Reaping what you sow

After a February dominated by family history writing but very little blogging, I’m back with a vengeance for (what’s left of) March!

Back in December I wrote a post called A tale of two discrepancies about how I’d handled errors that I had noticed in other people’s trees on Ancestry. In my final paragraph, I said: I know I would certainly appreciate a gentle correction on anything I’ve got wrong in my tree...

Well, this weekend, I received one such gentle correction, and it was indeed very much appreciated!

The Ancestry member in question sent me a message guiding me to a parish marriage record that I hadn’t yet found – on a very useful website, forest-of-dean.net, which I can hardly wait to explore further  – for my direct ancestors Charles Hancocks and Comfort Green. This record contained a priceless nugget that would appear to thoroughly disprove one of my long-held family history theories, as outlined in my post H is for Hancock(s)/(x), and re-posted here:

Charles Hancocks was born in 1839, in Longhope, Gloucestershire. On the 1841 census he appears in the household of Thomas Hancox [sic] and his wife Ann, along with seven other children: Mary (b. 1822), Charlotte (b. 1827), James (b. 1829), Susan (b. 1831), Caroline (b. 1833), Sarah (b. 1835) and John (b. 1836). Ann is aged about fifty so it immediately struck me as unlikely that she is Charles’ mother.

This is borne out by the 1851 census, which seems to confirm that Mary Hancox is the mother of Charles; he is ostensibly listed as son of the head of household, but an ink marking linking him to Mary in the row above seems to indicate that he is her son. She is listed as unmarried and the daughter of Thomas and Ann, so presumably Charles is illegitimate.

However, the marriage of Charles and Comfort gives Thomas and Ann as Charles’ parents.

My helpful contact also adds that there is an 1839 baptism for Charles, which was originally under the name of George Hancocks but has subsequently been corrected to Charles. It also confirms that Thomas and Ann are his parents. I’m still surprised that Ann gave birth at such an age (she was forty-eight in 1839, if the census is to be believed), but happy to concede that it is possible. Certainly, it seems most unlikely that Thomas and Ann would lie and baptise a child as their own if he was in fact their daughter’s illegitimate son. It’s definitely not something I’ve ever heard of happening.

Obviously I want to check out all of these new records for myself so that I’m satisfied that my theory is disproven – but I’ll be overjoyed if it is, as it means I can continue to follow my mum’s paternal line to wherever it may lead me....

L x

Releasing my inner writer

I love words. I am an editor after all. However, I had never really thought of myself as much of a writer, until I started this blog. As it turns out, I have found writing so rewarding, and hopefully I’m not too bad at it! It’s also useful for organising my thoughts and helping me work out where to go next in my research. I also mentioned in my Spring Clean post that I was planning to write a sort of narrative for each ancestor, and I do still intend to do this.

However, this month I have taken up the Family History Writing Challenge, run by Lynn Palermo of the Armchair Genealogist blog. It’s basically designed to motivate you to write your family history, in whatever form you choose. You basically commit to writing a certain number of words every day throughout February, and by the end of it you should have at least made a significant start on whatever you’re aiming to achieve.

I have committed to writing 500 words a day. I’m writing from a very personal perspective, so that I can both document my ancestor’s lives and my research journey at the same time, in much the same way as I do in this blog – indeed, I’m using many of my blog posts to supplement my new writing as I go. I was quite late in joining in the challenge and I didn’t really have any time to plan. So, I just dived in and started what Lynn describes as ‘writing ugly’ – i.e. not worrying too much about making my writing pretty, just dumping my ideas on the page.

I started by focusing on my home town, exploring my own memories of it and its role in my family’s history. I then moved on to examine how the various branches of the family moved to the area, as far back as my great grandparents, which is allowing me to tell some of the stories behind my immediate ancestors i.e. my grandparents and their families.

It’s day 12 today, I’m progressing well, and am currently about 1,000 words ahead of my target, mostly because I can’t bring myself to stop mid-story so I keep finishing a bit and finding I’ve gone a little bit over my intended limit for the day – but, hey, it’s all progress!

The difficulty is that I’m not sure how I’m going to get beyond this first section. On the one hand I’d like it all to flow smoothly from one section to the next, and I can always find a link at the end of a chapter to take me on to talk about something else in my family history, but I’m concerned about it becoming impossible for anyone reading it to follow the thread as I jump around the family, so I probably need to think more about the organisation of my material. However, I think I’ll just stick with brain-dumping for now; I can always worry about how to fit it all together later.

I hope to keep the blog updated with my progress and also possibly share a few excerpts, as soon as I write something I haven’t talked about on here before!

I do have a mini research project going on at the moment as a favour for someone, which is yielding some fascinating results, but as it’s not my research I’m not really in a position to share it. However, I will say that it has introduced me to the interesting resource of the Commonwealth War Graves, which I’ve never had recourse to before. They are incredibly useful and well-documented, so I’m most impressed. I’m almost a bit disappointed that I don’t know of any close military ancestors to track down using them.  Also, if anyone has any clue where I can get hold of Maltese BMD/parish records without actually going to Malta it would be a huge help!

L x

Another Hall marriage found?

As my descendancy progresses, I’ve come back around to my own line, the Halls. Because the name is so common, sorting out the marriages and children of the siblings of my 2 x great-grandmother Mabel Hall is proving tricky.

The first one I found, a long time ago, was Mona Hall’s marriage to Stanley Arthur May, and the births of their two children, the unusually named Monica Urania May and Stanley Errol May. I got lucky with this one, because family friend Brenda, who provided me with most of my starter info for this line, was able to remember Mona’s married name, and knew of her son, whom Brenda believed to be called Errol. Armed with this info, it didn’t take me long to unravel the May mystery – though it wasn’t helped by Mona having decided to sometimes go by the name Edith, her middle name!

After that I stalled slightly, until I found actress Amy Hall on the 1911 census, which informed me that she was married, despite the fact that she was still using her maiden name (probably because this is the name she performed under). With nothing else to go on, I’m still no closer to tracking this one down, but at least I know that there is something to be tracked down, which is a start! I also know from the 1911 census that the final sister, Marion Hall, was unmarried in 1911. There is a possible late marriage for her, but this is still speculative until I order the certificate, so I won’t go into it here.

The last, and only male, sibling, Henry V Hall is something of a mystery. The V is presumed to stand for Victor, as it is this name that he uses on the obituary message that he, Amy and Marion write for their father in the Stage in 1922. The only other leads I have also came from Brenda. When I was initially gathering info on this side of the family, she told me that my great-grandmother Victorine had a cousin, Matt Hall, who, she believed, lived in or around Bristol. However, it’s only today that I’ve made a breakthrough using this information.

First I searched on freebmd for all the births of a Matthew Hall between 1905 and 1925 – the choice of dates was fairly arbitrary but seemed a realistic starting point. Then I opened a separate tab and search for all the marriages of a Henry V Hall between these same dates. Unfortunately this only produced one marriage, of a Henry Voss Hall. So, I started again, just with Henry. Then I began cross-referencing the spouse’s and mother’s name looking for anything that remotely paired up.

There were a couple of names that cropped up across both sets of data, but these were fairly common names and the places and dates didn’t particularly match up with one another. Nor did they strike a chord with what I know about this branch of my family. Many of the Halls seemed to be born around the North East, which wasn’t a particularly strong location for my family, although Matthew Hall senior, Mabel’s father, lived there for a time from his childhood, and presumably some of his siblings would have settled there, particularly those from his father’s second marriage to a local woman, Mary Ann Wimbles.

