Elsie Lilian Timms

Elsie was born in the northern hemisphere summer of 1907. She was the second child and second daughter in her family. At the time of her birth her father was employed as a coachman at Cranford House on Kenilworth Road near Blackdown and Old Milverton, Warwickshire. They lived above the stables in a small coach house.

In the summer of 1926, she celebrated her nineteenth birthday. She is the second youngest in this list of ancestors alive in 1926, and in fifty-nine years’ time she would become my daughter’s great grandmother.

Five years earlier at the 1921 census, Elsie was still in school aged almost fourteen. But by now she will have been working to help her father, a taxi driver, support the family. Working in service was mentioned but no further details as talking about her childhood was not really a place she wanted to spend time in her later years.

The year 1926 though, will have been filled with mixed emotions for the whole family. Elsie was living with her father and siblings at 6 Stamford Place, Milverton. On 14 August 1926 her elder sister was married, there would have been a lot of excitement, fun and planning in the lead up to the big day. But it would also be tinged with nerves, anxiety, and sadness – with a bit of excitement. Elsie’s sister and her new husband were bound for New Zealand where he had been offered a position in Greymouth, on the West Coast.

Laura and Ernie sailed from Southampton on 10 September 1926. Did Elsie and her other siblings travel to farewell them as they sailed? Or perhaps there were earlier tearful goodbyes as they left Milverton to travel to Southampton.

The days and weeks after their departure would have seen Elsie impatiently waiting for mail to arrive with news of their voyage and of their new home.

Mavis Harriett Myrtle Denniss

Mavis was born in mid 1908 in Wollongong, New South Wales. She was the fourth child and fourth daughter in her family, although her eldest sister had lived only a few months.

In May 1926 she turned eighteen. She is the youngest ancestor in this list of ancestors alive in 1926. She would, in fifty-nine years’ time become my daughter’s great grandmother.

The year will have been filled with exciting events for her; there was a wedding to plan and baby to look forward to.

It has been said that she worked as a schoolteacher in Wongawilli, but I haven’t been able to confirm this. Wongawilli was a small settlement with a colliery which had opened in 1916 at the foot of the Illawarra escarpment. It is now considered a rural suburb of Wollongong.

She married Robert Hogg on 14 August 1926. The first electoral roll she appears on is from 1930, where she is recorded as living in Five Islands Road, Unanderra in the Commonwealth electorate of Werriwa and State electorate of Illawarra. Her occupation at that time was Home Duties.

Even if there was an electoral roll available for 1926, Mavis at eighteen would not have been eligible to vote.

What was happening in your family 100 years ago?

I happened across this thought reading a post/article in Substack. Substack is a platform where I have been lurking but have not completely grasped yet. I want to be there; I just can’t work it out. LOL.

A fellow genealogist wrote examining the direct ancestors of her children. Where were they one hundred years ago, in 1926? What was happening in their lives? For her children there were 31 ancestors alive in 1926, some yet to meet and become life partners, others still to emigrate to what would become their new home.

There is a challenge, I thought.

Turns out, my daughter has just 24 direct ancestors who were alive in 1926. I suspect the original poster, and her children are likely older than me and my daughter.

None of my daughter’s grandparents feature in the list. Three of them though would be born by the end of that third decade in the 20^th century, actually all three in an eleven-month space of time. Her fourth grandparent would not be born until near the end of the following decade.

Her living ancestors ranged in age from eighteen to eighty-four and lived in three different countries.

I have pondered how to present them; oldest to youngest, youngest to oldest, location based, generationally, as couples…but have decided on youngest to oldest (I think).

And starting today, if I can keep up, by the end of September you may have met them all.

Z - Zaida Emily Rielly

Zaida had a short life, just seven years. She was the second child and eldest daughter of George Skivington Rielly and Emily Una nee Woodman. She was born in 1922. Her family lived in Moturoa, New Plymouth.

Her father was married twice. First to Zaida’s aunt, her mother’s sister who had died about two years after their marriage with no children. He then married Emily about nine months later in 1919 and they welcomed four children over the next seven years. He was a plasterer by trade for most of his life, but in 1928, the year in which he died, he was recorded on the electoral roll as a Watersider.

