Z - Zero, Zilch, Zip, Nada

There are a number of people who could fit in this category.

Great-great-grandfather Julius Fuller for one, who after 50+ years research still only appears on two official records in England before he emigrated to New Zealand in 1859.

But instead I thought I’d choose someone I really don’t know much about at all.

Ann Blackman.

She is my daughter’s 4 x great-grandmother. I haven’t been able to find her baptism in England, arrival in Australia, marriage or the birth/baptisms of the three children her death certificate says she had. That death certificate is only one of two documents I have found for her in 30 or so years of looking. The second is her daughter’s marriage certificate where she is recorded as a parent.

Ann was 64 when she died 3 May 1870 in Queanbeyan, New South Wales. The informant on the death certificate was her adult daughter. The only child I know for sure. But did Sarah REALLY know the details ? Here is what she supplied.

Name and occupation of Father:

____ Blackman, Blacksmith

Name and maiden surname of Mother:

Not Known

Where born & how long in the Australian Colonies or States:

Hastings, Kent, England; 33 years in New South Wales

Place of marriage, age and to whom:

Sydney, Not Known, Joseph Dickinson

Children of marriage:

Living 1 male, 2 females

Eight years later when Joseph Dickinson died, his 2^nd wife was the informant on the certificate and she stated 2 children to a former wife. Very helpful – not. 

The information provided by her Sarah suggests that Ann arrived in New South Wales about 1837. Sarah was born about 1845/1846, deduced from information on her marriage certificate. In 1862 she was 17, her father’s consent was given to the marriage and noted on the certificate. She may have been younger though since at the birth of her 2^nd child in 1864 her husband gave her age as 18. Therefore Ann & Joseph's marriage must have taken place between 1837 and 1846. Joseph Dickinson was a convict, there should be an Application to Marry for him; unless the marriage didn’t take place until after he received his Certificate of Freedom in 1841. There doesn’t appear to be an application – although there is something in that dataset which could do with a bit more investigation. The only Ann Blackman marriage I can find on the NSW indexes is around the right time - but not to Joseph. 

In 1850 Joseph Dickinson was charged with grossly abusing his wife, and later in the year jailed for breaching the conditions set in court. No children were mentioned in the newspaper coverage of the court case.

So far no DNA matches are clearly aligned to this little piece of the tree either. So there you go. 

Zero, Zilch, Zip, Nada.

This brings to a close my A-Z blog challenge for Family History Month 2020. I hope you have enjoyed it, maybe discovered something you didn’t know or maybe even been inspired to give it a go yourself.

 

 

Y - Y.M.C.A

No, this in NOT about the Village People !

This little discovery came when I was scouring newspapers on PapersPast for an article I knew I had seen, but had failed to record where. Let that be a lesson to you all. Document your sources !!

I was looking for the name of a house which my great-grandfather’s brother had built in Cambridge, New Zealand. I found an obituary for his wife instead, which I don’t recall having seen before. Harriett and her husband were first cousins. Their mothers were sisters, so obviously she was my great-grandfather’s cousin too.

Her obituary in the Waikato Independent, 26 August 1939, page 4  gave some details about her family, birth place and arrival in New Zealand. She had come with her parents – who were 2^nd cousins – to Auckland and then the Coromandel. She was their only child. Her mother died at Shellback Creek near Tararu in 1869 when Harriet was about 14. Her aunt and uncle lived at Tararu too so I daresay they helped her widowed father care for her.

Anyway, back to the discovery. One sentence.

“It is of interest to note that Mrs Davys was the second cousin to Sir George Williams, the founder of the Y.M.C.A.”

What ?

If Harriet was his second cousin, then chances were that her husband and his siblings, including my great-grandfather were too. So I had to search and see what I could find.

George Williams was born 11 October 1821 at Ashway Farm near Dulverton. He was the youngest child of Amos Williams and his wife Ann/Betty/Elizabeth (just to be confusing). I didn’t have any other Williams in my tree, apart from an odd one here and there, so who was his mother ? She had to be the key.

Cue flashing lights. 

Wikipedia says his parents were Amos Williams (tick) and Elizabeth Vickery. On the same page Wiki also says her name was Ann “Betty” Vickery. Hmmm. BUT, I do have a bunch of Vickerys mixed in with my Norman paternal great-great-grandmother’s family….and BINGO ! Harriet’s mother Caroline and my great-great-grandmother Sarah were Norman sisters. Harriett’s father was also a Norman (2^nd cousin – remember ?) Jane and Caroline’s mother was Sarah Vickery, who had married her 1^st cousin William Norman. Nothing out of the ordinary it seems in Huish Champflower !

Off I went to find the baptisms on Ancestry and build a tree to look for the link. First I found their marriage to get a starting point to look for baptisms. They married at Withiel Florey on 15 August 1807 and their first child John Vickery Williams was baptised 14 January 1808, in the same parish. The father of my 4 x great-grandmother Sarah Vickery was John. Was this another lightbulb flashing ? A quick diversion to check what siblings I had for Sarah, found she did have a sister Betty Ann baptised in 1785 (the date is illegible on the page of the church record book).

That solved the problem of how Sir George Williams could be the 2^nd cousin of Harriett, and proved that he was also the 2^nd cousin of my great-grandfather. But how did this youngest son from a farming family happen to be the founder of the Y.M.C.A ?

George was the youngest of 7 sons, he also had one sister. As career paths go seventh sons are way down the list. Not much chance of taking over the family farm there. Wikipedia says he attended Gloyn’s in Tiverton, Devon until he was 13 when he began working on the family farm. His family sent him to Bridgwater where he was an apprentice in Henry William Holmes’ draper shop. What is it with drapers and this part of the world ? They keep popping up in all my branches.

In 1837 he left the Church of England and joined the Zion Congregational Church and in 1841 he moved to London where he worked as an apprentice at Hitchcock & Rogers, a draper’s shop. In London he became a member of the King’s Weigh House congregational church. After three years with Hitchcock & Rogers, George was promoted to department manager.

On 6 June 1844, appalled by the terrible conditions in London for young working men, like himself, George gathered a group of 11 fellow drapers in the living quarters of Hitchcock & Rogers to create a place that would not tempt young men into sin. The name Young Men’s Christian Association was agreed on at the suggestion of Christopher W Smith, one of the 11. The aim was to put Christian principles in practice to develop a healthy “mind, body & spirit.” One of the earliest converts and contributors to the new association was his employer, George Hitchcock.

Nine years later in 1853 he married the owner’s daughter and was taken into the business as a partner. The business was renamed George Hitchcock, Williams & Co., and when George Hitchcock died in 1863 George Williams became the sole owner. George and his wife Helen had seven children. One son Albert went on to marry the granddaughter of Thomas Cook who had founded the travel agency Thomas Cook and Son. George’s nephew John Williams married the only child of Matthew Hodder of the publishing business Hodder & Stoughton. Matthew had been George’s lifelong London friend.

George Williams was knighted by Queen Victoria in her 1894 Birthday Honours, this same year was the silver Jubilee of the Y.M.C.A and the year he received Freedom of the City of London. He died on 6 November 1905 at the Victoria and Albert Hotel in Torquay aged 84. His funeral was attended by 2,600 mourners at St Paul’s Cathedral on 14 November 1905 and he was buried there. After his death he was commemorated by a stained-glass window in the nave of Westminster Abbey. A blue plaque is at No. 13 Russell Square, London where he lived from 1879-1905 and another plaque can be found on the façade of Ashway Farm where he was born. His portrait can be found at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

The things I wish I had known when I was in London !

