Author Topic: John Kempthorne - lost grandfather  (Read 8627 times)

Offline JaneyCanuck

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Re: John Kempthorne - lost grandfather
« Reply #9 on: Sunday 15 December 13 03:58 GMT (UK) »
I agree that the workhouse doesn't necessarily indicate neglect or hostility. Illness or disability, short or long term, is at least equally possible.

I have two grx2 grfathers who died in the workhouse (not the Moonwalk family!) and in at least one case I am sure that must have been the reason as there is no indication of family estrangement. In the other, I just don't know; in the workhouse in his birth parish in Wiltshire in 1851, present for his second wife's death in Scotland! in 1854, back in the workhouse in 1861, died there later that decade. Meanwhile, only known child, born in Bristol, prospered mightily in Kent, where he was as a young man in 1841 when the father was in Scotland. The things these ancestors got up to, one just shakes one's head sometimes. I haven't moved around that much in my own life.

I'll tell you, finding those Smith/Moonwalk people consumed a lot of my life for some time! But I kept running into those strokes of luck, being able to match up all sorts of details between Smiths and Moonwalks -- each Edward with the other, and each Alice with the other, and in fact Edward's mother had even adopted the fake name, when I found them together in 1881! -- and between one pair of Edward and Alice and the other.

The one thing I have not been able to do, myself, is find where the Moonwalk name came from. And of course, you just know, the tale Edward told was of blue blood. Yes, there is a very senior line of peers with the name, and he claimed to be the son of the black sheep younger brother of the one at the time in question. And yea it transpired that said peer did have an unmarried younger brother, in the Coldstream Guards, who did die in the Crimea mere weeks before the birth of Alice London Moonwalk Smith ...

Vivienne just hasn't had one bit of luck herself, nothing to tie John to a previous John, or to any other person anywhere.

I poked at the John Thomas and Thomas John births in the relevant areas at the relevant time a bit, and traced each forward and found them all accounted for, I'm pretty sure. Firefox crashed before I was quite finished, maybe, and then I was flooded with work and had to leave off.

If there were any connection could be made, even just geographically, with a Kempthorne in this tale ... But there too, I have striven and failed, so far.

In Newlyn there is only that family of Kempthornes that has been investigated: Mark, Betsy and children.
(Believe it or not, Newlyn is the stomping grounds of the family of what seems to be my Smith/Moonwalks' paternal grandmother ... several of them there in 1841 ... maybe we're cousins ...)

I wonder what of son Mark in that household? or did the whole lot of them go to New Zealand?

1861, Mark Kempthorne was a general servant in Phillack.

1871 he was a private on the Resistance off Rock Ferry, Cheshire.
(okay, believe it or not, a decade later, the decade-younger Edward Moonwalk and mother were living, oh, 2 miles from Rock Ferry)
The navy doesn't have privates, does it? Ah. Royal Marines.

Mark's real dob was 1838. In 1861 he was aged 19; in 1871, aged 26, and born in Truro.
But there are no spare Mark Kempthornes born c1845 in Truro, so that must be him.

There's no record of him after that. He could well have gone off somewhere as well, or been killed in some action or other.

But if he'd left the military and gone home ... being John rather than Mark might have worked for him ...

Older brother James also seems to disappear after 1861.


Here's an interesting tidbit, though. Mark Kempthorne, the father in that household, had alternate surnames.