I hadn’t completely discounted it though, because Henry Victor Hall is in fact staying in the area at the time of the 1901 census – I assumed it was because he was travelling as a performer, but I suppose it’s possible that he could have been more rooted in the area. In fact, it occurs to me as I write this that he might even be staying with a relative of his father’s...  I’d never thought of that before, I must investigate further. You see, this is what I mean about how blogging helps me think more clearly!

Anyhow, without anything particularly strong to go on, I decided that the next thing to do was to check the 1911 census for Matthew Halls with a father named Henry, on the assumption that it must be one of the earlier marriages and births for which the spouse and mother’s surnames aren’t given.

However, I was then struck by another thought – that I should check for marriages of a Victor Hall – after all, if this was how Victor signed himself in 1922, then he might have used this name on his marriage as well. And this was when I struck gold.

I quickly identified that there was a marriage between a Victor H Hall and a Mary J / Josephine Rooney in Stoke on Trent in 1922 (to clarify, there are two separate entries, one for a Mary J Rooney, and one for a Josephine Rooney – both give Hall as the name of their spouse, but a quick check confirms that there is only one Hall on the page), and a birth for a Matthew V Hall to a Rooney mother in West Derby in Q4 1923. It struck me as a strong possibility because

1. The initials make sense – Henry Victor has reversed his name to become Victor Henry (and of course we have an example of him going by the name Victor that same year), while the V following Matthew must surely also be for Victor, after his father?

2. There are both Stoke on Trent and West Derby connections in the family line – Stoke on Trent was where Matt Hall was based for many years, and where I suspect Marion married that same year. And West Derby crops up time and again as the registration district across the Geoghegan line, suggesting strong family connections in the area.

I’ve suggested previously that I believe the Hall children kept in contact with their mother’s family even following the divorce of their parents, based on the fact that Charles Bennett (son of Kathleen Birchall Geoghegan’s closest sister in age, Annie Birchall Geoghegan) was staying with his cousin Marion on the 1911 census.

I was optimistic at this point, but not fully convinced. I decided to search for further possible births from this marriage, and came up with four possibilities, two of which carry further weight in the argument.

The first was the birth of a Kathleen Hall to a Rooney mother in Q4 1922 in West Derby, a year before the birth of Matthew. Kathleen, as I mentioned above, was the name of Henry/Victor’s mother.

The second was the birth of a Josephine Hall in 1926 in Bolton –presumably named for her mother, but perhaps also tipping a hat to her grandfather Joseph Bryan Geoghegan. Bolton is another location with strong family ties.

The two other births that I suspect might belong to this family are Ronald Hall in 1930 and Maureen Hall in 1933, both in the registration district of Leeds North. At first I wasn’t convinced that these were connected, but I compared all the Hall-Rooney marriages and all the children born to Hall-Rooney parents, and there’s really no other marriage to account for these children. so, unless they were born out of wedlock, I have to assume that there’s a move to the Leeds area by the Hall family between 1926 and 1930.

This would have them moving to Yorkshire shortly before Henry/Victor’s niece Victorine moved with her family from Romford to Wakefield, just a few miles from Leeds, between 1933 and 1936. Victorine’s move would eventually bring her mother, Henry/Victor’s sister Mabel, up north as well. Victorine’s son was also named Victor, which I think speaks of the close family ties between the Hall siblings – useful perhaps, in that finding one should always lead me to the others eventually!

All in all, I’m convinced that I have got the right people here. There can be no question that Matthew, Kathleen and Josephine, at least, are the children of the marriage I identified between a Victor H Hall and Mary J/Josephine Rooney. (I would need to order certificates or find some further evidence to be sure that Ronald and Maureen were also their children.)

And the coincidences of children’s names and places are, I think, too striking for this not to be the marriage of Mabel’s brother Henry. What do you think?

L x

From looking at old photographs: 3. Mystery Wedding

Mystery number three is more recent. I came across a lovely photograph of my dad’s parents, John Newby and Fay Rayner, with my grandfather’s parents, the mysterious Walter Newby and Margaret Thompson, pictured outside the front door of what appears to be a church. I then found another photograph clearly taken at the same event: the same church appears, and all four are wearing the exact same outfits, down to the headband/fascinator worn by Fay.

The event in question is a wedding. The second photograph quite possibly pictures all of the wedding guests; it is a very large group photo. Given that two generations of the family are in attendance, and that the photograph was kept for such a long time, it seems likely that it’s the wedding of a family member or a very close family friend. Of course, I’m now determined to come up with a probably identity for the bride and groom, so let’s look at the evidence:

No date is given, but I can fairly easily deduct that it was most likely taken some time in the late 1950s. My grandparents married in the summer of 1956, and separated when my dad (b. 1963) was aged two or three, so it couldn’t have been much later than 1965-ish. To my (admittedly clueless) eye, the fashions look more fifties or early sixties, so I’m leaning towards earlier rather than later in the period 1956–66

On their marriage, my grandmother was only seventeen, though my granddad was older at twenty-four, and I’m under the impression that it all happened fairly quickly. With that in mind, I think it’s unlikely that this photograph was taken before their marriage. My dad’s oldest sister was born around a year later in June 1957. The next child, a daughter, was born in October 1958, her third child, a son, in the summer of 1960, and finally my dad in August 1963.

Given the young age of my grandmother in this photograph, I would assume it was taken within a couple of years of their wedding. As she’s not visibly pregnant in the photograph, I would be inclined to rule out the periods of early 1957, mid- to late 1958, and early 1960. So, we’re looking at either the first half of 1956, the July 1957 to spring 1958, or any time during 1959.

I think it’s doubtful from their ages in the photograph that it was taken much later than that, but as I can’t be sure, I have to consider the possibility that it was taken some time from late 1960 to the end of 1962, or even after the birth of my dad, into the mid-sixties.  However, I’d still guess earlier rather than later.

The next thing is location. Now, ordinarily identifying a church on the basis of an image of its front door, given that it could be taken almost anywhere in the country, might be rather tricky. The church has a sort of triangular shaped ‘porch’, with the church sign (too small to read, even with my trust magnifying glass) affixed to it. However, we’re helped somewhat by the presence of a pub with a clearly legible sign in the background: The New Inn. One of the photographs is taken from a slightly different angle, and we can also see the side of a building, probably a house, alongside the pub.

I’ve started with the likelihood that the church was fairly local to my grandparents, somewhere in the Wakefield area. It can’t be proven of course, but I needed a starting point for investigation and close to home seems sensible, especially as the families in question had all been fairly local for a couple of generations by now as far as I know.

I asked my dad about local pubs by this name, and one suggestion was at Durkar, roughly five miles from my home town of Horbury, where John and Fay were living at Sunroyd Hill in the early years of their marriage. Google informs me that the New Inn at Durkar is located on Denby Dale Road East. A search for churches in the vicinity reveals the Primitive Methodist church a short way down the road. The nearest C of E church is too far away. However, this brick building doesn’t look right – I would have said it was stone (bearing in mind I don’t have access to the photograph and I’m doing this from memory) – and I can’t see the triangular-shaped entrance porch. Also, studying  the relative locations of pub and church on both Google Maps and Geograph convinced me that the church was too far from the pub for its sign to have been visible in the photograph – indeed, I’m not convinced that the pub would be visible at all from the church. Also, looking the pub, it doesn’t quite look right.

