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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Cornwall => Topic started by: UpstairsDown on Tuesday 21 September 10 03:14 BST (UK)
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After some success with a family tree for my Grandfather last year I have been working on the maternal side and I think my o'er vaulting ambition has over leaped itself.
I'm currently looking for any information on the ancestors of William Colwill/Colwell, baptised in St Germans in 1816, with his parents being Richard Colwell (1776-1848) also born in St Germans and Mary Sambles/Samuels, born in 1786. The problems start with Richard- it was only after some searching that I realised the marriage was down in the Parish registers as Corwell, rather than Colwell, as are several of the baptisms for the couple's children.
To complicate matters further at least 2 of the daughters of Richard and Mary have the name Corwell on their marriage entries for the parish registers and Mary's death certificate lists her as "Mary Corwell", too. I know the spelling should probably be Colwill, as searches in and around St Germans show no other Corwell family members previous or subsequent to Mary and Richard's marriage. William himself is listed as both Colwell and Colwill on subsequent census returns before the family finally settle on Colwill as a spelling in the 1860s.
So, my challenge is can anyone help me figure out where on earth Richard has come from ? I know there are records for Colwells/Colwills in St Germans as early as the 1590s. The family seem to be a fairly stolid, calm bunch with everyone being agricultural labourers, aside from 2 domestic servants and a police officer (William's nephew). I'm stumped as to where to look next- I've run the usual searches on the usual sites, checked various monument databases and even tried the Great Weston newspaper catalogue online.
I'm fairly new at this so I am certain the users on this board will be hopefully be able to help me dismantle this brickwall because, quite frankly, I'm stumped!
???
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Hi
have you seen the Rame Peninsula site http://www.stoneyburn.ca/OPC_Web/index.php which has a lot of the parish registers for St Germans & other parishes transcribed, really useful.
This is a bit of a shot in the dark, but there is a Richard Coliver b. 17/10/1776.
Possibility as they hadn't decided how to spell their name! :D
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Fizzix,
First of all please forgive me for taking so long to reply!
I have seen the Rame peninsula site, but thankyou for the link!
I might have a look at this Coliver chappie as he didn't show up on my Cornwall-OPC search for some reason!
Many thanks! It is a maddening conundrum.
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Hello,
We are decended from the some of the Colwell/Colwill family of Cornwall and Devon, specifically the Poundstock and Week St. Marys areas, through Thomas Colwell. We live in the United States, and have been doing research on the Colwell family, as this was my grandmother's line on dads side.
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Hello
There were also Colwills in Whitstone, the adjoining parish to Week St Mary. I am related to Thomas, who lived there in the 18th century.
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Hello RustyRex & CousinJack,
Would either of you happen to have traced your Colwells back into the early 1700's ?
I am searching for JANE COLWELL who (may have) married WILLIAM DOWNING in 1784 and they ended up in Co Londonderry, Ireland, but she (or an earlier generation) may have emigrated from Cornwall/Devon.
The parents of both of these individuals are unknown.
If you know of a website or source that accesses the Parish Registers you mentioned, please let me know.
Poundstock
Week St. Mary
Whitstone
(or all of the Cornwall/Devon Parishes for that matter)
I am always willing to share data.
Thank you and have a good day,
Rick T
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Hi Rick
I can go back to John Colwill (b Whitstone 1730), father Thomas, mother Elizabeth. I haven't found a Jane.
Good sources are -
IGI batch searches compiled by High Wallis - you can search births and marriages by parish by surname. Go to http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hughwallis/IGIBatchNumbers.htm and follow the instructions.
Cornwall online Parish Clerks at http://www.cornwall-opc.org/ and find the parish you are interested in. They are mostly very helpful, and know a lot about their parish.
Other than these free online sources, there are transcriptions of a number of parish records available from the Cornish Family History Society, and of course archive records held by the Cornish Records Office in Truro.
I hope this helps. Good luck.
Cousin Jack
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Thank you Cousin Jack.
I will check your sources out.
Rick T
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Something that may support that Coliver theory ...
In baptisms at the Corwall OPC site, St Germans baptisms, first that Richard:
- 1776, parents William and Grace COLIVER
Then, searching baptisms in St Germans 1760-1790, for baptisms with parents William and Grace:
Mary COLLIVER 1772
Mary COLLIVER 1774
> (Richard Coliver 1776)
Thomas COLWELL 1778
Joan COLLAVER 1784
William Colliver and Grace Gibbons married in St Germans in 1771.
The database contains no William Colwell/Colwill + Grace marriage.
In St Germans baptisms,
- 1795 and 1804 there are baptisms to two unmarried Ms. Collivers
- 1808 to 1816 there are baptisms to Thomas Colliver and Susannah
- 1834 to 1838, there are baptisms to Thomas Colliver and Grace
Now, there are also numerous Colwell and Colwill couples baptising children there over the decades.