Now here are a couple of other things I discovered in the search. 

When I was adding the baptisms of George’s siblings to my tree in Family Tree Maker a message popped up for one. “Is this Robert Williams the same Robert Williams married to Betsy Davys ?” A little bit of checking and yes, he is. Uh-oh, now I’m related two ways. Betsy was a daughter Thomas Davys and Patience Palmer…Thomas was a younger brother of my 4 x great-grandfather. This Robert is the father of George's nephew who married the daughter of Matthew Hodder mentioned earlier,

When I first found the Wikipedia entry for George Williams in April 2020 it was called “George Williams (YMCA)” and included the comment that he was the 4 x great-grandfather of Boris Johnson, the current British Prime Minister. Today, the entry is retitled “George Williams (philanthropist)” and that comment is no longer included. However, I was able to verify that that was the case, by checking his family’s well documented entries in Wikipedia, a BBC Who Do You Think You Are episode and church records.

Just the other day on facebook I saw a post from someone who had bought a Bible in a thrift store. The flyleaf said it had been presented to the original owner by Sir George Williams. She had done a little research and discovered who George was. She had also found his will where he requested Bibles to be given to the members of his family. I think that might be a will I need to find and read myself. I wonder if any such Bible made it’s way to New Zealand to his family there ? I haven’t heard of one, but who knows ?

 

 

X - Marks the Spot

Look at this great map of Somerset !

I know it is crooked, but I didn't scan it so I'm not accepting any griping about it, I found it on Reddit after a Google search. Apparently it could have been inspiration for Game of Thrones. But I just love it. Dating to the mid 17^th century, with the parishes named and represented by church icons in varying sizes…or are they manor houses ?

There is this one too which dates from about the same time, but has slightly clearer writing - also from Reddit.

A lot of my family came from Somerset to New Zealand, and all had lived in particular areas for generations. Funnily enough they were all living near borders which moved and were not static until fairly recently. The Davys’ in the parishes on either side of the Somerset Devon border and the Bartletts and Coopers near the Somerset Dorset border.

I was surprised to see how closely the Bartletts and Coopers lived to each other. The same names pop up in both parishes. When you consider how widely the Davys family travelled and moved in their little part of Somerset, it is amazing that the Coopers and Bartletts don’t seem to have done the same thing. We did get a couple of DNA matches who descend from a Cooper person who married a Bartlett cousin of my great-great-grandfather in 1862. But as far as I can see that Cooper family is from the same area as the Bartletts – for generations. Maybe mine were too, maybe one of them just left at some point and went a bit further north over the Hamdon Hills…time will tell.

When I am trying to find people in my research I often refer to maps. I love the digitised Ordnance Survey maps at the National Library of Scotland. Great detail and easy to zoom in and navigate. Often when reading a census I look for a map as close to the time period and find the street. Sometimes the footprint of the buildings is marked on a map and if you are lucky the same shape is still there today when you look at a google map of the area. The streets might have changed a little, laneways disappeared, but by comparing the current map and the old you can often work out where things used to be. If it looks like the building is still there, street view is my next step. Until I can work out a way to teleport to the other side of the world, walking down streets looking at buildings and countryside courtesy of a google camera car is the best alternative. Sometimes I just walk down country lanes, unchanged in centuries, to “feel” what it was probably like for my ancestors who trod the same paths or rode along them by horse and cart.

I also use the Phillimore Atlas maps to check neighbouring parishes. These can give me an idea of where else to search when a marriage, baptism or burial isn’t recorded in the parish I expect it to be. My Davys’ and their cousins, for instance, married and baptised their children in almost every parish from Morebath, Clayhanger and Ashbrittle in Devon to Luxborough, Monksilver, Lydiard St Lawrence and Taunton in Somerset.

Lots of local libraries and museums have maps too. It was on such a site that I found an Insurance map for part of Melbourne and was able to identify the house where my great-great-great-grandmother had lived. Also, on another site I found similar maps for Sydney and could work out – with the help of a street directory of the time – where my daughter’s great-great-great-grandparents had lived in Surry Hills. Some maps, particularly in America even show who the landowners were. Sometimes the maps at local libraries haven’t been digitised and you need to go there. A bit of a pain at the moment with the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated restrictions curtailing many of those visits.

You can make your own map too, to record where a family moved to, mariner’s voyages, family farms, schools attended. You name it, you can do it.

W - Whanga-nui-a-Tara, Te

Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara, the great harbour of Tara, Wellington Harbour, Port Nicholson, Poneke.

Tara was a son of the Polynesian explorer Whatonga whose descendants lived in the area. Māori tradition tells that Kupe first discovered the harbour when he visited in the 10^th century. There are a number of places within the harbour whose names commemorate Kupe; Te Tangihanga o Kupe or Te Raranga o Kupe (Barrett Reef) and Te Aroaro o Kupe or Te Ure of Kupe (Steeple Rock). Kupe also named the two islands within the harbour; Mākaro (Ward) and Matiu (Somes). 

Legend tells that the harbour itself was once a lake in habited by two taniwha (guardian spirits). Whātaitai and Ngake. Whātaitai lived in the north of the lake where the harbour now is and the water was calmer, like his nature. Ngake, lived further south and was a little more cantankerous. He didn’t like being confined to the lake and could hear the waters of Raukawa Moana (Cook Strait) pounding to the south. He decided he would escape to reach the tumultuous sea. To gather speed he spun around at the north of the lake and headed off rapidly to the south, where he crashed into and through the rocks at Te Turanga o Kupe (Seatoun) and headed out in to the pounding sea. Whātaitai watched and then tried to follow Ngake but instead of taking the same route he chose a different path. The water was rushing out of the lake into the sea by this time and Whātaitai hadn’t built up as much speed as Ngake. He got stuck on the sand and stayed there for many generations until he was lifted high onto the land by a great earthquake. His soul left in the form of a bird Te Keo and flew high above the harbour and wept for the taniwha. Today the suburbs on the hills immediately below Tangi Te Keo (Mt Victoria) is named Hataitai.

European settlement began in earnest in 1840. It was into this harbour that two branches of my family sailed after four months at sea, The Coopers in 1841 and the Barratts in 1842. We used to joke that they had got blown in the harbour by a good southerly and couldn’t get back out. Turns out it could have been true. In Jenny Robin Jones’ book “No Simple Passage”, the London, arriving in May 1842 with my Barratt ancestors on board was in sight of land but had to turn back and sail away to ride out or avoid a storm.

The New Zealand Company led by Edward Gibbon Wakefield bought from Te Atiawa chief Te Wharepouri around 160,000 acres. Known as the Port Nicholson Purchase. This was 90% of the land surrounding the harbour. The remaining 10% known as the Wellington Tenths was seat aside for Maori and today more than 4500 descendants of the original "tenths" owners have their interests in the land managed by the Wellington Tenths Trust. Settlers were allocated two properrty lots; an acre in the township and another back country block worth £1 per acre. Maybe this is why I have often found my ancestors on two electoral rolls at the same time - once against their "town" address and additionally at an address outside the outskists of the main part of town. Unsurprisingly many were not happy with their share, apportioned sight unseen - and if you know Wellington, most likely not flat or arable ! 

