Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Topics - JaneyCanuck

Pages: [1] 2 3
1
Cornwall / parents' names not recorded in parish baptism register
« on: Thursday 06 February 14 10:15 GMT (UK)  »
Just wondering whether anyone has encountered this.

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-11831-116890-89?cc=1769414&wc=MMVH-VRJ:1481814552

St Kew baptisms 1801-1802.
Lower left and upper right of the image, on two pages starting in Sept 1801 and running to April 1802 -- no parents' names recorded. Obviously, from the handwriting, there had been a change of vicars. Did the new guy just not like that part of his job so he blew it off? It was rather obvious from the entries ahead of them that he was supposed to record that info, I would think.

I might have guessed this was a "no questions asked" parish where people brought their kids to be baptised, like the church in London where an ancestral sibling of mine married, but not every baptism for 8 months. ;)

I love how a dozen kids got no parents at all, but the one whose parents weren't married, oh yes, that one is "bastard son of".  ;D

Of course the name I'm potentially interested in is in that dozen. The fact that there is no marriage for the surname in that parish or environs, and no other birth there for that surname before or after until 1826 ... and no apparent marriage or death for the child ... is just icing. It would support my suspicion that this was a "bastard child of", except that the vic seems to have been quite conscientious about recording that tidbit.

Has anyone invented the time machine for throttling dead people yet?!
Or found the answer to "why me" ...

Or just have a theory about why this vicar dropped the ball?

2
Cheshire / Barnard, Sandbach area - YDNA testing?
« on: Thursday 03 October 13 01:27 BST (UK)  »
I have been poking into the ancestry of an acquaintance who is stuck at a birth c1790 in an unknown place (the person was born "out of county" where he resided in 1841, and died before 1851). I'm curious whether he might be connected with this clan of Barnards in Cheshire. So this post here is just speculative, in the hope that a descendant may see it one day.

Children of Thomas Barnard 1761 and Betty (Elizabeth) Lea, who married in 1785 in Sandbach, Cheshire -- quite likely no one has put together the complete list until now, and this took me quite a bit of slogging to do from records at FamilySearch. (There are online trees showing children from Daniel 1800 forward only, and I will contact any tree owners who seem to be descendants -- all of the children listed below clearly belong to the same parents, since the births begin the year after the marriage, and the surname Lea occurs in names before Daniel's birth.) Some children were baptised Bernard; this is common in Barnard families.

baptised in Swettenham:
Ellen, 1786
Ann, 1788
Samuel, 1789
Mary, 1790
William, 1791
Thomas, 1793 (Bernard)
Joseph, 1794
Betty, 1795 (must have died, see 1804)
Martha, 1796 (Bernard)
baptised in Church Hulme:
Jonas, 1798 (mother Elizabeth) (Jonas Lea Barnard buried 1798 Church Hulme)
Sarah, 1799 (mother Elizabeth)
baptised in Goostrey-​cum-​Barnshaw:
Daniel, 1800
John, Jan 1802
Jonas, Dec 1802 (buried 1804 Church Hulme?)
Betty, 1804
Lea, 1805 (buried 18 Feb 1806 Church Hulme also shown as Twemlow)
James, 1806 (buried 14 Feb 1806 Church Hulme)
Theophilus, 1807

mother Betty Barnard aged 68 buried 25 Feb 1834, Church Hulme, Cheshire
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F3R5-Q6R
father Thomas Barnard aged 77 buried 10 Feb 1838, Church Hulme, Cheshire
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F3R5-QP6

My interest is in Thomas 1793.

Daniel and John are in censuses with wives and children; William, Martha and Sarah are in censuses unmarried; Betty #2 married (Ankers).
Places of birth shown in censuses include Goostrey, Swettenham, Hulme Chapel and Twemlow, all usually mistranscribed (at Ancestry).
There are a couple of women (Ellen, Rebecca ...) who could be widows of brothers.
Can't tell whether other children, specifically Thomas, survived childhood.

There is a burial of a Thomas Bernard aged 5 in August 1798 at Holy Trinity, Chester, Cheshire.
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F3CR-B22
That corresponds to a birth there in August 1793 so is not "my" Thomas.
(My own relation's Thomas was born 1790 and died 1793 in a different county. It's a strange phenomenon how given names run through unrelated clans with the same surname: Thomas and Richard, not the most common names in the deck, are found in Barnard clans all over England.)
It does appear that the parents didn't recycle the name (as they did with Jonas -- and one might think they would have recycled an earlier born son's name first).

