Author Topic: Children abandoning their parents?  (Read 3030 times)

Offline M_ONeill

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Re: Children abandoning their parents?
« Reply #9 on: Friday 12 October 18 12:36 BST (UK) »
Looking a bit more closely at the birth dates of the Monk children, I notice a slightly suspicious gap from 1810 - 14. I'm beginning to wonder if there aren't some missing children in there. I wonder if William and Elizabeth ever lived outside of Rock.  ???

Also, one of Edward Monkton's daughters was listed in a later census as having been born in Rock c1844, so he may actually have come back to Rock sometime just before his father died, although it's hard to tell thanks to the fuzzy dates.

Offline Maiden Stone

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Re: Children abandoning their parents?
« Reply #10 on: Friday 12 October 18 14:55 BST (UK) »
Looking a bit more closely at the birth dates of the Monk children, I notice a slightly suspicious gap from 1810 - 14. I'm beginning to wonder if there aren't some missing children in there. I wonder if William and Elizabeth ever lived outside of Rock.  ???
You may be right. There may have been other reasons.  Elizabeth may have had a miscarriage. Her husband might have been away from home; this was last few years of Napoleonic Wars, men volunteered or were conscripted into militia, army or navy.
You're assuming that all the children were baptised as infants, not always the case. Some baptism registers included birthdates. There was a short gap between baptism of Francis, July 1815 and Joseph, April 1816.  It's unlikely that Joseph was premature as he survived to adulthood. If Joseph was full-term and if Francis was baptised as an infant, Francis might have been born 1814 or early 1815. He could have been born before then. Unfortunately Francis died in 1815 so no census record to say when and where he was born. Did entry in burial register give any information?
Do you know how old their mother was?
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Offline M_ONeill

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Re: Children abandoning their parents?
« Reply #11 on: Friday 12 October 18 15:45 BST (UK) »
That's interesting, Maiden Stone, I didn't know a lot of that information about baptisms!

I sadly don't know exactly how old Elizabeth was, as I haven't found a birth record yet. Given the time of her marriage I use a rough estimate of about 1776, but that's just a ballpark guess.

Francis' baptismal listing has his baptism on 2nd July 1815 with his death on 9th September 1815.

Offline cristeen

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Re: Children abandoning their parents?
« Reply #12 on: Friday 12 October 18 17:53 BST (UK) »
There's a burial record for Elizabeth Monk, aged 45, 8th July 1821 St Peter & St Paul, Rock
Newson, Steavenson, Walker, Taylor, Dobson, Gardner, Clark, Wilson, Smith, Crossland, Goldfinch, Burnett, Hebdon, Peers, Strother, Askew, Bower, Beckwith, Patton, White, Turner, Nelson, Gilpin, Tomlinson, Thompson, Spedding, Wilkes, Carr, Butterfield, Ormandy, Wilkinson, Cocking, Glover, Pennington, Bowker, Kitching, Langhorn, Haworth, Kirkham.


Offline M_ONeill

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Re: Children abandoning their parents?
« Reply #13 on: Friday 12 October 18 18:18 BST (UK) »
Ah, thank you, Cristeen!

I looked up George’s baptismal date - it looks likely that Elizabeth died in childbirth. He was baptised on the 7th July 1821. He died 3rd November 1822.

Offline Maiden Stone

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Re: Children abandoning their parents?
« Reply #14 on: Friday 12 October 18 20:23 BST (UK) »
There's a burial record for Elizabeth Monk, aged 45, 8th July 1821 St Peter & St Paul, Rock

If that was her and if age approximately correct, she would have been mid-thirties in 1810. Fertility level might have decreased a bit.
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Offline M_ONeill

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Re: Children abandoning their parents?
« Reply #15 on: Friday 12 October 18 20:32 BST (UK) »
So thanks to your post earlier, MS, I looked into the possibility of military service. I found records relating to one William Monk, Private of the 2nd Batallion, 66th regiment of foot. They sailed for service in the Peninsular war in April 1809 and said soldier was awarded military medal clasps up to the battle of Orthez in February 1814. I’m chasing up the particulars in a thread in the Armed Forces forum, but a cursory glance shows it’s a possibility, at least.

The one potential fly in the ointment is that the medal was awarded retroactively in 1848 and had to be applied for in person by surviving soldiers. My pencilled-in death record for William is ~1844.

Offline M_ONeill

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Re: Children abandoning their parents?
« Reply #16 on: Sunday 14 October 18 11:53 BST (UK) »
So I think I’ve just found another twist in this case - I’ve found what I believe to be Joseph’s burial record in Rock in 1839, but he’s buried as Joseph Monk.

So I’m not 100% sure it’s the same one, but I’m pretty sure. I’ve found no records of any other Joseph Monks in Rock.

The dates almost match perfectly (birth is given as 1813 rather than 1816, but that could be a mistranscription, I suppose. That, or William and Elizabeth waited 3 years to have him baptised). burial date is given as 17th May 1839, two months after the baptism of Joseph Monkton’s second son, Thomas in Pattingham.

Now Rock is a long way to be buried away from Pattingham, especially when you’ve just had a son baptised there. Maybe Ann and Joseph had split up and Joseph had gone back to live with his father?

So this story just gets stranger and stranger. You have the Monk family, the sons all move away and by 1833 at least one of them is calling themselves ‘Monkton’. All of the other brothers have all followed suit by between ‘33 and ‘41.

One of the brothers, Joseph, gets married under his new name in Pattingham, but somehow ends up dying back in his hometown, while his father still lives. He is buried under his original name of Monk. Another Brother, Edward, returns to Rock either just before or just after his father dies, but he continues using Monkton. The name Monk seems to be buried with William.

Anybody have any ideas as to what’s happening here? I’m pretty stumped! Given that Joseph dies in Rock in ‘39, I think we can discount the idea of the kids deserting their father. Equally though, evidence suggests that William maybe either didn’t know or didn’t approve of the name change.

Thoughts?

Offline Maiden Stone

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Re: Children abandoning their parents?
« Reply #17 on: Tuesday 16 October 18 16:51 BST (UK) »
So I think I’ve just found another twist in this case - I’ve found what I believe to be Joseph’s burial record in Rock in 1839, but he’s buried as Joseph Monk.

So I’m not 100% sure it’s the same one, but I’m pretty sure. I’ve found no records of any other Joseph Monks in Rock.

The dates almost match perfectly (birth is given as 1813 rather than 1816, but that could be a mistranscription, I suppose. That, or William and Elizabeth waited 3 years to have him baptised).

Re surname. Could everyone concerned read and write? Some people's surnames were altered in records without their knowledge because they were illiterate. I assume Joseph would have been known in his birthplace as Joseph Monk.

Recorded age at death was often inaccurate. Whoever arranged funeral may have estimated Joseph's age. Joseph may not have known his exact age.
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