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NPNS-W6T

Name:    Mark Dennis Or Kempthorne
Gender:    Male
Christening Date:    16 Feb 1806
Christening Place:    Saint Endellion, Cornwall
Father's Name:    William Dennis Or Kempthorne
Mother's Name:    Charity
Indexing Project (Batch) Number:    P00237-1

also here, Dennis alias Kempthorne:
http://www.cornwall-opc-database.org/search-database/more-info/?t=baptisms&id=2635974

The mother is shown as Charity Nicholls on some baptisms. William married as William Kempthorne Dennis in 1796:
http://www.cornwall-opc-database.org/search-database/more-info/?t=marriages&id=294719

I haven't thought how it might work yet - did one or more of the Dennis/Kempthorne children of William and Charity use the Dennis surname? - but it's something to think about ...
For one set of twins (Mark and Martha 1806) the surname is Dennis alias Kempthorne.
For the other set (Rebecca and Henry 1808) the surname is Dennis and the parents are "William and Charity Kempthorne Dennis".
A William Dennis base child of Ann was baptised in St Breward in 1774. Was his father a Kempthorne? Thomas Kempthorne married Alice Dennis in St Breward in 1765. Alice 1739 and Anne 1747 were sisters ...

It's certainly reaching back, but could John X have been a son of one of the children of William and Charity, and have known that his grandfather was really Thomas Kempthorne?
HILL, HOARE, BOND, SIBLY, Cornwall (Devon); DENNIS, PAGE, WHITBREAD, Essex; BARNARD, CASTLE, PONTON, Wiltshire; SANKEY, HORNE, YOUNG, Kent; COWDELL, Bermondsey; COOPER, SMITH, FALLOWELL, WILLEY, Notts; CAMPION, CARTER, CRADDOCK, KENNY, Northants; LITTLER, CORNER, Leicestershire; RUSHLAND, Lincolnshire; MORRISON, Ireland; COLLINS, ?; ... MONCK?

Offline crimea1854

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Re: John Kempthorne - lost grandfather
« Reply #10 on: Sunday 15 December 13 07:31 GMT (UK) »
Service record for Mark Kempthorne, cannot be downloaded but can be ordered from the NA:

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/Details?uri=C10085101

Martin

Offline Vivienne Luke

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Re: John Kempthorne - lost grandfather
« Reply #11 on: Wednesday 18 December 13 10:34 GMT (UK) »
Hi Janey, MiriamKinga and crimea1854,
So much food for thought. Janey, what an amazing story of your search and finding!
With regard to the Dennis/Kempthorne people, I have looked at this but can't find a connection that I can follow which might be mine.
I have been tested with 23andMe as has my brother, he has since died, but I do have his raw data. How did you follow up the testing and find the common thread?
I will return to Mark Kempthorne et al and see if I can find anything likely. I had given up this connection.
There was a John Daw born illegitimately in East Newlyn at around the right time, who was working with James Kempthorne at a farm in 1851. I've lost him after that. 
crimea1854, I will oder the service record for MK, just on the off chance.
I'm not sure whether him using John Thomas has any significance or whether this was made up also.
Miriam, I realise that the workhouse also functioned as a hospital, but there definitely was some form of estrangement as my mother remembered from her childhood that "he wasn't liked". Interestingly, there are no known relatives of him - his family was never mentioned, which speaks to me of hiding something.
Anyway, thanks very much to you all and if you think of anything else please let me know.
In gratitude. Vivienne

Offline JaneyCanuck

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Re: John Kempthorne - lost grandfather
« Reply #12 on: Thursday 19 December 13 18:24 GMT (UK) »
The stories have so many similarities! My mum's cousins (grandchildren of "Edward Arthur Moonwalk") are mostly deceased now, but one of their children has told me that one of the grandchildren now in his mid-80s and living in California doesn't want to talk about EAM, as he was an embarrassment to that generation when he was an old man. He spent his older years "visiting" his children, this would be in the 1930s when he'd been widowed in 1910, and because he was a strange dapper little man, always with his walking stick, and illiterate, I have just learned, their children didn't like being around him. One deceased granddaughter, older than my mum, was his confidante in her teens. She knew of the nightmares he still had of the old Queen coming after him for his desertion (1878, remember), and the little case in which he carried all his "papers" with him at all times, which he promised her when he died. Unfortunately, he died at the home of another son, whose wife took one look at the contents of the case and burned it all in the backyard.