What a sad time that must have been for Zaida’s mother, to lose her husband and then Zaida within six months of each other. Three months after Zaida's death, Emily’s father also died. In 1930 with three children under ten, Zaida’s mother remarried.

Zaida and her siblings were fourth cousins of my father. Their great great grandmother (who lived to be almost one hundred and two) was a sister of my great great great grandfather. Their great grandmother had come to New Zealand with her uncle and his family in 1841and she had made a life and married twice, and lived in the New Plymouth, Whanganui, Manawatu and Wellington districts.

Is Zaida in your tree? I have met some who have her in their tree thanks to DNA. Without DNA I don’t know if I would have ever worked out how Jane got to be in New Zealand. Maybe you are another cousin I am yet to meet?

Y - Y Chromosome

Why?

This is the one we don’t all have. You only have a Y chromosome if you are male.

It doesn’t mutate very often and is passed father to son. There are markers which can determine where your family originated and show their path out of Africa. I don’t get all the science of it yet though.

Additionally, because it is passed father to son it can be a source of proving family lines. Which Smith line is the right Smith line? Are we really Joneses or could we be Prices?

A few years ago, I paid for tests for my Dad and my Mum’s cousin.

Mum’s cousin because we have a brick wall in that branch and I hoped we might find some other people. I remember being hopeful when the results came in because there was one match with the “right” surname. But there are no matches close enough to determine anything yet.

For Dad it was more to see if there were any other people testing and try to confirm the family name. The results were pretty much not results at all, so far back it was pretty much prehistoric! To be fair many lines in the family have daughtered out – but not all.

For both, I just need more people to test.

I went through the family tree and looked at DNA matches and have made a list for Dad’s paternal line of people who fit the criteria. But I don’t know 90% of them, and it isn’t cheap. Plus, we’ve all been there contacting DNA matches trying to make a connection and not getting replies for months, years or ever.

For Mum’s brick wall though I have nobody. Well, I have my male cousins, and Mum’s cousin has sons and grandsons, but they are most likely to just match and not provide a window into the past. These candidates are the only male descendants of Mr Brick Wall great great grandfather. There aren’t even a lot of autosomal matches hinting at connection in this branch. So where to go?

So, just in case you are a DAVYS who is the SON of a DAVYS and you might be interested in testing maybe we can make a deal?

Or if you are a FULLER (with roots in London/Kent/Essex) who is the SON of a FULLER it seems so much harder but maybe it is still a possibility.

Contact me male cousins, second cousins, second cousins once removed, third cousins, fourth cousins even any of you fifth cousins in England.

X - X Chromosome

X. We all have an X chromosome. Some of us even have two. How we get it, where we get it from and how it comes to us is similar but different.

Females have two X chromosomes, they receive one from each parent. When a mother gives her X chromosome to a child it is a recombination of the two X chromosomes she received from HER parents.

A male can only have one X chromosome, the one he receives from his mother. His father can only give him a Y chromosome.

A father can only give his X chromosome to a daughter, and because he has only one there is no recombination. The X chromosome he passes to his daughters is an exact copy of the recombined X chromosome which he received from his mother. If he only has sons, it can’t be passed on at all and the inheritance stops.

We still get other autosomal DNA though from our female ancestors – just not always the X.

This chart shows where my X DNA comes from. Coloured to see where it is passed on and where it is not. Pink inherited from mothers and blue inherited from fathers. There is no colour where no X can be inherited because the child in the next generation was male.

It also shows as a percentage how that is combined each generation. For example for me, each parent contributing 50% to make a total of 100% X DNA in 2 chromosomes. The 50% from my mother is made up from the recombination of her two chromosomes from her parents, nominally 25% each. The 50% from my father is that same 50% he received from his mother.

How crazy is it to see that for my paternal grandmother, the X chromosome from her father (which makes up half of the X I inherited from my father) came direct from his mother and in turn half of that again came from his mother’s grandmother! That means I have nominally 12.5% X DNA from one of my 4 x great grandmothers. I don’t even know her name.