Samuel Cooper was a tailor, his son John followed him into the same trade and had business premises on Lambton Quay next to the Eagle Tavern at one time. A couple of John's brothers ventured into the soda manufacturing business. Thomas reputedly was the first in Wellington to establish such a business. Another brother Frederick established a plant nursery and Cooper's Seeds. He was possibly assisted in this enterprise by his brother James who had a similar set up in Invercargill. Importing plants from Australia. DNA suggests this link, I have yet to confirm it. Their cousin Frederick Stagg ran a grocery business on Lambton Quay.

Wellington certainly gets some wicked weather and is the brunt of non-Wellingtonian’s jokes. I imagine my ancestors wondered on some days why they had chosen to come to such an inhospitable place. But then there are those great days, the harbour is like a millpond, the breeze just a gentle zephyr…You can’t beat Wellington on a good day.

Coolest little capital in the world.

 

V- Vose

Edward Vose was born in Liverpool, Lancasshire on the 12 April 1798 and baptised at Our Lady & St Nicholas on 20 May. The church record notes that he was the first child for his parents Thomas and Mary (nee Ellis), and that they had been married “in this chapel”. At the time of Edward's birth the family lived at Cheetham Brow and his father was a joiner. Eighteen months later at his sister Elizabeth’s baptism they were living in Vernon Street.

Nothing else is known of Edward’s early life. His military record indicates that he joined the Royal Engineers (later the Corps of Royal Sappers and Miners) as a Bugler in 1815. The period of service from 31 December 1815 to 12 April 1816 did not count towards his service as he was under 18 years of age. He eventually became a Private.

Edward married Elizabeth Weller at All Saints Church, Frindsbury Kent on 12 November 1819. Not much is known about Elizabeth’s early life either, however as she was born in Gillingham, Kent it is likely that her father was also in the military. I haven’t yet found a baptism record for the child I believe is their first born. John Frederick Vose was born in 1820 and is recorded on the GRO Regimental Indices 1761-1924. By 1828 when my great-great-grandfather Edward Mark was born the family were living in Omagh, Tyrone, Ireland where Edward Snr and his regiment were employed on the Survey of Ireland.

At this time the family included four sons, with the possibility of a fifth child, looking at dates, whose existence has been lost to time. Two more children George Ellis and Mary were also born in Ireland. When son Henry was born in 1834, the family was back in England, living at Woolwich. Their youngest son, Cornelius Augustus (who also liked to call himself Augustus Cornelius) was born in October 1840.

Edward was discharged as medically unfit due to chronic rheumatism 4 April 1837; with no pension. It was noted that he had first been attacked by rheumatism in 1828 while in Ireland, in his back and limbs and had been subject to the complaint ever since. He was 39 years old. His total service was 21 years and 5 days.

At the census in 1841 the family were living at New Road, Woolwich. Edward was a Labourer. Missing from the census family group were sons John Frederick and George Ellis. John may have been in the military; he certainly was in 1851. The 1841 census did not enumerate ships in port, so he may have been on board a naval vessel or deployed overseas. George had died in 1838 aged 9. On this census, William is also marked as having been born in Ireland, but Mary is not.

In 1851 they were living in Ann Street, Plumstead and Edward’s occupation was recorded as Labourer Chelsea Pensioner. Edward (my great-great-grandfather) was 22 and a Labourer at the Royal Arsenal. This time he and Mary were recorded as having been born in Ireland. Eldest son John was living in Sculcoates Yorkshire with his wife Ellen. They had married in Chatham in 1847 and John was a Private with the same Royal Sappers and Miners. John and Ellen had returned to Woolwich by the end of the year, and that is where John’s death occurred. Charles and William weren’t living with the family in 1851 and I haven’t found them on the census so far. William married in August that year and Charles in April 1853. Mary died in mid 1854.

By 1861 Charles and his growing family were living in Toronto, Canada where he was a Painter. William was settled with his own family in Plumstead. I’m not sure where Henry was, or even if he was still alive, I have a possible death for him in 1860; the age and location seem correct. Cornelius was enumerated on board HMAS Hornet in Aden. Edward and Elizabeth though were still living in Ann street with their son Edward. Edward senior is recorded as a Blacksmith while son Edward was still a Labourer at the Royal Arsenal.

On Christmas Day 1862 their son Edward married Sarah Ann Daniels who on the 1861 census was Nursemaid to the children of Walter Mitchell, Assistant Clergyman at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Sarah was born in Wiltshire but had obviously moved to London for employment. I wonder how they met ? Edward died  in JAnuary 1870 and was buried at St Margaret's churchyard in Plumstead. By the time the 1871 came around Elizabeth was living alone in Villas Road. Her sons William, Edward and Cornelius were living in Mile End Town, Erith and Plumstead.

In February 1879 Edward and Sarah left England with their 4 children and emigrated to Canterbury, New Zealand. Elizabeth was back in Ann Street living with Cornelius, his wife and children on the 1881 census. She moved with them to Upper Earl Street and then Bramblebury Road where they were living at the 1891 census.

When Elizabeth died in 1892 she had 25 grandchildren living on three continents. She was buried with Edward in the St Margaret’s Plumstead Churchyard.

U - Uriah

Uriah Cooper has been sitting in my tree for some time. I feel that he fits. The fact that makes some people less convinced is his supposed date of birth.

As I see it, he is a younger brother of my great-great-great-grandfather Samuel Cooper. Samuel too has a pretty fluid date of birth, somewhere between 1789 and 1801 depending which document you are reading. I’ve not yet been able to find a baptism for Samuel, but I believe he (and Uriah) are the sons of John Cooper and Ann Pullman who married in Stoke sub Hamdon, Somerset in June 1784. It appears from the church register that a sister of John’s also married that day.

There aren’t many Cooper families around this area so I think they have to all be connected. John and Ann had several children baptised in Stoke sub Hamdon and by 1797 had moved to Montacute where they had some more before John died in 1810. John was a tailor according to one story I read attached to someone's tree. My great-great-great-grandfather Samuel and his son John were both tailors too, so this new revelation seems like it could have an ounce of truth to it. My Dad and I spent a lot of Saturdays at the National Library in Wellington reading the microfilm copies of the church records for Montacute about seven years ago. We even managed to find evidence for my great-great-great-grandmother’s maiden name, but still haven’t been able to convince everyone who has it wrong in their trees to make the correction.

But back to Uriah. He is thought to have been born between 1798 and 1807. His death certificate in 1878 gives his age as 80, but who knows ? I remember being reminded recently about the literacy levels of our ancestors and that their numeracy skills were likely low too. Did they really remember which year they were born in, if they couldn’t write it down or have a document to refer back to ? And what were their addition skills like ? 80 might just have been a fair assumption made by his wife, the informant…who signed with an x.

My ancestor Samuel emigrated to New Zealand in 1841. Uriah had however left two years earlier and sailed on the Asia to Adelaide with his wife Elizabeth (nee Hockey) and three children. Some sources have only documented 2 children. He appears to have had a run in with the law before leaving England and spent some time in Ilchester Gaol.  He and his brothers may even have been involved in a riot which occurred in Montacute in the 1830s. I wonder if their wives and sisters were involved in the women led riot that occurred around the same time. You can read about the riots here. 

Uriah & Elizabeth stayed in South Australia for about 3 years before moving to Launceston, Tasmania. There they had six more children before moving again to Melbourne where their last two children were born. Uriah appears on the 1856 Electoral Roll living in Hawthorn, Melbourne. I am unsure where they lived in South Australia but it should be noted that there is a small settlement there, in the Adelaide Hills named Montacute after the birthplace of a financier of the Copper mine established there in 1843. I wonder if Uriah & Elizabeth knew John Baker ?

