Gav's Family Tree

Martin Madness

2008-11-22T15:30:00.002Z

So here's the thing.

I've been presented with all the hard word of a cousin of mine. She has clearly put a lot of time and effort into a tree which clearly isn't the easiest.

Trouble is, if I were starting afresh, I would have come to a slightly different conclusion on the very first stage of this tree.

Here's what I know: My great greandmother Annie Martin is on the 1901 census with all her siblings which I know are correct through living memory. Fine. Great.

Her father is Thomas Martin, born 1866 in London. His occupation is unreadable but enough of the letters seem to say Dairyman which ties in with received family wisdom. His wife is Alice and I know her maiden name is Halliday. She was born in 1869 in St. Helens.

Fine.

So, normal procedure is to go back ten years and find him on the 1891. He should be on the 1891 aged 25.

Searches for a 'Thomas Martin' born in London born between 1864 and 1868 reveal the following:

Thomas Martin b. 1864 | Crew | Born: Poplar, Middlesex
Royal Navy | H M Dockyard Devonport | Morice [Plymouth] on the HMS Reindeer
Thomas Martin b. 1868 | Private Norfolk Regiment | Born: Acton Ext, Middlesex
Thomas Martin b. 1866 | Painter | Born: Wanstead
Living with widowed mother Elizabeth and siblings George, Bessie, Ellen
Thomas Martin b. 1865 | Private | Born: London, Middlesex | Rifle Brigade
Thomas Martin b. 1864 | Boarder | Born: Deptford, London
Living with Henry Muggridge
Thomas Martin b. 1866 | Born: Wimbledon

But to confuse matters, it has been suggested that this man may not be born in London. For reasons I will come back to, Ireland so it may be prudent to consider the following:

Thomas Martin b. 1867 | Lodger | Born: Ireland
Living in Worsley with Catherine Ford

Currently I have only gone through half the possible candidates in the 1891 and I have no idea which could be the right one...

To be continued...

World Record Attempt for the Most Tenuous Relation

2008-11-10T18:11:00.003Z

Since the Ray excitement has subsided more or less, I have jumped onto the McCullochs.

As McCulloch is my middle name it is the closest I have to digging up something brand new about my family name, and I left it deliberately unexplored for as long as I could.

Several lovely things have immediately come of it.

Firstly the tree exploded beyond all recognition with a dozen aunts and uncles that I never knew my great grandmother had. One of those new relatives was an uncle of hers called William McCulloch. He had a son called John T McCulloch and I am overjoyed to have a picture of him, reproduced here

So, this is my great grandmother's nephew.

Second thing which happened was that I contacted another gentlemen who had my ancestor Charles Napier McCulloch (the above chap's uncle) on his tree. As it transpires, one of the other brothers had a daughter to married into the Edge family. And Mr Edge had a brother, whose grandson I am in contact with! So I can now proudly present my most distant known relative:

Frances - Whose grandfather's sister-in-law was my first cousin three times removed!

The joys of the tree!

Top of the Tree

2008-11-09T19:46:00.004Z

Well this is it. The only minor concern I have is that I can't solidly prove Samuel Ray belongs on this tree. But I have decent circumstantial evidence. I can't find any other Richard Ray in 1841, other than who appears alongside this Samuel Ray. Young boys with a five-year age gap - they must surely be brothers.

Samuel's birth date also slots completely perfectly into place a year after John and Mary were married, so it's an absolutely ideal first child. But the fact remains, it's naughty of me to have included him.

One thing going against him belonging there is that in 1841 I only know he's from Shropshire, somewhere. Going to later censuses, it would appear that the likely match in later years shows he may have been born in Moreton Corbet.

And that causes a problem because according to the Mormons, the gent called Samuel Ray born in Moreton Corbet was the son of William Ray and Elizabeth. Not good, huh?

Banking on the Right John

2008-11-09T14:32:00.005Z

Now, as you'll see below, I was quick to add John at the top of my tree to be the right Ray. The problem I had with this guy was that he was seemingly well-to-do. He had been a Clerk at the Bank of England in London and had a servant and a cook. This is a man whose sons become bricklayers and labourers in the midlands. It just didn't ring true.

So again, I've been going through the facts. Finding that marriage has made all the difference because that confirmation that Richard's mother was called Mary Partridge has meant that I have even more reason to believe this Banker is the correct one.

The John Ray I have found was born in Badger, which is a mile or two from Sutton/Beckbury, where is son was supposedly born. This naturally fits like a glove. His wife is listed in 1871 as Mary P Ray.

All this seemed perfect, right?

It was, but for two things.

Firstly, Partridge was supposed to be her maiden name, not her middle name. Would this woman have preserved her maiden name as a middle name? It's possible, but it wasn't quite what I was expecting. Still, its better than the middle initial being completely different I suppose.

But then the second problem is rather harder to covercome.

The wife of this retired banker, the woman whose middle initial is tantalisingly P, was born (according to the 1871 census) in 1818. And yet John Ray married Mary Partridge in 1825. So she was seven years old when he married her?

I went to the 1861 census and this agrees with the birth date. So this surely has to be the wrong John and Mary P. How can it be such a good match and yet not right?

Also of interest in this census is the appearance of 'Shophia Hardy' (sic) who is listed as 'niece' and Hannah Hurson. These are presumably children of John's married sisters. Doesn't really help me.

I suppose all I can do now is some negative checking and see if any more candidates crop up and see if they overlap each other.

Update:

Ah! Just being lazy I was!

Checked another census and 1881 has the answer: The P is a red herring. Or a red perch perhaps.

John Ray, this man from Badger was married to Mary Parsons Ray.