So I'm looking for anyone with any knowledge of Thomas Bernard/Barnard 1793 Swettenham, or a male-line descendant of one of the sons of Thomas Barnard and Betty Lea who married in 1785 in Sandbach.

This Thomas is probably completely irrelevant to my acquaintance's search, but you can never have too many people in a YDNA surname project. Who knows, I might even find somebody related to my own relation, the total outlier in the crowd. ;)

3
Cornwall / Hore / Hoar / Hoare - YDNA testing, anyone?
« on: Saturday 10 August 13 18:35 BST (UK)  »
I've spent the last few years trying to figure out who the heck my real ancestors on one of my parents' sides are. I'm stuck at my great-grandfather born c1850!

It's a twisty tale, since my great-grandfather used and passed on a fake name, for starters -- no one ever having had any clue about that until I worked it out after months of slogging around in databases on line.

His real surname was Hill. At least that was the surname his birth was registered, and he was baptised, under.

I've identified his named father (born c1820) and the father's father, but that's about as far as I can go. So the father's father was born somewhere in Devon or Cornwall, sometime around 1795 or earlier, and died before 1835. Good luck to me. And it may well be a totally false trail, in one of several possible ways now.

I bit the bullet last year and had the YDNA testing done.

With a name like Hill, and hundreds of Hills in the project at FTDNA, there would have to be a match! If he was a Hill. Most testees these days are in the US and are looking for their English roots -- the Cornish were the great emigrators, so looking outside England for a match made good sense. My gr-grfather's father had been involved in mining in the Linkinhorne area (as a share dealer and speculator mainly, from what I can tell), and we know that a mine is a hole anywhere in the world with a Cornishman at the bottom of it. And if there was no match with a Hill, well, maybe there was something to that the paternity tale ...! Problem is that the fake name is very rare, so not much chance of finding a match there. Best I could hope for was to rule Hill in or out.

My theory was right and my wish was granted. I got a strong YDNA37 match with someone whose ancestor, also involved in the copper mining industry in Cornwall, had emigrated to a copper mining area of the US in the 1840s. Excellent.

Except that his surname was not Hill. Or the fake one. It was Hoar.

As best I can tell, my gr-grfather's paternal grandmother was a Hoare.

This doesn't work: maternal ancestors' surnames don't count for male-line DNA matching.

But my gr-grfather's father was very attached to the name Hoare: he and his brother both had it as middle names on their baptisms (I had assumed because it was his mother's surname), and he used it in all records, all his life. His eldest son (my gr-grfather's brother) also used it as a third given name, and gave it to his son as a third given name, around 1880. (That child died in infancy and that was the end of that branch of the tree.) It very much has the look of a double-barreled surname: Hoare Hill. Perhaps the grandmother's surname was a coincidence, and it was the Hill grandfather whose unrecorded father was a Hoare.

Or perhaps my gr-grfather's mother -- his parents do not seem to have ever married, despite numerous births and random baptisms -- just named the 1820 Mr Hill as father of all her children and he wasn't. There are good reasons to think this too. The father could have been a Hoare.

Or the common ancestor was just before the era of surnames; my branch became Hill, the other became Hore/Hoar.

The match with the Hoar is very strong.
35 markers out of 37 -- one digit out, on each of two markers.
74% chance of a common ancestor at 12 generations, 99% at 24.

The other testee's paper trail goes back to a Hore in 1552. My Hill trail ends in 1820.

My 1820 birth is only 3 generations back from my testee -- my testee's great-grandfather.
The other testee's great-grandfather was born in 1788.
So 12 generations likely puts us before records. Even if I had any.

There are numerous on-line trees going back to the 1552 birth (and 2 generations farther back to a 1508 baptism which is probably about the 12th generation back). I can direct any interested Hore/Hoar/Hoares to those trees to see whether they connect up. And having now looked for them, I will approach those tree owners as well.

Oh -- not a single match for my testee in the Hill surname project. Or anywhere else.

I just want to know my ancestral surname! ... I whine. And then, of course, who my ancestors were ...

I also don't know whether Cornwall or Devon. My gr-grfather's supposed Hill grandfather resided in Devon at the time of his marriage in Cornwall, and after that marriage the family shifted back and forth across the Tamar at least once a decade. But the Hoar match is in St Austell back to the beginnings.

