Emma Louisa Bartlett

Emma was the third daughter in her family. Both of her parents were born in New Zealand, but her grandparents had all emigrated with their young families on the same ship and settled in Nelson, New Zealand. Emma was born in the Waitohi Valley, near Picton. In about 1883 her parents moved north from Marlborough to Horowhenua. Her father was a carpenter, and it was likely through his network that she met her husband, William Cooper.

In 1926 Emma was fifty-one years old and had been married for thirty-two years. Together they had had nine children, although two sons had died, one possibly during the Spanish Flu pandemic and the other from complications with appendicitis.  Three of her daughters and her surviving son were married and there were already seven grandchildren.

Emma’s brother William died in 1926 leaving his five children orphaned as their mother had died in the Spanish Flu pandemic eight years earlier. I imagine there will have been much sadness surrounding this and discussion as to where the children would go and who would raise them.

The family home in 1926 was in Firth Street, Hamilton East.

George Timms

George was the youngest in his family. His mother had died when he was six months old. He had five older sisters and an older brother.

In 1926 George was forty-nine years old and employed as a taxi driver. He had most likely started his working life as a groom but by the time he married, he was a coachman for a large estate on the outskirts of Old Milverton near Blackdown.

Married. In name only. Ten years ago, that had all changed. Truth be known it was probably earlier than that when things started to fall apart. His wife didn’t have a lot of family like he did; she was close to her brothers and when they emigrated to America the trouble began. He had kept finding excuses not to follow them, and all the while their family had grown. Her behaviour had worsened; she became quite erratic and neglected the children and the house.

For a while he had hoped she would return to full health, but it had become apparent that that would not be the case. Taking the children to visit her had become an ordeal, they did not know what to expect and she refused to acknowledge them. He stopped taking them and put all his energy into work. The older girls helped run the house even though they were still at school.

Now only their son was at school and the girls had all found employment. The oldest had just married and emigrated to the other side of the world. To New Zealand. Should he tell his wife? Even if she didn’t acknowledge him anymore? Should she know that their daughter had married? That she was braver than he was and had boarded a ship and made a journey to a new country?

Geoffrey (Jeffory) Denniss

Geoffrey was the youngest in his family. He had four elder sisters and an elder brother. They were the second generation in his family to have been born in Australia. He lived most of his life on the shore of Lake Illawarra where his father was a fisherman.

His elder brother was keeping their fathers fishing business going on the Lak and several of his sisters had married into local fishing families. Two of his sisters had died in the last couple of years, but his other siblings and their families all lived relatively close by in the area they had grown up.

In 1926 Jeff was employed as a coke burner at the Australian Coke Works. He and his wife lived in Rosemont Street, he was forty-eight years old. They had a large family although they had lost four children as babies. His sons were six and twelve years old. Two of his older daughters were married and he was already a grandfather.

Laura Ellen Kelsey

Laura was forty-eight in 1926. For the last ten years she had been an inmate at the Warwick County Lunatic Asylum in Hatton, Warwickshire. Life had become a comfortable routine. She was fed and cared for, had opportunities to be involved with domestic chores, handcrafts and social gatherings.

In 1921 at the census about 1000 people lived or worked there, 772 were inmates like her.

Did she look out across the countryside at the longboats plying the locks in the canal or hear the trains in the distance and remember her childhood?

She had a husband and children although she had not seen them for many years. It was easier that way, to shut the hurt out. She had pretended when her husband brought the children to visit that she did not know them. He stopped bringing them. The older girls would be grown now, maybe even married.

She told the staff who wanted to help her that she was not married, that she had money in the bank and that she was the Queen of Spain.

Why did nobody understand? She was lonely, abandoned, her family all gone. Her days had been busy with four children, but her mind would not rest. Why could they not go to America to join her brothers?

She had stopped caring for herself, the house and the children. Her neighbour betrayed her; told officials she was unkempt. How dare she? She was not much better herself in that run down court where they had all made their homes.

She hoped her children would be happy and successful, and blinked away a tear.

Thomas Watson Hogg

Thomas was born at Traquhair, Peebleshire, Scotland in the summer of 1879. During the 1890s his family had moved from the Scottish Lowlands to the outskirts of the industrial city of Newcastle Upon Tyne in Northumberland, England. Instead of continuing as a shepherd, Thomas’ father became a miner. It was that career path which Thomas also chose.