So, the theory is crumbling somewhat. The P has to be utterly ignored, an then we have the fact that her birthdate conflicts with her marriage. I think this banker has to be consigned to the bin.

Another Update!

His replacement just jumped out at me!

1851: John Ray - Born about 1796 in Sutton Maddock, Shropshire
with wife Mary, born 1795.

Okay so they're a tad late marrying - they would be about 29/30 but that's far more preferable than her being seven!

Still nothing utterly comprehensive to tie this up yet but it feel very promising indeed.

A Partridge in a Family Tree

2008-11-09T11:47:00.004Z

I felt the need to check what I knew about the Rays (or Reas) because I did this section so rapily that I worried that it could all be wrong.

I knew for sure that Samuel Ray was the father of all my nana's dad's generation.

I've got Samuel Ray at home with a Richard and Ann in 1861. And in 1871, when I can't find any other Samuel Ray from Madeley, I find instead Samuel Partridge Ray. The birth certificate of SPR lists parents of Richard and Ann, so I'm happy that this is right.

It's worth noting at this point that the earliest census which gives a place of birth for Richard actually says Sutton, not Beckbury. Which was a worry because I thought the only Sutton was far away - until Amanda pointed out to me that there is a Sutton (or collection of Sutton-related names including Sutton Maddock) only three miles from Beckbury. I am always often wondering how accurate people's own place of birth is, given that you only know where you were born from other people.

So now I'm trying to confirm the generation before.

The Mormons' website tells me that the Richard Ray born in Beckbury (which has to be Samuel's Father) has parents of John Ray and Mary.

I looked for the marriage of a John Ray around the Beckbury/Madeley and the only one I can find with a Mary is this one:

JOHN RAY = MARY PARTRIDGE
Marriage: 11 APR 1825 Dawley Magna, Shropshire, England

Could that be any more perfect?

Partridge!

So now I know where Samuel Partridge Ray, my great, great grandfather gets his middle name: It's his grandmother.

Goolge Earth informs me that "Dawley Magna", far from being an alient planet from Doctor Who, is north of Madeley. Geographically it's good - about five miles away from where son Richard was born, if you take that to be Beckbury.

However, if you take Richard's birthplace as one of the afforementioned Suttons (specifically Sutton Hill), then distance to Dawley could be reduced to about two and a half miles, which is an even tastier match.

Normally, the next thing to do would be to find Richard Rea/Ray at home in a census with his folks, to locate John and Mary. However, on the 1841 census, the only Richard Rea I can find is a male servant, a ten year old, born in the county of Shropshire and at the time living in Stanton upon Hine Heath, which is an alarming 14 miles from where he was supposedly born.

He's with a slightly older male servant called Samuel Ray. This is a nice link, because if it's right then Richard named his son after his brother, so I can buy that. But I've searched from a Samuel Ray born around 1826 and returned zero results with parents John and Mary.

So either these two aren't brothers - they could be cousins - or it's not the right pair.

In which case, where is Richard Ray on the 1841 census?

Maybe bacon will help me think.

Palmer Tree

2008-11-03T18:54:00.002Z

Some answers on the Ray tree. Hopefully.

I couldn't find Samuel Ray's birth registration for ages, which stopped me getting hold of his certificate. I had to double-check all my facts and I came back to the conclusion that he was definitely the Samuel Partridge Ray in the 1871 census which shows him to be Nephew of Edward Preston. Edward Preston's wife was Mary Georgina Palmer, so she must surely have been a sister of Sam's mother. So why had I arrived at the conclusion that the woman I was looking for was Ann Cope?

I decided to search instead for "Samuel Partridge" without the surname, and came up trumps straight away. And I also had the answer to why I couldn't find him.

Samuel Patridge REA

So, I ordered the certificate which dropped through my door today.

He was born 16th May 1849, christened 25th June 1849.

His parents are:

Richard Rea, Occupation: Brickmaker
Ann PALMER, born in Madeley

So what does this really tell me?

Well, not a huge amount if I'm utterly honest. It confirms the mother's surname which I'd deduced had to be Palmer anyway. But it doesn't take me any further back in any real sense and it still rests entirely on the assumption that Samuel Partridge Rae is definitely my Samuel Ray and I simply can't think of a way to prove this beyond all doubt.

I'm relatively happy (no pun intended) but it's nice to be certain about these things.

Well, with renewed confidence in the children, I go back on the trail of father Richard Ray - now knowing I may have to search for Richard Rae to negative check.

Coming to My Census

2008-10-27T19:53:00.002Z

Well, well.

It's funny how you can be involved in a project for so long and not actually make a small amount of effort to research some of the basic principles on which the sources are based. I have always had my theories about the way the censuses - or censii (ⓒ Amanda) - are taken.

In fact, the way Amanda and I first collided forms part of this story. She had posted a question on Ancestry about why a father and son swapped positions between one census and the next. On one record the father is head, and there's a bunch of kids, and on the next census one of the kids is head, and the father is listed below, plus some other names. I (in my capacity as passing stranger) pointed out that this was because (I believed) the census was merely a snapshot of who was living in that house on the night of the census, and if the father was actually at his son's house, then the son would be seen as head. This is important because it needs to be understood that the situations presented in the censii are merely views into homes in a brief state, rather than showing how that home might be normally.

I had a similar experience when looking for some Rymills. A husband and wife could not be found together, but two people who each fitted the bill were to be found "living" with other people. If we assume that the census shows fleeting visits then this could indeed be the couple I was after. Frustratingly the 1841 census doesn't record the peoples' relationships to one another, so the theory could never be proven, but it seemed likely.

The other theory I had about the way the censii were compiled was they were copied out at least once before entering the final record. The reason I believed this was because there are certain times you come across an electronic record which is obviously wrong. For example it might say "Cavim" and you think to yourself, oh for God's sake, clearly it said "Gavin" in the original document, and the person typing it into the computer is blind.