So:

Is anyone a Hore / Hoar / Hoare from Cornwall (or Devon) -- or does anyone know one -- who might like to collaborate on some YDNA testing?

4
London and Middlesex / Savoy Chapel
« on: Saturday 02 February 13 00:18 GMT (UK)  »
The sister of an ancestor of mine was married in 1875 in the chapel. I have mislaid the marriage certificate, but I believe it said Chapel Royal of the Savoy.

The marriage was registered in St Giles, which is where the bride was living in 1871, on Broad Street, which I think is now High Holborn, between Drury Lane and Endell St. So she lived several blocks from the Chapel. She was a very young actress at the Adelphi Theatre in 1871, the theatre being just a couple of blocks from the chapel, both on the Strand.

The groom, also quite young, was of the idle rich class, having inherited money; he was in the military when they married, and then settled down to breed horses and lose his inheritance on them by the early 1880s, from what I can tell. He was 19, and she said she was 19, although she was actually nearly 21. ;)

A bit of info about it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savoy_Chapel
http://www.oldandsold.com/articles05/london15.shtml
http://www.rootschat.com/links/0st4/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/9639886/A-small-royal-saga-and-a-blow-to-spirituality.html
The Savoy Chapel is the Duchy’s only working church. But it is not a royal “peculiar”, like Westminster Abbey or St George’s, Windsor, because it is not, exactly, royal. It is all alone.

What I'm wondering whether anyone is familiar with the chapel and with how it was used around that time.
Was it available to anyone who wanted to marry there?
Might they have sought it out because of its reputation for being free and easy, since they were underage?
Would one have needed to be "connected" to marry there?
Was it maybe the sort-of parish church for theatre people?

I'm just curious why they would not have married at St Giles in the Fields, say -- in just a more regular sort of church.

My curiosity is relatively idle, but it relates to my inability to determine the social class of the bride's family. I wondered whether the place where they married might tell me anything about that. Maybe this choice wasn't at all unusual for the marriage. I'm in Canada, so I only know what I find on line, which isn't much!

Anyhow, some history there about the chapel, if anyone has an interest in that sort of thing. And if anyone is familiar with it, I'd love to hear!


5
Free Photo Restoration & Date Old Photographs / theatrical carte de visite ... date?
« on: Friday 04 January 13 16:23 GMT (UK)  »
This strikes me as an impossible task for two reasons:

- the subject is in costume with a theatrical background (meaning that fashions in dress and portrait backgrounds will probably not be useful aids); and

- I'm looking for dating within a pretty narrow range.

But you may all enjoy the pic as much as me and my mum do!

I am almost positive that the picture is of the sister of my ancestor. I had found her in the 1871 census listed as an actress at the age of about 16, and had the wildly good luck of googling her and finding this photograph. This is a scan of the original that is in the possession of the institutional source, and is all I have access to.

She was in the theatre company in London 1870-71, that I have been able to identify from other sources. She married in 1875 and had children in 1879, 1880 and 1881. After that she disappeared and her husband emerged with a newer younger "wife" and a new name (likely related to a bankruptcy, likely associated with the fact that of the eight household servants at their 50-acre pile in the 1881 census, four were grooms). I tend to assume she died of phthisis (tuberculosis) in the early-mid 1880s, as her brother and her other brother's wife had, a decade earlier, and her daughter and niece did, a decade later. (They were from a mining area in Cornwall, and at least three other children had died in early childhood.) Pregnancy alleviates the symptoms of tuberculosis; the sister-in-law died shortly after the birth of the child who later died and I suspect the same thing for her. In any event, it seems unlikely she would have returned to the stage after being a wealthy matron, although given the husband's squandering of his fortune ...

The source dates this photo to 1885 +/- 5 years -- a decade or more after she was known to be on stage, and after her marriage. The subject just doesn't really look to me like a 25-35 year old woman.

Elliott & Fry first set up at 55 Baker Street in 1863 and remained there until 1919.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_%26_Fry
"During World War II the studio was bombed and most of the early negatives were lost, the National Portrait Gallery holding all the surviving negatives."

Does anyone have a crystal ball or other means of educatedly guessing whether this photo was most likely taken
- c1870-1875
or
- c1880-1890
?
The boots look like the only possibly contemporaneous element in the composition! ;)

(I begged, and of course would have paid for, a copy of the reverse side from the source a few years ago. Obviously, anything written on it would be hugely useful in making a positive identification, and dating. I was quite brusquely informed by the source's director that it would take far too much work to get the object out of the archive and do this. An archivist subsequently promised to look into it when she wasn't so busy, but I never heard back. Yes, I really should try again ...)

