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Messages - wdurham

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1
Cambridgeshire / Re: Cadmans in Isleham
« on: Thursday 12 February 15 17:00 GMT (UK)  »
Eeek! My mistake - Isaac's wife was indeed Anne or Annie. Not Susan at all. Obviously a mental block on my part! They were married 30 Nov 1895 in Burwell by banns, him son of John, her daughter of Robert. Witnesses John (x) GORDON, Elizabeth CLAYDON. Everyone working was an AgLab.

As for who am I?

I was born Christine Wendy Watson in 1947, eldest child of Cyril Watson and Christine Cecile King (yes, another King but totally unrelated!)

Cyril was b about 1922, the second-youngest son of James Stephen Watson and Mary Jane King, born after a large gap allegedly caused by James' service in WWI. I have yet to find James Stephen's war records, but suspect there aren't any. Unlike the rest of our AgLab forbears, James Stephen had delusions of grandeur, and was a work-shy "gentleman" who disdained working for others. He claimed noble ancestors in Scotland to account for his "status" (which turned out to be utter nonsense!). Which meant he didn't work at all and the family lived, effectively, on the charity of neighbours and the earnings of the older children.

My father Cyril grew to have a "voice" - some said at the time that he was the best boy soprano in the region - and was offered a scholarship to Kings College Chapel Choir School in Cambridge. My grandfather refused because he would not provide the uniform, which was not covered by the scholarship.

So Dad left school at 14, did a year on the land as yet another AgLab, and then joined the RAF's Boy Service arm at 15. He spent his entire life with the RAF and retired aged 55 after a very honourable and highly-thought of career. During that career he met my mother, who was doing her WWII service in the WAAF, and they married in June 1946 not long before Mum's final demob (and only 7 months before I was born!)

Mary Jane King was the daughter of John Cadman King and Martha Leonard, and was the younger sister of your Isaac King, the eldest son of the same couple.

So that's how we are related.

I have Cadmans and Kings and Harveys back a long way, but finding out for yourself is always the best way to go. Info just given to you by someone else offers no sense of achievement.  However, I am always here for you if you need help or confirmation of any of your findings.

2
Cambridgeshire / Re: Cadmans in Isleham
« on: Thursday 12 February 15 04:34 GMT (UK)  »
Hi, Natalie -

Looks like we do have a link. John Cadman King and his wife Martha Leonard were my great-grandparents.  They married in Isleham 4 Jan 1873, and Isaac was their eldest son, born qe June 1873. At some point between then and 1876, the couple moved from Isleham to Fordham, where all their later children were born. I descend from their daughter Mary Jane, born in Fordham in 1885. Mary Jane married James Stephen Watson, and their son Cyril was my father.

I didn't follow up further on Isaac, but according to census returns, he and his wife Susan Gordon produced about 13 children all told, one of whom was a daughter named Elsie, b about 1905.  (Another daughter, Gertie b 1903, was a friend as well as cousin of my eldest Aunt, and I remember her talking about "Uncle Isaac" and "Cousin Gertie" when I was little.)

John's middle name Cadman was his mother's maiden surname - which is common in Cambridgeshire, especially where the men's first names carry on through generations.  The Cadmans were a big Isleham family, and I have traced them back to about 1740 in Isleham. The Kings were incomers from Chippenham.

Martha Leonard led me a merry dance for months because she was so hard to find. On her marriage to John Cadman King, she was named as Martha Leonard, daughter of Robert. She was actually the daughter of Robert Norman and Susan Harvey, born 3 months after the death of her father from cholera.  Robert was the baseborn son of Alice Norman, who later married James Leonard, and it seems Robert was known by both surnames. It's possible he was actually the son of James Leonard, but there's no way of knowing that for sure. He was baptised as son of Alice, and married Susan Harvey as Robert Norman son of James, and in 1851 he and Susan and their baby son James are on the census as Norman. He was buried as Robert Norman.  But when Susan registered Martha's birth, she registered her as Martha Leonard, daughter of Robert, and signed herself Susan Leonard. To confuse the issue further, Susan married James Ellington as Susan Norman after she was widowed, and by 1871, although her son James was still known as James Leonard, Martha was in service in Mildenhall using her stepfather's name. All very confusing!

