My brick wall - any help welcome - where is Jeremiah?

[GrahamSimons]

I have a puzzle that I can't solve....

Here are the clues.

My great-aunt Phoebe Simons's memoirs, written in 1964, have proved to be correct every time I have checked them against historical records. So I'm pretty sure that this description is correct:

Jeremiah [Simons], who was a clergyman and married a Jewess. I met his daughter who had one look at me and said, “Which Simons branch do you come from?” We were so alike I might have been her daughter.

Phoebe was born in 1873 (and died in 1970). This suggests that Mrs Jeremiah Simons would be 20-30 years older than Phoebe Simons, so born about 1840-50; Jeremiah would have been born in 1815-1845 range.

Now here's my problem. I don't know who Jeremiah's father was, and there is no pointer in Phoebe's memoirs to help. I can't find his marriage, I can't find his professional history, I can't find him at all.

I can't find a Jeremiah Simons. I've checked Crockford's and the Clergy List; I've looked at the Clergy of the Church of England database. I was pretty certain he's be Church of England – not many nonconformists around in my family – and I'm certain Phoebe would have said if he'd converted to Judaism.

I've also had a good dig into the census indexes in Ancestry; can find nothing that fits. Likewise the BMD indexes in FreeBMD and Ancestry as well as forays into Family Search. 

To make things worse, if that were possible, the family were quite mobile – Eton and Chesham in Buckinghamshire, St Paul's Cray in Kent, London, Chester-le-Street in County Durham, connections to Carmarthenshire, India, Singapore, Ontario, Texas and Illinois at least. And while much of the family maintained the spelling Simons, other used Symons, FitzSimon and Money-Simons.

So...... can anybody break this log-jam for me?

Thank you ever so much for reading this – and for any ideas at all, or best of all for an answer.

[lizdb]

Is there any indication when she met Jeremiah's daughter?

Not sure about your dates - it could be just an expression, rather than an exact thing.

[GrahamSimons]

Sadly - no indication at all of when the meeting was. All I can do is guess that Mrs Jeremiah would be of an age to be Phoebe's mother. No evidence but a guess that it was pre First World War.

This has been bugging me for 12 or more years now......

[lizdb]

It is probably a case of, as you research your family further, and follow each line, you will suddenly come across a Jeremiah!
There are numerous deaths on freeBMD for Jeremiah Sim(m)ons' so one is probably him.

(If Phoebe met JS's daughter, who said she could be a daughter, doesnt that make Mrs JS of an age to be Phoebe's grandmother, not mother?)

[cath151]

Hi,
Best I can find but not in the right time  ,is a Reverend John Jeremiah Simon who died 9 Nov 1964 and left all to his widow Doreen.
Probably born 1882, Wales.
A tree on Ancestry has him being a clergyman in Corwen, Wales.
Cathy

[heywood]

Hello,

apologies if I have missed this - where was Phoebe born?  The only one I can see for 1873 is in Glamorgan but as you have posted in England I'm not sure.

thanks

heywood

[GrahamSimons]

Yes, Phoebe was indeed born in Merthyr Tydfil, but of an English line and the likely line from which Jeremiah would have come was English. It gets complicated! Here I've only included the male line: I know a good deal of the detail on these people -it's just the elusive Jeremiah who is troubling me. I've also omitted children who died young.


It all starts from Thomas Simons 1730-1805 - Gardener of Eton College

Some of his children:
Rev John Simons 1755-1836 - Rector of St Paul's Cray
     Henry Simons 1780-1837 Ironmaster, Bowling, Bradford, Yorkshire
          Thomas Minchin Simons 1813-1895  Civil Engineer, died Ontario
          Edward Minchin Simons 1817-1887, died Ontario
          Henry Minchin Simons 1824-1901, merchant in Singapore, died Kensington
     Edward Simons 1780-1830, East India Company Army, died Jersey
     George Simons 1783- possibly coal merchant in London
     John Simons 1788-1871 coal merchant in Camden Town
           John Simons 1815-1865 coal merchant St Pancras then charity inspector
                  John James Henry Money-Simons 1844-1930 Indian Army officer died Switzerland
                  Kyrle Ernle Symons 1848-1884 Indian Telegraph Dept died India
                  Herbert Rowland Symons, 1850-1934 varied career, RN and Indian police, died Cornwall
           Joseph Gunning Symons FitzSimon 1834-1910, barrister, varying locations including Cornwall, London, Chesham
           Thomas Walter Simons, 1836-1899 private income, Clapham
     Samuel Simons 1792-1867, private means, Croydon
     Daniel Houghton Simons 1798-1822 East India Company army, died St Paul's Cray
     
Joseph Simons 1761-1802 - salt manufacturer, Chester-le-Street
     William Vazie Simons 1792-1843 coal owner, Llanelli
         William Vazie Simons 1813-1893 solicitor, Carmarthen and Merthyr Tydfil (Phoebe's father)
         Robert Thomas Simons 1827-1855, army surgeon, died Scutari
    Thomas Simons 1794-1852 master mariner and merchant, died Texas
    Robert Simons 1798-1849 paint manufacturer, died South Shields but married Bristol and also lived Dublin
          William Vazie Simons 1823-1897 photographer, miner, chemist, London and Australia
          George Neal Simons 1827-1899 master mariner, Shields, London and Kent
          Robert William Simons 1828- has disappeared off my radar, I suspect died young
          Joseph Simons 1843-1922 - merchant, Barnet and London
          Henry Simons 1844 - joiner then farmer, Ontario then Saskatchewan

[OnyxCollector]

I don't know if it is of any help but I have an old vellum indenture regarding the Rev'd John Simons Rector of St Pauls Cray, dated 23rd May 1843, whereby he has agreed to pay an annuity to his wife of £100. (£50.00) twice yearly, their daughter was Mary Anne Parker.

[GrahamSimons]

I don't know if it is of any help but I have an old vellum indenture regarding the Rev'd John Simons Rector of St Pauls Cray, dated 23rd May 1843, whereby he has agreed to pay an annuity to his wife of £100. (£50.00) twice yearly, their daughter was Mary Anne Parker.

Woooo! Thank you so much!

All things to do with Rev John are very welcome indeed. I wonder if you could extract any other details - if it's anything like his Will it will take several pages to get to any point at all? Mary Anne married Michael Parker who was an army surgeon, appointed to the Royal Artillery in 1799 and who died in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1833. In particlular I'm interested in John's wife's name - I believe he was widowed more than once. Mary Anne's mother was Mary Anne Sturges who died in 1807, so I think that the wife in the indenture is Mary Anne Parker's stepmother. And out of interest too, where andhow did you come by the indenture - as it may give a clue to the location of other documents?

For interest: Death notice in The Times of 9th August 1836: On Monday morning, 8th inst at the Rectory-house, St Paul's Cray, Kent the Rev John Simons LLB in the 83rd year of his age having been Rector of St Paul's Cray for 57 years and having been engaged in preaching with his usual vigour at the moment when on Sunday last he sank down in the pulpit in a fit of apoplexy.