In my genealogy I focused on doing a presentation for my Welsh great grandparents John and Emma Harrison. I found footage on YouTube of Pwlldu, the hamlet high on the Blorenge mountain where John Harrison had lived in as a little boy, filmed in the 50's by the BBC before the place was bulldozed to the ground. Such a film could be interestingly modernised with music and all, but for there being a big symbol splashed across it to prevent copying. On a Pwlldu Facebook group I found photos of the two rows of houses once there, which my Harrison's had dwelt in, pretty rough pictures really, but I jazzed them up and was so happy for that.
There's a lot to be discovered about John and Emma's lives and the people that surrounded them. For instance, that they had lived a while in Bargoed during their early marriage I'd not known, but now could see from their daughters school registration details. My Welsh family, upon leaving Pwlldu, settled in Varteg and Garndiffaith, they being John's Welsh Harrisons and Emma's Forest of Dean Hawkins's. The Forest of Dean people never would say that they were from Gloucestershire; it was always the more exciting sounding Forest of Dean. One uncovers many stories, like of bully neighbours (I know that well). Jane Hawkins, Emma's mother, had been harassed most threateningly by a neighbour, John Jones who was a blacksmith. Jones's existed in every corner of Wales and I myself have Jones's ancestors, John's granny being a Margaret Jones from Llangattock.
Emma's sister, Amelia, had a daughter called Blodwyn (I love those old Welsh names), and another daughter who like herself was called Amelia. This young girl, Amelia Self, went as a teenager to work in service at a grand house in Swansea, only to be dead within three days of arriving there. She'd eaten a hearty meal of steak, potatoes and beans, thereon retreating unwell to the outside privy, where she had a fit, By the time the locked door was forced open she was almost dead and could not be revived. One may suspect poisoning for this, but she'd been one for headaches and had even had a previous fit some years before.
John Harrison had a cousin in Brynmawr and later Blaina called Margaret Morgan, née Watkins, who while still single had to make out a bastardy order against one George Holly for him having got her with child and yet not having taken responsibility for this. George was a friend of one of her brothers and they were later in the Boer War together where they managed to survive a dreadful massacre.
A lovely clip I found on YouTube of Welsh miners returning from the pit singing 'Bread of heaven', which brought tears to my eyes, as did other clips of the Welsh men singing, all being from a film 'How Green Was My Valley', in turn inspired by a book, reflecting the South Wales mining communities at the turn of the century.
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Looking up some genealogy, I still have that ever query as to whether Percy Spencer was really my nanny Eileen's dad or not. I've never had any cousin matches to confirm any genetic lineage through Percy, as happens with other lineages; I thought to check my relationship calculator between me and my cousin Dee Lovelock of Luton, who has also tested her own dna, to see if a clue may lie there, Percy Spencer for sure being her own great grandfather, through my nanny Eileen's later sister, Molly. Always the issue with baby Eileen is that her mother, Florence, married Percy just two weeks before Eileen was born, along with the fact that he was considerably older, as also that his family were reluctant to accept these sudden new additions to the family. They'd had a firm story to allay all doubts, which was that he had been at sea, hence why they could not have married earlier. Nevertheless, such a story remains something to question. And it doesn't help for there to be no corroborating cousin dna connections, which is always essential to confirm a lineage is authentic.
