grandparents' own wedding in 1930. Her Grandmother's first cousin sent some postcards on this occasion as well. And in addition there was a postcard from another of her mother's second cousins (on a third line) sitting in the family trunk, which I found 100 years after it was sent.

My mother's father knew tonnes of his second cousins. There was Cyril (his mother's mother's side), Jean and her sister (his mother's father's side), the entire Harris clan (his father's mother's side) but especially the chicken farmer's wife. Ironically one of the last of his second cousins was Miss Hebbard (born 1928), however this lady was the granddaughter of great-aunt Mrs Mary Hebbard, and we never knew any of her family. They did not leave nearby. There was a note on the family tree she had 'married Mr Hubbard of Morriston' which was almost true. My grandfather had no real idea how the cousins all connected being the baby of the family.

My mother's mother. Funnily enough, although this is the line I worked first being the easiest, I really think the answer here has to be no. (Her eldest brother, my great-uncle - a comfortable networker with motive and opportunity - knew a good deal of them, but I am confident they were not discussed.)

So the answer is: yes if he wanted to (but not interested); not really (but mother's second cousins = yes), definitely and no.

Hereford to Manchester by Wills, Probate and Registers in 200 years, but not by Train

Hereford to Manchester

Here is the journey back from Manchester to Hereford, we are going through the generations.
(1) My great-grandmother Henrietta born 1875 Salford (grows up in Manchester) Lancashire
(2) Ellen Bagshaw born 1846 Eyam Derbyshire
(2) Millicent Bagshaw born 1826 Eyam Derbyshire
(3) Hannah Gee born 1792 Chesterfield Derbyshire
(4) Nathaniel Gee born 1768 West Bromwich Staffordshire
(5) parents of Nathaniel Gee marry 1767 Dudley Worcestershire. They were canal builders who would shortly depart to work on the Norwood Tunnel near Killamarsh, Derbyshire.
(6) Sarah Brasier born 1751 Kinver, Staffordshire
(6) Hannah Kidson born 1718 Kinver, Staffordshire

Kinver is at its closest point just 1.5 miles from the border with the county of Shropshire. Earlier Kidson family members certainly resided in Shropshire although we have not been able to make the connection.

(7) other Kidson family members resided in Shropshire, for example in the parishes of Claverley and Astley Abbotts

And so to Hereford: In 1742 the Will of Walter Kidson of Astley Abbotts, Shropshire was proven at Hereford, as much of Shropshire falls into the Diocese of Hereford.

We have reached our journey's end. It is possible that the Wills of certain earlier unknown ancestors of Hannah Kidson, in Shropshire, will similarly have been proven at Hereford. Perhaps if we go back to the 1670s or so.

We have come a long way from Manchester. There is in fact a train which will take you the whole journey back to Hereford, via Crewe, Shrewsbury and then through the Shropshire Hills. This journey took at least two hundred years, which is far slower than any train.

Postscript: I have added in Killamarsh to the map: the location of the Norwood Tunnel.

One-click wonder: who are you Mary Carroll born 1845 Ireland?

I was dead excited when cousin Olaf popped up as a match to me, and later to The Tester. At last a clue on my Irish Carroll line. Mary Carroll, below, had died leaving lots of children to mourn her loss and some doggerel was written by her grieving, ancient, widower, a Classics teacher.

I had asked my grandfather some extremely pertinent questions in the 1980s, which were not particularly well received but we didn't get on to grandmother Mary Carroll.

The widower neglected to include where she was from or any personal criteria about her in his rhymed work. But we do know she left lots of children. These have mostly now been rounded up by the genealogy process, and only one will have family. But who was Mary Carroll?

Olaf remains our closest match on this side, so we compare the two 'sisters' stories closely. I am still annoyed that his mother was still alive when I visited USA in 2015 as I normally exploit such biological impossibilities.