He too never talked of any family, except a tale I heard from my mum's brother after I had already worked all this out: that his first family all "died of a plague". All of the death certs I could identify and got after hearing that -- for his brother, his first wife, and his daughter from the first marriage and sister's daughter, both as very young women -- showed they died of tuberculosis (another clincher for my theory). But as far as names, let alone details: none, except for the made-up name of his father. The sister I first discovered was actually an actress in her teens (I found a carte de visite photograph on line!!) and married a very wealthy young man, I think through the father's mining connections ... while my gr-grfather was working on the docks in Poplar ... but he had never spoken a word of her that anyone recalled hearing, although he named that daughter for her. He and his wife gave their numerous children middle names that came from their own siblings (as I could see once I discovered who the previous identity's siblings were), but he named none for his parents.

I had my male rellie tested with FTDNA. My understanding is that for finding genealogical connections, it may be better than 23andme. FTDNA notifies you of matches, and as long as they have not gone private, you get contact info. That's how I found the one match I've got for that one.

You're having to do autosomal because you don't have a male-line descendant (your mum is the link, like mine)? If you do have a male-line descendant -- a son of a son (of a son) of John -- that is the person to test. You'll only get a match if someone who matches has tested, of course ;)

My theory was that with all the Cornish emigration, particularly in connection with mining, and the common as dirt surname my man was born with, I would get a match somewhere among the hundreds of people in the FTDNA project for that name -- since most are in the US with no knowledge of their original English source. But not a single sausage. My theory was borne out, though: the match I did get, with the third surname, is with someone whose family was associated with copper mining in the St Austell area for generations, whose grandfather emigrated to a copper mining area in the US c1850 (the match himself died this fall at a very old age). So despite the surname mismatch, the match is obviously sound. That project itself has only a half-dozen participants, which break down into three distinct groups (Cornwall, Devon and Gloucestershire, it seems). Me and my match (our male rellies) are the only ones in our subgroup.

What you really need is for a pedigreed Kempthorne to test, so you can rule that line in or out. At GenesReunited, for instance, there are several people with the children of Mark and Betsy in their trees. (Someone also has John 1841, would it be someone you know?) And trees at Ancestry/Mundia have Mark 1804, for example. Mind you, whether they were "real" Kempthornes or not is an open question, given the Dennis element -- the trees I'm looking at either don't show Mark's father or just say William Kempthorne. One does show descendants from son James via two marriages, for example. But you might find a more reliably Kempthorne descendant to test.

I certainly recommend it. There I was trying to trace a James "Smith" born sometime before 1800 in either Cornwall or Devon (gr-grf Moonwalk's paternal grandfather, from his father's baptism record in Devon), and trying to decide whether to bite the bullet and ask the current peer (to whom I was introduced by email through a mutual acquaintance at GenesReunited who spotted the surname in my tree!) to spit on a stick for me, and what do I find but the DNA says neither one. The surname match is actually the surname of gr-grf Moonwalk's paternal grandmother as I had worked it out long before. Which doesn't count, but is an interesting connection.

cont'd
HILL, HOARE, BOND, SIBLY, Cornwall (Devon); DENNIS, PAGE, WHITBREAD, Essex; BARNARD, CASTLE, PONTON, Wiltshire; SANKEY, HORNE, YOUNG, Kent; COWDELL, Bermondsey; COOPER, SMITH, FALLOWELL, WILLEY, Notts; CAMPION, CARTER, CRADDOCK, KENNY, Northants; LITTLER, CORNER, Leicestershire; RUSHLAND, Lincolnshire; MORRISON, Ireland; COLLINS, ?; ... MONCK?


Offline JaneyCanuck

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Re: John Kempthorne - lost grandfather
« Reply #13 on: Thursday 19 December 13 18:24 GMT (UK) »
To get anything out of the autosomal DNA testing, I believe you would have to have cousins on both sides of your family tested, to try to identify which bits are coming from where and exclude the bits from the non-Kempthorne side, and see whether there is a match for the bit coming from John. That can be a hugely complicated undertaking, as I understand it. But having a pedigreed Kempthorne test might do the ruling in/out, I'm not sure. My understanding so far is pretty much limited to YDNA, since it was the particular gr-grf's name (and thus family) that was (and still is) the mystery to be solved and I had the necessary male-line descendant.