And, lo and behold, although Dee is for sure my second cousin, the dna result concludes her to be a third cousin, that is more distant, which would support our not having the same great grandfather. So that's interesting. Like I'd hate to be denying Percy if he was genuinely my ancestor after all, but I need some proof here. I know that, regardless, he doted on young Eileen; for sure she was precious to him. The research I had done on Percy's Essex ancestry, was along with our Norfolk heritage some of the first genealogy I'd done, but is any of it even relevant?! I decided it was my great grandma Florence Maxted's turn for the avatar and time travel experience, luckily having a few photos of her to work from, and now gaining so many delights. So happy I am for this. Florence was half Irish through her mother Mary née Dolan. I see from a photo of her mother that they have the same eyes, which my father also had; Irish eyes. Florence's fathers family came from Pluckley, the most haunted village in England. I met Darren, who was my daughter Eleanors boyfriend. He had some tattoos, both gentle and strong, from Basildon in Essex. As I would see, on beginning to suss out his genealogy, as of course I would, with him phoning his parents for information, he was descended from lorry drivers and even they were from the same areas of London as our own ancestors, that is Greenwich (well, Lewisham really) and Lambeth. There were many Londoners in general in his genealogy. One, edward Ryde of Isleworth, was even an undertaker. One ancestress, Esther York, looked of interest for having had two children out of wedlock. Still single at the age of 30, her youngest child, by then five, at last was baptised. I wonder, did her then husband, Edward Ryde, even know about her children, who certainly weren't living with them upon the beginning of their married life together. These were the days of 'skeletons in the cupboards', when it was shameful of one didn't tow the line with what was considered 'normality'. And there were Stafford ancestors not sending their children to school (which as I have seen was actually pretty normal) and one Stafford lad getting smallpox for which he was shut up in the pest house, as were other smallpox sufferers. There were a couple of drunkard ancestors in Warminster who were much in the papers for their shennagins. One of these fellows even died from fighting with his nephew after a drunken altercation in the pub. The landlord had told them to take their quarrel outside, whereon they had fallen into a quarry and the nehew, Uriah, had savagely stamped on his uncles chest. He was acquitted of murder, though, because the specifically fatal injuries could rather have come from falling into the quarry. Another Warminster ancestor, along with his pals, was into dog drawn carts (which was illegal and for which they all got in trouble). He cared not for societies rules and was in and out of gaol. He was a chimney sweep and even got int trouble for using one of his sons (who was underage) to climb the chimneys (which had also been made illegal). They were a fighting hard-drinking bunch. More scandal I found in Darrens family, there being an ancestor who was a philanderer and an adulterer, Charles William Allett, who had children by many women. One of his ladies was Darrens ancestress, Elizabeth Ann Smith who had four sons with him, all out of wedlock. It was of quite some interest to unravel his story.
In regard to my DNA and the mystery of who may really have been my nanny Eileens father, I was now thinking it could have been and American soldier who had landed in Southampton in 1917. My Aunt Lolly had been given as a low confidence genetic group 'Southern USA'. I saw that during the first world war American soldiers did indeed come to Southampton, which was where Eileens mother, Florence Maxted, worked at the time as a barmaid in a pub.
So why do I question who was Eileens real father? Because according to DNA no matches had been given for what I had worked out as her accepted father Percys worked out ancestry, for one, no distant cousins of that lineage. Also, it was always a suspicion anyway, even for the rest of Percy's famiy, that the red haired Eileen was someone elses baby for which they had for a long time been snubbed. Percy and Florence had married just two weeks before Eileens birth and he was considerably older than Florence. Why had it taken them so long to marry? Their excuse was that he'd been away at sea and had not known of the pregnancy. This potential American DNA of ours covered many wiuthern American states, they being Americans who had generally originated in north-west Europe. And German settlers, as well as Scandanavians, were also specified as being a possibility. Aunt Lolly did indeed also have 9.1% north west european DNA. Where does one go from here? There are so many American cousin matches, but all quite distant. Some serious detective work is needed here. 1921 Census Day, new