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.