However, I am confident that I did nail the right marriage partners - John Cadman King and Martha Leonard, so there's some solid ground for you to work back from. If I can be of further help, just shout!


3
Suffolk / Re: Brand PARR of Exning
« on: Saturday 24 January 15 08:55 GMT (UK)  »
I suspect you're in touch with the same small group of Parr researchers as I was a couple of years back!

My link to the Parrs is through the first husband of my aunt - my father's eldest sister Agnes May Watson married Philip Parr King b 1904 in Exning.  Philip is descended directly from Brand Parr and Elizabeth Starling via their son Thomas, his son John, John's daughter Harriet who married John King, and finally William Parr King. All Exning folks. Coincidently, Philip Parr King's daughter Jenny, b Exning 1945, is also now in Canada, having emigrated in 1970.

Hence my interest in Brand's parentage. We can't make the link backwards through all the Ellerys to their earliest documented roots in Wilburton without evidence that Brand was a member of the same family.  And such evidence just hasn't been forthcoming. I've been hoping to find his marriage record thinking that perhaps it might give parentage, but no luck as yet. All I've found is a marriage year in Landwade in Boyds Register.

Interestingly, the first Parr found in Wilburton - allegedly 1512-1555, Henery or Henry - is, I suspect, a mistranscription for Ellery. It's a hard name to spell correctly when written down - and remember that village clerics in those days were barely literate! - and even harder to transcribe - e.g. in the Isleham record transcripts Ellery 1706 is recorded as Eliz, son of Eliz and Mary! I've also seen Hilary, Henry, Ellry, Helory and Hellrei.

There are at least two other Ellerys from outside the Wilburton/Burwell/Isleham/Exning branches we are both tracking - one in Chippenham married to an Ann, and another in Cambridge married to a Caroline - so I suspect this persistent name (however it is spelled!) has a strong meaning for the Parr clan, that may pre-date earliest written records. 

4
Suffolk / Re: Brand PARR of Exning
« on: Thursday 22 January 15 14:22 GMT (UK)  »
Many thanks for that confirmation of Brand Per/Parr's baptism date in 1744.  I don't think there's any doubt of his illegitimacy - but who his father was is a matter of pure conjecture.  I presently have him listed as a son of Ellery 1706 by Elizabeth Brand - but that's purely for convenience to get him into the tree rather than from any belief in his parentage.

Charles 1710 is a possibility as his father - though Charles himself is a shadowy figure too easily confused with Charles 1708 of Ixworth.

For example, I believe that the Charles who married Jane Brooke in Isleham in 1743 is Charles Parr Jnr of Ixworth - the Ixworth registers show him and wife Jane baptising a whole clutch of children with strong name links to the Ixworth Parrs and no such links to the Isleham/Exning Parrs.

I believe that Charles 1710 of Isleham/Exning married a Sarah Long in Swaffham Prior on 10 Dec 1738, just three months after the death of Grace Buntin Parr in childbirth in Exning. I found it on the IGI, and in the parish record transcriptions. The hasty Sarah Long marriage fits pretty well with a man left with a baby son to care for, but no sisters or nearby mother to rely on for help. Charles and Sarah don't seem to have baptised any children themselves in Swaffham Prior according to the IGI or the parish records. Nor did Charles' son John marry or baptise children in Swaffham Prior.

But they do seem to have lived there according to the Swaffham Prior burial records. No ages at death are given, so it's not possible to be 100% sure about these, but there seems to have been no pre-existing Parr family in SP, so the odds are in favour of these burials being Charles 1710 and his wife and son:

Sarah Parr, wife of Charles, was buried 10 Jun 1762 in Swaffham Prior
John Parr, shoemaker, was buried in Swaffham Prior 30 July 1769
Charles Parr, widower, was buried in Swaffham Prior 13 May 1782

So on balance I don't favour Charles 1710 as the father of Brand Parr. As Elizabeth was an Exning girl perhaps the prolific Ellery 1706 is more likely - but then these villages are all cheek-by-jowl so it's impossible to know whether Elizabeth fell for an older married man or to a lusty farmhand from Burwell!

5
Australia / Re: CORNHILL in New South Wales
« on: Thursday 04 October 12 10:50 BST (UK)  »
I was up rather early!  Insomnia rules these days....