There is also a Montacute in Tasmania, near Hobart. This settlement was also established by a former Montacute resident. Captain William Langdon RN was the son of a former vicar of St Catherine’s in Montacute. He had been granted land in Tasmania in 1823, he regularly traded between London and Hobart and is reputed to have owned his own sailing ship. Other former Montacute residents are thought to have joined him there as well. Uriah though seems to have been further north. Uriah was a sawyer by trade and I imagine he would have had no shortage of work as settlers arrived and timber was required for building.

Uriah and Elizabeth had at least 13 children, not all of whom survived infancy, but many of who went on to marry and have families of their own.  He died at his home in Highett Street, Hawthorn. I know that the church records make the connection look pretty sketchy, but DNA matches are certainly pointing in the right direction. We all have matches coming up with descendants of Uriah, through at least 5 of his children and we and they also share matches with the descendants of their sister Ann. Contacting some of them is my next priority to compare information and see where can help each other.

T - Thomas

There are a fair few Thomas’ in our tree. It is a name which appears both as a first name and a surname. As a first name it is well represented across many families and many generations. Some families seemed to choose their children’s names from a very short list of names; so each Thomas might have an uncle Thomas and at least 3 cousins called Thomas as well ! As a surname, it is spread across many counties, provinces, states and countries.

I have a Thomas family I would like to find out a bit more about eventually. I’ll tell you what I know (or think I know).

John Thomas was born about 1790 in Llanfechan, Montgomeryshire, Wales. This information comes from census’ he is recorded on with his family. His wife Ann (maiden name uncertain) was born around the same time in Llanshaidr, Denbighshire, Wales. I have found them on the 1841, 1851 and 1861 UK census’. With a name like Thomas, in Wales you can never be entirely sure you have the right family, but I am fairly confident that I have the right one.

I found them when looking for the family of my 4 x great-grandmother Ann Thomas who I knew had married Henry James (another GREAT name to research !) in Brimfield, Herefordshire in 1843.

For a long time we didn’t do much research with this branch – I mean where do you start with Thomas’ and James’ ? We had Henry and Ann’s marriage certificate, and the birth certificates of both their daughters; Elizabeth & Mary who were born at Broadward Bridge near Clungunford, Shropshire. It wasn’t until we discovered that Ann had had another daughter prior to marrying Henry that the search began. We had been searching for a long time to find when Elizabeth (Aunt Lizzie) had emigrated to America. That turned out to be much earlier than the story relayed to us by Nana, and the passenger record indicated she was travelling to live with her brother-in-law...which meant she had another sister.

Finding Ellen then became the focus. She was about 5 years old at the time of the 1841 census. My cousin Jackie in the States had found what appeared to be the most likely record of baptism; in Llanymynech/Carreghofa in 1836. Below is the family in the parish of Llandrinio, Montgomeryshire. This was in the registration district of Llanfyllin and sub district of Llansantffraid.

 

John THOMAS         48      Sayer (sic)    Y

Ann                        48                          N

Richard                  21                          Y

Hugh                      11                          Y

Edward                   7                            Y

Evans                     6                            Y

Harriot                   16                          Y

Elen                        5                            Y

I am fairly confident that I have identified their daughter Ann as a servant at Jay House in Heath & Jay Herefordshire – just a hop step and a jump from Leintwardine & Bucknell which her (then future) husband gave as his birthplace in various census’.

In 1851 & 1861 John and Ann can be found in Domgay, still in the Llanfyllin registration district where John is a Sawyer, which ties in with the occupation given for him on the marriage certificates for two daughters. In 1851 their daughter Ann, her husband and two daughters were living in Dudley with the Duffill family. Another daughter of John and Ann, Mary, was married to Thomas Duffill, a tailor. Mary was in fact wife #4 of 5. Ellen hasn’t been confirmed on this census, she was likely to be in service elsewhere aged, about 15. By 1861 she had returned to Dudley and was married to John Duffill, her aunt’s stepson. Ellen’s birthplace on the census was transcribed as Slangyowich, which turned out to be Llanymynech !

Mary had died by 1861 and Thomas Duffill had married again. Ann and her family haven’t been located as yet (years of searching) on the 1861 census, but in 1871 Henry was a widower. We have a death certificate for Ann, not entirely sure it is the right one, but the age, location and date seem most likely. Ann was the informant on her sister Mary’s death certificate in 1859. If I could find the 1861 census, it would help make the 1865 death even more likely.

After the death of wife #5 the entire Duffill family, including Ellen, her husband and young children emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts, where “Aunt Lizzie” would join them 40 years later.

Ellen’s marriage certificate records her father’s name as Thomas Thomas (!), her death certificate states John Thomas (her grandfather’s name). Her baptism record implies that her father may be Edward Owens. But that is another puzzle, for one day. The Thomas’ seem to all vanish from records after 1861 too.

In amongst our DNA matches there are some glimmers of hope – people who have Thomas in their trees, or who have Duffill which for us can only mean a link to the Thomas’.

S - San Francisco Minstrels

Daniel Chittenden isn’t a direct ancestor of mine. He is in my tree though, because he married my great-great-grandmother’s elder sister Eliza Laney. 

Eliza was born in Nelson, New Zealand in 1844, the first New Zealand born child for her newly immigrant parents. They had arrived two years before bringing their infant son, and her mother’s two children from her previous marriage. Her father Edward was reportedly the first baker in Nelson. Eliza and her siblings grew up in Nelson and Richmond where their father had bakeries and at one time a pub.

Daniel and Eliza were married in 1862 and had 11 children over the next 28 years. Reports of the celebrations for their Golden Wedding anniversary in 1912 appeared in the local newspapers.

Daniel has intrigued me for a bit. I often get side-tracked on random offshoot branches all over the tree, but it is often in these random searches of friends, neighbours and relatives where you find interesting information and links.

He was born in Maitland in New South Wales, Australia in 1838. From other people’s trees and my own research he appears to have had at least 7 siblings, the eldest two born in England but most of the others in various places in Australia. One of his sisters Naomi also married into the Laney family, marrying Eliza and my great-great-grandmother Sarah’s eldest brother William the year before Eliza’s marriage.

Daniel was a great cricketer, he appears a lot in newspaper reports of matches in the Wairau Valley where he played alongside my great-great-grandfather George Bartlett for the North Bank team. George was pretty great too ! (seems to have been a real talent of the male ancestors in several of my paternal family lines.)

Daniel was a dance teacher ! He advertised regularly in the local Nelson and Blenheim newspapers about his dance hall venues, welcoming students to learn the new dance steps. He also made appearances on stage in musicals sometimes accompanied by one of his daughters. Members of the wider family also appear to have owned a store, possibly a grocery or general store of sorts both in Nelson and in Blenheim. But where did this theatrical streak come from I wondered.

I started doing some hunting to see what I could see. Daniel’s brother Thomas was also involved in this musical enterprise hosting dance evenings in Nelson before his untimely death aged 26. Turns out his father George was in the theatre too, recorded in newspaper articles and advertisements as the Musical Director and member of the San Francisco Minstrels.