Except you then go to the original document, and it does indeed say "Cavim" clearly on the census.

This obviously is a transcription error, and yet it appears on the supposed original. This therefore lead me to believe that the census documents we see are actually a write-up. At least on occasion I thought they were. I envisaged situations sometimes in which the man who answered the door was a mute, so he had to write down all the census information.

One recent example I had was that I had done an awful lot of research on Alfred Cyprian Shorter, and found a perfectly matching Alfred Shorter in the census. Just one problem: When I finally found him in an census with a middle initial it said he was "Alfred E Shorter".

I finally managed to prove beyond all doubt that this was the same man, however the census clearly showed the letter "E". I wondered if this could even have been midheard perhaps.

But now I have the answer!

A book entitled Ancestral Trails: The Complete Guide to British Genealogy and Family History by Mark D. Herber has the answer!

Take for example the 1851 census.

Contrary to my rather poetic image of the census man coming knocking and asking the questions in the driving rain, the information was actually provided then, as it is now, by the occupants themselves in written form.

Enumeration forms as they were called, were distributed to every house in the country in the days preceding the pre-determined date of the census. In the case of the 1851, the date for which the information had to be provided was the night of 30th March.

On the 31st March the completed census forms were collected, with all information specifically pertaining to the previous evening, including the individuals who had merely spent the night in that house.

This is the reason why there are so many lodgers, boarders and visitors. In the 19th century when transportation wasn't so quick or affordable, a visit to a friend or family member might more frequently result in a kip on their sofa. Or pile of straw.

These forms were collected up, and copied into the enumerators' official books, which are the copies we see today. The original forms were tragically destroyed, right up til 1901. We all take great joy in seeing the entry for our family member's home on a census, but imagine how much more exciting it would have been to see it written in their own hand on the original enumeration forms from the 19th century.

So, with the method of data-collection known, it is now clear to see how certain mistakes crop up. The families themselves wrote the names down in their often semi-literate state, and then the official persons had to try to interpret the scrawl and create an official document.

Therefore along with the dodgy birth dates and confusing place names, we can now add the persons' names to the list of wholly unreliable elements in these wonderful documents!

No Ray of Hope

2008-10-27T19:06:00.003Z

This Ray family tree thing is doing my head in.

This is what I thought I had:

The Mormons info gives me the top two names on the tree, assuming that the Richard born in Beckbury is the right match, which is relatively unique, so I'm happy with that. The John and Mary whose details I've filled in are a pair whose place of birth and dates match. However there are a couple of glitches...

Firstly, if the Mormons hadn't told me this information then I would have assumed that a John (born in Madeley) and Sara were the perfect match for the parents.

Secondly if all the census information is right, then Mary had Richard when she was ten. This seems unlikely.

So I want to prove who Richard’s parents are, so I thought I’d order the marriage certificate, right.

I searched FreeBMD and got what I considered to be the only match - A Richard Ray in Wolverhampton on the same page as an Ann Cope. Wolverhampton, isn’t great news but I did a map search on all the parishes which are covered in Wolverhampton, and discovered that ones such as Pattingham and Rudge are just a stone’s throw from Beckbury where Richard was born. So Wolves didn’t bother me that much.

However.

Just after I added the Ray-Cope marriage cert to my GRO shopping cart, I thought, on the off-chance, that I’d try to expand the date search range, because that Wolverhampton did bother me a little.

And what I did I find?

Marriages Dec 1841
RAY Richard Madeley 18131
HUFFER Anne Madeley 18131

MADELEY!

This pair is a perfect match! I’m more happy seeing Madeley than Wolverhampton.

But one tiny problem. According to the censuses, Richard was born in 1827. Which means that if this one is right then he’s married at the age of 14.

So, question is – Do we trust the census birth year? Or do we go with Madeley? If it is Madeley, they don’t seem to have been getting down and dirty for eight years, because I haven’t got any kids for them until 1849 earliest. So this swings me back to the Wolves one. But maybe lots of early kids died early?

Well anyway, I thought I should play the long game instead, and get their son’s birth certificate.

So I need to find Samuel born around 1850 in Madeley.

Well, I’d already been to the Mormons and they’d given me this absolutely perfect match:

31. Samuel Partridge Ray - International Genealogical Index / BI
Gender: Male Christening: 10 JUN 1849 Madeley, Shropshire, England

This is what gave me the names of Richard and Ann in the first place, and the census names, dates and places of birth all tied up between Richard and son Samuel, so it was all fine.

AND I got the exciting addition of the name Partridge. Which I was then able to find in 1871 and it ties up, because I don’t think I can find my Samuel anywhere else in 1871 so it seems right.

So I went to get his birth certificate

Could I find him on FreeBMD?

Could I buggery.

There isn’t even someone in the right date range.

I did however find this one:

Births Dec 1849
RAY Samuel Newport S 18 121

I think I’ve found him on the Mormon site:

SAMUEL RAY Christening:
09 DEC 1849 All Saints, Forton, Stafford, England
Father: RICHARD RAY Family
Mother: ELIZABETH

And now my head is spinning. Because I checked All Saints Forton - and Newport - and they are close enough to fit with Madeley where the next generation was born. So actually this could be the right Samuel. Which gives me different parents!!

So everything I did yesterday has unravelled. I was trying to be thorough by going to get birth or marriage certificates and instead of confirming everything, it has collapsed.

I think I need to go back to the census records, and find out what I definitely know from the censii first, before I start confidently slapping in dates from the FreeBMD and the Mormons. Then once I know the framework is right, I can then start looking to confirm things.