records released, as revealed at midnight. In a few locations in England one can view this freely, but I am in France. Therefore I would have to pay. At first I was not going to look, as it wasn't that I expected to find any vital information there. Rather I messaged my London based daughter, Eleanor, to let me know if she visits Kew Gardens, as this was one of the locations of free access (in and around the Kew Archives). But as a keen genealogist I couldn't then resist to at least have a little look, firstly just at my Welsh family (simply by transcript), then I saw that for just a little extra money one can download the originals and in my excitement ended up doing this for everyone. So the Welsh Harrisons of Varteg were the first I looked at. I already knew their ages, places of birth and occupations. What I did learn was which colliery they worked at. It was on the Varteg Hill that my great grandfather, John Harrison, worked as a colliery examiner for John Vipond & Co. My pop, his son George, was at that time a 12 year old boy. Ok, secondly I looked at my Maxted's of Eastleigh, to the family of my great great grandfather, William Maxted, who was a boilermaker on the railways. His Irish wife, Maria, who had always been a mystery, having previously said she was from Westmeath, now claimed in this 1921 census to have been born in Cork. So, yes, armed with his new information I looked once more to finding something of her origins, but still found nothing. What I did find from this census, which I had not known before, was that one of the daughters, Norah, herself had at this time an illegitimate baby in the family home, a little girl named Norah Maria Kathleen, the names of both her mother and grandmother. As for William and Maria Maxted's daughter, Florence, she had married a ships cook, Percy Spencer, and was living with him at 2 Bridge Cottages, Dovercourt, with my little 'nanny' Eileen, aged three years. Florence's younger brother, Henry, was also living with them and working as a local postman. My Shetland Inkster's I couldn't look ar as no Scottish records had been as yet released. I now looked at my Seagrove's of Greenwich. I already knew that my great great grandfather, Thomas Seagrove, was a salvage hand (retired) for the Port of London. And I looked at the Bane's . My great great grandfather, Richard Bane, was newly a widower, aged 81, living with his daughter Alma's family in Walthamstow, Alma's husband, George Reynolds, being a school teacher. All of this I knew. What was new information was Alma's birth in Barbados having been fine tuned to the location of St Anne's, where there had been a British garrison. So this was where my Bane's had lived while they were in Barbados. My 'granny' Isabelle Bane can be seen aged three living with her family at 13 Lee Road in Dovercourt. I'd not so easily found them at first, due to her father, D'Auvergne Bane, using his middle name only of Robert. I already knew that he'd worked as a checker at Parkeston Quay. In the census it specified that he worked for the Great Eastern Railway. That was it for my family in the 1921 census, nothing excessively riveting. But little by little colours are added to the family story.
I looked once more at Ella May's genealogy, she having asked me to look at her Shaw's. These Shaw's had now been summed up as the 'Shaw mystery', like who were they and where were they from. She wanted me to help her solve this. I indulged in researching this till late, not making much progress at all. All was stuck on her great grandfather, Robert Shaw of Keighley. It took Ella May's connecting with her great aunt Marnie to at last discover Robert Shaw's fathers name, Septimus Shaw, a good rare first name, albeit with a common surname. And so I found the family at last, who it turned out had lived between the two counties of Yorkshire and Lancashire. There were two reasons why I had not sussed this out before: Firstly, Ella May's mother had thought Robert Shaw to be Scottish. Secondly, the only record I had found a likely Robert Shaw, in the 1939 register, had incorrectly recorded his year of birth, like really way out, although with his real birthday. I now discovered that Robert, unbeknown to his current family, had married before making his life with the known Mary Lingwood, to a Julia who had died young, and that his father, Septimus, had been a fine singer and a much loved presence in Nelson's Wesleyan chapel. As was written of Septimus Shaw an an obituary: 'Mr Shaw came to Nelson from Bingley 45 years ago and... having musical inclinations and a good tenor voice, he was asked to join the (Wesleyan chapel) choir, of which he was member and leader for many years, and he did much to develop the musical talents of those who came under his intuition. Cheerful in disposition he was much loved by the young folks and he will be greatly missed... (being) held him in high regard. ' Of Ella May's Lingwoods, there was a lineage of illegitimates.