So, I tried a generic search for pubs called the New Inn located in West Yorkshire, and then scanned the images and locations for likely candidates. And, by Jove, I think I’ve got it! There is a pub called the New Inn on Shay Lane in Walton, roughly 6½ miles from Horbury. And, whitin the first few Google images, I found this image With the caption: The Methodist Church, view towards the New Inn, Shay Lane. There is the stone building with triangular porch and a sign affixed to the wall. And there is the pub, clearly visible in the background – at least from this angle. The pub does look sort of right, if my memory serves me. I am a little concerned that this pub is still a bit too far away. The foliage beyond the front door, in the middle distance between the two, wasn’t there (the tree might have been), but that could have been planted later.

However, I’m not sure whether there’s enough space between the door and the wall and railings for my photograph to have been taken there, unless they are also later additions. This is possible, though they do look quite old. I haven’t been able to find any older photographs of the church to check this. I suppose an older local person might remember, or I might have to try a local publication. I could even contact the church and ask if they know when they were added.

Overall, I’m about 90% confident I’ve found the right church. My dad knows the entire area very well, as he drives around it for work, so I intend to ask him what he thinks – he might even be able to take the photograph with him on his travels and do the comparison for me.

I’m very intrigued by the fact that this was a Methodist church. Though my home town has quite a strong Methodist tradition, the only evidence I have of any kind of Methodist leanings in my family is that my dad’s older sister got married in the recently demolished Methodist church in Horbury in the late seventies. I wonder if there was a hint of Methodism on my dad’s side after all – after all, I’ve only scratched the surface on his grandfather Walter’s side. And, given the presence of Walter and his wife, it seems likely that this wedding was on his side of the family. However, Margaret and Walter married in an Anglican church.

So, who got married at Walton Methodist church in the 1950s? I'll certainly be checking out Ancestry's Yorkshire non-conformist records, though I'm not sure how up-to-date they come.

It’s definitely not the marriage of Fay’s brother Leslie Gordon Rayner, as his wife was an Italian Catholic. Plus, I would definitely recognise them.

It could possibly be the marriage of John’s brother Trevor Newby, who married Brenda Hartley in the first quarter of 1958. It fits into my schedule of likely dates. However, I think my dad would have recognised them in the image. On the other hand, Walton falls under the Lower Agbrigg registration district in which their marriage was registered, so perhaps I’ll get him to take another look.

Alternatively, it could be a cousin. Walter had, I believe, four brothers: (you can find out more about this on Another Piece of the Puzzle), while Margaret was one of twelve children?. I think I need to devote some time to chasing down the marriages of the various siblings and see if I can figure out who it could be!

L x

From looking at old photographs: 2. Dad’s Army?

Continuing the military theme of part 1, among the photographs from my dad’s side of the family is a rather rag-tag-looking group of a dozen or so men in military uniform. The only information given is a date: 1939.

When I asked my dad if he knew what the connection was, he had no idea, but on closer inspection he remarked that to him they looked more like home guard. Certainly the uniforms look incomplete, except that most of their hats match up, and they’re certainly not dressed to military standards. Also, my dad pointed out that there were some older men in the photograph, whom you wouldn’t necessarily expect to have been the first to be going off to war – not ancient, but certainly in their late thirties and early forties at least. However, there were also some much younger men mixed in amongst them. Unfortunately research quickly informed me that the Home Guard weren’t actually formed until 1940, so that rules that out. I suspect that this is an off-duty photograph, and so that explains the slightly unruly state of dress!

After much studying of this and other photographs with a magnifying glass, I think that the man front and centre of the photograph is my great grandfather, the formerly enigmatic Walter Newby. Though most of the other photographs we have of him are taken from a greater distance, and when he was much older, I can see a similarity particularly in his quite prominent chin, which has a deep horizontal line across it. My father never knew his grandfather, who died relatively young, so he’s only ever seen him in photographs. However, the entire family agreed that there was a resemblance between this man and others of Walter. (Though perhaps that was just to stop me thrusting the magnifying glass at them and asking questions!)

As I noted in my post V is for Victory, Walter would have been thirty-five when war broke out and therefore was likely to have seen active service. I’d say that was consistent with the age of the man in the photograph as well. His marriage certificate tells us that he was a motor driver before the war, and so perhaps he continued to work as a military driver as well?

I need to have a hunt around Ancestry’s military records for clues about Walter’s time in the military, methinks!

L x

From looking at old photographs: 1. George Jones

Last weekend I had a lovely extended stay with my parents, mainly for the purposes of Christmas shopping with my mum. However, while I was there I also had a hunt through some old photograph albums. I’ve seen all of these pictures before, of course, but they really come alive after making some progress, particularly on my paternal side.

Unfortunately I have no means of scanning any of the images at the moment, and of course they’re all at my parents, but I intend to get some copies made, and eventually get myself a scanner too – it’s shameful for a ‘serious’ genealogist to be without one! However, I thought I’d write a few posts about some of the images I found. In particular, the ones that provided more questions than answers...

First up, a copy that my mum had made of a photograph that is in fact in the possession of my father’s cousin. It is believed to show George Jones, the second husband (?) of my 2x great-grandmother Mabel Hall. Firstly, I question ‘husband’, because no one seems to be entirely convinced that they were married. However, Mabel’s death was registered with the name Jones, and I have found a potential marriage in Tunbridge Wells in the 1930s. This certificate is on my list of urgent things to order.

I believe they did marry in the 1930s, following the death of Mabel’s first husband William Hedgcock AKA Hayward, whom she had never divorced. Mabel and William’s daughter, my great-grandmother Victorine, was born in 1913, but Mabel must have left William (apparently an alcoholic) not long after this, and then quickly met George Jones, as Victorine apparently grew up believing that George was her father.

The photograph is professionally taken, apparently coming from a series of photographs of aviators. The name of the photographer is given, but I forgot to make a note of it. George Jones stands beside one of those really old-fashioned planes, in what can best be described as typical WW1 flying gear (need to swot-up on my military history!). On the back of the original, George addresses the photocard to ‘to my darling “Little Wife”’.

Though they apparently didn’t marry until the 1930s (if at all), “Little Wife’ is generally believed to be Mabel. She was later known as ‘Little Nana’. Indeed there is another photograph of Mabel’s son-in-law Les in WW2 military uniform addressed to her as such.

(Given that Mabel’s sister, the actress Amy Hall was on one play poster described as ‘the pocket Vesta Tilley’, I suspect that all of the Hall sisters were small of stature!)

Beyond the question of whether this is indeed George Jones and whether or not he was married to my great-great-grandmother Mabel, is another question: Was he really a WW1 pilot? The way forward would be Ancestry’s military records, or the Royal Aero Club Aviators' Certificates, 1910–1950, also to be found on Ancestry, but I’m not sure how far I’ll get without further information – certainly nothing stands out on a basic search at the moment. Ideally I would need a birth record, as you can search the Aviators’ Certificates on birth date, but that may take me a while to track down given how common his name is!