I found mention in newspapers of Chittenden people on shipping information, arriving from Melbourne, going to Melbourne or going elsewhere in New Zealand. So I changed tack. Instead of searching for “Chittenden” I began searching for “San Francisco Minstrels”, both at Papers Past and on Trove. They certainly travelled a fair bit ! 

In July 1861 it was recorded that the troupe had arrived in Wellington on the Prince Alfred and would be preforming at the Oddfellows Hall for three nights. In August they presented shows at the Mechanics Institute in Auckland.

“Songs, Glees, Choruses &c.,

Interspersed with

Witticisms, Repartees, Burlesques,

Dances &c, &c, &c”

In December 1861 they were performing at the San Francisco Minstrels Hall in Dunedin. They performed several shows in Nelson in May & June 1862 and later in June performed at The Royal Olympic Theatre in Manners Street, Wellington. They made a return visit to Wellington in October 1862 on their way to perform in Auckland.

Earlier than these performances though, the San Francisco Minstrels travelled Australia in 1858, visiting Tasmania, South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria – even touring the goldfields including spending some weeks in Bendigo putting on shows at the Shamrock Hotel (which I used to walk past almost every day a couple of years ago !) entertaining miners there with their acts.

They were still touring in the late 1870’s. Whether George was still involved at that stage is uncertain. (More newspapers to read yet.) But perhaps this theatrical life explains why his children were born in various places around Australia…and may be why I am yet to find records for all their births. One article I found on Trove alludes to the troupe having also toured America !

It seems from reading between the lines of some of the advertising that some of their performances included black-face acts which are frowned upon and rightly condemned as being in bad taste in today’s society – but which were acceptable 150 years or so ago. (Even in my life time I remember seeing troupe’s perform as such on tv.)

Daniel’s parents and two elder siblings emigrated to Australia arriving in Sydney on the Westminster in June 1838. On the passenger list, George gave his trade as a Carpenter and Joiner. This was certainly a trade followed by at least one other of his sons. So being a performer was a secondary form of income ? I’m still not sure when they left Australia to make New Zealand their home, was it after the tour of 1861 ? Was that how Daniel and Naomi met the Laney family and their future spouses ?

So, Daniel Chittenden, uncle of my great-grandmother, what a surprise it was to find out about your family and the San Francisco Minstrels.

R - Richard

Richard Gibson was born in Corraderran in the parish of Killeshandra, Cavan in Ireland in about February 1841. He appears with his family on a surviving piece of the Irish census taken on the night of 6 June 1841. It was a great census, with so much more information collected than the English census which was taken that same night.

He was the 12^th and youngest child in his family. By the time of his birth four of his elder siblings had died. George aged 16 in 1839, Margaret age 13 in 1838, William aged 1 month (a visitation of God) in 1836 and William Henry in 1840 aged less than 1 year. His 2^nd eldest sister Hester had already emigrated to America and was employed there as a servant.

This census recorded the population of Ireland as being 8, 175, 124 million. By the time the next census was taken in 1851 the population had dropped over 1.5 million. This was because of the Famine which was responsible for approximately 1 million deaths and the great migration which saw about a million people leave Ireland to start new lives in England and in the colonies.

Not a lot more is known about Richard's siblings and how they fared through the Famine. A brother James emigrated to New South Wales in the late 1850’s marrying in 1860. His bride has been born in Fermanagh, Ireland and emigrated as a baby with her parents and siblings in 1839. Another brother Ephraim emigrated to New York with his wife in the early 1860s.

Richard too, packed his bags and left Ireland, arriving at Twofold Bay, (Eden) New South Wales on 21 May 1867 as a passenger on the Lighthorse Brigade. Just over a year later he married the younger sister of his brother’s wife and settled into farming in the south coast hinterland; Kiama, Berrima, Burrawang, Jamberoo, Robertson before moving to Unanderra in his later years.

Richard and Harriett raised a family of seven children. They lost their eldest grandson at Pozieres in July 1916 and saw many other grandchildren grow and marry in their lifetime. They were great grandparents by the time of their deaths.

Richard was my daughters 3 x great grandfather. She has four 3 x great grandparents born in Ireland who emigrated to Australia and New Zealand and three of them are from County Cavan - but from completely opposite sides of the county.

How’s that for a Random fact – to round out this letter of the alphabet !

Q - Quilt

I have always secretly wanted to be a quilter. I hand pieced hexagons when I was at high school with friends, then put it all away.

When I was pregnant I decided to make a quilt for my baby’s cot. All hand pieced. It took a lot longer than I had envisaged. Thank goodness somebody else gifted us a cot quilt. That bought me another 12 months or so of time – although it made the job bigger because now I needed to make it single bed sized !

I did it though, and it kept her warm for many years – and is still holding together. I made some other quilts too. A patchwork square one for my brother – nothing fancy; and one for my parents which wasn’t so much patchwork or quilting; more a Escher inspired hand pieced twisted triangle which I appliqued on to a piece of fabric and then used that as the quilt topper.

In my cupboard I have some squares waiting for me to get out the sewing machine and whip up a new light quilt or throw, and in a box in the garage there are some bags of fabric which have travelled the world – waiting for me to make time and finish half done projects.

My love of handcrafts comes from my grandmother I think. She was a great knitter. I remember there were pieces of embroidery and tapestry too, some half finished at her home. I have a cushion she made with a tapestry cover, and a crochet blanket she made for my bed. There was a bargello cushion too, I wonder what happened to that one ? She crocheted a tablecloth with ecru cotton for Mum, hundreds of little squares individually hand sewn together. We all, my cousins and I and my daughter (her great granddaughter) were lucky to have home made knitted jumpers, cardigans – even dresses (except for the boys lol). I still have my knitted Noddy too, who last time I checked was still looking pretty good all these years later.

I remember her showing me embroidery stitches; lazy daisies, feather stitch and blanket stitch. Knitting was a shared task too, helping with the casting on, ribbing, cables…it takes a village, right ? We had a go at tatting together but neither of us really mastered it.

Cross stitch became my favourite for a number of years and Nana had dabbled with it too. A couple of years ago my daughter decided to give it a try, so it has passed to another generation. One of the first projects she completed was an unfinished one of Nana’s which had laid in the cupboard at Mum and Dad’s most of her life waiting for someone to pick up the needle again.

Life is like a tapestry. Everyone we meet weaves their way into our journey, some good, some not so much, like dropped stitches or knotty threads. But it is those interactions which make us who we are, and the little disasters (negative knitting and unpicking seams) give us the strength to carry on; to try again.

Family can be like a quilt; warm, enveloping, calming but giving you the freedom to leave while you spread your wings, knowing that the comfort and security they offer will always be there when you need it.

Right now, the whole world needs a great big quilt, and to know that everything will be alright. Eventually. Maybe I will get the sewing machine out this weekend.

P - Painter Puzzle

William Barratt was a painter in Camberwell, Surrey. He lived with his wife and growing family in Wellington Street and James Street, Camberwell from the baptism records of their children.

Nothing is known of his early life. He first appeared in records when he married Mary Ann Moore at St Anne in Westminster on 15 March 1830. In the next 11 years they had 7 children; 6 daughters and 1 son. Sadly their first born daughter Emma lived only 14 months and died just a couple of weeks before their 2^nd daughter was born.

What was life like for the young family ? What were their living conditions ? Having a trade would have enabled William to earn money and have access to better dietary choices than unskilled workers could afford. Still, living in London or on the outskirts, they would have been witness to overcrowding and poor sanitation that was common at the time. Smoke from fires would have filled the skies.

