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.

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.

Searching for Mary Ann and remembering her

They say that when we are gone we live on, as long as people still speak our names or tell our stories. I reckon my ancestors are all pretty lucky then, to have me searching for them, trying to discover all that I can; who they were, where they lived etc - and then sharing that with the rest of you.

So today, one year and one day since relocating to Victoria, we made a trip to Melbourne. I had done some inquiring you see, something I kept telling myself I had to do one day. So one day came !

I knew that my 2 x great grandmother was buried at Melbourne General Cemetery from her death certificate. But where ? Have you seen the SIZE of that cemetery ? And the records aren't online just yet. So I emailed and asked and got a reply very quickly.

From their information I also learnt that her "husband" was buried in the same plot as well as one of her daughters and an infant grandchild. I had been unable to find his death before, but now I had a date. 

Certificate purchased !

I know a bit more about him too now. He was from Cornwall and came to live in Geelong with his parents as a young child. What enticed him to go to New Zealand then ? Haven't solved that piece yet. But he returned to Australia in March 1876 after his father died and made him executor to his estate. Looks like that might have been when great great grandma Mary left her husband in Kaikoura and her ten eldest children and started a new life in Melbourne. (You might remember her from here)

Anyways, back to today. We went exploring in Albert Park/Middle Park/South Melbourne. What a lovely area. Today it still has quite a bustling village atmosphere.

We found the house where they lived

and walked the streets she will have walked

spotted the school where the children likely attended (emailing on Monday)

Then we caught the tram to the cemetery and armed with the information in my email reply and the map we went walking.

And found her resting place with a bit of divine intervention steering me in the right direction. Not so many magnificent headstones in the Wesleyan "compartment" that they are in, and none for them either. No wrought iron surround, just SCHNEIDER at the foot of the simple concrete border. The married name of her daughter Mary Ann (Mollie), the last of the four interred.

Still waiting for some of the descendants of those three children to get DNA tested, or share information. It has taken over 60 years to get this much of the puzzle solved, so what is a few more ? There is still time.

Mary Ann Barratt (married name Cooper; known as Nicholls) 1831-1903

Charles Nicholls 1837-1900

Mary Ann Cooper (known as Nicholls, married name Schneider) 1873 - 1932

Baby Schneider 1907-1907

©we remember you still©

#52Ancestors, Week 14, The Maiden Aunt

Tricky subject this one. I can only think of three. One who I met, but don’t know too much about, and two who I heard about; but only one who I have researched.

She was a mythical relation when we first began researching, but actually turned out to be the key to so many more discoveries. When we finally solved HER puzzle.

Elizabeth James, born 1 May 1846 at Broadward Bridge near Clungunford was the eldest child of Henry James and his wife Ann Thomas. They had married in Brimfield in 1843. Henry was a gardener or green grocer most of his life from church records and census’. Henry was born in Bucknall, Herefordshire, Ann in Wales. On the 1851 United Kingdom census, her birthplace was transcribed as “Slangyowitch” – what ? A bit of deciphering and map searching, it turns out this must have been the enumerator recording the Welsh place name LLanymynech as phonetically as he could, and the Ancestry transcriber trying to make sense of his writing. Anyway, I digress.

By the time the 1851 census came around, the small family, now including Elizabeth’s younger sister Mary, were living in Dudley, staying with a Duffill family. The significance of this family would become apparent much later.

Elizabeth was my grandmother’s grand-aunt; the sister of her grandmother. Nana didn’t share a lot about her family. Just little tidbits to keep you interested. She spoke about this Aunt (Lizzie) fondly; admiring her “pluck”. Aunt Lizzie, Nana told us, was a pretty remarkable lady. She had gone to America on her own when she was seventy years old.

Two of Nana’s uncles had gone to America too, and it appeared that Aunt Lizzie had gone to join them. But things are never quite as they seem.

After the death of her sister Mary – also known as Polly – Elizabeth and her father took in Mary’s two young children at least until their father remarried eight years later. On the census’ her occupation is recorded as Dressmaker, in later years when her niece and nephew were no longer staying with her, she was living with her father. From the way Nana spoke about Elizabeth, I always felt she had known her, and that she had left for America while Nana was young.

A note left for his children by my 3^rd cousins grandfather, my grandmother’s cousin, he wrote of how his family had left England to live in America when he was seven. Where they had lived in England, relatives in England or at least his memory of where they lived; who they stayed with on arrival in Boston and how they travelled to Seattle.

A Duffill family lived in Boston. Nana’s aunt and uncles had stayed with them after arriving in Boston, before travelling to Seattle. What was the connection we wondered. It transpired that the wife of Thomas Duffill on the 1851 census, where the James family had been recorded as lodging, was actually the younger sister of Ann (nee Thomas) James. She was an aunt of THIS Elizabeth. 

So some more research was done, and the same Duffill family, or parts of it were found living in Boston on United States census’ and other records. So, we thought, Elizabeth must have kept in touch with her cousins after they emigrated and facilitated a meeting with her nephews when they emigrated. Wrong again.

My American 3^rd cousin was not aware of this aunt at all, she was also not aware of the 2^nd uncle travelling to America – but that is another story. We searched and searched for passenger lists for Elizabeth James aged about 70 travelling to America. A needle in a haystack.

Perseverance though, and much research in to the wee small hours came through in the end. She wasn’t Aunt Lizzie at all, she was Aunt Bessie ! Furthermore she had emigrated earlier than we had thought. 1906. Nana wasn’t even born then ! This aunt who she had spoken of with such admiration was not someone she actually knew. But wait, there’s more. Her intended address on arrival in Boston ? The home of her brother-in-law Mr Duffill. What ? How could she have a brother-in-law when her only sister had married someone else and died almost 30 years earlier.

Well, this is how. Turns out she had an older half sister who had married into the Duffill family. Not marrying a cousin though, but a half cousin. Mr Duffill senior had at least five wives and children from each marriage bar the last. More research ensued and a letter was found by a descendant in a Bible, written by Elizabeth to her sister after the death of Elizabeth’s father in May 1905. This mentioned his burial “with mother” and inferred that he had assumed the role of father to her half sister. These half relationships get a bit tricky to keep track of, so apologies if you are lost.

So, when Nana’s aunt and uncles had emigrated a year later and stayed with the Duffill family in Boston, they will have been reconnecting with Aunt Elizabeth/Lizzie/Bessie, not just with distant cousins they did not know.

The connection that Nana, her brother and sisters had with their grand aunt must only have been by post. Most likely embellished by the memories of their own mother about her, during their very early years before she was taken from them.

Elizabeth James died in 1921 in New Hampshire having spent her last years living with the family of her half sister.

One of these remarkable ladies is Elizabeth James and one her half sister Ellen, exploring the sights of New Hampshire or Massachusetts in a magnificent car