From all accounts he seemed to be always on the lookout for an opportunity, leaving his family for years at a time to try to make a go of living and working somewhere else. America and even Australia.

In 1914 at the beginning of World War One he appears to emigrate alone to Australia. He didn’t stay very long before returning to Europe and finding his way back to Northumberland to enlist. Miners were well respected in the Army for their tunnelling skills. At the end of the war, he applied for repatriation to Australia stating (wrongly or rightly) that he had been resident there for three years prior to the war.

Settling in the Illawarra at Wollongong he became a bricklayer. I imagine there would have been a lot of work around at that time as homes were being built for returning soldiers. In 1926 Thomas was forty-seven, his family had grown since arriving in Australia and the youngest children were aged two and six years. They were living in Five Islands Road, Unanderra near (or with) their eldest son and his new bride.

Ethel Elsie Gibson

Ethel was forty-six in 1926. She was the middle child of seven born in Kiama, New South Wales. Both of her parents were of Irish descent. She had one older brother and two younger and two older sisters and one younger.

She and her husband had a large family of eleven although not all the children had survived infancy. The family home was in Rosemont Street, Wollongong and daily life there would have been busy for her. Her youngest child was six years old, but her elder daughters were in their late teens and early twenties. Two of them were married already, her first grandchild had just turned one and another baby was on the way.

She thought of her own sweet three baby boys whose lives were only measured in weeks and hoped that her daughters would not experience the same losses she had.

Edith Lilian Vose

Edith was the first child in her family born in New Zealand in 1881, two years after their arrival from England. She was the fifth child and had two elder brothers and two elder sisters who had made the journey with their parents.

In 1897 her elder brother Samuel had been successful in securing some land in the new Wharenui settlement in Riccarton, Christchurch. Three acres on which he needed to build a cottage and develop market gardens in return for ownership after a certain period. Less than three years later Samuel died and his nineteen-year-old sister was the beneficiary of his land, cottage and garden. Perhaps she had been living there with him keeping house and helping with the work. This was the cottage where she remained for the rest of her life, raising a family.

In 1926, Edith was forty-five. She had five children, the youngest aged twelve was still at school. Her eldest son had completed his apprenticeship a few years earlier and left without a word and gone to Australia. Her second son was nearing the end of his apprenticeship or had possibly completed it. Would she have been filled with anxiety that he might follow his brother?

Her days would have been busy with domestic chores, milking the cow, making butter, tending the garden and fruit trees often you would imagine with assistance from the children. Edith’s mother has died in December of 1925 imagine there were days were grief still consumed her in that first year without her.

Mary Milne Gerrard

In 1926 Mary was forty-four years old; a mother, wife, mother-in-law and soon would become a grandmother. Her eldest son had married in August that year and a baby was on the way.

Mary had been born in the Poor House in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland in the summer of 1882 to a single mother. Her twin brother had died there from croup aged seventeen months.

Her mother had married when Mary was seven and had another son the following year. Her stepfather’s work in paper mills brought them from Aberdeen to Newcastle, Northumberland in the 1890s. It was there she met her husband and they married four months after her mother had died in 1901.

Mary had eight children. In 1919 after the war ended, they emigrated to Australia bringing their three surviving children with them and then having two more in the years after they settled in Wollongong.

In 1926 she was living in Five Islands Road, Unanderra, her home life would have been busy with the younger children ranging from twelve to two years.

Mary is the youngest in the next generation alive in 1926 - the ones who fifty-nine years from then would become great great grandparents to my daughter.

Joseph Alexander Becker

Joseph was born in May 1887 in Rob Roy near Queanbeyan and Michelago, New South Wales. He was the second child and second son, but first surviving child in his family. His parents were dairy farmers, though later his father would be described as a labourer.

His youngest two sisters were born after the family had moved north to the Illawarra region and it was here that he met his wife. Joe married Susan Millar at Corrimal in 1907.

They raised a large family and re-located from Illawarra to the Northern Rivers district to take up dairy farming with their eldest six children. Some of Joe’s married siblings, his parents, younger siblings and his wife’s sister-in-law had also made the move north in the late 1910s.