New opportunities were afoot though and in 1841 William and his family applied for passage with the New Zealand Company to emigrate to the new colony and begin a new life in Wellington. There would be an abundance of work opportunities for a painter in a growing city.

They sailed on the London, leaving 2 January 1842 with their 6 children aged from 8 years to 4 months. Arriving in Wellington in May they set up home in Thorndon where William found work and added being a glazier to his job title. What a contrast in their surroundings too, wide open spaces, sea air and clear skies. Another son was born a year after their arrival.

Each ship arriving brought new settlers, all needing a home to live in. William was not the only painter and glazier in town but it can be assumed there was enough work to go around during those early years. The earthquakes in 1848 and 1855 may well have boosted the incomes of tradespeople as homes and civic buildings needed to be repaired or rebuilt.

However, William seems to have vanished at some point between the marriages of two of his daughters. Caroline on 31 March 1855 and Sophia on 17 September 1856. What happened ? Did he leave in search of work outside of Wellington ? Was he injured in the earthquake of 1855, or at work in the aftermath ? Did he desert his family ?

There aren’t many clues. A notice in the Lyttelton Times on 4 August 1858 lists 4 letter for William Barratt as returned from Christchurch. Is that where he went ? Organised settlement of Christchurch began in 1856, perhaps he saw this as his opportunity to move and establish a business there with less competition than he had in Wellington. The intention may have been for the family to follow him.

By 1861 though, the majority of his family had moved south – but not to Christchurch. They made their homes with their new husbands and began raising their own families in the Marlborough/North Canterbury regions. Youngest daughter Ellen was married in Blenheim in 1861 and most of her brothers-in-law and her brothers were working on the large sheep stations of North Canterbury at Flaxbourne, Kekerengu and in the Clarence.

A coroner’s report found at Archives detailed the death of a William Barratt in Christchurch on 18 January 1859. But despite having that information, no record of the death has been found on the historical births, deaths and marriages registers. It seems likely that this could be him though, as his widow Mary remarried in Kaikoura on 3 July 1861.

Perhaps this is as close as we are going to be able to get to resolving this, and it will forever remain a loose end.

O - Outcast

Outcast. Banished. Transported.

Not all our ancestors emigrated of their own free will. Some were driven out of their homes, away from all they knew to escape religious or racial persecution. Others found themselves on the wrong side of the law and took steps to not get caught, to leave before justice caught up with them. We all know about the thousands transported from their home country (not just Britain) as convicts or indentured servants to serve their time in far flung colonies.

There are a few examples of such people amongst the branches of my tree, and in my daughter’s paternal tree.

Huguenots, driven out of Belgium and France to make new lives in England in the 1500s.

Petty criminals tried and sentenced to transportation.

Jacobite supporters, living in exile in France after the 1715 and 1745 uprising. (Ironically in the area from where the Huguenots had fled centuries earlier).

The events in my tree all occurred more than 100 years ago, but for some of us these events are much more recent. The result of war and other conflicts across the world. (Think Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, even WW2.)

“We don’t know how lucky we are, mate.

We don’t know how LUCKY we are.”

Fred Dagg.

N - Norman

Were the Normans Normans ?

Certainly their surname suggests they could be. A bit unoriginal though. Perhaps they were Anglo-Saxon serfs, who took their name from the landowner to whom they were tied.

I like to think that my Norman ancestors did have roots in Normandy. They lived in Huish Champflower and the surrounding parishes which sounds a bit French but is actually Old English. Huish referring to a household or hide of land and Champflower apparently refers to the family who owned it in the 12^th century. If that is so then why is it called such in the Domesday Book completed in the 11^th century ?

In the Domesday book the parish is part of the land held by Roger Arundel.

“Roger himself holds HUISH CHAMPFLOWER. Aethelric held it in TRE and it paid geld for 2 hides and 3 virgates of land. There is land for 12 ploughs. In demesne there are 2 ploughs and 5 slaves; and 20 villans and 6 bordars with 6 ploughs. There is a mill rendering 12d, and 20 acres of meadow, and 60 acres of woodland, [and] pasture 1 league long and half a league broad. It was worth £6; now £7.”

By the 18^th century our Normans don’t appear to have been landed gentry, but many of them were farmers employing a number of labourers to work the land. Possibly that would place them socially as villans were they there and counted in the Domesday Book, and assuming they retained their social standing through the years. But if they had been slaves they might have taken their name from their “master” and later worked their way up the social ladder.

Church records and the research started by earlier genealogists in the family in the 1970-1980s, have traced the family back to the early 1700’s. Not a great deal survives earlier than that – and DNA evidence starts to get pretty sketchy around there too.

The common ancestors who most trees DNA and non-DNA seem to settle on are Richard Norman baptised 1719 at Stogumber and his wife Sarah Long. They were married in the church at Clatworthy, after banns, on 24 December 1747 and had at least 5 children. The baptisms of some of the children record their place of residence as “Huish.” Richard’s parents are possibly John Norman and Elizabeth Nation who married on 30 May 1717 at Stogumber, another neighbouring parish, and had about 8 children.

Two of Richard and Sarah’s children are my 5 x great-grandparents. (Pedigree collapse is real in my tree)

Jane born in early 1754 married John Vickery (from another Huish Champflower family) at St Peter, Huish Champflower on 14 December 1774. They had 10 or so children a number of whom died in infancy. Their daughter Sarah born 14 November 1789 at Huish Champflower married her cousin William Norman.

William’s parents were Robert Norman (Jane’s younger brother born late 1760) & Jane Venn who had married at Clatworthy on 8 May 1782. Robert and Jane had a large family of 12 children, most of whom married into other local families, Langdon, Darch, Sellick…

By the mid 1800’s many of the great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren of those common ancestors Richard and Sarah had emigrated across the globe to the colonies; Canada, America, New Zealand and more than likely Australia ('though I haven’t found them yet !)

M - Morrison's Meat Pies

Morrison’s Meat Pies were an institution in Salt Lake City for 133 years.

By the time the business closed, it was no longer in the hands of the family who started it all, but people still reminisce about those pies today.

Thomas Henry Morrison was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1847, six years after his mother had arrived from England with her parents and siblings and shortly after his parents married. His father was a sea captain and mariner. There were eight children, not all who survived infancy, over the next 10 years before his father Daniel sadly died from injuries sustained when his ship was wrecked. Betsy remarried quickly, as you would expect a young widow with at least six children under 11 to do. Thomas had about 10 half siblings from his mother’s second marriage.

At some time around 1870, the family moved south to Hokitika and later to Kaikoura where other members of Betsy’s family had moved earlier. Whether the older children moved with them at the time is unclear. Thomas would have been in his early twenties. His sisters Elizabeth and Mary had married in 1869 (in Wellington) and 1870 (in Kaikoura).

By the late 1870’s Thomas was living in Christchurch. Around this time he joined the Mormon Church. Since the mid 1870’s missionaries from Utah had travelled to New Zealand and other countries around the world to share their story and grow the numbers of their congregation. He also met his first wife Emily and they reputedly married in 1878. No marriage record can be found in New Zealand though, and their two daughters were registered in 1879 and 1880 with Emily’s surname. Perhaps they delayed their marriage because there was no-one from the church available to officiate. There is a possible listing for him on the electoral rolls in 1880/1881 as a fish hawker in Montreal Street.