Anyhow anyhow, John Daw looks possibly interesting. Except for his name, of course. No shortage of them ... Daw alias Benny by birth -- so Benny was the father, or vice versa? Not sure how that works. Mary Daw was the mother I guess, from daughter Jane's baptism 1840. JD was slightly older than your John, but shaving a few years off would not be unexpected. Have you found him/them in 1841? I can't by either name. Aha, Jane Dawe aged 2 died in Dec 1840 in the St Columb Union House; probably the daughter. And aha, Mary Dawe aged 40 died in Newlyn East on the same day as Jane was baptised, 4 Mar 1840. So by the 1841 John was on his own. ... There is a John Benny in the 1841 but he is accounted for by an 1837 baptism with those parents ... There are a couple of people at GR with John Dawe 1837 East Newlyn in their trees who might know his fate! Ah, trees at Ancestry/Mundia show no ancestors, but have him married to Lydia Hocking in 1867 with numerous children, and accounted for up to 1911, and yes, I see him in 1881 and 1911 e.g., an ag lab in Newlyn.

I'm very useful for ruling people out ...........  ;)
HILL, HOARE, BOND, SIBLY, Cornwall (Devon); DENNIS, PAGE, WHITBREAD, Essex; BARNARD, CASTLE, PONTON, Wiltshire; SANKEY, HORNE, YOUNG, Kent; COWDELL, Bermondsey; COOPER, SMITH, FALLOWELL, WILLEY, Notts; CAMPION, CARTER, CRADDOCK, KENNY, Northants; LITTLER, CORNER, Leicestershire; RUSHLAND, Lincolnshire; MORRISON, Ireland; COLLINS, ?; ... MONCK?

Offline Vivienne Luke

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Re: John Kempthorne - lost grandfather
« Reply #14 on: Tuesday 28 January 14 00:26 GMT (UK) »
Well here I am again, still searching for that lost g grandfather. Janey you have been so helpful. However, I have followed up the Dennis line with no success. My cousin Joyce is going to chase up a male cousin Kempthorne to try and get a YDNA test done. No guarantee that he will agree though. I can't find Mark K after 1871 and Find My Past military records are no help. James K also disappears. A browse through FindMyPast emigration records was unsuccessful in finding either. Help.......

Offline JaneyCanuck

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Re: John Kempthorne - lost grandfather
« Reply #15 on: Tuesday 28 January 14 01:26 GMT (UK) »
Darn, you just missed the pre-New Year sale! A couple of words of advice on YDNA -- go straight for 67 markers. I started with 37, and the thing is that if and when that comes up with any kind of matches, you just have to upgrade/refine anyway to get an idea of whether they're meaningful.

As far as persuading your test subject ;) -- be like me, promise to be completely tight-lipped about everything.

My testee has a pseudonym on the account (which I administer) that amounts to "Mr Y Z". When you fill out the order form, don't put his name on it; have it delivered to you, and then change your name to the "Y Z" option you choose for your cousin when the test is submitted. The surname I have assigned to my testee's ancestor does not connect the testee to anyone in the records (for ancestral surname, I use the one the DNA match is with, i.e. neither Moonwalk nor Smith). For instance, you might not want to attach the surname Kempthorne to anything associated with the testing; in my other case, the testee's surname is actually the ancestral name, but it shows in his profile only as "X*, c1740, Wiltshire, England" where X is the initial of the name.