W - William Reuben George Betts

William was born in Chelsea, London on 27 December 1841. His birth is registered as Reuben George, but by the time he was baptised at St Luke, Chelsea in January 1842 his name had become William Reuben. On the 1851 census he was recorded as Reuben. He was the second child and only son of Thomas Betts and Anne nee Horskins. He was a first cousin of my great great grandmother.

William’s father was recorded as a Distiller when he married Ann and a Brewer’s Labourer on the 1851 census. On subsequent censuses he is recorded as a Labourer. William was usually recorded as a Labourer too, but on Christmas Eve 1865 when he married Elizabeth Rice in Wandsworth, he gave his occupation as Engine Driver. At the baptism for his eldest son, he is recorded as a Stoker.

In July 1874, with his wife and three eldest children, William emigrated to New Zealand. His cousin, my great great grandmother had been living in Christchurch since 1860. Did they come because they knew she was already settled there? Or was there other family already here as well? They had five more children once in Christchurch, although only two survived into adulthood.

Christchurch was still a small town in the 1870s, they surely knew each other although I have never heard talk of this family before myself. They lived and worked in the same growing suburbs as well.

In 1900 the family were living in Southampton Street, Sydenham. Their three eldest children Elizabeth, James and Walter were already married. James was employed as a compositor; Walter was a bootmaker and very shortly would have a shoe store on the corner of Colombo and Byron Streets. There appears to be another Betts family living in Sydenham. James marries a daughter from this family but perhaps they are connected some other way too? Potentially cousins of William.

In another potential twist or hypothetical coincidence. Two of my grandfather’s cousins ran a printing and stationery business in Christchurch. Where did they learn this trade? Could it be that they worked for their Betts cousins who were compositors and in the print trade?

A DNA match revealed this surprise connection. Until then we had absolutely no idea anyone else in this family had emigrated. Let alone to the same flourishing city or that William and his wife were buried just a row apart from my great great grandparents.

Do you know this family? Maybe we can collaborate.

V - Viola Grace Cooper

Viola was born in Waikiwi, Southland, New Zealand in 1880. She was the ninth child of ten. Her parents were married in Hobart, Tasmania in 1864 where her mother had been born and raised, the daughter of two convicts. Her father had been born in England and emigrated to Wellington, New Zealand as a child with his parents and siblings. He spent some time on the Victorian goldfields and returned to New Zealand and set up a nursery business in Invercargill and Waikiwi.

Viola married James McKay in 1902 and they had four children. In the 1905 and 1908 electoral rolls James is an engineer and they are living in Kelso in the Clutha or Wakatipu electorate. In 1911 they are still in the Wakatipu electorate but are living at Waikaka. In 1914 though they were living at Mabel School in the Mataura electorate and James was a farmer. James died in 1918. Their children at this time were aged between four and fourteen.

In the 1919 electoral roll although James no longer appears, Viola’s entry still shows her as married and living at Mabel School. In 1922 Viola appears on the electoral roll in Timaru living at 106 Church Street. In 1923 she is listed in the Wises Street Directory as a Dressmaker living at the same address, on the left-hand side between Gibson Street and Le Cren Street. James had died in Invercargill so at some time afterward she must have moved her family north.

Viola remarried in 1924 to William John Spence a well-known horse trainer in Timaru. On the 1925 electoral roll they are living at 137 Evans Street, where they remained. William was killed after suffering a seizure his horse bolted, and he was thrown from the gig in 1941. Viola died in 1959.

One of Viola’s older sisters named one of her own children Viola Grace as well, perhaps after her favourite sister. Do you know this family? Viola’s father was a younger brother of my great great grandfather. He appears to have an additional name which I haven’t been able to verify and so was initially sceptical of the link. However, DNA and the information recorded on various certificates has convinced me. Plus, there seem to be a lot of green fingered nurserymen in this branch. If this all rings bells for you please contact me and we can share what we know.

U - Unknown

I have an overwhelming number of people in my tree called Unknown. I knew they were there, but doing this A-Z challenge searching for people to write about has dramatically brought the situation to the forefront.