In 1926 Joe was thirty-nine, a father of ten children farming at Tuntable Falls. Their eldest son was making frequent appearances in court in Lismore for drunkenness which was likely troubling for Joe and Susan at the time.

Joseph is the last of my daughter's eight great grandparents - although in 1926 none of her grandparents had yet been born. Next we move on to the next generation back, follow on to see who we will meet.

Susan Bissell Millar

Susan was born in Bulli, New South Wales in June 1888, although at her marriage she gave her birthplace as Austinmer. Her father was a miner, like most men living in Bulli and the surrounding area. She was the fourth child and third daughter in the family.

Susan had her first child when she was eighteen, five months before she married Joe Becker in Corrimal in March 1907 with the consent of both their parents since they were both minors.

Toward the end of World War One there was a big migration in New South Wales from the south to the Northern Rivers where dairy farmers were in high demand. Susan and Joe followed her elder sister Jane and her family there. Her sister soon returned to Bulli though. Joe’s parents had also moved to the Northern Rivers at about the same time.

In 1926 Susan was thirty-eight; life was busy running a household and managing children. Their tenth child and third son arrived, Susan will have had help with the domestic chores as the older children all lived on the farm. Susan and Joe remained there for some years, eventually moving off a farm and into Lismore.

Violet Ruth Cooper

Violet was born in 1896 in Manakau, Horowhenua. She was the second child and second daughter in her family. Her father was a builder/carpenter and sometimes farmer. They moved around the Horowhenua and moved to the Waikato by the time she was seventeen. She was always known as Ruth.

In 1919 the family had moved to Auckland and were living in Mt Eden. Typically as a woman, her occupation isn’t recorded on the electoral roll. She is simply a spinster. But she did work as a typist in the office for Burns Philp in Hamilton before she was married and briefly as a waitress in Auckland.

She had married Thomas (Wal) Davys in 1924 in Hamilton. Before her marriage she lived with her parents in Firth Street Hamilton East which runs along the north side of Steele Park. Wal, was living with his mother and sister in Cook Street which runs north to south on the eastern edge of Steele Park. They were almost neighbours! Ruth and Wal began their married life living with his mother and sister.

In 1926 Ruth was thirty and the couple had just welcomed their first child.

Thomas Walter Davys

Thomas was born April 1900 in Taupiri, a small town on the Waikato River where his father ran a sawmill on the banks of the Mangawhare Stream which is a tributary of the river. He was the sixth child in his family and the fourth son. He was always known as Wal.

When he was seven the family moved to Tamahere where they ran a store and his sister was postmistress. Another seven years passed and they moved to Hamilton and his father died the same year. Thomas left school then and worked with his brothers who ran a bakery in Oxford (now Tirau) for a short time.

He had joined the Central Waikato Electric-Power Board as a clerk by the time he first appeared on the electoral roll in 1922, and would work there for the rest of his life.

In 1926 though, he was twenty-six and had been married for two years. He and his wife were living with his mother and elder unmarried sister. In January of 1926 they had welcomed their first child.

Robert Hogg

Robert was born in Lemington, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Northumberland in 1905. He was the second, but eldest surviving child of his parent’s marriage.

In July 1919, aged fourteen, he emigrated with his parents and two younger siblings to Australia.

Whether he returned to school on arrival in Australia is not certain. Once old enough to appear on electoral rolls he consistently gave his occupation as a labourer. Robert’s father and younger brother were bricklayers so perhaps Robert was working with them, or maybe he was working in one of the many mines in Illawarra.

On the 1930 electoral roll he was living in the same road as his parents, but it is unclear whether he and his young wife started their married life in a home of their own, or whether they were living with his parents.

Robert had married Mavis Denniss, a local girl from Unanderra in August 1926 and they were expecting their first child. He was twenty-one, starting a new chapter of his life.

Albert Victor Fuller

Albert (Bert) was born in the spring of 1906 in Christchurch, New Zealand. He was the third child and second son in his family.

In 1926 he was likely nearing the end of his apprenticeship with P.D. Duncan in St Asaph Street. His elder brother had also completed an apprenticeship there a couple of years earlier.

His brother had gone away for a week to Auckland with a mate, but ended up in Sydney – sending his friend back to tell his mother he had found work in Victoria and wouldn’t be returning to Christchurch. After that episode, I imagine there may have been a bit pressure from his parents that Bert should secure a steady job in Christchurch.