I’m also a little concerned about the timings. Mabel’s daughter with William was born in February 1913, which doesn’t leave much time before the war for her to meet George. Even if you accept that he quite likely didn’t join up straight away, there is evidence in the form of a playbill that William and Mabel ere performing in the same theatre troupe (and thus presumably still married) in June 1916, which squeezes the timescales further. On the other hand, if Victorine really did grow up believing George Jones was her father, as the story goes, then George and Mabel can’t have met much after early 1917, as Victorine would have been old enough to know her real father by then, surely?

Or perhaps George wasn’t a military aviator but a 1920s pilot? Though whether this was then really a ‘career’ I’m not sure?  Everyone who looks at the photograph seems to assume it’s First World War and it certainly can’t be much later than that (because of his age apart from anything else), but there’s no date or anything visibly military on there either. Perhaps I need to do some comparisons with other military photos from the period for more info?

The rest of George Jones’ story is equally muddy. Most of what I know about him was told to me by old family friend Brenda, who first furnished me with enough information to get started on my dad’s side of the family. Apparently, he later went to work as a chauffeur in America (Detroit, possibly?), where he was sadly killed in a car accident while working. His employers, a wealthy American couple I seem to remember, wrote a letter to George’s widow Mabel, which she kept for the rest of her life. Brenda saw this letter in the early 1960s, when she first befriended the family and shortly before Mabel died. Sadly, though unsurprisingly, we no longer have it, and therefore the fate of George Jones is perhaps lost forever. The dates are woolly (anytime from mid-1930s to early 1960s), and I have no idea why George was in America instead of at home in England with his wife. Though of course, perhaps she was out there with him? It is only the fact of them having written a letter that gives me impression that she was still living in England.

It’s an intriguing half-story that certainly needs some further investigation!

L x

Remember, remember...?

So, I was planning on making this, my 100th blog post, rather more reflective, but I will postpone that until next time in order to concentrate on some rather more timely subject matter – Bonfire Night.

The reason for this is that there is an old family rumour that one of my ancestors was in some way involved with the Gunpowder Plot. Exciting as this may seem, as yet I have found no evidence that it is actually true.

The rumour originates from my paternal family, but I haven’t been able to narrow it down much beyond that, which means 50% of my ancestral lines are currently implicated.  If I was ever to narrow this down – or even get that far back on most of these lines – I’d be very impressed, and I don’t hold much hope, to be honest. However, it is rather interesting to consider that if the rumour were true it would imply Catholic recusant ancestors, and the recusancy rolls are a potential source of information that I am aware of, many thanks to my degree, so you never know...

In an attempt to possibly suggest where the connection might be, I have looked in a little more detail at the plot and two potential connections immediately present themselves:

One possibility is the Wintour, or Winter,brothers, Robert and Thomas, who were among the key plotters. The name Winter occurs in my Father’s maternal line, which is where I sort of get the impression the story comes from (though I can’t be certain).

If it were on my father’s maternal line, the Winters would seem the most likely candidates. The Rayners came from Ireland in the early 1800s and so that’s half of my great-grandfather’s side accounted for. On my great-grandmother’s side, again we can discount the Geoghegan line, which also came from Ireland, and I have enough second-hand information on the Hall line back into the 1600s to suggest that they’re improbable. It really only leaves either the ancestors of Emma Winter (both of her parents were also Winters, quite probably related) on my great-grandfather’s line or the ancestors of William Kipping Hedgecock on my great-grandmother’s line.

The possible problems with the Winter connection are that Winter is a fairly common name, so alone it is hardly compelling evidence. This is further compounded by the fact that Wikipedia tells me that historian Antonia Fraser (for whom I have great respect) in her book about the Gunpowder Plot (which I may have to purchase) points out that the brothers never used the spelling Winter themselves; it is usually found spelt Wintour or Wyntour. Obviously, spelling was quite variable back then, and I suppose it was still relatively fluid by the time I encounter my Winters in the nineteenth century. However, my Winter ancestors are consistent in the spelling of their name, which doesn’t really help my case.

Further to this, the location is wrong – the Wintour brothers came from the West Midlands, whereas my Winters were based in Surrey. Again, though people did move around, the location evidence hardly helps any argument for this being the connection, so I have to concede it isn’t likely.

A stronger possibility, I have to concede, is on an entirely different branch of my family, which has strong roots in the right area. My Buswell line as far back as I’ve been able to trace it originates around Whichford in Warwickshire, before migrating southwards into Chipping Norton and Banbury. Whichford is roughly thirty miles from Coughton, the base of the Throckmorton family, to whom many of the Gunpowder Plotters were related or connected. Though it’s not particularly close, it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine part of the family moving a relatively small thirty miles over a couple of hundred years, and/or being connected by marriage to a family within such an area.

The problem with this possibility is that the Buswells feed into my Thompson/Newby line, which is my paternal grandfather’s side, and as I say, if anything I had the impression that the connection was on my dad’s maternal line.

On his paternal line, I can discount the Thompsons, also Irish, and the other possibilities are the Newbys/Wallingers, about whom I know too little to guess either way.

What I can say without any hesitation is that nowhere in my family lines have I encountered anyone who can seriously be called a gentleman of the rank that the Gunpowder Plotters were (with the exception, perhaps, of William Kipping), so whichever branch it was, they must have had some financial problems somewhere along the line!

Just to be clear, this is all very much conjecture, just for the fun of it. I have absolutely no evidence that this particular rumour is even true, never mind the means to identify the ancestor! Indeed, many such rumours do turn out to me completely untrue, or at least exaggerated considerably. Given that my most famous real ancestor’s granddaughter ­– J. B. Geoghegan, grandaughter Mabel Hall – only died in the 1960s and yet the man was never mentioned, it would seem improbable that a true story so much older would survive!

I think the most likely explanation is that my ancestors may have ‘supported’ the plot – i.e. they were recusant Catholics, hoping to put a Catholic monarch on the throne ­– rather than being actively involved in it, and over time, this expression of support became exaggerated into something more sinister.

That said, I have no evidence whatsoever for any kind of recusancy or nonconformity in my family either. Almost all of my ancestors baptised their children, married and were buried in the Church of England (despite the fact that many of them lived in strongly Methodist areas). Beyond that, I have found no evidence of anyone actively involved in the church or showing any strong faith. As a fair complement of my ancestors was Irish, some of them may have had a catholic background, but that wouldn’t really tie in with the Gunpowder Plot in any case. The vast majority of them seem happy to tow the Anglican line, to be honest!

It just goes to show that there’s only so much that genealogy can uncover. The vast majority of our family history must remain unknown, and many of the myths must remain unresolved. It’s rather nice to have the possibility that I really do have such an exciting background, though, and with a bit of luck I might one day make the breakthrough that proves or disproves it!

L x

The teeny tiny fruits of a teeny tiny breakthrough

I was using the 1911 census on Ancestry a few days ago, when I noticed something: Occupations appear in the transcribed information.

This interesting for 2 reasons. For one thing, it isn’t always the case for censuses that it does, and I like having it there for easy reference. (Especially at work, where I can’t see census images due to lack of flash – most annoying when I’m trying to do a bit of research in my lunch hour.)

The real reason this intrigued me, though, was that if it’s transcribed then it will show up in a search, and this fact opens up new options for locating people whom I couldn’t find back when I was using the original 1911 census website. In particular, my Hall family have generally been most tricky to locate, because of their peripatetic lifestyle as music-hall performers. In 1911, I only had two out of the five children – Mona and what I believe to be Marion ­­– and had not found their father either.