Any ideas welcome - thanks!



6
Leicestershire Lookup Requests / Morrison: Hugh + Mary, marriage c1795, Hose?
« on: Monday 31 December 12 20:08 GMT (UK)  »
I had posted this request in Nottinghamshire a little while ago
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,628240.0.html
but there was no response and I think it may be more likely that the marriage was in Leicestershire.
I don't know where it would have been, except likely close to the Nottinghamshire line and possibly in Hose.

Hugh Morrison and wife Mary lived in Hose, Leicestershire.
Mary was born in the late 1770s in Colston Bassett, Notts (less than 5 miles NNWish of Hose), per censuses.
Mary and Hugh's oldest known child was baptised in Leicestershire in 1797.

All baptisms of children 1797-1818 show mother's name Mary.
The surname is sometimes spelled MORISON for the baptisms shown at FamilySearch.
For the two earliest births the father is Henry (for the first) and Humphrey (for the second), but I am sure they are the same couple (the son of "Henry" is with Hugh and Mary in a census).
But a marriage might be under one of those names, i.e. Hugh, Humphrey or Henry Morrison + Mary.

FS shows these baptisms for Marys in Colston Bassett during the right period, in case it helps:
Burrows 1776, Spencer 1777, Stains 1777, Smith 1778.
(I get vibes for Burrows. But odds are I'll have another Smith. ;) )

Hugh Morrison will likely be ever a mystery: he was born in "Ireland".
Knowing who Mary was, at least, would give me a little more to tell my mum about her roots in that branch of her family (Hugh and Mary were her grx4 grandparents).

I'm hoping parish records that would show the marriage may be accessible to some here.
Many thanks to anyone who has a look -- and happy new year to all from Canada!

7
Nottinghamshire Lookup Requests / Morrison - Hugh + Mary, marriage c1795
« on: Wednesday 19 December 12 22:47 GMT (UK)  »
I'm not very familiar with pre-registration parish records for Nottinghamshire and hope there is a resource someone has access to for old marriages.

Hugh Morrison and wife Mary lived in Hose, Leicestershire.
Mary was born in the late 1770s in Colston Bassett per censuses.

Mary and Hugh's oldest known child was baptised in Leicestershire in 1797.
So the marriage could have been in Nottinghamshire or over the border in Leicestershire.
If there is no joy in Nottinghamshire, I will ask in Leicestershire, where the marriage may more likely have been.

It could also have been a second marriage for Hugh Morrison, who was older than Mary, who may not have been the mother of that child.

All baptisms of children 1797-1818 show mother's name Mary.
The surname is sometimes spelled MORISON for the baptisms at FamilySearch. For the two earliest births the father is Henry, for the first, and Humphrey, for the second, but I am sure they are the same couple (the son of "Henry" is with the couple in a census).
But a marriage might be under one of those names, i.e. Hugh, Humphrey or Henry Morrison + Mary.

FS shows these baptisms for Marys in Colston Bassett during the right period, in case it helps:
Burrows 1776, Spencer 1777, Stains 1777, Smith 1778.

Hugh Morrison will likely be ever a mystery: he was born in "Ireland". Knowing who Mary was would at least give me a little more to tell my mum about her roots in that direction.

Many thanks to anyone who has a look -- and happy holidays to all from Canada!

8
Cornwall / Water Gate, Lamorran: what/where is it?
« on: Monday 03 December 12 16:00 GMT (UK)  »
A person who may have been an ancestor of mine is recorded as having been
"found drowned at Water Gate in returning from Truro" in Jan 1798.
http://www.cornwall-opc-database.org/search-database/more-info/?t=burials&id=960399

- edit - So I shouldn't say "Water Gate, Lamorran" -- it was somewhere between Truro and Lamorran, presumably.