Unknown spouses, unknown surnames, specifically unknown maiden names of spouses, unknown children. Some are unknown because the records don’t exist or in the case of many women, they are never given an identity – just considered a chattel of their husbands.

Others are forced to be unknown because although there are records, we are paralysed in our research by the 100-year rule and unable to confirm names and events.

I need to do something about this to make my tree as complete as I can. So, my challenge for the next wee while will be to pick away at the list and see if I can give some of them an identity.

If you are looking for me, that’s where I will be, standardising place name formats and reducing the number of unknown people in the tree.

T - Tabitha Turtle

Tabitha was born on 29 June 1831 in St Marylebone, Westminster. On her baptism record on 7 August that year at All Souls her father is recorded as a Servant and Chandler and the family were living at 22 Harley Mews. Tabitha was the eldest known child of Thomas Turtle/Turtell/Tuttle and his wife Ann nee Boddington. Her parents were both from Oxfordshire and had married at Christ Church, Southwark, Surrey on 7 August 1828.

DNA matches link Tabitha to my family through the Boddingtons with her mother likely to have been a sister of my great great great grandmother Hannah.

By the time of the 1841 census Tabitha has 4 younger siblings, there was a fifth who had died aged about fourteen months. At this time the family seems to be one of six families living in one building in Upper York Street, perhaps a tenement. Thomas is only recorded as a male servant.

In 1851 Tabitha is employed as a Parlour Maid to the Vicar in Peasmarsh Sussex. Her father and brother were still in St Marylebone, lodging with a husband and wife in Little George Street where the head of the house was a Coachman and Thomas was recorded as a Cab Driver. Her sister Maria is a scholar at the Parochial School in New Road Sy Marylebone, and Rebecca the youngest sibling is living with an aunt and uncle in Standlake Oxfordshire. I have been unable to find either her mother or her sister Ann in 1851. Perhaps they had died and this is why the family were spread across four different households at the time of the census.

In 1856 Tabitha and her sister Maria emigrated to South Australia arriving at Port Adelaide on the Fitzjames on New Years Eve 1856. Two years later she married John Hooker. They had one child before he died in Kapunda in 1860 aged thirty-nine. Very soon after his death Tabitha remarried to Thomas Cook.

Two years later, Tabitha’s youngest sister joined them in South Australia, sailing on the Sir John Lawrence, the first ship to arrive under a new Emigration Scheme.

But what happened next? There is a death in New Zealand for a Tabitha Jane Cook under suspicious circumstances in 1875, but the age doesn’t quite fit to be this Tabitha. But then information on death certificates is notorious for being error filled.

Do you know the Turtle/Turtell/Tuttle family? Can you help me?

S - Sarah Elizabeth Laney

There are two people in my tree with this name. My great great grandmother, born in Nelson New Zealand in 1850 and her first cousin born in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire in 1839.

I came across the elder Sarah from a DNA match which Dad had – third cousin twice removed. Pretty faraway, but the only one at that point possibly hinting at the next generation back. Always sceptical about some of these small matches I did a bit of research of my own. Ancestry had identified the match as being on my grandmother’s side which was correct and age, place and other family names seemed to match – or look likely too. The biggest hook for me that this was right, was that her father’s name was Leander.

It isn’t a very common name, I’m not even sure where it comes from, but it sure helped to persuade me that the tree was correct and the match was valid. Leander appears through many generations of the descendants of my great great great grandfather who emigrated to Nelson in 1842 and raised a family there. I messaged the match, way back in 2020 and I am still patiently waiting on a reply.

Sarah’s parents were married in Oxford in 1827. At the time of their marriage Leander was living in Newbury, Berkshire. By 1841 the family had moved and were living in Cleveland Street, Wolverhampton. They had six children by then and none are recorded as being born in Staffordshire on the census. On later censuses the younger ones are recorded as being born there. They went on to have thirteen children, although not all survived to adulthood.