So, I put the 1911 occupation search to the test on the remaining three: Mabel (my 2x great grandmother), Henry Victor and Amy, as well as their father Matthew. No luck with either of the first two, or with their dad. But, with Amy I came up trumps.

Now Amy has always been a matter of some frustration. Of all the siblings she does seem to have had the most prolific career, which I have tracked steadily through mentions in the Stage publication.

Born in 1879, by November 1887, at the age of eight, Amy is already forging her stage career with performances as Jim in Saved From The Streets with the W. H. Sharpe company. She then takes up a position with the Rass Challis company from around 1893. There is a bit of a gap for her in the Stage archives between 1890 and 1892, but she was definitely still touring on the 1891 census. Between 1893 and 1895 – again, there’s a bit of a gap – she moves to the Leopold Brothers company, and stars in various production, including  the long-running show Frivolity. I have also found evidence of performances alongside her sister Mona between 1904 and 1906, and a slot in her father’s production Unknown in 1896 at his Music Hall. Her career stretches into the 1920s, when she would have been in her forties. But, despite all this, finding out anything about Amy’s private life has been utterly hopeless. Until now.

The 1911 census was taken on the night of Sunday 2 April. From the Stage archives, I knew that Amy was performing in Brighouse, just three days previously, but she certainly wasn’t there by the time the census was taken!

Now, searching for Amy Hall born 1879, Liverpool, with ‘actress’ in the keywords box, threw up the following: Amy Hall, born about 1880, Liverpool, an Actress. She is staying in Chorlton, Lancashire, in the household of a Mrs White, some of whose children and grandchildren have the surname Elliott (I have yet to unravel the relationships in this household). Also lodging there is a married couple, Horatio and Annie White, both also actors.

She gives her name as Amy Hall. But intriguingly she says she is married . So, it doesn’t give me much clue, and there’s no sign of anyone who might be her husband, but apparently she is married – I’d always wondered. Like her sister Mona, it seems she continued to use Hall as her (stage?) name. Now I just have to find the marriage record – no mean feat. However, it’s one of the very few tidbits of information I do have about her personal life, so it’s very welcome.

Plus, I can add the Sinclairs to my list of connected theatrical people to look out for on my travels; you never know when they might come in handy.

I’m now wondering whether Amy might have had children as well, and also considering whether gaps in her career might tally with marriage and/or pregnancy. On the basis that Amy was about old enough to marry from the age of 16, anytime from mid-1895 onwards is plausible. Looking at gaps in mentions in the Stage, there are holes from December 1895 to Jun 1896; March to Aug 1897, Jun 1899 to Aug 1900 and Nov 1906 to May 1907. From late 1907 the mentions slow down radically – there are none at all in 1910, for example. There are, I think two possibilities her.

One is that Amy did indeed marry sometime in the period Dec 1895 to Jun 1896, at the tender age of sixteen, and perhaps gave birth to a child in the gap between March and August 1897, and perhaps again in 1899–1900. On the other hand, perhaps she was rather young for this to be a strong possibility. Also, in 1896 Amy’s parents divorced, when her youngest sister Mabel was just five years old, and her father moved from his post s stage manager in Lincoln to the managerial position at the newly opened Burslem Hippdorome, so perhaps it was these family difficulties that kept the young Amy busy out of the limelight. You might even conjecture that perhaps the Stage diligently chose to avoid mention of the family at this difficult and potentially scandalous time for them, well-known as they were in the Music Hall community.

On the other hand, perhaps the possible slowing down of reports on Amy’s career from 1907 onwards is because she had a new family and responsibilities that kept her from the stage. She would have been in her mid-twenties by now, a much more likely age of a marriage, especially in someone so career-driven.

Of course, it can’t be proved that just because there were fewer mentions of her Amy’s career had slowed down, or that gaps meant she had stopped performing. As I previously mentioned, in 1891 she was on tour at the time of the census, and yet I have found no mentions at all of her in 1891 in the Stage. However, when you look at the frequency of entries at other times, it is hard to believe that the gaps have no significance. For example, there are thirteen mentions of Amy in various performances in 1898, and eleven mentions in 1901 – and yet from mid-1899 to mid-1900 there was nothing at all?

Whatever the truth of the matter, it never ceases to amaze me how the slightest bit of new information can reopen a mystery that you thought was pretty much a closed case. This just highlights the importance of improving the information available online, both in terms of getting new records digitised and in improving on the digitisation of those collections that do exist.

You can read more about Amy and her career in Fearless Females 2012: Shining stars

L x

Another piece of the puzzle

Of course, I’m referring to the puzzle of Walter Newby’s parentage. If you remember, I did find his mother Sarah Jane Newby, and his father Thomas Wallinger, but I had still spectacularly failed to find Walter himself on the 1911 census.

Now, I know that the census record itself isn’t the goal so much as finding detail to piece together Walter’s life, but I did feel quite strongly in this case that the census was really the only reliable source that would tell me something about Walter’s childhood and what happened to both him and his mother following his father’s death when he was just a year old.  

Given that I couldn’t find either of them under the names Newby or Wallinger anywhere on the census, or by tracing their families. I then began various searches to identify children of roughly the right age, called Walter, with mothers called Sarah also of roughly the right age. And yesterday (on my birthday no less), after lots of fruitless attempts, I finally struck what I hope is gold!

Walter Barker is aged six, giving him a birth year of 1905, which ties in nicely with a September 1904 birthdate – in April 1911 when the census he would indeed have been aged six. He was born in Wakefield, which is a strong match for his birthplace of Snapethorpe. His mother Sarah Barker is 34, meaning she was born roughly around 1877, which is a match, and her birthplace is given as Kellington, which is also a direct match.

Her husband Henry Barker, is aged 38 (b. around 1873). He works as a ‘cowman’ on a farm and the family live in Hemsworth, which is roughly halfway between Wakefield and Doncaster.  Yet Henry was born in ‘Ardsley, Wakefield’, which is to the north of the city, on the way to Leeds.

Sarah Barker claims to have been married to her husband Henry for eleven years, and they have three other children – Tom, aged nine, Charles, aged eight, and Albert aged three. Of course, none of this makes much sense in the context of what I know about Sarah Jane and Walter – Sarah Jane certainly can’t have been married for eleven years, because she was still Newby on the birth certificate of Walter in 1904.

However, this is where it gets interesting: The census states that Tom and Charles Barker were born in Blackpool – where we know that Sarah Jane and Thomas Wallinger were living in 1901, and where it would seem Thomas died in 1905.

So, here’s the theory: Walter was not Sarah Jane and Thomas’s first child – I had assumed he was. But I know they were living together from 1901 and Sarah Jane could potentially have been having children from the mid to late 1890s, so there was no reason to think that she/they hadn’t had other children. Tom (named for his father?) and Charles were born while the couple were living in Blackpool in 1902/03. By late 1904 they had returned to Yorkshire, where Walter was born. Following Thomas’s death in late 1905, Sarah, effectively widowed, met Henry Barker, giving birth to their first child Albert in 1908. (The census indicates only four children, all accounted for).

Alternatively, Tom and/or Charles were the children of Henry Barker from a previous marriage. Henry was in Blackpool, with his children, and it was here that he and Sarah Jane met following the death of her husband

On his marriage certificate, perhaps Walter took his own surname and combined the names of his father and stepfather to ‘invent’ a fictional Thomas Henry Newby? (This still doesn’t explain where the ‘market gardener’ came from, as it doesn’t really describe either father figure, though both were in farming at one time or another.)