I'll sort out the Cornhill stuff I have and let you have a file. They are a mysterious family in the first place - because at about the same time, a Cornhill male turned up from no known abode in both Kent (William) AND Devon (Henry), got married to a local girl and founded large families in or near coastal ports.  The Kent people were in and around Oare, Faversham, Whitstable - the Devon family were in Brixham, though they "coasted" east to Portsea, north to Wales and all the way up to Grimsby.

But we have no idea where these two particular men originated - there is a big Cornhill family in Marden in Kent, and a few in Littlebourne, but no links to our William and Henry.  Nor have we ever discovered a definite link between the Devon and Kent branches - there are a couple of circumstantial links, based around the two girls born to Martha Cornhill in Wokingham, whom she left behind when she went to Kent with her husband.  Both girls seem to have made contact with members of the Devon branch who moved eastwards to Portsea.

But one day I guess we'll be able to find out...

6
Australia / Re: CORNHILL in New South Wales
« on: Thursday 04 October 12 05:41 BST (UK)  »
Hi, Celle -

Yes, we are related, but the link is a long, long way back. Our shared ancestor is William Cornhill, b 1797 in Oare in Kent.

He joined the army - the 7th Foot - at the age of 20 and served in Corfu and Malta in the Mediterranean for much of his career.

William married a girl named Martha from Wokingham in the early 1820s, and they had two sons - Joseph and William Jnr, born 1825 and 1826 in Wokingham.

William was discharged from the army while serving in Ireland in 1839 "worn out from his service" (according to his discharge papers!). He and Martha and their two sons returned to Faversham in Kent, where he died the following year of kidney failure. 

The brothers Joseph and William both became bakers by trade - Joseph settling in Whitstable, and William in the Faversham area.  I descend from William, via his eldest son, another William b 1848 - and you descend from Joseph, via his eldest son Joseph James also b 1848.

Agnes Golder was in fact Agnes Elizabeth Cornhill, b and registered in Eastry District in the quarter ending March 1881, born to Joseph James Cornhill and Hannah nee Darby.  The 1881 Census lists her after her one-year old brother, John T, as age 2, but that should be aged 2 months.  At that time they were living at 4 Chapel Street in Deal, where Joseph James was an unemployed baker.  Birthplaces of some of the older children, including John T, indicate that the family had just returned to Kent following a period in London. 

Subsequent Censuses show her as Agnes Golder after her mother Hannah moved in with Lewis Golder and took his name for herself and her Cornhill children.  When Agnes married Daniel Mildred in Woolwich q.e. Dec 1905, she married as Agnes Golder.

As for Joseph James, most of what I know is already posted above or on the other thread linked to this one.  He and his brother Wallace disappear from the UK after the 1881 census, and it seems pretty conclusive that the Joseph James Cornhill, Baker, who married Ada Rope in Mudgee in 1891 was our man.

Of Ada's children it is likely that at least the last boy, Ernest, b 1887, was a son of Joseph James. When he died in 1927,  his parents were named as James J and Ada.  His mother Ada is shown on his military records as next of kin, initially as Ada Rope of Mudgee, changed later to Ada Mary Cornhill of Gulgong. The father's name of James J on the death certificate could be coincidence, but given that Joseph James's father was also Joseph, it's quite possible that he was known as James in everyday life. (I myself am known by my second name, as I share my mother's first name.)

So you may have Australian relations much closer than me - if you can track the descendants of Ernest Edward Rope, b 1887 in Mudgee, died in 1927 in Walgett. If Ernest is the son of Joseph James - and I am pretty sure he was - then he was half-brother to Agnes.

Good luck with them!

If you'd like more info on Agnes's Cornhill side I have them back to about 1763 before running into a brick wall.

7
Kent Completed Lookup Requests / Re: GOLDER,Lewis born 1858 Thanet Kent
« on: Sunday 23 September 12 09:02 BST (UK)  »
Thanks, Tony!  Joseph James is only one of my sideshoots, but it's nice to have complete info!

8
Australia / Re: CORNHILL in New South Wales
« on: Sunday 23 September 12 02:20 BST (UK)  »
Thanks, JM - that's a whole lot of useful stuff!


9
Australia / Re: CORNHILL in New South Wales
« on: Saturday 22 September 12 15:42 BST (UK)  »
Thanks, casalguidi - I've been to that thread and posted what I know from previous research.

Hopefully it will help.

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