Sarah’s father is a musician on the 1841 census and in 1851 he is a Teacher of Music, and they have moved to Merridale Street. They were still at this address in 1861 with six of their children. On this census, Sarah aged 21 is a dressmaker. She married Joseph Simpson in 1868, he was a tailor. In the 1871 census Sarah is still listed as a Dressmaker despite being married with a toddler and another baby on the way.

Joseph and Sarah had a family of seven although three of her eldest children died before their second birthdays. By 1881 Joseph had become a Hardware Merchant’s Packer but Sarah was still contributing to the family’s income as a Dressmaker. Sarah continued to work into her widowhood after Joseph died in 1899. She died in Wolverhampton in 1912.

Maybe this Sarah is your great great grandmother? Or one of her siblings is your ancestor. I would love to hear from you and reconnect the branches of the tree.

 

R - Roxillanna Lawrence

What a great name – don’t you think? 

Roxillanna was born in Coventry in 1899. Her father was my great grandfather’s first cousin. They lived almost next door to each other for some of their childhood, but a seven-year age difference may have meant they didn’t know each other well.

Roxillanna was the middle child of nine although as her elder twin brothers died in infancy so she will have grown up as the third child with five sisters and one younger brother.

Her father was a Fruiterer, managing his own store in Birmingham and later Coventry. Her mother took over the business after the death of her father in 1917. Not long after his death, in 1918, Roxillanna married Cecil Payne. Cecil was a public servant on the 1921 census working at the Ministry of Labour employed at the Government Instructional Factory. In 1939 at the outbreak of World War Two he was an Assistant Production Manager.

Cecil and Roxillanna had two daughters.

But where did her name come from? Did she like it? It was quite different to her sister’s names – Nellie, Rose, Jessie, Gladys and Doris.

Do you know this family? Can we help each other? Please get in contact if you think we have a connection.

Q - Questions

Genealogy is all about questions. What do you know? Who do you remember? What was it like? Where did you live?

Some people answer willing to share, flattered that you have asked. Others don’t. Nothing to know here, what do you want to know that rubbish for? Some answers are chinese whispers with just a skerek of truth woven in. Other questions get answered with answers which create more questions.

There are so many places now to search and research, compared with what was available sixty or so years ago. But there is always a question before you begin, where can I find out about…?

Most of the records we seek are full of answers to questions posed by officials. What is your name? Where were you born? What is your occupation? When were you born? What is your father’s name? How old are you?

Slowly we can build a picture of the people we have never met and put their lives in context. See the world as they saw it, imagine their wonder if they could see today’s world (or maybe their despair).

Would the people who didn’t want to answer questions, or who gave vague answers be surprised about what we have been able to discover anyway? Would they feel that the past had been honoured, the people respected, their lives cherished?

I hope so.

P - Peternell Eastment

Peternell was born about 1733 and baptised at Hardington Mandeville in Somerset. Most of her siblings were baptised in East Chinnock which is where she married Richard Bartlett in 1760.

She and Richard raised a family of six sons and one daughter. Three of those children; Samuel, Ann and Joseph, would go on to have children and grandchildren who emigrated to New Zealand and Australia in the 1840-1850s. Samuel’s son Nathaniel came to Wellington, his grandson John to New South Wales. Ann’s great grandson George came to Auckland and two of Joseph’s daughters and a son came to Wellington, the two girls and their families settling in Hawke’s Bay. Another of Joseph’s daughters came to New South Wales and a granddaughter as well, daughter of one of the two sons who remained in England.

Perhaps others migrated too, to other colonies, or maybe some of her siblings and their descendants did.

The Bartlett line gets a little muddly, there are SO many Bartlett families in East Chinnock which by all accounts is a very small parish. A lot of research was undertaken by a cousin of my grandmother, along with my Dad and a few other cousins in the 1980-1990s culminating in a reunion in 1988 in Cambridge New Zealand and the unveiling of a plaque commemorating my great great grandparents at Hautapu Cemetery.

So far, I have found one granddaughter and two great granddaughters who were named for her. Both great granddaughters lived in Australia or New Zealand. One came with her husband and young family to New South Wales and the other was born in Ngaio, Wellington after her parents and older siblings had emigrated. I wonder if there are more.