Now to test the theories.

An initial search for relevant marriages shows a Sarah Jane Newby marrying a Henry Barker in Dewsbury... in 1922.

Dewsbury would make sense. Walter Newby marries Margaret Thompson in Chickenley just 7 years later, and the parish record describes him as ‘of this parish’, so he was living in the Chickenley area, which is in Dewsbury registration district, by 1929.

Did Sarah Jane and Henry not marry until 1922? If not, why not? Money? Or was Henry married already? (It reminds me of Mabel Hall, who couldn’t marry George Jones until later life when her estranged husband William Hayward (AKA Hedgcock) died. ) If so, why did they lie on the census? Sarah Jane and Thomas never lied about their marital status, so why would she do so now with Henry?

The next step is to order this marriage certificate and see if I can confirm that this is indeed my Sarah Jane, based on her father’s name and occupation and any marriage witnesses. It should also shed some light on Henry’s circumstances, whether he was previously married, etc. I also intend to search for potential births for Tom and Charles in Blackpool, and also Albert’s birth in Badsworth (not far from Hemsworth) and see what names their births were registered under.

I have quite a strong instinct that I’m on the right lines here, so fingers crossed!

L x

On the criminal element

I begin with a caveat, otherwise you might get something of the wrong idea: Thus far in my family history, my ancestors appear to have been generally decent, law abiding citizens (with the exception of Sarah Ann Semley, possibly).

However, I have begun investigating my newly identified Wallinger branch, and it would seem they are a BAD lot!

My 2 x great-grandfather Thomas Wallinger was born to parents William Wallinger, ag lab, and Alice (maiden name unknown) in Hanslope, Buckinghamshire in 1844. Alice was William’s second wife, and he would marry again in later life to Harriet Hensman. Eleanor gave William a son, George, and Alice went on to give him five more sons.

Two of Thomas’s brothers, Benjamin and Thomas (the elder, in memory of whom my Thomas was presumably named) died young, but some of the other Wallinger boys, it seems, were not the best behaved!

I’ve already talked a little about Thomas, who left his wife Charlotte for the much younger Sarah Jane Newby, with whom he had a son, my great grandfather Walter. The year after Walter was born Thomas was summoned to court for debt, and he died shortly afterwards. I still don’t know what happened to Sarah Jane and Walter. Until Walter married in 1929, his life is a mystery.

Thomas’s brother William was married to Rosannah Cook, with whom, presumably, he had his daughter Clara, in Yorkshire. On two censuses William is in jail, in London in 1871 and then in Surrey in 1881. As yet I’m not sure what he was convicted for.  I can only assume that he had abandoned his family. Rose ,as she appears on the 1861 census, completely disappears after this point. His daughter Clara, born 1860, is not present either, and nor does she appear again until 1891 when he elderly father is living with her and husband George Surby.

More shocking and intriguing though, is Peter Wallinger. In March 1845, at the grand old age of ten, he is convicted of arson – on ‘stacks of [illegible]’ – and sentenced to transportation for fifteen years. At this time transportation meant to Australia. This isn’t an area of genealogy I’ve encountered before, but initial searches don’t reveal any trace at all of Peter Wallinger following his conviction, either in Australia or the UK, so what happened to him is, for now, something of a mystery.

With more Wallinger brothers still to investigate, who knows what else they got up to?!

L x

Clifford: connection or coincidence?

So, I’ve set to work on the family of Sarah Jane Newby, and this time I’ve started as I mean to go on, trying my best to get a handle on all siblings and relevant parties in a methodical manner rather than getting sidetracked. I’m hoping that tracking down as many relatives as possible might lead me to where Sarah Jane and Walter are hiding on the 1911 census, but no luck so far.

However, my searches have revealed something else rather interesting – the recurrence of the name Clifford.

In 1896, Sarah Jane’s older sister Clara Newby marries a man with the surname Clifford. In 1911, Sarah Jane’s father Henry is living with the Clifford family.

Occurrence number two of the name is in 1895, when Sarah Jane’s mother Elizabeth’s brother, Mark Lockwood, christens his son Clifford Lockwood. My first thought was that this was a sort of family tribute, as I have started to notice a few reuses of names in the family. However, Clifford is baptised a year before Clara marries into the Clifford family. And Clifford definitely isn’t Mark’s wife’s surname, which was my other thought – so where did it come from?

Only two possibly unconnected occurrences in the immediate family so far. However, during my searches for the Newbys I have also come across a family of Clifford Newbys not too far away.

Strangely, though this is most likely a coincidence, I also note that Clifford has been used as a middle name for one of the Semleys – Charles Clifford Semley, nephew of my direct ancestor Sarah Ann Semley. And it is Sarah Ann’s granddaughter, Margaret Thompson, who goes on to marry Walter Newby in 1929.

Am I now facing one giant Newby/Lockwood/Clifford/Semley/Thompson knot? Or is it all just a big coincidence? Only genealogy will tell!

L x

The Newby mystery solved!

On Friday I finally received a birth certificate for Walter Newby.

I had ordered this certificate, registered Q4 1904 in Wakefield, on the basis that it was close enough to match the birth on the marriage certificate (circa 1905); it was in my home registration district (while I had no evidence that Walter was born there, he had married nearby and certainly died in Wakefield, so I had no evidence that he wasn’t born there either); and it seemed to be the only birth of a Walter Newby that I couldn’t account for.

The birth was registered in December. Here is the information as it appeared on the certificate:

Name: Walter Newby

Date of birth: 20 September 1904

Where born: Snapethorpe Farm, Lupset

Father’s name and occupation: Thomas Wallinger

Mother’s name and occupation: Sarah Jane Newby, Housekeeper Domestic
(at Snapethorpe Farm, Lupset, as the informant section went on to show)

As I had long suspected, it seems Walter was illegitimate!

Interestingly, this means that had Sarah Jane married Thomas Wallinger (the writing is quite legible, despite having been crossed out), my surname would have been Wallinger rather than Newby, which I find quite strange. Though at least it is an interesting surname!

Of course, now it was time to investigate Walter’s story. There were quite a few Sarah Jane Newbys and Thomas Wallingers, so it did take a bit of searching and unravelling before I could get the full picture, and there are still lots of things to learn, but here goes.

Sarah Jane Newby was born in in around 1877 in Kellington, Yorkshire (which is to the east of Pontefract, out towards Goole). Her parents were Henry Newby and Elizabeth Lockwood, both of whom were also local. Henry worked as a farm labour in his younger days, before working in a malthouse. Sarah Jane was the fifth of ten known children.

Thomas Wallinger was born in Hanslope, Buckinghamshire, some thirty-three years before Sarah Jane. In 1876, around the time that Sarah Jane was born, Thomas married Charlotte Johnson, of Carlton le Selby, Yorkshire, less than ten miles from Sarah Jane’s place of birth.

How Thomas and Charlotte met is something of a mystery, but I can say that Thomas is not in his home town of Hanslope on the 1861 census, and instead is possibly lodging with a family in Treeton, a village now on the outskirts of Sheffield – in Yorkshire, but still well over thirty miles from Carlton. This is unproven as yet, though.