Getting Close to the Monks

2008-10-19T14:53:00.008+01:00

So after the successful liaison with the more distant Shorter line in Cheslyn Hay, we headed on down through Wolverhampton, to locate a couple of additional and more recent locations. Due to mum's eagle-eye, we accidentally came across the house my great grandmother was living in before she was married.

The address of this house was written on a 101-year-old envelope which Amanda had been turning over in her hands, not one hour earlier.

What made it even more remarkable was the fact that, once we'd checked the post-mark and various dates, we discovered that this letter would have been the last one she ever received as Ethel Holland, because the very next day she was married to Alfred Cyprian Shorter. It is slightly tragic that we have the envelope but not the letter, which originated from Joliet Illinois, and travelled such a great distance to presumably bring good wishes for her big day.

On our journey, 33 Larches Lane was the only house still standing from the family history, and all too often our ancestors' homes had been bulldozed and redeveloped.

On we went, via depressing warehouse-filled industrial estates which had once been bustling terraced streets on which my grandfather would have played.

And so finally to Dudley - the land so dominated by the figure of Thomas Monk b. 1765. I say land, but it was in fact water. For it was he who lent his name to the 'Monkey Boats' of the canal passenger packet; a service now little known but in its day was a pioneering enterprise. About as slow as walking but far more pleasurable over long distances for those with the money to travel by water.

We homed in on an area of the town which must have been dominated by the Monk family and their canal business for generations. And just a short distance from Park Lane West on which Samuel Monk lived in 1881, we stopped in a housing estate which has been built around a canal dock. Just over the bridge on the other side of the water the family name is remembered in Monk Close.

It was Samuel's Monk's granddaughter Ethel to whom the 101-year-old letter was written, which arrived at her house the day before her wedding to Alfred Cyprian Shorter, a man who bore the name of his grandfather from Cheslyn Hay, that little village where we met Amanda.

All the strands of the stories tied together so beautifully, I couldn't have hoped for more.

A Short Trip to Cheslyn Hay

2008-10-17T13:35:00.005+01:00

I wanted to call this post "Once, Twice, Three Times a Cousin", but she's my fourth cousin once removed, which totally ruined things.

I met Amanda!

Who could ask for a better fourth cousin once removed? She shares all the talent and intellect of the Shorter family, exactly as I do. With my mum I journeyed down the M6 to retrace our ancestors' steps, see their town, and have a very small family reunion. Or rather a union.

There were many exciting small discoveries, too numerous to mention here in full, but of particular delight was being shown the last Shorter Shoe Shop. Our common ancestor, Cyprian was a cobbler (and in fact a Cordwainer, which was a new word to me) an so was his suspected father Joseph, and the known father of Simeon Shorter, also named Joseph. James Shorter, who I believe may have been Cyprian's brother was also a shoe-maker and his line continued this work down the generations.

Our Cyprian moved away from Cheslyn Hay so would not have been buried here, which prevents us finding a direct modern link to us in the town, however due to the wonderful Mr Trevor McFarlane of Cheslyn Hay Local History Society, we were able to locate the oldest burial plots for people who may have some distant connection to us. Jabez Shorter b.1816 may have been Cyprian's brother and I believe his grandson could be the Jabez Shorter whose grave we located. I need to research this properly as it's just conjecture at the moment.

We also found the grave of Ellen Shorter who at first I thought may have been nee Perks but I am revising my thoughts on this and again will research fully shortly (no pun intended). Sadly both plots were totally reclaimed by nature, and with no headstone, there was never any hope of a dramatic reveal.

I have come away with such a great sense of acomplishment, to have worked so hard to prove that very elusive link between myself and Cyprian in the first place, then to discover Amanda, share information, finally meet and walk the streets of our ancestors together. It was all too brief.

But now we have fresh leads, new contacts and I personally have a feeling of having reached a huge island in this great voyage through time. We've taken on supplies, recruited new crew members and the ship sets sail once more with fresh determination into more uncharted territory...

Two Grooms for Two Sisters

2008-10-12T17:19:00.005+01:00

I was determined to crack this niece/sister milarky. I am consumed with the need to know if those two were sisters who married into the same family without realising, or if somehow William Lawson has a sister who married a Shorter, or if something even weirder is going on.

I am also disgracefully impatient and I need to know this instant, plus I couldn't justify the £14 on two certificates to prove something fairly insignificant about some people who I currently can't prove are related to me.

So I suddenly figured out another way I could do it.

I can't get the full marriage info online, so I went looking for the marriages dates of each one. I first looked for the possible marriages of John Shorters in the midlands, which had to be prior to 1851 due to the age of the first child. This is what I found:

Mar 1846 - John Shorter, Wolverhampton vol - 17 page 351
Sep 1849 - John Wilson Shorter, Walsall vol - 17 page 279

Right.

So then I went looking for any Mary married on that same volume and page of the marriage books and this is what I found:

Mar 1846 - Mary Archer, Wolverhampton & C - vol 17 page 351
Mar 1846 - Mary Vaughan, Wolverhampton - vol 17 page 351
Sep 1849 - Mary Ann , Clesbury Wallsall - vol 17 page 279

RIGHT.

So if my theory has any chance of being right, then if I manage to find William Lawson’s marriage, his wife’s name should be either Archer, Vaughan or Clesbury. That would prove they were sisters. Considering the unreliable nature of the records, and of the transcripts, I was not hopeful.

So.

I found all the marriages for that name after 1852 to ensure his first wife is dead and I got:

Sep 1861 - William Lawson, Penkridge - 6b 473
Dec 1868 - William Lawson, Penkridge - 6b 663
Jun 1869 - William Lawson, Stafford - 6b 17

I then did the same as before, and found any woman called Sarah getting married on those pages.

And this is what I found.