But what of the Eastments? Peternell had at least five siblings and I have not done very much to see if I can follow them forward. I believe her father was William Eastment and her mother Joan Taylor. But the early 1700s is getting near the sketchy end of parish records to be 100% sure.

Perhaps you know more? Do you have Eastments in your tree? Or Bartletts? I still have some gaps there too.

O - Olive Laura Hammond

Olive was born in Appleby or Richmond near Nelson New Zealand in 1893. Her parents Walter and Eva were first cousins. Her grandfathers were brothers who had come to New Zealand in the early 1840s with their parents who were following other members of the family.

Olive was the eldest child of the marriage, although she did have an older half brother from her father’s first marriage. She had two younger brothers and a younger sister by 1899.

She grew up with her siblings in the Waimea area where her father worked for Hon. J. Barnicoat on his estate. He was the third generation of the Hammond family to be employed by Mr Barnicoat. His grandfather had travelled to New Zealand on the same ship as Mr Barnicoat who was tasked with surveying the Waimea plains. On Mr Barnicoat’s death he was able to buy part of the estate and farmed there for the remainder of his life. He was a founder of the Waimea Dairy Company and director for twenty years. He was also well known for his pedigree Friesian herd who won prizes at shows and produced superior milk for use in cheesemaking.

Driving through that area today, you can imagine it must have been a carefree and enjoyable life in those early days in the colony, when you were fortunate enough to have a successful farm providing a good income.

Olive’s brothers all married but she and her sister did not. Olive became a schoolteacher, sitting an entry examination in 1911 when she was eighteen. Her sister Vida became a nurse, training in Nelson and in 1940 was appointed Matron at Whangarei Public Hospital. Born in the year of the 3^rd Suffrage petition perhaps she was meant to be a strong independent woman.

When she died in 1964, she left £300 to two nieces (nothing to nephews?) and the remainder of her estate to her sister.

She and Vida are buried together at Richmond cemetery, in Richmond.

I am connected to Olive through her great grandfather. He was one of the three brothers of my great great great grandmother who also settled in Nelson in the 1840s.

Do you have these people in your family? There are LOTS of Hammond descendants in the Appleby, Waimea, Richmond, Nelson and Marlborough area – maybe we can expand our trees together. Please reach out if you are a cousin no matter how distant.

N - Norman Smyth Langdon

Norman was born in Brompton Ralph, Somerset in 1887. He was the eldest child of George Washington Langdon and Annie nee Smyth.

Norman’s father was born in 1855 in Chicago, Illinois. His grandparents Robert Langdon and Harriet nee Yeandle, were briefly in America before returning to farm in England. They left England shortly after their marriage in 1855 and made their way to Illinois and later Minnesota. George was their only biological child. In about 1863 they took in and adopted Wilbur Norman Crawford. His mother had died leaving five very young children including baby Wilbur. He was raised as part of the Langdon family and returned with them to England when he was about fourteen, in the late 1870s. Wilbur would later discover his true identity and reconnect with his birth family when he returned to live in America.

When the family returned from America they went back to Brompton Ralph. George at this time was in his early twenties working with his father on the family farm. He married Annie in Stogumber in 1886 and welcomed first Norman and then three years later another son Ronald.

In the 1890’s both brothers relocated to Kent and continued to farm there. Norman married in 1926 but did not have children. He died in 1945 aged fifty-eight.

I am related in a couple of ways to Norman. His two times great grandparents Robert Norman and Jane Venn are also my four times great grandparents. In the same way his four times great grandparents Thomas Davys and Jane Helling are also my six times great grandparents. Confused? Imagine trying to keep this all straight in your head!

Do you have Yeandle, Davys, Norman, Langdon in your family? Maybe we can share information. Please get in contact if you are keen.

M - Mary Ellis

I don’t know a lot about Mary. Here is what I do know.

She was born on 24 July 1770 in Liverpool, Lancashire and baptised on 12 August the same year at Our Lady & St Nicholas. Or was she? There seem to be three Mary Ellis’s born within one year of each other in Liverpool.