By 1901 both Thomas and his wife Charlotte are in Blackpool, running boarding houses – but apparently separately. Charlotte is alone in her household other than a servant, Alice Held, also born in Yorkshire.

And in the 1901 household of Thomas Wallinger is none other than Sarah Jane Newby and her younger sister Dinah. The relationships in this 1901 household have been mangled. Thomas is listed as ‘head’, Sarah Jane as ‘sister’ and Dinah as ‘servant’. Sarah Jane does give her occupation as housekeeper, however. It was only when I found this particular record that I could start to unravel both of their family backgrounds further.

By 1904, of course, Sarah Jane is back in Yorkshire, living about 15 miles from her home town at Snapethorpe Farm. A Thomas Wallinger appears to have died in Q2 1905 in the district of Fylde, Lancashire – so I thought he was probably still living in Blackpool.

However, when I googled Snapethorpe Farm out of curiosity, it came up with something from the London Gazette of 17 February 1905, namely a list of ‘First meetings and public examinations’ of debtors. Thomas Wallinger, Farmer, of Snapethorpe Farm, Wakefield was due in court on Mar 2 1905.

So perhaps Thomas and Sarah Jane both returned to Blackpool in spring of 1905, and then Thomas died. But what happened to Sarah Jane and Walter? And where on earth were Sarah Jane and Walter in 1911? I still can’t find anything on the census.

This story leaves a lot of unanswered questions, but it’s certainly a start! Hopefully more will be revealed as I investigate my exciting new Newby, Lockwood and Wallinger lines further...

L x

Where’s Wally?

If you happen to have seen my Twitter feed towards the end of last week, you might have detected a scuffle of excitement as I once again turned my attention to the saga that is my great grandfather Walter Newby and his father, the mysterious Thomas Henry. (If you want to catch up on the story so far, the easiest way is probably to scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the Newby tag, which should bring you all the related posts!)

Previously I had focused on finding Walter on the 1911 census, because I know that he should be aged about five at this point, and he must be alive somewhere. However, I can’t find him, either with his father or without!

Having had absolutely no luck with the son, I turned my attention to the father. My knowledge about Thomas Henry Newby is limited: He was a market gardener, and he was dead by the time Walter married in 1929. Of course, this means that I can’t even be sure that Thomas Henry was alive in 1911. But, I thought, perhaps I can find a Thomas Henry with a son of the right age who has been badly mistranscribed, explaining why my searches haven’t found him.

And, after a lot of searching, using various wildcards, I came up with something: Thomas Henry Norbury, nursery and seedsman.

 OK, so he doesn’t appear to have a son of the right age. But he is located in Clayton West, which is local, roughly ten miles from where Walter later marries. Though I don’t have any evidence to suggest that Walter was definitely born locally to where he later lived, nor do I have any reason to believe that he wasn’t. (It does give rise to questions about the assumptions one should make during a genealogical investigation...)

Now, Thomas Henry Norbury and his wife, Eleanor, have four living children in 1911 and one who has died. They have three children living with them on the census, none of which are Walter. I located them on the 1901 census, and there they have a fourth child. However, this could be the one who has died. Thus, possibly, Walter could be the elusive fifth?

One problem regarding this family is in fact that Eleanor is a little old to have a six-year-old son in 1911. But perhaps she isn’t his mother ... ? And of couse there’s the slightly bigger problem – where the heck is Walter in 1911?!

Of course, the Norburys could be a red herring, but with nothing else to go on, I reckon they’re worth investigating further. I’ll keep you posted...

L x

On my brief visit to the Forest of Dean

Last weekend I had occasion to travel to the Forest of Dean, which is about 30 miles out of Cheltenham, in the direction of South Wales. It’s an area I’ve never been to before, but it also happens to be where many of my supposedly ‘Welsh’ ancestors actually originated, before their move to Tredegar, South Wales, in the late nineteenth century. It was a somewhat impromptu visit, to meet my boyfriend’s mum, (who happened to be working there) and pick up some exciting post (on which more very soon, hopefully...!)

Anyhow, as it wasn’t organised, I hadn’t had the time to gather together what I needed in order to make it a research expedition, though I am planning to go back there for this purpose at some point – it’s almost inexcusable that I haven’t done so already, given how close it is! However, it did give me a chance to scope out the area, and I came away with some interesting impressions.

The Forest of Dean is a Crown forest of about 42 square miles and today attracts a lot of tourists, for the stunning woodland and outdoor pursuits such as walking and cycling. However, while it may sound like a rural idyll, in fact the area has a long history of mining, both for coal and iron. While there I also discovered that there was a gold mine in the north of the forest.

The forest has an interesting tradition of free miners – men who have have earned the right to mine for coal or iron on personal plots, known as Gales. The practice is regulated through a  unique system of rules, and some free miners continue to operate today. Here is the eligibility rule:

"All male persons born or hereafter to be born and abiding within the said Hundred of St Briavels, of the age of twenty one years and upwards, who shall have worked a year and a day in a coal or iron mine within the said Hundred of St Briavels, shall be deemed and taken to be Free Miners."

We arrived at a place called New Fancy View (a viewing point that was formerly a mine called New Fancy). Here there is a large ‘map’ set into the ground, showing the locations of all the mines in the Forest, numbered with a key giving their names. I found this really interesting, and of course it made me resolve to find out, if I can, where my ancestors worked, or where they may have worked. I don’t have any reason to believe that they were operating as Free Miners, from the censuses, though of course, it may not have been stated.

They did seem to move around the forest a lot, however, so I may be able to map this against the opening and closing of mines to see if I can see any pattern. And of course, they eventually began to drift off into South Wales. Interestingly, they did all seem to move to Wales, but not all at the same time – perhaps it became apparent that their family members were prospering there, and so one by one they began to follow them?

I was also struck by the names of the gales, many of which, like New Fancy view, were obviously locally named. Here are a few of my favourites: All Profit, Brazilly, Breadless, Mystery, Oddfellows Delight, Potlid, Strip And At It, Trafalgar, Tormentor, True Blue, Uncertainty.

While some of them are named optimistically, such as ‘All Profit’, or ‘True Blue’, others give a hint of the Free Miner’s life of hard work ­­– ‘Strip and At It’ –­ and instability– ‘Mystery’, ‘Uncertainty’, ‘Breadless’ or ‘Tormentor’. Others  are affectionate – ‘Oddfellows Delight’; patriotic – ‘Trafalgar’; or just plain incomprehensible – ‘Brazilly’ and ‘Potlid’!

I found this useful site, which allows you to browse known information about these gales. I’ve read a few, and some of this history is quite interesting, with what seems to be some personal testimony about the mines, such as this one, from the page about the gale ‘Uncertainty’:

“Colliery such a serious loss to me and other members of family.  My father involved us in difficulties in spending so much money to get coal out but found hardly any to be seen. “

However, there’s no sign of any of my ancestors at first glance, which probably means I was right that they weren’t working as Free Miners.

The towns and villages of the Forest are not particularly picturesque, having been mostly pit villages, and today they are areas or relative poverty. My boyfriend commented that they reminded him of the towns and villages of the Welsh Valleys, like Tredegar, where my grandfather was born. I agree, they do have the same feel to them, and after all, it was an area with the same mining heritage, and just over the border. In the Dark Ages, parts of the Forest of Dean might have been within the Welsh kingdoms of Gwent and Ergyng, and the boundary remained uncertain until Offa’s Dyke was built in around AD 790. I can imagine that movement between the two areas was frequent and family ties numerous.

