T - Tabitha Turtle

Tabitha was born on 29 June 1831 in St Marylebone, Westminster. On her baptism record on 7 August that year at All Souls her father is recorded as a Servant and Chandler and the family were living at 22 Harley Mews. Tabitha was the eldest known child of Thomas Turtle/Turtell/Tuttle and his wife Ann nee Boddington. Her parents were both from Oxfordshire and had married at Christ Church, Southwark, Surrey on 7 August 1828.

DNA matches link Tabitha to my family through the Boddingtons with her mother likely to have been a sister of my great great great grandmother Hannah.

By the time of the 1841 census Tabitha has 4 younger siblings, there was a fifth who had died aged about fourteen months. At this time the family seems to be one of six families living in one building in Upper York Street, perhaps a tenement. Thomas is only recorded as a male servant.

In 1851 Tabitha is employed as a Parlour Maid to the Vicar in Peasmarsh Sussex. Her father and brother were still in St Marylebone, lodging with a husband and wife in Little George Street where the head of the house was a Coachman and Thomas was recorded as a Cab Driver. Her sister Maria is a scholar at the Parochial School in New Road Sy Marylebone, and Rebecca the youngest sibling is living with an aunt and uncle in Standlake Oxfordshire. I have been unable to find either her mother or her sister Ann in 1851. Perhaps they had died and this is why the family were spread across four different households at the time of the census.

In 1856 Tabitha and her sister Maria emigrated to South Australia arriving at Port Adelaide on the Fitzjames on New Years Eve 1856. Two years later she married John Hooker. They had one child before he died in Kapunda in 1860 aged thirty-nine. Very soon after his death Tabitha remarried to Thomas Cook.

Two years later, Tabitha’s youngest sister joined them in South Australia, sailing on the Sir John Lawrence, the first ship to arrive under a new Emigration Scheme.

But what happened next? There is a death in New Zealand for a Tabitha Jane Cook under suspicious circumstances in 1875, but the age doesn’t quite fit to be this Tabitha. But then information on death certificates is notorious for being error filled.

Do you know the Turtle/Turtell/Tuttle family? Can you help me?

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.