I have gone with this one merely because the Mary Ellis who married Thomas Vose in 1797, was married at Our Lady & St Nicholas which seems to suggest there could be a family connection to that church. There are no clues that I have found to determine who her mother was and whether she had any siblings.

On her baptism, she is recorded as the daughter of John Ellis, Tobacconist of Hale Street, no mother’s names appear on the pages in the church record. The marriage record similarly is too early to have additional information included such as her father’s name.

Mary’s husband Thomas was recorded as a Joiner on the baptisms for both the children who have been confirmed. When their son Edward was baptised on 20 May 1798 his birthdate and birth order in the family were also noted in the parish register. It also notes that the parents place of marriage was “this Chapel”, making me feel I have followed the right Mary. At the time of Edward's baptism they were living in Cheetham Brow and Edward was numbered #1 in the family.

Fourteen months later they returned to Our Lady & St Nicholas to baptise their daughter Elizabeth, her place in the family is recorded as #3 – surely an error – and the family are now living in Vernon Street. They don’t seem to have anymore children, but perhaps they moved and I have been looking in the wrong places.

A burial record for Mary says she is the wife of Thomas Vose and was buried in Wigan 13 October 1810. Her recorded age is not quite right but considering that in those times many were illiterate and birthdays weren’t celebrated with all the festivities we enjoy now, its not too far out to be impossible.

Anyway, can you help me sort out the Mary’s? Or discover any more about their family? Please reach out if you think you can.

L - Lafayette Nathaniel Norman

Lafayette was born in 1868 in Winthrop, Buchanan, Iowa. He was the tenth child of Nicholas Norman and Mary nee Taylor. His parents had come to America as young adults in about 1847. Mary with her family and Nicholas apparently working his passage as crew. According to family lore, they knew each other distantly in Somerset but were not aware of the travel plans each of them had. They met again by chance when Nicholas’ ship was wrecked, and the one Mary’s family were travelling on was part of the rescue.

They married in 1849 in Bloomdale, Wood, Ohio where Mary’s family had gone immediately after arriving in America. Most of their older children were born in Ohio before the family settled in Winthrop.

A couple of years after Nicholas went to America, his brother-in-law followed him to Ohio. Once established about a year later, his wife – Nicholas’ sister – followed with their young children. Clement Warren, Lafayette’s uncle, was drafted in Bloomfield in 1863 and fought in the American Civil War which went from1861-1865. Did Lafayette’s father also fight in the war?

What prompted his parents to name him after the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the War of Independence fought almost a century before he was born. Nicholas was a farmer; did he stay on the farm and not join up to fight in the civil war? Perhaps, naming his sons born during and just after the war was meant to be a symbol of his patriotism. Perhaps Lafayette’s elder brother Grant was named for Ulysses Grant famous for leading the Union Army to victory in the civil war and a citizen of Ohio. I have seen instances in other families of children being named for Lafayette and George Washington, possibly for a similar reason.

Lafayette spent most of his life in Winthrop and Byron Iowa. He married twice; with his first wife Lillian he had two daughters. He was employed by the Post Office and on most censuses gave his occupation as Cashier in a Bank. Lillian died in 1926 aged fifty-eight.

Just a year after her death, Lafayette remarried.  His new wife was seventeen years younger than him, just five years older than his eldest daughter. They had one son born the following year and named Lafayette Nathaniel, like his father. His new bride was also a widow and brought her two children with her into the family. In 1930 they were living at Lake Worth, Palm Beach, Florida, but returned to Winthrop by October 1933 when Lafayette died aged sixty-four.

Kind of cool that having been gifted his father’s name Lafayette Jnr raised his family in Independence, Buchanan, Iowa.

Lafayette’s grandchildren would be fourth cousins to my Dad – fourth cousins once removed to me – that’s not too distant at all in the grand scheme of life. Do you know these people? Are they in your tree? Can you help me fill in some gaps?