There are William Colliver baptisms in Tywardreath in 1733 and 1746.
Also a William Colwill baptism in Tremaine in 1753.
There is a William Colwell baptism in St Germans in 1755, parents Richard and Mary. (Also Elizabeth Colwell, same parents' names, 1744, buried 1764.)
Is it possible that the Col* baptisms in the 1770s and 1780s are all to the same couple, and Thomas Colwell was actually the odd one out, and the family surname was really Coliver/Colliver but got mutated to Colwell in his case (and maybe others in later life)?
Or conversely, was William Colwell baptised in 1755 the William Coliver who married in 1771 and Colwell was the original name?
Colliver burials in St Germans are William 1795 (55), Grace 1795 (50)and Thomas 1811 (3).
No Colwells to match any of the names above.
(The only Grace Gibbons baptism in the database was 1746 Morval, which matches that burial.
The William Colliver burial would match the William Colwell baptism if it was quite a late baptism ... There is no William Col* baptism circa 1840 in the database.)
(I was initially curious because I have a similar surname variant, with the l/r confusion: Fallowell comes out as Farrowell in some records, e.g. the mother's surname on my gr-grmother's birth cert, and the Farrowell spelling survived in one instance and went to Australia. ;) )
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Hello JaneyCanuck,
Thanks for posting your l/r thoughts. You might have something there.
If the databases you are referring to are images of the original parish records, or even transcription errors, it is easy to understand that the "l"'s and "r"'s could be mistaken for each other and it is also easy to see that the "iv" in Coliver could actually have been a "w", whereby Coliver and Colwell are virtually interchangeable.
The Parish Records I have reviewed from the 1500's thru the 1700's are very difficult to read to begin with (being in script of various qualities of penmanship), so errors in interpretation/transcription must be common.
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I tend to think that Colliver and Colwell are different names, but they might well have started out the same. Some historical/linguistic research would be needed for that! The Colliver name survives today in a half-dozen telephone listings in Cornwall (57 entries on the electoral roll at 192.com, some of them duplicates, and quite a few more outside Cornwall). With the name being almost unique to Cornwall in early records (e.g. the GRO index), one might think it originated there as a variant, maybe.
In the 1700s names were still unsettled. Just for the names mentioned in my sig line, I have several versions for several of them. Colliver and Colwell sound further apart than those examples, but in local pronunciation they might not be, especially given the common l/r confusions.
But do get in touch with the St Germans OPC who would have access to the originals or images, to check the accuracy of the transcriptions. Or fizzybubble who posts here, the OPC for some nearby parishes, might be able to help. (She's helped me loads with my Cornwall people!)
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I, too, am having great difficulty finding my Colwill/Colwell ancestors and I, too, am looking in Cornwall & Devon. John Colwill & Grace Trawin were married on 24 Dec 1826, we think in Devon, but don't know for sure. Their UK-born children were William (b. 2 June 1827; d. 6 Mar 1828), Tamsin/Tamzin (b. 05 Dec 1829), Elizabeth (b. 04 Oct 1831), & Mary Ann (b. 15 October 1833 in Burton Salmon, Yorkshire). But perhaps Mary Ann wasn't born in the U.K. Sometime between 1832 & 1835, they immigrated to the U.S., but we can't find them on any passenger lists. Interestingly, there is a Grace Trewin, baptized 18 Sep 1803 in Week St. Mary parish in Cornwall, dau. of John Trewin and Susanna Bray. Rustyrex mentioned descent from the Colwell/Colwill family of Cornwall and Devon, specifically the Poundstock and Week St. Mary areas. Could there be a connection here?
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hello Steve and welcome!
Actually for Grace Trewin in Cornwall you have a choice
1803 St Mary Week: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:J3FQ-WG3
1804 Kilkhampton: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JWXL-TWL
(probably a replacement child for 1802:
http://www.cornwall-opc-database.org/search-database/more-info/?t=baptisms&id=3301219)
The name Trawin, on the other hand, seems essentially to be unique to a particular area of Devon (until people spread out in the mid-19th century); search for the surname at http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl
and you will find it almost exclusively in South Molton / Barnstaple (although the OPC site shows one birth in St Austell in 1786).
A John Colwill was baptised in Week St Mary in 1792:
http://www.cornwall-opc-database.org/search-database/more-info/?t=baptisms&id=947036
However if you search for Colw*ll in South Molton at FreeBMD you'll find a number there as well, and also in Barnstaple (and elsewhere in Devon).
Can you say how you have the marriage date for the couple - info on a record in the US, or a family bible or such?