In March 1882 the small family boarded the City of Sydney bound for San Francisco with a number of other “converts” to make a new life in Utah. Another group had left the year before on the Hawea. Their arrival in Salt Lake City would have been tinged with mixed emotions. Their 19 month old second daughter died just three weeks after they arrived in San Francisco, their marriage was sealed six weeks later and two weeks afterward they welcomed their third child, another daughter.  

Thomas had brought with him a recipe for a “Scottish” meat pie. He and his wife founded a business in 1883, making the pies themselves in their home kitchen. Thomas then took the pies in a cart, heated by coal, and sold them to the citizens of Salt Lake City near Temple Square. He may have been the first food cart operator in Main Street. This business set up when Utah was still a Territory, not yet a State, survived for 133 years. It was the fifth oldest food company in the USA, older than Campbells Soup, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Coca-Cola and Heinz Ketchup.

In 1884, Thomas married a second time, which at that time was an accepted practice in the church. His two families lived amicably in separate but adjoining houses. Thomas sold his business to his sons – was that where the trouble began ? At one point the business was known as Dan Morrison’s Meat Pies. Dan was a son from the second marriage, perhaps there was some rivalry between the brothers.

Family squabbles, changes in ownership and economic downturns all took their toll. By the time it closed in 2016 it was not owned by any of the Morrison family. It was reported in 2012 that the new factory in West Jordan was producing 5,000 pies a day, but not much later expansion plans were derailed by finances and the business closed forever.

Thomas died in 1910. His second wife Susanna, died in California in 1921 where three of her children had settled. Emily, his first wife died in Salt Lake City in 1944. Some of their descendants can be found amongst our DNA match lists still living in Salt Lake City and the surrounding area.

 

 

L - Llanymynech

Don’t step inside a fairy ring.

Because why ? You might disappear ? Get taken by the fairies ? End up in a parallel dimension ?

There is something magical about a ring of toadstools. They are tantalising, irresistible – to step or not to step. It isn’t only toadstool rings that have this fascination for me.

The meridian line at Greenwich, one foot in the western hemisphere, one in the east.

Land borders between states or countries – such a foreign concept growing up in an island nation – always give me a little thrill when crossing those invisible lines.

What was it like for my ancestors living in times where borders moved frequently ? Was it an instant thing ? Was there a schedule ? What was it like to go to bed one night in Somerset and wake up in Devon ?

Nowadays, borders don’t change so much – at least not in Great Britain where there are no feudal disagreements. The lines are drawn, set in place on maps for all to see. Squiggly lines, not always straight ones, following natural boundaries, streams, valley floors, back and forth, this way and that.

My great-great-great-grandmother was born in the Marches, that area of moving boundaries between Wales and England, near Llanymynech; a town divided. Part in Wales and part in England. The border runs down the centre of the main street, you can park the car in one country and cross the road to another; the pub actually straddles the border.

The village is nestled on the Montgomery Canal (Camlas Trefaldwyn). “The Monty” is a partially restored canal running 53 kilometres from the Llangollen Canal at Frankton Junction to Newtown, passing through Welshpool. Currently only 11 kilometres is navigable and connected to the national Canal & River Trust network, from Frankton Junction to Gronwyn Wharf. Separately a short stretch at Llanymynech and a central section around Welshpool are navigable, but isolated and not connected to the national canal network. At Llanymynech you can take a walk along the towpath starting in one country and ending in another. The walk is just 4 kilometres long and takes a circular route, returning across fields. You will see the Locks at Carreghofa and walk a little further to the Vyrnwy Aqueduct and marvel at the engineering feats of days gone by. You can follow Offa’s Dyke part of which runs alongside the canal. It is a defensive earthwork built in the 8^th century by Offa, King of Mercia. 1300 years ago ! Definitely a structure which Ann Thomas, her siblings and parents would have been familiar with. The area surrounding Llanymynech is rich in limestone and the village developed as a mining settlement in early times. One chimney survives from a Hoffman lime kiln and can be seen when walking. Lime was transported on canal boats from the wharf in the village to be used as fertiliser in surrounding farms.

Originally the canal was known as the Montgomeryshire Canal, at Carreghofa Locks it connected to the Llanymynech Branch of the Ellesmere Canal. These elements of the present day Montgomery Canal where unified when each section became part of the Shropshire Union system between 1846-1850.

The canal was first proposed in 1792 and the first parts were completed by early 1796.

So there you have it, a brief history of Llanymynech. Step over the line – I dare you !

K - Kiwi

Kia Ora

It doesn’t matter where I live, I’ll always be a Kiwi. Even if one day I do become a citizen of another nation, I will still support the All Blacks, the Silver Ferns and celebrate our unique two degrees of separation uniqueness. Despite starting my life in the Waikato, I will always be a Hurricanes, Lions, Pulse and Saints supporter. 

I feel at home where I live right now, but I miss the little things. News broadcasts which are actually news, not tabloid misinformation constantly creating a mood of impending disaster. People who tell it like it is, without making it all about them. Watching rugby instead of league and AFL with over excited commentators. Spontaneous roadtrips and changing scenery.

It is funny, looking in from the outside to be able to see that all the things that felt like they were being done the wrong way, were actually world leading. Great ideas and models, just hindered by an economy which hadn’t invested in the areas of need for a long time. A strong economy striving to be a free market but not looking after the basics; a strong economy but still a tiny country not paying the people a compelling salary to stay and follow their passion.

Anyway, this isn’t meant to be political. It's about that Kiwi essence, that pride we all take in our country. The team of 5 million who can do anything if we put out minds to it. The team who collectively hold their breath in the last minutes of a Rugby World Cup Final, or Bledisloe Cup match and particularly anytime we play Australia. The way we embrace other cultures, how we immerse ourselves in Tikanga and respect each other and our differences. That doesn’t happen in other countries, well not in the same way.

It got me thinking. You can take the Kiwi out of the country, but you can’t take it out of the person. Where did it come from, that sense of belonging ? How long did it take for our ancestors (and here I am talking about those of us whose ancestors came on sailing ships and airplanes, more than the Tangata Whenua) to feel they were New Zealanders rather than English, Scots, Irish etc. What contributed to build that fierce pride, that Kiwi ingenuity ? It was definitely strong when our ANZACs joined WW1. Was it already building in 1905 when the Originals toured England and beat Devon in their first match 55-4 ? Did it begin even earlier, borne out of disasters or through the sheer determination of those early settlers to build a new life in a far flung colony ?

Wherever it started, and however it started, it has become part of us all. Right now we all need to remember we have it, we are all on the same team – even if we aren’t all on the same part of the planet.

Kia kaha Kiwis.

J - James Hogg

Families all come with stories. Some have their origins in fact, and some do not.

One which I haven’t yet been able to prove right or wrong yet, is whether there is in fact a connection in my daughter’s paternal grandmother’s family to James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd. Fact or fabrication, who knows ?

I have done a bit of searching sporadically over the years, collaborating with other people around the world who can trace their family lines back to the same Hogg ancestors as my daughter.

James Hogg was the second son of Robert Hogg and Margaret Laidlaw, he was born at Ettrickhall Farm, Ettrick, Selkirkshire towards the end of 1770 and baptised at the parish church on 9 December. His family had been farming in the area for generations.