 

 

K - Kate Marriott

Kate was a cousin of my grandmother’s father. Kate’s mother was Mary Timms born in Rousham, Oxfordshire, she married Alfred Marriott in December 1844 in Great Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire. She had been living there at least since the 1841 census working as domestic servant. Alfred was a baker, together they had eight children, seven of whom survived into adulthood. Kate was their second child and first daughter.

At the time of the1881 census Kate was living in Enfield, Middlesex employed as a domestic servant for a widowed Justice of the Peace. Around 1884 Kate married Uriah Gardner, sometimes known as Leonard and with various spellings of Gardner. They seem to have only had one child, a son: Uriah Leonard born in Kensington, London in 1884.

The family can be found on the 1891 census with their seven-year-old son, on this record both father and son were recorded as Leonard. In the 1901 census only Kate and Uriah (Leonard) are living together. Uriah was a Coachman and Bus Driver. Their son Leonard was living next door in a boarding house working as a Painter’s Help.

But what happened next?

Their son married in November 1902. At this point he said he was an Engineer, later he was out of work and then a Printer in 1911 at the census. While he was out of work it appears he deserted his wife and children briefly to search for work which resulted in her relocating to a different parish and looking for aid. Of course, the times being what they were the church did not want to take on and support a family which was not native to their parish, and so she and the children were removed to the parish from where they had come after a brief stay in the workhouse. On these records a note in pencil says that her mother-in-law Kate Marriott was in the Kensington workhouse.

How had Kate fallen on tough times? Why was she using her maiden name instead of her married name? Sure enough, on the 1911 census there is a Kate Marriott aged sixty-one in the workhouse. But she says she is single rather than married or widowed and her occupation is recorded as “formerly Ladies Maid”. Is this the right person? Also, in 1911 Uriah or Leonard is boarding with a family.

Meanwhile, their son is living back with his wife with two children and another arriving shortly after the census. At the 1911 census it is just three years until the outbreak of war. Leonard enlisted in September 1914, leaving his wife and four children to go to fight in France. Eighteen months later his only son would arrive. Sadly, three months after that in May 1916 Leonard was killed in action. In his service record one document records all living relatives of the deceased soldier. They are all marked as none (siblings, parents, and grandparents) apart from his wife and five children.

When did his parents die? Did Kate die in the workhouse or was she reunited with her husband?

Is Kate part of your family? Please contact me if you know more then I do or are keen to see if we can find more together.

J - James Cording

James was the third son of Edward Cording and Mellony, nee Townsend. He was born in Carhampton, Somerset in 1834 and baptised a month later at Timberscombe St the Bible Christian Chapel. 

According to his obituary in The Pantograph (Bloomington, Illinois) he emigrated to Canda in 1858 and moved to Illinois, USA in 1862. I have not found passenger lists to confirm that arrival date, but on 1 January 1859 he married Eliza Norman whose family had also emigrated to Canada in the 1850s. The Normans were from Luxborough in Somerset, about 5 miles from Carhampton. Were James and Eliza an item prior to emigration, did they form a relationship on board ship, or after arrival in the new colony?

James and Eliza had a family of eight children. Their first daughter was born in Hamilton Ontario, but the remaining seven arrived in Illinois; in Centralia, Marion County and then mostly in Livingston County in Strawn and Forrest. As in England, James was farming in Forrest.

By the time of the 1870 census his elder brother John had also emigrated and was living with is wife and children on the adjacent farm. It would see that John had arrived between 1863-1870. A couple of years later in 1872 a younger brother Albert emigrated and around the same time Eliza’s brother William travelled back to England and married James’ younger sister before returning with her to Illinois between 1872-1874.

By the late 1890s James and Eliza’s siblings’ families had spread as far as Michigan, Canada and California with the majority remaining in Illinois. Their own children lived mostly in Forrest.

Eliza was badly injured in the major rail disaster at Chatsworth on 10 August 1887. Her sister Emma was one of the victims. She died in 1912 and James in 1925 and are both buried at the Forrest Township Cemetery.

I am connected to James’ family through his wife Eliza. Her father Richard was a brother of my great great great grandfather William Norman.

Are any of these people your people? Let me know if you think we might have a connection.