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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Northumberland => Topic started by: CB on Thursday 23 August 07 09:38 BST (UK)
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I am looking for the parents of Jane Foreman b 1780 probably in Shillbottle.
Jane married Robert Bell of Alnwick in Aug 1802 in Felton. She also had a brother William.
They were deemed extra-parochial on the marriage cert.
Any Help please.
CB
???
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Did they have any children between the marriage and 1812? If so then the originating parishes of both parents should be marked on the baptisms.
Ashley
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Ashley,
They had many children in Alnwick, all baptised in the Presbyterian Church. The only details i have seen on the records are F Robert born Scotland and M Jane born Shilbottle.
Jane also stated Shilbottle on a couple of Census records, but i have been unable to find her or her parents. There are quite a number of Foremans in Shilbottle around her birth date, but i just cannot find Jane.
Regards,
Chris.
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Could you let me have the children's names - they may provide a clue.
Ashley
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Thanks for the reply Ashley.
Robert Bell and Jane Foremans Children.
John, Jane, Eleanor, Jane, Elizabeth, Robert, Joseph, William, Robert, Dinah, Robert, William and David. Clearly not all of them survived but all were born Clayport Street, Alnwick.
As i have mentioned though, Jane did have a brother William who it is thought became a Doctor. He was also born Shilbottle.
Hope this helps,
Chris.
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I have just been told that it has been mentioned in the past that Jane Foreman may have been born in Brainshough.
I cant find this on my map but it is apparently a part of Shilbottle ?
Does it have its own Church ?
CB
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You could try the Genuki site so see if they mention it.
It is on my map to the south of Shilbottle by about 5 miles - it is very close to Guyzance, and not far from Felton so it might be worth trying them
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Thank you for the information. I will have a look.
From what you say it could explain the Shilbottle/Felton question.
Regards,
CB
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I am trying to find details of the parents of Robert Bell (1774-1847) who married Jane Foreman in 1802.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Chris
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Hi Chris
Welcome to Rootschat!
You are probably better off starting a new thread with this one. You should also give as much information as you have about their places of birth etc to help people narrow it down. Bell is a very common name.
Cheers
Ashley
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Hey Chris,
Not sure that you'll get this message, in reply to such an old posting of yours. I emailed you some years ago but didn't hear back; your email address might have changed by then, since there'd been a long gap in correspondence.
BUT ...
I've begun looking at the Bell-Foreman line again and have spent nearly an hour today feeling appalled re the low standards on one site (which I won't name). Time after time a person will use another member's family tree as a citation ... so that it all goes in one enormous loop. <shudder>
I've always questioned the Jane Archbold-William Foreman parentage for Jane Foreman, and now my suspicions are heightened. I can find no authority for that relationship, only the coincidence of time and place, but in a region full of Foremans and Archbolds. Meanwhile, I have some rather compelling clues that point in another direction (although they don't dismiss the possibility that a couple named William Foreman and Jane Archbold were Jane's parents, that William would not have died in 1782 nor would that Jane Archbold have died in 1793 ...).
Well, if you ever read this and are interested, please post to that effect. I can find no one else who wants to pursue this particular research topic beyond cutting-and-pasting from other people's trees.
Patricia
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If they were living at Brainshaugh then baptisms could be at Felton, Shilbottle or Warkworth if they went for CofE or Alnwick if they were non-conformist.
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Since you indicated that the family used Alnwick Presbyterian it may also be worth taking a closer look at two Foreman baptisms at the Groat Market Meeting House in Newcastle. William in 1782 and Jane in 1776. Parents Thomas and Jane. May be nothing to do with yours, but you may just hit on lucky. If they were wealthy enough to educate William to be a doctor then they could afford to travel to Newcastle to find a baptism of their liking.
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Hi Craclyn -- That was a surprisingly speedy reply to a desultory posting (I periodically give up and then later revive this research for short spurts of time). Thanks!