Sep 1861 - Sarah Archer, Penkridge 6b 473
Dec 1868 - Sarah Box, Penkridge 6b 663

Look. At. That.

Marriages Sep 1861 - Sarah Archer, Penkridge 6b 473

Just look will you.

What are the chances of that?

So, just to recap:

We have John Shorter (born in Cheslyn Hay) married to Mary Archer (born in Penkridge according to the 1881).

And now we know William Lawson (born in Cannock apparently) married Sarah Archer (also supposedly born in Cheslyn Hay)

Exactly what I needed to see.

And so I went to find them on the census and I found them! With typical accuracy the census man has given them the same age!

David Archer, 40
Mary Archer, 50
Isaac Archer, 25
Sarah Archer, 15
Mary Archer, 15

But what I particularly love about this census entry is how it lists where this family lives:

Township: Great Wyrley
Where born: Staffordshire
Civil Parish: Cannock
Registration district: Penkridge

PERFECT!

The information I had to go on suggested these four different people who paired up were all born in different places. But in fact what this census is showing is that you can be born in Cheslyn Hay and depending on your caprices when the census man comes knocking, you could tell him either Great Wyrley, Cannock or Penkridge.

And according to his marriage document, William Lawson was born in Wolverhampton anyway!

So the proof is there. I am happy, and my tree is that bit more solid.

Two Nice to be a Niece

2008-10-11T11:55:00.000+01:00

That doesn't even make sense.

Anyway, whilst filling out the Big Tree by trying to include all the Shorters near Cheslyn Hay I came across an oddity. John Shorter b.1812 (not 1821 as a different census suggests) has a son and four daughters.

Two of those daughters, Mary Anne Shorter and Matilda Shorter can be found in 1871 unmarried and listed as 'nieces' to a William Lawson.

Well it just so happens that we already have that William Lawson on the tree. Over on the other side we find William Lawson's mother was called Rhoda Shorter, sister of the earliest known Simeon Shorter.

At first glance this is confusing. At second glance it is even more confusing.

If it had been Rhoda's generation it might make sense, because it would just meant that one of her sister's kids was staying. But no, this is the next generation down, when Rhoda has already lost her Shorter surname to John Lawson, and they have had a child William. It is this child who has somehow generated a niece with the name Shorter.

As far as I can see it, there are only three possible explanations:

William Lawson has a sister we don’t know about, who weirdly marries a Shorter, like her mother did. I have hunted for a good Sarah candidate, but with no luck.
William Lawson’s married a woman with the same surname as his mother. As I currently don't know the name of his second wife Sarah (born in Cheslyn Hay) it's possible she was born Sarah Shorter. But again, I had no luck finding her and again this is extremely weird if true.

and finally the best theory:
The other possibility is that John Shorter’s wife Mary, and William Lawson’s wife Sarah, are sisters. Therefore Mary’s kids could be down a nieces to Sarah’s husband. The nice thing about this theory is that it explains everything without being bizarrely coincidental and it’s not incestuous because it just means that two sisters married into distant branches of the same family.

I personally think it may be even more interesting because I don’t think these sisters necessarily knew they were marrying the same family. I don't think they could know. I just don't think that kind of information would have been clear enough to them and they'd never have asked the right questions in order to find out.

To illustrate the point, have you ever asked your brother or sister what their partner’s mother’s maiden name was? And if it turned out to be the same as yours would you think much of it?

So Mary married a Shorter and Sarah married a Lawson, and perhaps neither of them ever knew that their husbands were distant cousins! Bearing in mind this is the two branches that even we are having difficulty proving with easily accessible documentation. So I don’t believe they knew themselves.

So, William Lawson was from Cannock.
Second wife Sarah was from Cheslyn Hay.
Her conjectured sister was from Penridge.
and she married John Shorter from Cheslyn Hay.

These places are all within a couple of miles of each other and I think this could be our solution.

Henry Ate a Scone

2008-10-10T19:40:00.000+01:00

I’m hitting annoying dead ends at the moment.

I was trying to find some info on Joseph Shorters in the hope that we can dig up some more cousins. Not literally.

So I went to Henrietta Shorter. She was born in 1852, so I thought her birthday would be around 1870. I found only one result for her name and a very rough year:

1. Henrietta Shorter - International Genealogical Index / BI
Gender: Female Marriage: 10 MAY 1875 Walsall, Stafford, England

Looks absolutely perfect.

She married Henry Long, b 1854.

So I went looking for a Henry Long who married a Henrietta. Nothing.

So I went looking for a Henry who married a Henrietta, of which there are some, but none seemed right.

So I did a search simply for Henrietta born in Cheslyn Hay, and found six, none of whom married a Henry!

Then just to ensure I was as annoyed as possible, I discovered our Henrietta is on someone else’s tree! Woo hoo! Except when I tried to do something about I got this:

“We're sorry. The user you would like to contact (apearson24) has elected not to be contacted by anyone regarding information posted on this site.”

What a bastard.

It's a Great Davis

2008-10-10T19:37:00.001+01:00

Such a bad attempt at a pun, it doesn't even come across as one. I really do feel bad about that one.

Got a new birth certificate today. Nothing phenomenal, just an exciting new avenue to shine a torch down briefly. Maria's Monk's mother Ann, who was my great, great, great grandmother I now know was a daughter of the Davis family.

Maria was born on the 25th May 1843 in Adds at which time her dad lived on Warwick Road. I can add that to the list of places to explore when I head to the midlands.

Go Fourth and Multiply

2008-10-08T22:37:00.000+01:00

I have bagged another living cousin! A fourth cousin in fact.

