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.