Chris and I are both descended, along different lines, from Jane Foreman Bell, and we've each done plenty of research, though we haven't corresponded in about six years. I live in the US, but I know he visited Alnwick & Shilbottle and did some thorough research on-site, including at the Durham archives and the churches in the Alnwick/Shilbottle area, that I was unable to do. It was he who discovered the birth and death in infancy of the otherwise unknown first daughter "baby Jane," whose short existence threw a proverbial wrench into the naming pattern we'd previously been working with. But Jane (the mother) Foreman's family was definitely Nonconformist and we've found no birth record anywhere for her. (And now I'll stop writing "we" and take responsibility for my own research.)
I have in my possession a copy of a photo of Jane as an old woman. Her granddaughter wrote on the back of it sometime during the late 1800s: "Mrs. Robert Bell of Alnwick, Northumberland, England, Jane Foreman -- Born at Shilbottle near Alnwick 1778 -- Died at Alnwick March 3, 1866, aged 88 years. Photo taken at 84 years."
The death date is correct so I assume that the birth data is also correct, or close enough. (Others believe she was born in 1780.)
That same granddaughter received a letter from a sibling in 1886 noting that "Grandmother Bell was known as the bonny lass of Coquet-side, so she must have been born there I presume; where she was married I do not know. Her father & mother being dead before I was born. Dr. Foreman was grandmother’s brother, it seems to me he had something to do with some West India Island, but I forget what...."
Other family mentions in that 1886 letter are accurate, so again I'm assuming that the quote above is as well. Aside from her 1802 marriage certificate, the 1841-1861 census listings, and her 1866 death certificate, that's it for records.
Since then the few clues I've been pursuing are the "doctor brother" and the witnesses to Jane's marriage (William Foreman and Thomas Johnson). I'm fairly certain that I've identified the doctor brother, who was indeed the son of a William Foreman but by a second marriage of William's in 1781 in Perth (they moved from there to Glasgow). Just enough time for William to meet and marry a new wife after the apparent death of Jane's mother sometime between 1778 and 1781. Either William senior -- or a brother named William -- could have been witness to Jane's wedding in 1802. But ... I have no idea what the Thomas Johnson connection is unless Jane's mother was a Jane or Eleanor Johnson, or had a maternal grandmother named Johnson. I haven't found a candidate yet. (Hmm, I see you have Johnsons listed as an area of interest!)
As for the Groat Market Meeting House baptisms, 1776 seems too early for Jane, and there is no Thomas among her children or grandchildren, so it doesn't ring true. But thank you for pointing to that possibility.
(Note: the candidate "doctor brother" was born in Glasgow in 1794 and was later president of the Swedenborgian church there. How's that for Nonconformist?!)
Patricia
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PS, oops! August 1802 marriage in Felton! ::)
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Hei Patricia,
Well spotted that I have Johnsons on my list. My 5th great grandmother was Sarah Johnson baptized at Shilbottle in 1744, so maybe there is a connection to your Thomas Johnson there somewhere.
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That's how life seems to work, isn't it? It's all patterns and synchronicities (if only I could find the thread!). Yep, probably cousins (probably never prove it though, sigh).
Off to dreamland now .... maybe to the ancient dales of the Coquet. That sounds peaceful! :)
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Sweet dreams :) I am just getting organised for a physical trip over there and will be hitting the archives at Woodhorn. Will keep my eyes open for your Foremans while I am browsing the microfilms.
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A couple of baptisms at the Pottergate Dissenters Chapel Alnwick.
August 29 1769. John, son to William Foreman, Weaver in Shilbottle.
March 14 1773. William, son to William Foreman. Weaver in Shilbottle.
No sign of a Jane.
The number of baptisms in the register drops in the later 1770's so maybe the congregation moved elsewhere. 13 in 1771. 8 in 1772. 9 in 1773. 12 in 1774. 7 in 1775. 5 in 1776. 8 in 1777. 4 each in 1778, 1779 and 1780. 5 each in 1781 and 1782. They also jump around and have big gaps, so maybe some were just missed. 1779's 4 entries go January, December, July, June.
Alan.