This is really just a starting point for further research, but it definitely gave me a feel for the area I’m dealing with.

L x

Catching Crabbs and Jessups

Abandoning any pretence that I’m not researching while I’m supposed to be indexing, I’ve recently been looking into the parents of Mary Ann Jessup, who married Charles John Buswell in Kensington, London in 1876. I have ordered this marriage certificate in order to confirm that I definitely have the right people (as I know who Charles John’s father was and occupation for both him and his father, this should be enough to confirm I have the correct groom).  

I’m pretty confident though. I can’t find any other plausible alternative marriages for Charles and the marriage date makes sense in that their eldest child is born in 1877 (although in Tredegar, South Wales – definitely no marriages there though!) Furthermore, Mary Ann consistently claims she is from Camberwell in Surrey on all of the censuses following their marriage, and I have found a Mary Jessup of the right age born in Camberwell, so all three facts link up neatly enough, with no other obvious possibilities presenting themselves. Following the Newby debacle I’m still being a cautious though, and I really need the marriage certificate to confirm it.

However, while I’m awaiting confirmation, I couldn’t resist looking into Mary Ann’s parentage. According to the 1861 census her father is Charles Jessup, born in Stepney in about 1820, and her mother is Mary born about 1827 in the tiny village of Beercrocombe in Somerset. They have six children born between 1852 and 1868, Mary Ann being the second, born in 1856. Charles gives his occupation as a ‘traveller in flowers’ – which I suppose might explain how he came to meet his wife in the depths of the Somerset countryside.

So far so straightforward. However, a problem emerged when it became apparent that I couldn’t find a marriage record, nor anything conclusive on who the families of either Charles or Mary were despite pretty exhaustive searches. I could find no trace of either of them prior to 1861. It seemed that without the elusive marriage record, I had no chance of progressing. I was working on the premise that the marriage likely took place around about 1851/52, close to the birth of the eldest child, Elizabeth, but with no results forthcoming I spread my net a lot wider. Still no luck.

Instead, I turned my attention to Mary’s siblings. I was able to find baptism certificates for the younger ones, including the very youngest, Henry C. Jessup, which, it turned out, stood for Caswell. With Sarah Caswell, born 1811/12 Somerset, and Clement Caswell, born 1852 Somerset, as house guests on later censuses, I was tentatively proposing that Mary was also a Caswell, and this was a sister or sister-in-law and her son staying with them, but still nothing was forthcoming to prove it. (It also struck me that Caswell is not too far away from Buswell, and wondered briefly whether there was in fact some sort of connection, but I’ve concluded it’s highly unlikely. My Buswells are firmly rooted in Oxfordshire, and I know of no Somerset connections.)

I decided, out of interest, to Google Henry Caswell Jessup, as it is the kind of unusual name that can reveal relevant results very quickly. I instantly turned up several messages left on genealogy message boards back in 2000/2001 by someone named Peter, who appeared to be grappling with the same family and having exactly the same problems as I was. Attempts to contact him have failed, with the two email addresses I found no longer valid. (Peter, if you’re out there and still researching, please do get in touch!)

Peter’s posts, however, provided me with an invaluable piece of information – Mary’s maiden name. Peter had ordered birth certificates for some of their children (possibly all, I don’t know), on which Mary gave her maiden name as Crabb, not Caswell. Caswell, he said, had become a family middle name, but he didn’t know what the connection between Mary and her Somerset guests was, and was trying to find out more about them as well.

So, I now knew that I was looking for Mary Crabb from a tiny Somerset village – sounds easy? Peter’s messages said he had identified a few possible Mary Crabbs, but nothing to connect any of them with the wife of Charles Jessup. I went through the marriage records again, but turned up nothing.

I found a very useful list of households in the tiny parishes of Beercrocombe and nearby by North Curry for 1851, 1861 and 1871, which to me only had one possible set of parents for Mary Crabb: Thomas Crabb b. 1789 and Sarah Crabb b. 1794. The household had children ranging from 38 to 17, which fits Mary’s age perfectly. However, there is nothing to say that Mary’s parents couldn’t have died or even left Beercrocombe – after all, Thomas Crabb was apparently born in Beercrocombe and probably he had siblings. Her parents having left with Mary in tow or died forcing her into work might explain why she isn’t there in 1851 prior to her marriage.

I widened my search terms for both of them and stopped looking exclusively at the marriage records, in the hope that another document might give me the clue I needed. One of the records that came up was an 1851 census record for Caleb Jessup. He was married to a woman called Jane. Right age and right place of birth. This rung a small-but-persistent bell in my head. On one of the baptisms there had been what I had thought was a mis-transcription of Charles as Caleb. I remembered that I had looked at it and to me it read Carle*, with a bit of a squiggle on the end that could have been almost anything. But what if they had got it right and it was Caleb?

I opened the census record to see Caleb’s occupation: ‘Travelling salesman’. Not too far from ‘traveller in flowers’, and I’d seen ‘travelling salesman’ on some of the baptism records of his children as well. A search for further documents relating to Caleb only threw up two: his marriage in 1848 to Jane Booth. This helpfully gave me his parents’ names: William and Ann; and the 1841 census, on which he is living with his parents and what appear to be siblings Julia and Alfred. There was no sign of either Caleb or Jane on later censuses, nor could I find a death for Caleb anywhere that would rule out the possibility that he and Charles were one and the same.

So, I can’t currently prove that Caleb and Charles are, or are not, the same person. But how likely is it? We all know that name changes are not unheard of, and they are one good explanation for a brick wall like this.  I can’t currently see an obvious explanation for this one though…

As Charles/Caleb is in his thirties when he first appears with his young family in 1861, and his wife is younger than him by about seven years, it’s not impossible that he had a previous marriage, and had been widowed. I note that following the birth of his eldest daughter Elizabeth in 1852 there is a four-year gap, before Mary Ann is born in 1856. Perhaps Elizabeth was daughter by his first wife Jane? If Charles is the same man as Caleb living with Jane in 1851, then it certainly seems more likely that she is Jane’s daughter than Mary’s. Conveniently, as yet I’ve failed to identify a promising birth record for Elizabeth to check this theory out! It would help to identify a possible death record for Jane that ties in as well.

If I’m correct in this, then this puts Charles and Mary’s likely marriage date at 1853–1856. Mary would be about twenty-six at that point. Given the lack of Jessup–Crabb marriages, however, I’m contemplating a couple of other possibilities.

Firstly, perhaps Mary had also been previously married. At twenty-six, she could feasibly have been married before. In fact, there’s equally the possibility that Elizabeth was her daughter from a previous marriage as well. If Mary married Charles under her married name, that would explain why the marriage hasn’t been immediately apparent. It might be possible to work through all of the possibilities and rule them out to identify her, but that would be an arduous task

The other possibility is that they didn’t actually marry. Not impossible, particularly if one or both of them was already married – perhaps one or both weren’t widowed/widower but had simply left their previous partner. This will be even harder to prove.

I probably need to get hold of as many original records for this family as possible in order to check out sneaky name changing etc! I think that Elizabeth’s records are probably the key to unlocking this mystery, with the Caswells in supporting roles. I’m still not 100% convinced that Caleb is Charles, but it’s the best lead I have for now…

L x