His name is Philip and the common ancestor we share is Joseph Lewis born 1796 in Neston. This line was the extremely surprising collection of people about whom we knew almost nothing. The discovery of this branch of the tree revealed that there were many generations of coal-miners in the family, which was a total surprise, and secondly they lived and worked in a village called Neston not five miles down the road from where I live now. Bearing in mind that my mother was born in Falkirk, Scotland, and her mother was born in Rainford, the revelation that several generations before that was living on our doorstep was astonishing.

Two hunred years, a thousand miles and five generations has brought the family full circle. One vital difference being that we have escaped the coal mines thanks to Thomas Lewis, my great grandfather, who has seemingly pulled the family up by the scruff of its neck into respectable positions of reasonable authority. Here was a man who was down the mines as a teenager, and rose to become a sub-postmaster. Well done Thomas.

I actually sent Philip a message via Ancestry a few months back but he mustn't have got it, because he actually contacted me today when he discovered his ancestor is also on my tree.

The story of his ancetor and mine is rather nice so I shall relate it for you. My newly discovered fourth cousin is descended from Benjamin, and I am descended from older brother William.

The Lewis Family and the Colliery Trail

The Neston Parish Registers carry the occasional mention of a “miner” after 1727, suggesting that small scale open-cast mining had been carried out in the local area for centuries if not millennia. But it was in 1757 that the Stanley Family of Hooton and Denna Hall opened the first large-scale colliery, importing miners from Lancashire, Staffordshire, and North Wales to work it.

The Pithead and Quay were built on Stanley’s land on the Ness side of the boundary but some more land was leased from the Cottingham family resulting in workings passing over into the Little Neston township.

In 1796, Joseph Lewis was born in Little Neston at a time when the mine was probably doing well, however sixteen years later the outlook must have seemed a little bleaker because in August 1812 the mine and adjoining farm of 90 acres were advertised to let. The coal assets consisted of veins of 2, 6, 5 and 7 feet with interested parties asked to direct enquiries to Mr Ashurst of Puddington. Apparently there were no interested parties as the mine continued to be run by the Stanleys in the following years.

One of the extraordinary features of the Ness quarry was its use of underground canals where normal mines used railway lines to move the coal from the face to the shaft. Considering the mine extended out underneath the River Dee it is perhaps not surprising that using shallow barges was more practical in the watery conditions, with the miners lying on their backs and walking along the roof of the tunnel.

In 1819 the Stanley’s lease on the Cottingham part of the land expired and Thomas Cottingham decided to establish his own mine on the Little Neston side of the boundary. This rivalry resulted in law suits in 1821 and 1822 in which Cottinham alleged that men from the original Stanley mine had worked in the Little Neston tunnels. The court found in favour of Cottingham to the value of £200 and £2000 on respective occasions.

During the 1820s the underground canals were pumped out and replaced by a railway with pit ponies and both mines continued to operate in their adjacent areas of land, mining different sections of the same coal seam.

The 1841 Census records 94 colliers as living in the Parish of Neston, including Joseph Lewis now aged 45, who is living with wife Elizabeth and their seven children. The family’s place at the time of the census is given as the “Colliery” itself, grouped in with Little Neston. Their sons include the eldest Joseph, 16, William, 11, and they have a 3 month old baby Benjamin. Wife Elizabeth was born in Flintshire, Wales which was only a short boat trip across the Dee.

The 1846 Tithe map of Wirral shows the existence still of the original Denhall mine on the Ness side, but the 1849 map has no working pits on the Little Neston side which means the newer Cottingham mine must have gone.

Leaving Wirral in Search of Work

The closure of Cottingham’s colliery forced Joseph Lewis and his large family to seek employment elsewhere. They travelled north through Liverpool and settled in Whiston, Lancashire where the 1851 finds them. Joseph, age 55, is now a Carter but his sons Joseph Jr, 26, and William, 21, are coal miners. Youngest son Benjamin is at school. Whiston is historically linked with coal mining and shafts had been sunk at Carr Colliery in the 1760s. Whiston Colliery had opened in 1802 and Halsnead Colliery had opened in 1830.

The Lewis family continued to live and work in Whiston and by 1861 father Joseph was working as farm labourer at the age of 65, whilst his two sons William, 31, and Benjamin, 20, continued to work down the mine. Their address was Pottery Lane.

Only a couple of years later, William moved out and he headed to Rainford. Here he met a widow by the name of Catherine Heyes. She already had children; Roger, Mary, John and Thomas. The latter was named for late father, Thomas Heyes Sr, the innkeeper of the local Nag’s Head Pub who had died in his thirties. William and Catherine marry and William takes the children as his own. They all move into a house a little up the road from their father’s old pub, on School Brow.

In Lancashire the expansion of the railways was influencing the Lewis sons, as their lives followed the course of the railway line that lead out from Liverpool, as they left their birthplace further behind them. Benjamin met his wife Ann Holland in Parr around 1866, where they resided for three years, long enough to have children Joseph in 1867 and Margaret in 1870.

A year later and they had moved on again, following the mining work up the railway line, and settling at the site of another colliery not far from William. The 1871 Census finds both brothers at Ashton-in-Makerfield, in Wigan. Here Benjamin aged 36 has set up home with his wife and children, and William is their lodger. He is staying with his brother temporarily and his wife can be found still in Rainhill five miles away looking after two children from her previous marriage, plus two new arrivals. William has had two children of his own: Another Joseph who is already 7 and William Jr, just 2 years old.

Only three doors down from where William is staying with Benjamin, lived two more of the extended family: John Lewis was a 37 year old coal miner, also born in Neston, and his wife Alice was a domestic servant, born in Whiston where they had met and married in the late 1840s.