In 1926 he was twenty years old. Not yet old enough to appear on an electoral roll, but he will have been living at home with his parents in Riccarton. He played xylophone and saxophone in dance hall bands and was a keen photographer.

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.

Week 2 (Jan 8-14): Origins

Genealogists often get the question, "Where is your family from?" With this week's theme, you could explore an immigrant ancestor, but you could also think about the origin of other aspects of your family. Who was the first person in your family to settle in a particular town? If you have a long line of people with the same occupation, talent, etc, who was the first person you know who did it?

It was a question such as this that really set the ball rolling for genealogical research in my family. A social studies homework question at primary school. 

“How many generations has your family been in New Zealand?”

Well, they didn’t all come at once and they didn’t all come from the same places either. How do you calculate that? Are you meant to count just from the first ancestor BORN in New Zealand (or wherever) or do you count their parents who were the immigrants?

Family	Emigration Year	From Where	Arrival Port
Cooper	1841	Somerset, England	Wellington
Barratt	1842	Surrey, England	Wellington
Bartlett	1842	Somerset, England	Nelson
Laney	1842	Hampshire, England	Nelson
Fuller	1860	Surrey, England	Lyttelton
Davys	1862	Somerset, England	Auckland
Hall	1876	Cavan, Ireland	Auckland
Vose	1879	Kent, England	Lyttelton
Timms	1929	Warwickshire, England	Auckland

So, pretty much England and depending on which line 4-5 generations since the first NZ born ancestor in most families – but only 2 generations in another.

Most branches of my family emigrating to New Zealand came as a family, bringing their children with them. Only one branch was a newly married couple who would start their family in Canterbury and the most recent branch to emigrate brought a single woman travelling alone.

More than just the 3 R's

A few years ago I made a small photobook about the members of Dad’s maternal grandfather’s family who emigrated to New Zealand in 1841. It’s been in the back of my mind to do something similar for other emigrant/settler families too. I thought I might make a start by jotting down some notes as a Christmas present for him – partly because it’s so hard to know just what to buy a 94 year old.

But in building out the story for the children in this family (his paternal grandfather's line) I came up against the same old dearth of information about education and where they might have gone to school. It’s not even that long ago (in the scheme of things), which makes it more frustrating that there doesn’t appear to be surviving records.

I suspect that they may have attended a church school in either the parish where they lived or a neighbouring parish. They are noted as scholars on the census prior to leaving the country. Then where did they go to school after they arrived in New Zealand in 1862?

I found some clues for the previous generation though.

In the 1841 census, Sarah Norman (12) and her younger sister Caroline (8) are enumerated in the “household” of the schoolmaster at Cutcombe, Somerset. This was likely to be a church school. Great to see girls, the daughter’s of farmers, getting an education. Their elder sisters were above school age on this first census available readily for family historians, but it seems likely they too would have had the opportunity to attend school.

In 1841 schools and schoolmasters were asked to record the names of the children who had attended in the last week as the census was taken very close to the summer holidays beginning (6 June). There were all sorts of rules about who could be recorded and who couldn’t – those with a governess weren’t “at” school so different rules applied. However, if you are lucky you might find the governess enumerated with a family and can then speculate as to which children she taught.

James Davys (15) was enumerated in Barnstaple, Devon at a school led by Elias Bray. It has taken a lot of pondering and searching outside the box, but I have found that this school which I originally thought I had identified as a Free Grammar School was actual Mount View Academy. A boarding school for boys. As the census indicated it was located at 66 High Street, whether this was also the address where the boys lived is unclear. Since finding James there, I have presumed that his elder brother may also have attended there previously and I have often wondered what subjects were taught. Sometimes you can get clues about that in the occupations recorded for some of the teachers, but many of them are just “teacher”, “schoolmaster/mistress” or “assistant schoolmaster”.

Anyway, having recently had some better luck with the search in FindMyPast for British Newspapers since they recently changed it I though I would have another try. And lo and behold!

Mount View Academy was established in 1828 by Elias Bray. He remained the principal until 1856 when he retired and Hugh Gawthrop became principal. But what did they teach? And what did it cost?