In general these families were weavers mill workers, and from as young as 12 years of age would begin such work, although Robert Shaw had opted out from that and instead taken on the profession of a baker and confectioner. I was so getting into genealogy researach, and not even my own. Rather, as an intellectual challenge, a detective challenge, I was updating my friend' Jare's alias Nitai's tree, pushing back the boundaries. And this was well interesting, for its involvment if early immigration to Australia, of both convicts and free settlers. One of Nitai's ancestors was Jesse Froy, born illegtimate in Hitchin, Hartfordshire in 1819, son of his mother Martha Froy. He was at first a soldier in the 11th Regiment, sent to various barracks, in Devon, Northamptonshire and Kent, the latter place where he met his Irish sweetheart, Mary Malone. From Chatham in Kent the soldiers were sent to guard convicts in Van Diemans Land (Tasmania). Jesse made sure to return to Kent to marry Mary and then took her back to Australia, travelling there on the ship Ramilies, and they making a life together in Sydney, having many children, nearly all boys. Jesse took to drink, spending his evenings in the pub, and in time no more cared for his wife and children, so that he was even prosecuted for neglecting and abandoning them. For this he spent one month in prison, from the records of which we get a detailed description of him. He was a little over 5ft 10, could read and write, had dark brown hair and hazel eyes, sallow skin and a stout build. His trade was gardening, he was a protestant, and he had various tattoos, which included a flower and love hearts. In 1859, one of Jesse's drinking mates, his Irish former convict neighbour, Hugh Glenn, murdered his wife Ann, also an Irish immigrant former convict, in a drunken rage, whacking her hard with his homemade broomsticks. Jesse's wife, Mary, heard all this going on through the wall. Hugh's landlord's son, who'd been staying with the Glenn's while his parents were away, and who had seen the beginning of the attack, ran for refuge to Mary's house. Mary was too afraid to intervene. After killing his wife, Hugh came to Mary with blood on him; saying to come and see that he had found his wife dead, faking that he had just found her like that. But Mary knew well the truth. Instead of going straight with him to his house, she first went to the pub to alert her husband to what had happened, for which Jesse and others of the pub went to Hugh's house and saw that Ann truly was dead. Both Mary and the landlords son testified against Hugh and he was found guilty. It was a year after that incident, in 1860, that Jesse Froy was himself prosecuted for neglecting his family. He was apprehended in the Waverley Tea Gardens Hotel in the act of 'tossing off a pint of ale'. His children had been begging and sleeping rough, 'in the bush', one boy found sheltering in a 'delapidated fowl house', and at another time sleeping in a toilet. They would sleep in the bush, by the roadside and in outhouses. When Jesse was pulled up on this he declared that his wife Mary was as much to blame as himself and that he neither knew nor cared anything about the children. Mary was found to be at home with their latest baby, aged but 4 months. Of Jesses it was said 'he never seemed to have any business to attend to, continually loitering about the pubs' and that he was 'a worthless dissipated fellow'. His family were known to be in a wretched state, begging for food. Jesse and Mary's son George Froy married Jessie the daughter of a convict John Edwards. This John Edwards had arrived in Australia in 1814 from Liverpool on the ship Parmelia. His job in Liverpool was making ropes and he had been sentenced there, at the age of 18, to 14 years transportation for stealing 'silver plate'. Ad records do state, he had a ruddy freckled complexion and sandy red hair, grey eyes, could read and write, was a protestant, and he aldo had tattoos of a loveheart and darts and anchors and stars, as well as a blue ring tattooed on the middle ad fourth fingers of his left hand. He was held at the Australian penal settlement of Port Macquarie. In 1842 John sought permission, as a convict, to marry Agnes Thompson, who was a free immigrant, and three years later attained his certificate of freedom. Agnes was a Scots girl from Glasgow. She had travelled out to Australia, at the age of 22, in the care of an aunt and uncle, on the ship Trinidad. Back in Glasgow she had been a nursemaid, living in with a family while looking after their young children. She could read and write, her religion was 'independant' and she was in good health. Agnes and John married at Port Macquarie, known for its penal colony. This colony's distance from Sydney had made it ideal as a place of punishment for 'convicts of the worse character'. Wheever those convicts escaped into the bush, they were taken back by aboriginees in return for blankets and tobacco. Disabled convicts were also placed here, men with wooden legs, one armed or blind. Really the penal settlement had done its time when John arrived, only 'special's in small number being kept there, and free settlers like Agnes and her relatives were now interested to make a life there. On gaining freedom, John and Agnes lovde to Moruya and then to the McCleay River where they put down roots, John being a tenant farmer at Austral Eden on the Lower McCleay. The Edwards family saw much tragedy. John died of pneumonia at the age of 44 and Agnes drowned at the age of 45. As an orphan, Jessie, aged just ten years old, had to be raised by another family. It was Jessie and George Froy's daughter Agnes Lilian, who married John Edward Young, a plumber of Irish origin who had arrived with his parents, George Young and Jane Gilmore on the ship Pericles in 1878, they being farm labourers from the Bailieborough region of Cavan, Ireland, Wesleyan Methodists who had married in a Presbyterian church, so not your general catholic Irish.