Evidence: Margaret's parents were Denis and Mary Carroll (Boston Cathedral marriage record)

Evidence: Mary's father was Denis Carroll farmer (Tipperary Town marriage record)

Margaret's husband was from Doneraile, Cork, Ireland. We can now see that:
Denis Carroll married in 1840 at Doneraile, Cork to Mary Healy and their daughters included:

Mary Carroll baptised 1843 Doneraile and Margaret Carroll baptised 1845 Doneraile

I am concluding that Mary Carroll ('born 1845 Ireland') was likely the daughter of this couple. But this is all a bit hazy logic and we really need something to lock it all together. Maybe if there was a Healy in the mix?

(There were biographical components which seemed to fit too. The Classics master was revealed with a brother-in-law that had sold books and a nephew that taught. And it seems we just must accept that Margaret produced her youngest child, the only one to have family, at the age of nearly 47. We have photographs but they lend no weight at all in any direction.)

Shared matches

Time marches on and we can see that both Lynette and Martin appear as shared matches to both The Tester and Olaf. Could they belong to my Carroll line as well? I do hope so. But how?

I spotted that Lynette's unlinked tree was fairly basic. In particular a recent forebear had very little information concerning them. So I CLICKED on the fabled 'search on Ancestry' button, one that I am now thoroughly recommending.

Suddenly we have gone from darkness to light:

And if you look closely you can see, voila!, a Healy. The resulting family tree looks like this:

The witness at the 1840 marriage of my (to-be-confirmed) Mary Healy was a Patrick Healy, so it is not impossible that the chap on the tree was her nephew or even a much younger brother.

I like the Healy connection as it adds weight to our previously flimsy Doneraile connection. I haven't combed through all the other testing sites, nor voraciously hunted down DNA segments from the distant past. I did attempt to cluster all my Irish matches - but irritatingly, what should have been two (or more) separate clusters from different parts of the Kingdom of Munster started to merge into one, so I abandoned that exercise fairly swiftly too.

It is commonly cited that Irish folk (e)migrate first and marry later. I wish it were otherwise but in effect all three of our protagonists have done exactly that from Doneraile: Mary to Tipperary Town (not a long way), Margaret to Boston (which is further) and Patrick seemingly to Virginia.

It really was a one-click wonder one morning when I idled around Lynette's DNA that gave us our answer to 'who are you Mary Carroll?'.

Note: As to the immediate discrepancy between Olaf's results (54cM shared) and Lynette's results (46cM shared), despite Lynette being apparently one or more generations remoter... this is likely a function of the fact that Patrick Healy (c 1837) has considerably more descendants than the two Carroll sisters put together. And the DNA-matching exercise allows the person who shares the most to 'bubble' to the top of the list. The Carroll sisters' offspring is a much smaller pool, so the chances of a top-matching 3rd cousin cousin are slimmer when fishing in that pool.

Time machine back to 1770

As the Royal Colony of North Carolina draws to a close, this is what's going on in Outlander.

"By late 1770, the Ridge had more than thirty families inhabiting the land under Jamie's sponsorship."

But what's going on in my family back in Britain?

1771/2: J. Gee and his wife leave Wolverhampton for the far north of Derbyshire to commence work on the Norwood Tunnel.

1770. Broad Joe Padfield in Somerset is still four years away from throwing his chair in the air: 'I believe!' 

1770. Margaret Rea turns ten somewhere in Scotland. Wish we knew where!

1770. The Bristol Channel's going to be swaying with Captain Rees Rees (22) taking his vessel out for the first time off the Glamorgan coast.

1770s. Irish boy William Hunter newly arrived in Cornwall, probably intending to return some day.

1770. Sarah Bond bustles over to Parson Woodforde in Ansford to get her late husband's gravestone sorted.

1770. It's a dozen years since their father drowned in a lighter in the River Towy. How are the family of Griffith Morton doing?

1770/1. A boy is born in a lead miner's cottage in the northern Peaks. It's a hundred years since the plague: the Bagshaws wonder earnestly if this their first child will survive.

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.