North_Devon_Journal_15_July_1841_0002

North_Devon_Journal_23_July_1857_0001

According to in2013dollars a guinea was slightly more value than a pound, but more or less became a pound as we remember it in the pre-decimal world (although people still talked of guineas even in the 1980s! I remember my grandmother mentioning them). One hundred guineas in 1841 would be the equivalent now of almost £13,000, so 25 guineas for a years tuition including board would be around £3000. Interestingly in2013dollars also says that since 1841 the British pound has LOST 99.218% of it’s value, meaning that todays prices are 127.93 times higher than they were in 1841 and that today’s pound can only purchase .078% of what it could then.

That makes the cost of living crisis were are all in currently bite just a little more.

North_Devon_Journal_11_June_1857_0005

North_Devon_Journal_16_December_1858_0005

Examinations at the Academy were held at the end of each term and were public, this makes me think they weren’t written exams, but more like recitals or spelling bees style. Parents and families were invited to attend and prizes were given. Often at the end of year events the boarders presented a gift of thanks (an inkstand, bowl, lamp) to Mr Bray.

I wonder, did James’ family take up the invitation to attend the examinations and celebrations? How did James travel back and forth at the beginning and end of each term. I don’t believe there was a railway that early, so a carriage or coach must have been the only option. Something to explore another time.

So, this was an interesting little foray into education. What an educated young man my great great grandfather was, and so pleased to see that my great great grandmother also had some formal education a long time before education became compulsory. It hasn’t helped me learn where or how the following generation was educated, but even if they were home schooled they should have all received a broad education from their parents knowledge.

Back to what I had started now, having been pleasantly distracted, and rewarded.

Week 3: Out of Place #Ancestors2023

Does this mean putting something important in a safe place and then losing it because you don’t remember where that safe place was? Or is it more finding something unexpected.

I did have one of those occasions when searching the 1921 census for my great grandmother’s stepmother and her half-sister. This particular half-sister we weren’t even aware of until the 1901 census became available in 2003.

My grandmother told us that both of her grandfathers were married more than once. One twice and the other thrice. She told us the names of the children in the second marriage of her maternal grandfather, when one had died, how the other emigrated with his elder half-brother to the US, who they both had worked for and who they had married. Nana wasn’t aware of a 3^rd child in marriage number 2 who had died in infancy. I also can’t remember now if she knew the name of wife number 3, but I know we were not aware of a child being part of that marriage until we found the census. Nana didn’t meet any of these people though, they had all died or emigrated to the US before she was born – all except the surprise half aunt and the stepmother.

So after discovering her in 1901, we waited patiently for the 1911 census, looked for her on the 1939 register, found her death in 1991 and ordered the certificate. We discovered a photo of her as a child in an album taken to the US by her eldest half-brother. Then this time last year the 1921 census was released.

In 1901 and 1911 she was living with her widowed mother, who was taking in boarders and working as a housekeeper. When her mother died in 1936, they were still living together at the same address where they had lived since at least 1901. By 1939 she was a housekeeper herself. When she died in 1991 she was described as a retired housekeeper and (discovered just this minute) the undertaker was the son of the gentleman she was housekeeping for in 1939, still living at the same address!

But back to the 1921 census. I had expected to find her still living with her mother. But no. She was quite a distance away from home. In a different county. In a hospital. A homeopathic hospital. What type of conditions would they have treated? Could it have been Spanish Flu? Could it have anything to do with having had a child three years earlier? There is form for me to speculate about this – and maybe that would explain why she hadn’t been remembered by later generations.

There is something else going on here as well – a DNA match I can’t resolve. A close one who should be connected through the child of one of my great grandmother’s half siblings…like this lady. The father of our mystery match was born near the end of WW1, named for an uncle who had died 9 months earlier to parents who had been married barely 9 months before his birth. He had no other siblings for seven years. His documented father had fought in WW1, his mother lived down the street from my family. His parents while born in the same geographic location as my family, do not jump out as potential extra marital children – although they could be. But then where are the other matches with their families? The match’s mother was born in a completely different part of the country so doesn’t seem likely either. It has me completely lost.

Maybe there is another surprise that will unlock it. Great-great-grandfather had plenty of opportunity to have fathered other children – perhaps there are others yet to be found.

Maybe one day the DNA match will reply to a message and we will be able to work it out together.

But for now, I just can’t make it fit into place.