When the census man came knocking at the Lewis’s door in 1881, two decades had passed since William met the widowed Catherine and settled in Rainford. He was still mining coal at the age of 52 and his son Joseph, now 17, had followed in his footsteps. Their other son William Jr was at school and there was another new addition. A younger boy aged 7, who they had chosen to name Thomas, after Catherine’s late husband.

Catherine of course already had a son called Thomas, a boy who grew up with William as step-father, and who by 1881 was himself a father. This Thomas Heyes was living a few doors down from his mother and step father, with a wife Hannah Heyes and their four children, the last of whom to be born had been named William, after the step-father.

Ten years on in 1891 and William is still mining away at the age of 62, and still living in a house on School Brow in Rainford. His youngest son Thomas has finished his schooling and followed him into the mines. But Thomas rose above his humble beginnings and would go on to become a stationmaster and sub-postmaster by 1901. When he married Alice Emma Taylor, their children included Jessica whose grandson Gavin is alive today and writes this account before your very eyes.

Meanwhile Benjamin and Ann’s son Joseph, born 1867, became a cotton spinner and married Jane E Lupton. They had daughter Elizabeth in 1892 who married George Allen and whose grandson Phillip is my new found fourth cousin.

Boats Bob by Monk House

2008-10-05T23:22:00.000+01:00

Surely the worst blog post title yet?

So this Monk thing gets very interesting. And with him being a little more famous than your average dead bloke, people with little connections to him are just that little bit easier to find.

So, firsly I've found a chap on tribal pages who has this fella in his notes:

Thomas MONK b.1790 Born in ? Birmingham

So that could be by my great, great, great, great uncle. Awaiting an email back from him (the tribal page owner I mean, not Thomas Monk. He'd be dead).

Secondly, found a reference on this boat hire company site here to their ship which they've named the 'Euphrates Packet' after the service which my gggggrandfather ran, so I've dropped them a line too just in case they have any 18th century polariods of him.

But thirdly, I found this extremely interesting post from 2005, in which Ann tells us that she did some research on my Monks and was sent a very interesting article. As well as fleshing out the details a little more than I already knew, we discover Thomas Monk had a great-grandson, a Mr John Mills, who is presumably still alive, or alive relatively recently (no pun intended).

So, if Mr Mills was a great-grandson, that would put him in the same generation as my great grandmother Margaret Ethel Shorter (nee Holland). Unfortunately this could mean that any of Thomas Monk (b. 1765)'s sons had daughters who married a man called Mills. Or it could mean that his one daughter had a daughter who did the same. Or it could mean that any of Samuel Monk (b. 1803)'s six daughters married a man called Mr Mills. Or even Thomas Monk Junior (b. 1791) could have had daughters. I haven't even started looking into him.

What I'm saying is that I've got my work cut out trying to find the Mills family.

(And this is the bait for someone marvellous to come and prove to me just how easy it is...)

Family Misfortunes

2008-10-05T04:53:00.000+01:00

My scatter-gun approach to research has turned up another unrelated nugget. I'm desperate to find a picture of the Monk family, mainly because I'm convinced they're my best chance of getting a very old picture, due to their notoriety.

I did come across this picture but unfortunately the names which accompany it do not match anyone I know: They are "Bessie, Harry, Martha, Mr Monk (father), Emma. Front, Katie, Ted, Alfred, Mrs Monk (mother, nee Plowman), Charles and Johnny". It also notes that "father worked at Hunsbury Hill furnaces to which he would walk. He would handle 10 tons of pig iron into wagons at 6d. per hour. Johnny worked for Wiggins, coal merchants. He assisted unloading from canal boats 30 tons of coal onto the wharf for 2/6d."

I am pretty confident that I have found this family in the 1901 census at Blisworth and they are listed as: Henry Monk (head age 34), Harriet (mother, 30), Bessie (9), Emma (8), Henry (5), Martha (3) and John (1). Now I reckon if you add, say 10-15 years to each of those ages, then they could be those people in the photo, therefore being pictured around 1915.

But then as I started to consign this to the "Interesting but Unrelated" folder I noticed something which stopped me in my tracks. On the 1901 census, next door to this family of Monks, is a family of Hollands!

They are: Sarah A Holland, a widow aged 46 and sons George, 24, Albert H, 19, Walter J, 16 and Thomas F, 14. I went back 20 years to find the deceased father and his name is George Holland. He was a railway porter in 1881! Sadly I only have James Holland and Mary's children, whereas this George would be the next generation down.

But there's the names, the mention of the canal and the railway connection. My Joseph Holland b. 1846 was a Railway Accountant in 1881 and it was he who married into the Monk family - Maria Monk granddaughter of the famous Thomas.

All these matching names and occupations and not a shred of proof there is any connection!

I have emailed the website which holds the Blisworth photo in the hope that they know whether or not the people in their photo are connected to the Canal Monks.

Monkey Business

2008-10-04T19:44:00.000+01:00

Well my info on the Shorters starts to dwindle, I jumped tracks to have a little look at the lady who married Alfred Cyprian Shorter (whose certificates arrived on Friday) and it turns out she's from a (slightly) important and (relatively) famous line.

Have a look at this page: http://www.jim-shead.com/waterways/glossary.php?st=M&ed=R

Observe the term “Monkey Boat” being slang applied to basically narrowboats.

Well, guess what. “Monkey” comes from Mr Thomas MONK – born 1765 - who is my great, great, great, great grandfather! I’m a type of bloody boat!

So, Alfred Cyprian Shorter's mother in law was born Maria Monk. And Thomas was Maria’s grandfather.

I found a Guardian article which about a Jack Skinner, a who twice helped save the Oxford canal and in there it says: "The Monk dynasty was founded by Thomas Monk of Dudley, one of the first canal carriers and boat builders - the man after whom traditional narrowboats were named "monkey boats"." http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/jun/16/1

Certainly the most prestigious find so far - assuming that Alfred Cyprian's mudguard patent application doesn't turn out to be the patent for ALL mudguards...