Whatever /wherever Water Gate was, it doesn't seem to exist now. I found this reference to it:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=021-qs_6&cid=1-2-17#1-2-17

Sessions held at Bodmin  QS/1/12/453-473  6th January 1835
"Application concerning order made at special sessions held in Town Hall, Truro on 4 Dec. last for a highway in St. Michael Penkivel, 1,245 yds. long, from a point near the church to a point near Water Gate in Lamorran, to be diverted through land of Rt. Hon. Edward, Earl of Falmouth. [Description of diversion]: order enrolled. QS/1/12/462"

On the map, St Michael Penkivel seems to be about a mile west of Lamorran (1,245 yards seems about right), and east of Kea. Lamorran doesn't really seem to be an actual place, i.e. with streets and houses, just a point on the map.


Other than that, and a web page belonging to someone who seems to descend from the drowned person's husband and his second wife, which refers to the drowning, nada on the net.


In censuses, Water Gate is given as an address in Kea.

Presumably she was travelling by foot from Truro to Lamorran, about 5 miles from what I can tell, but it would seem to have been well out of the way to go via Kea. She would have had to cross some sort of waterway to get to Truro, but I would have thought it would be done northwest of St Michael Penkivel, like around where Queenie Wood is marked on the modern map, as the crow flies -- but I have no idea what kind of waterway these are and how one crossed them.

On Google maps / street view for Lamorran, I found the Keeper's Cottage (aka Manor Cottage, depending on magnification level) at the bend in the very pretty leafy road, and very near it a church (St Moran's Church?). Google always seems to show me dry sandy stream beds where I assume there once was or sometimes is water, which is the case for the location of the Keeper's Cottage now. Does "Keeper" indicate there was a lock? or was it a gamekeeper ... Aha, the 1841 census has a Jeremiah Wright, game keeper, at Tregenna, Lamorran, so likely that.


Would anyone know what or where Water Gate might have been, that someone would have drowned there?

(The verdict was accidental death, but given what her husband seems to have been like, from two bastardy bonds immediately before their marriage probably referring to him and the possibly related fact that his second wife had a child just over a year after the drowning, some 4 years before he married her ... I would wonder about suicide.)

9
Nottinghamshire / Gascoyne family
« on: Friday 30 November 12 17:58 GMT (UK)  »

My Worksop cousin's ancestor (great-grandfather) is:

James Gascoigne, christened 01 Dec 1833, Hockerton, Notts
parents: Thomas Gascoigne and Mary
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NGX6-B2R

The children of the couple Thomas and Mary shown at FS are

John Gasking 1823 Maplebeck
William Gasking 1825 Maplebeck
Henry Gascoigne 1832 Hockerton
James Gascoigne 1833 Hockerton

In 1841, they are in Hockerton:

Thomas Gasking, 40
Mary Gasking, 40
Thomas Gasking, 12
James Gasking, 6
Emma Gasking, 1
Emma Gascoigne's birth was registered Jun Q 1840 in Southwell reg dist (covers Hockerton) so to be absolutely sure of Mary's surname, that should be got.

So Thomas and Mary are the great-great-grandparents of my third cousin.

There are other births to a different Thomas and Mary, in St Mary, 1818-1825. They match a marriage in Jan 1818 in St Mary: Thomas Gascoyne and Mary Bennett. They are Thomas and Mary Gaskin, 50, in St Mary in 1841.

There are also births in Nuthall to a Thomas and Mary couple. They are Thomas and Mary Gascoigne, 40 and 45, in Nuthall in 1841.

And there are a Thos and Mary Gascoign, 45 and 35, in Greasley in 1841.

I have just looked at 1851 (still in Hockerton), and Thomas Gaskin was born c1800 in Woodsetts, Yorkshire (just a couple of miles north of Worksop). Mary was born in Maplebeck, so that's likely where the marriage was.

Uh oh. I see the baptism of a Thomas Gaskin in 1800 in Anston, York (on today's map, North Anston and South Anston are a couple of miles from Woodsetts):
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NK7N-GJ2
-- son of Hannah Gaskin. I've just had to explain one unmarried-parents birth in the cousin's tree (on my side, my gr-grmother's sister's son) -- and now it looks like I've found them another one!


So I'm looking for Thomas Gascoigne / Gaskin(g) marrying a Mary, in Nottinghamshire or possibly over the border in Yorkshire, after which their first known child was born in 1823 in Maplebeck. Who was Mary?


If anyone has access to parish records not included at FS. ... Actually, Maplebeck marriages for that period are in batch M059561, and it's not there ... Hugh Wallis shows no batch for marriages in Woodsetts, Yorkshire.

I'd like to be able to tell my Worksop cousin who those Gascoigne great-great-grandparents were!

Pages: [1] 2 3