So what it comes down to is that your cousin could be "Mr. X K", and his most distant ancestor "K*, c1840, Cornwall, England". And then after you have received the test kit, you go in and remove your mailing address and telephone number from your account, just on principle, because volunteer project administrators have access to that information (and believe me, I am not happy about that). And I have a dedicated anonymous Gmail account for correspondence with project administrators and matches. And I do not disclose any surname info even to people who contact me or whom I contact about possible matches, unless and until an actual connection is established (which has happened only in this one case so far, counting both my testees).

And you promise your cousin all that, and that his own identity will absolutely never be revealed, because it is of no relevance -- all that needs to be known about him is that he is a male-line descendant, X number of generations from "Mr. X K", and you are administering the account, and your name and relationship also do not have to be disclosed to anyone. That's how I treat my testees. I don't state my own relationship to them (brother, uncle, cousin, father, whatever) to anyone, only that they are male-line descendants, X number of generations from an ancestor born c1850 or c1740.

That's a bit paranoid sounding, I'm sure. But I just don't put personal info on line or disclose it to people by default, and when I promise confidentiality, I mean it! I'd be happy to answer anything that might set your cousin's mind at rest about it all.

On the bright side, I uploaded my other kit's YDNA marker values to Ancestry (all completely anonymously again), and found a perfect match who had tested there. Which proves that both I and the other grx2 grandchild of my grx2 grandfather, who had contacted me via my census notes at Ancestry a couple of years ago and I recognized as the testee in that case, and our fathers and grandfathers, really are "legitimate". Hurray. ;) Since I think that grx2 grandfather was the last of his line, until he went forth and multiplied, that's probably about all the news I'll get there.
HILL, HOARE, BOND, SIBLY, Cornwall (Devon); DENNIS, PAGE, WHITBREAD, Essex; BARNARD, CASTLE, PONTON, Wiltshire; SANKEY, HORNE, YOUNG, Kent; COWDELL, Bermondsey; COOPER, SMITH, FALLOWELL, WILLEY, Notts; CAMPION, CARTER, CRADDOCK, KENNY, Northants; LITTLER, CORNER, Leicestershire; RUSHLAND, Lincolnshire; MORRISON, Ireland; COLLINS, ?; ... MONCK?

Offline Vivienne Luke

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Re: John Kempthorne - lost grandfather
« Reply #16 on: Tuesday 28 January 14 01:38 GMT (UK) »
Thanks Janey,
I'll forward your advice on to my cousin who is going to approach the male in question. I have ordered the full MDNA myself, but of course that won't help. I already have 23 and Me, but they don't do the full sequence, so I thought that I would try FamilyTreeDNA. My brother has agreed to be tested also. You are very thorough. If any other lightbulbs come on, please let me know as I am plum out of ideas myself.

Offline JaneyCanuck

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Re: John Kempthorne - lost grandfather
« Reply #17 on: Tuesday 28 January 14 02:10 GMT (UK) »
For autosomal, the person I'm working with on the project for surname #3 of the Smith-Moonwalk crowd recommends 23andMe as more thorough than FTDNA -- more bang for the buck.

However, I would say that depends on what the goal is. If it is to find related people, 23andMe is not the way to go, as there is a much less effective matching procedure, and reportedly people contacted about matches are generally not very responsive -- presumably because their intent in doing the testing was not to find matches.

Since you have a male-line descendant, YDNA is what you want, and I'd say FTDNA is where to do it. You can upload your own results to Ancestry (no fee, even if you are just a non-paying user - and even if you are a paying user, make a separate free anonymous account there for this) and Ysearch as well.
HILL, HOARE, BOND, SIBLY, Cornwall (Devon); DENNIS, PAGE, WHITBREAD, Essex; BARNARD, CASTLE, PONTON, Wiltshire; SANKEY, HORNE, YOUNG, Kent; COWDELL, Bermondsey; COOPER, SMITH, FALLOWELL, WILLEY, Notts; CAMPION, CARTER, CRADDOCK, KENNY, Northants; LITTLER, CORNER, Leicestershire; RUSHLAND, Lincolnshire; MORRISON, Ireland; COLLINS, ?; ... MONCK?