Cyprians That Pass in the Night

2008-09-16T07:43:00.000+01:00

I've finally proved the link to Cyprian Shorter. Thank flip for that.

I knew my great-grandfather Alfred Cyprian Shorter’s birthday but that was it. I found an Alfred Shorter in the 1871 census with the right date and place, and examined him. His mother was a widow down as Elizabeth Shorter, so kept going back earlier and I could only ever find her as a widow, starting in 1861. So she got married to the mystery man and he died between two censuses.

Because I couldn’t find Alfred Cyprian’s father, I had to skip over him and go looking for a likely grandfather. Who better than a man called Cyprian Shorter?! It had to be him, right? So I found all his kids and tried to find one which fitted. Sure enough I found a Joseph Shorter who was a perfect match... only to discover he married a girl called Emily, and I needed mine to be Elizabeth.

So I tried a third approach – I went looking for girls who would be the widow Elizabeth before she was married and sure enough I found the perfect family with a daughter called Elizabeth. Sounds perfect until you discover that Elizabeth disappears off the census, only to be replaced ten years later with Ellen Emma! I started to reach the conclusion that Ellen must have changed her name to Elizabeth for some reason.... and I even had this brilliant theory that if you take her middle name and maiden name, “Emma Lea” then you get “Emily”! Genius, right?
Wrong! It turns out that Ellen Emma and my Joseph with wife Emily could both be found on the same census. So Ellen was out of the picture.

It was all so nearly right, and it all felt so close. How could Cyprian Shorter not be related to Alfred Cyprian Shorter?? But I couldn’t prove my brilliant theory and I was getting depressed.

Until now, I suddenly found a marriage record I was looking for! And guess what ... that wretched girl’s name was Emily Elizabeth Lea! So it turned out that she was down in 1841 as Elizabeth, then got married and referred to herself as Emily, and then after her husband died she switched back to being Elizabeth! So frustrating to work out, but what a feeling of satisfaction when I cracked it! So now it all fits perfectly. I know that Cyprian’s son Joseph did marry Emily Elizabeth, they had my great grandfather, and then Joseph died. What I found particularly sad was when I checked all the dates I discovered that Joseph died when Elizabeth was four months pregnant with their fourth child. It’s even more poignant to discover that when the child is born, she calls him Joseph after his dad.

And as for the name "Cyprian"... I am reaching the conclusion that this was a highly religious family. Cyprian had a witness at his marriage called Simeon, which was the name of Jacob’s son in the bible, and Cyprian’s son was called Joseph... and I have learnt tonight that there was a pretty famous Saint Cyprian from whom a lot of people seem to have taken names. And I’m not sure if it’s a coincidence or not, but there’s a St Cyprian Church in Birmingham, although it’s nowhere near our lot were being born.

Trying to pin down locations can be irritating though. Cheslyn Hay is said to be in Shiffnall, but if you search for them as separate places they’re a huge distance apart. I can only assume that back then Shiffnall was a huge administrative place which included Cheslyn Hay. That Elizabeth I mentioned, depending on which document you read, her birthplace is Stourport, Bewdley, Staffs, or Kidderminster all of which are some distance from each other!

A Braeker-Through

2008-09-16T05:49:00.000+01:00

I found another living Shorter! Well, a Pseudo Shorter.

On the old genealogy.com website forum, a woman called Vicky Braeker was messaging an Andrew Shorter who I’ve contacted so fingers crossed he got the info off her, and I can find out what she means by this:

“My Grandmother was Salina Shorter whose parents came from Cheslyn Hay and surrounding areas. I have gone back to a Joseph Shorter born about 1765. His son was Simeon born 1793 who had a son Simeon born 1825. He had a son Simeon born 1848 who had a brother Cyrus Henry George Shorter who is my gggrandfather. I can send you more info as I have the brothers and sisters of some of these men and may connect to you. Hopefully, Vicki”

I found a marriage record from St. Peters church which shows my ancestor Cyprian Shorter’s Marriage to Mary Lloyd on 28th Oct 1829 was witness by a Simeon Shorter, so I’m convinced that he is Cyprian’s brother. This would mean that the Joseph she mentions above is Cyprian’s father which takes us back another generation! It’s not concrete but as good as.

Pandering to My Whims

2008-09-16T03:45:00.000+01:00

I found another living descendent of a Shorter. AND it's one I can positively tie to me. AND she's on ancestry and cares about her family tree. Genaeological gold. She's called Amanda and I've sent her a message. Fingers crossed!

One thing I’ve noticed on her tree and I’m really fascinated by. My ancestor Joseph died at the age of 30, leaving a widow and four kids. It took me forever to prove the link back to Cyprian Shorter because of the lack of a husband to my Elizabeth on all the censuses. Now, I’ve just noticed on hers that dead bloke's brother Herbert, her ancestor, also died young. My notes say her Herbert died aged 35. What is going on with these poor guys? I haven’t looked at her line yet but Joseph was working on the railways so maybe a terrible accident? Unless it’s a terrible illness which runs in the family! Oh no!

Tramscniption Errons

2008-09-01T18:44:00.000+01:00

Whilst we all owe the transcribers a huge debt of gratitude, and this research would be almost impossible without the electronic forms of these records, the number of errors is so irritating.

It's taken me a whole evening to find one of our Shorters because the person had read his place of birth as ‘Sheffield’ instead of ‘Shiffnall’. And there was a whole Shorter family they had down as Shorles or something like that. I only found them by searching for “Sho*” in the end. You can use the asterisk as a wild-card but it usually produces too many search results.