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Bon voyage, Craclyn!
I visited the Melrose (Roxburghshire) and Alnwick areas back in the mid-eighties, and I loved them. They felt familiar to me, sort of like Mendocino County in California with the ocean, trees and general stunning beauty. Well, I suppose that Roxburghshire is a bit more like Sonoma County with its rolling hills; anyway, I could happily live there.
As to Foremans, alas they abound, but it's hard to pin mine down. Don't bother much with them, though I am curious about the possible Johnson connection, ephemeral as it is. (There were Johnson's at or near "Walk Mill" on the Coquet, and Jane Foreman was called the "bonny lass of Coquet-side," so ... she must have lived near that stream, at any rate, and in or near Brainshaugh ....)
Report back!
Patricia
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Hi Alan,
This is where a time machine would come in handy. I could zoom back there and invite all the local Foremans to tea and sort them out. Pin them down. Grill them.
I saw those listings some years ago (though I'm grateful that you've brought them back to my attention, because I have better ways of sifting through them now). Foreman was a somewhat common name in the area, and so was William, but ... that doesn't mean that the William(s) you've listed are irrelevant.
How to know?
For one thing, given that Shilbottle is closer (I think) to Felton and Warkworth, why would the baptisms have been held in Alnwick? Family connections, I assume. Or, perhaps 1769 preceded the presence of a Dissenters' church in Shilbottle? That might be true; again, I don't know.
My Foremans were definitely weavers, or at any rate William Foreman/Forman (Jane's likely father) was listed here and there as a "stocking weaver" or "hosier."
But if he re-married in Perth, had he travelled from Perth to Shilbottle to marry Jane? Or had he brought Jane to Shilbottle?? Or were all of those weavers travelers???
A time machine, or a good family Bible, or a sheaf of old correspondence is needed here.
Patricia
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I don´t think Shilbottle and Felton had non-conformist churches. I believe the Presbyterian church in Warkworth opened in the early 1800s.
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Hi.
If you're still there, thank you for sharing the information re Jane Foreman. I read this with interest while trying to fill some gaps and reconcile some confounding information. A photo presumably of Jane Foreman Bell is posted in ancestry.com, and I was curious to find that is her or most likely her.
Elenor's post with the transcribed inscription seems to make sense, so thank you.
I am a Bell, descended from Robert Bell and Jane Foreman Bell. Their son Joseph Bell was my gg-grandfather. Most of my Bell relatives first cousins and their families are in western Washington state, where my grandparents settled early last century. I have a cabinet he made, handed down through the family and a cousin has a desk and chair also made by him. My g-grandfather Dr. Robert Bell, from Alnwick, brought it to America with him when he immigrated to Boston, MA in 1851, as presented on my grandfather's 1916 U.S. passport application. I did not know my family's Alnwick connection until after I returned from a backpacking trip through the UK years ago, and my grandfather asked after I returned if I had gone to Alnwick, and then he proceeded to tell me that some of my gg-grandfather's cabinetry and wood work is in one of the church's there. I don't know which one.
Except for William Foreman, Jane's father, it seems there is little verifiable information for Jane Foreman's family, but I see that the last discussion ended sometime in 2014. Any luck in finding more information since?
Anyhow, thank you for the information. --Denise
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This is a pretty spotty thread, Denise! Back and forth, once every four years or so, ha ha.
But I know I've corresponded with you somehow, somewhere, in the past. My account on Ancestry is OldBorders; maybe there?
I'm 90% certain of the Forman connection in Glasgow, though I wish someone else would pick it apart with a critical eye. Hard to find anyone interested enough to do so. If the Dr. Forman was indeed Jane Foreman's (younger, half-) brother, he was, according to an article about him or perhaps an obituary for him, "raised as a Wesleyan." So, nonconformist from tip to toe. And probably why we can find no records for Jane. That family probably attended prayer meetings in a private home.
Anyway, it's been interesting to visit here this evening for the first time in seven years! I'd forgotten how much I enjoy this site and its people.
P.