His formal education lasted not much more than a year, when he was 7 his father became bankrupt and James began work as a cowherd and later a shepherd. In his late teens/early twenties he was employed as a shepherd by a relative of his mother; James Laidlaw of Blackhouse Farm in Yarrow. Here he had access to a good collection of books and taught himself to read and write. He also taught himself to play fiddle and began to make a name for himself as Jamie the Poeter, singing traditional ballads and reciting the rich folklore of the Scottish Borders.

The Laidlaw family were acquainted with Sir Walter Scott and introduced James to him in 1802. Laidlaw’s son William became Scott’s close friend and amanuensis. At this time, in 1802, Scott was collecting ballads for his Border Minstrelsy and William Laidlaw, James Hogg and his mother, who had a large store of her own, all contributed. James had printed his own “Scottish Pastorals, Poems, Songs &C.,” in Edinburgh in 1801.

He divided his time between farming and writing and in 1813 wrote his most picturesque and imaginative work, “The Queens Wake”, which was at once a great poetical if not financial success. He was friends with Wordsworth and knew Byron.

James Hogg’s most known work today is “The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner” said to have been an inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.”

James Hogg died 21 Nov 1835 and was buried at Ettick Church. At his death Wordsworth wrote “Exemptore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg.”

But is there a connection to my daughter’s family ? I am thinking, after trying to follow the lines of James’ family and of his brothers, that like my daughter’s line of descent from the Lochiel in the Cameron family, this line too might be through a daughter rather than a son.

There is a Laidlaw connection in her tree. Could Margaret Laidlaw, her 5 x great-grandmother who married Thomas Watson be the key ? Could Margaret’s father Walter be a brother of James Hogg’s mother ? Was James Laidlaw of Blackhouse his uncle ? I’m still waiting on DNA matches to help make that decision, but here’s another story to add to the mix.

James Hogg’s grandfather William O’Phawhope Laidlaw is said to have been the last man in the Border country to speak with the fairies. I know someone who will claim this fact as the evidence that holds the key.

 

 

I - Ireland

We all have some Irish in our families don’t we ? It certainly seems that way. The Famine was certainly a catalyst, but not the only reason. They left their native country in droves and went to every corner of the world.

My great-great-grandfather Edward Vose and at least two of his siblings were born in Ireland. His father was with the Royal Sappers and Miners and posted to Ireland to carry out the Ordinance Survey of Ireland. As was often the way then, the entire family travelled with the Army – even the families of Privates. Apparently though the topic of being born in Ireland was a touchy one, his grand-daughter in a letter to my parents said that although it was true that he was born there – he made sure everyone knew that he wasn’t actually Irish.

But there are Irish in my family on my Dad’s side.

Dad’s grandmother Sarah Hall came to New Zealand with her parents and siblings in 1877. They were from near Cootehill in Cavan. One of Sarah’s aunts, a sister of her mother Anne, also emigrated to New Zealand in the 1880s. Another of her mother’s sisters emigrated to New York in the 1850’s and a brother and some their cousins followed in the 1870’s and 1880’s. One of Sarah’s cousins founded the Californian Perfume Company which would later become Avon.

Sarah’s mother was a Hall too – coincidence ? I used to think so. Then along came DNA.

Some years ago, I had made contact with a cousin in New York and he sent me a lot of research from a fellow cousin in New Zealand. None of which I had seen before, but when a DNA match appeared in our lists of matches for the mother of the author of the research, I reasoned I could attribute our match (and shared matches) to Sarah’s mother’s family.

There were many other matches though who appeared to be in Ireland, or to have roots there. None of the names in their trees were familiar to me, but I did notice commonalities across some of their trees. I put it in the too hard basket for quite a while.

Then one day, I decided that I need to make a start to try to unravel it all and so I messaged a few of the larger matches. Some replied and were as baffled as me, but one was the key to it all. It seemed most of these people were connected through Sarah’s father William. My new DNA matched cousins had the names of a couple who turned out to be the likely great-grandparents of Sarah. They had had a large family and as with Sarah’s mother’s family, many of her father’s had also emigrated to the US and even New Zealand.

A lot of information was shared across the interweb. They had some children in their tree who they didn’t know too much about, so it seemed that Sarah’s paternal grandfather fitted in there. What a surprise to learn that Sarah had relatives on her father’s side who had also emigrated to New Zealand, this time settling in Canterbury, rather than Auckland and the Waikato. All of the common names I had seen in the trees for the mystery DNA matches fell into place amongst the descendants of siblings of Sarah’s grandfather.

Solved, I thought.

But then, my original DNA match, the one I had been using as a control for Sarah’s mother’s side of the family appeared to have shared matches to Sarah’s father’s side of the tree too.  As I see it the only way that can be, is if Sarah’s parents were related… I went back and looked at the new tree from those new Irish relatives and what did I see ? Another son in the family they had pieced together where they didn’t have information going forward – and his name ? David…the same as Sarah’s grandfather.

From email discussions with a couple of others it seems that it is highly likely that Anne and William Hall were first cousins. The community they came from was a close one, they were Presbyterian and there seems to have been a lot of intermarriage between local families through the generations.

Being Presbyterian as well seems to point back to Scotland; perhaps it is true that these families were part of the Ulster Plantation settlement in Ireland in the 17^th century. They all do seem to have more Anglo sounding surnames than what are normally thought of as being typically Irish. (Bailey, Hall, Pritchard, Reilly, Moncrieff, Livingstone, Montgomery et. al.,)

There is still a lot of unravelling to do, and it still seems quite overwhelming. But I will get there in the end.

H - Hammond

Mary Hammond was my great-great-great grandmother. She was born in Andover, Hampshire on 8 June 1808 and baptised three weeks later at St Mary’s church. She was the fourth child in her family and the first daughter. Three more sons were born before another daughter, Elizabeth in 1819.

Her father John had been married before he married her mother Sarah Knight in 1800 and had two children from that marriage, a son & a daughter before his first wife had died.

Mary married George White on 24 June 1827 in Andover and they had two children Ann and Henry before George’s death on 20 April 1834. At the time of the 1841 census, Mary was living with her widowed mother and both were described as Silk Weavers. Her children were also there in New Street, Andover now aged 8 & 10 and a Confectioner named Edward Laney also lived at the address. Possibly as a lodger – the 1841 census doesn’t identify relationships in the same way that later census’ do. (A confectioner makes fancy cakes not sweets, as I always thought.)

Five months later, Mary remarried, to Edward Laney. Their first child had been born four months earlier. Just nine months later the little blended family was on board the Olympus, bound for Nelson, New Zealand.

But, Mary wasn’t the only member of her family to take the opportunity to leave England and emigrate to the colonies. I was vaguely aware that some of her brothers had emigrated to New Zealand as well, but I have never really looked at them to piece it all together. DNA matches are making me do that.

Three of her brothers came to New Zealand as well. Although one later settled in Auckland, all three emigrated to Nelson like she did, Two of them, David and James travelled with their wives and children on the Lord Auckland arriving on 23 February 1842.

Her brother Joseph followed with his family a few years later in 1852 on The Rapid arriving in Auckland and making their way to Nelson. Or did they ? The Rapid is mentioned in the obituary for Joseph’s daughter Rose which also mentions her surviving sister in Nelson. However articles reporting on the 100^th birthday of that sister in 1938 say the family arrived on the Lord William Bentinck. Some investigating to be done here I feel.

DNA matches have identified other emigrating family members too. A cousin of Sarah and her brothers who emigrated to Utah and her sister who went with her husband and children to Launceston, Tasmania in about 1853 and lived in Deloraine before moving on to Melbourne.