Is this John (66) and Grace (69) in the 1870 US census?
https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M629-HN7
image: https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-266-11758-87149-88?cc=1438024
... daughter Elizabeth Simpkins died 1897 Ohio?
https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F6JL-H55
If the family was from Cornwall/Devon it would seem relatively unlikely a child was born in Yorkshire; what is the source of that info?
oh, so funny ... just before I pressed Post, I got a phone call ... a wrong number. We have just moved, and someone else seems to have had this number quite recently. I got the name of the person the caller was trying to reach and did a little google and found her parents' recent obituaries ... and she has a son whose surname is Colwell. You could go your whole life without hearing a name, and then ... ;)
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Yes, you have the right family with daughter Elizabeth Simpkins. The marriage and birth data came from the family bible, photos of which are on Ancestry - look for my "Mosier family tree Jan 2013". The jpegs are way too big to post here. I assume it is Grace who is doing the writing in the bible, and her spelling of Trawin is quite clear. I'm not sure where the Yorkshire birth came from - it is the weakest piece of data I have.
I had found both those Grace Trewins you mention (1803 & 1804) and had sent them to one of my cousins in Cornwall along with my Colwill family data to see if she could find any connections (this cousin is from a different line - not connected to Colwill - I have a lot of Cornish ancestry). At first she came up dry, but just this minute I got another email from her that she has found the mother (Grace Trewin b. 1803, I assume) and the children in Week St. Mary - says she is sending me the records. But she also says that she is having problems on the Colwill side. (My cousin also noted that Grace Trewin b. 26th Aug 1804 Kilkhampton to Lawrence Trewin and Jane Heydon appears to have died in 1888 at St Dominic.)
I don't know where I got the notion that John and Grace were married in Devon. I have that in my tree but if I don't get that confirmed soon, it's coming out.
It's interesting how this family line came to me. My gr-grandmother's bible said that her mother was Jamsin C., born in England, and died of typhoid in 1862. Took me years to figure out that it was Tamsin, not Jamsin, and to find the Colwill family in Ohio. And now it's taking years more to find the family in England.
Thanks so much for your suggestions - I'll follow up and keep the board posted on results.
Steve
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Well, I found John Colwill in Week St Mary parish in Cornwall, as well as his wife Grace Trewin, and I learned a lot in the process. My cousin Denise in Cornwall searched the OPC database for me and found them, and then showed me how she did it. I also learned to treat dates in family bibles with a certain amount of caution. Grace Trewin spelled her name Trawin in the bible, and then entered the wrong dates for her marriage, the birth & infant death of her first child, and the death date of her husband (which someone had already corrected in her bible). She also used what appears to be a nickname (but entered it with an ambiguous spelling) for her daughter Tamsin, who was christened Thomasine. We still don't know much about John Colwill and are still searching, but he married Grace Trewin on 24 Dec 1827 at Week St Mary parish church. John's residence was Whitstone and he was a Carpenter by trade. Witnesses to the wedding were Mary Broad and Thomas Trewin. Before emmigrating to the U.S. around 1833-1835, John and Grace had children
William Colwill bap 21 Sept 1828 Week St Mary
Thomasine Colwill bap 27 Dec 1829 Week St Mary
Elizabeth Colwill bap 11 Oct 1831 Week St Mary.
The infant William Colwill was buried 10 Mar 1829 at Week St Mary.
I am descended from Thomasine (Tamsin) Colwill. I find it interesting that one set of my 2nd gr-grandparents came to the U.S. from Cornwall in 1842. Then their son married the daughter of Thomasine, also from Cornwall, 16 years after Thomasine's death from typhoid in 1862.
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Hi Steve,
I hope you have had some success in rounding up your Colwells and Colwills!
Rootschat members are wonderful people, who will provide you with a great deal of help due to a shared passion for research.
Just a note; I have found Colwell spelt as Colwill, Colwell, Collwell, Corwell, Cauldwell (on older records), Collwill and Colwelle. I think part of the blame lies in a combination of the local accent, no standardised spelling and parish clerks and clergymen who may come from outside the area and could not decipher too well what their congregation were saying (this certainly was the case with the Corwells) so if they are not under one spelling they may well be registered or recorded under another.
Joy!
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Hi Steve,
I am a descendant of the Trewins of Week St Mary and was interested in Grace who is noted as a witness in some of our family events. The family house was called Newpark and still exists not far from the parish border with Whitstone. My ancestors come from both parishes and, as dissenters, were not overly particular as to which church (Whitstone or Week St. Mary) registered the marriages and births. This complicated my searches but I eventually received substantial help from fellow Trewins in Australia and Canada.
Most of the family including the Broads and Kinsmans by marriage, emigrated to Canada and Australia with the ships organised by the Bible Christian movement. Some used the Canada passage to carry on to Wisconsin.
I would be happy to provide any further information on the Trewins.
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I recall a William Colwill a Cornishman residing in Blackpool Lancashire in the 1950s