John Young and Agnes Lilian's son, George Gilmore Young, married Mary Jane Barker, who had emigrated from Sunderland to Australia at the age of ten with her family. Her father, Christopher Barker, a boilermaker by trade, served in the first world war, getting mumps while on the ship journey from Australia back to England, and then while fighting in France suffered such bad gunshot wounds to his face that he needed plastic surgery. I was absorbed in another genealogy, for Ollie, a friend from sixth form days who I had recently reconnected with on facebook. Stuart Alcock was his full name. In his family there was a story about them being related to Howard Carter who had discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun. As I saw from my research, Ollie's was a family full of illegitimacies from way back to a Susan Stagg who had been locked up for being a lewd woman. She had a whole brood of little fatherless kids, being a pioneer single mother. Such rebellion carried all the way down to modern times, with the men of the family marrying girls who already had fatherless children. Even Susan's daughters and granddaughters had followed this trend.
One tragic family story, as always there was at least one, was of Ollie's ancestress, Louisa, newly married with a baby, who aged 20 fell down some stairs and died, which was said to be due to an epileptic fit. Ollie's mother knew of this and had told him that after Louisa died her husband, Robert Carter, caused a scandal by running off with a 16 year old. And there was the usual stuff one finds, like families getting fined for not sending their children to school. The Carters of the family may or may not have been related to Howard Carter who found the tomb of Tutankhamun, but it is to be seen that one member of the family was given the middle name of Phoenix. The only thing was, although all did have links with Swaffham, Howard Carter's people were rich and Ollie's were all pool labourers; so maybe all was but wishful thinking. One could not know, and then were there not plenty of anonymous biological fathers in this Norfolk family, so maybe... I got re-absorbed into genealogical realms, all my pets around me as I researched, Storm Kitty on my lap, Angel doggess who had sneaked onto the sofa, and the guinea pigs by the door with outside views. A toy dinosaur I was using to hold down my papers. My ancestress of Pluckley, Elizabeth Maxted, once she was widowed, left Pluckleys rural landscape for the slums of London, staying in the home of a married daughter, and becoming blind. A workhouse had by now been built on the Hothfield common, to dump all the poor and struggling into, and I suspect she didn't want to end up stuck in there. Her new home was on Wickham Street in Lambeth, and her livelihood was washing clothes, as many women in hardship were doing along that same street. One neighbour on Wickham Street, Mrs Manual, made her living caring for the babies of young unmarried mothers, which she would dose up with laudanum to keep them quiet. She was in the papers for the scandal of having poisoned in this way one of the babies. And yet it was quite the habit, and had been since ancient Egyptian times, to give opiates to children and babies, so they would stay content alone while others worked. They were plenty of products advertised to do such a job, with opium lozenges and pastilles on display in pharmacies as if they were sweets. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. |
AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Categories
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