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Messages - Michael Hammerson

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Family History Beginners Board / Re: Burial in Bo'ness
« on: Tuesday 15 April 25 17:45 BST (UK)  »
Thanks, all. I'll follow up the Bo'ness cemetery lead; and I do have access to all the main civil war soldier websites, such as Fold3, CivilWarData, and also Ancestry - but they don't have everything, and a name like M'Callum could be spelled in a number of different ways by recruiting officers who didn't listen too carefully.
Yes, there was conscription in the American Civil War, certainly after 1863- it was called The Draft, and led to massive and violent riots in cities such as New York. But there are also many records of immigrants, and sailors docked in the east coast ports, being "shanghaied" by unscrupulous people - particularly tavern and lodging house keepers - who would drug their drink, bring in the recruiting officers, and steal the country money which the recruits would have been offered. The next thing the recruit knew was when he woke up in a barracks the next morning.

Bounty money, not country money - spellcheck strikes again...
I checked the four Bo'ness cemeteries on Find a Grave; no M'Callum's or McCallums (except two 21st century ones), but it only records graves with stones, and many of these veterans died in poverty and were buried in unmarkedgraves, I'll see if there's a local history society which can help.

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Family History Beginners Board / Re: Burial in Bo'ness
« on: Monday 14 April 25 20:18 BST (UK)  »
Thanks again. A colleague has also just found the Furnace Row death certificate, so, yes, I agree it does look like 5th December. We are keen to find where he is buried; we have a project (www.suvcw.org.uk) to locate the graves of veterans of the American Civil War in the UK, of which there are a large number, including many in Scotland.
A preliminary trawl; of the pensions records shows an Alexander McCullen, who filed a claim from Scotland on June 27, 1892 (re his applying for a pension "for many years"), who served in the 28th and 147th Pennsylvania Volunteers; but it doesn't give his date of death, so I'll need to pursue that; it seems the closest hit so far, given the wide range of possible spellings; recruiting officers were sometimes not too accurate, especially if the man had a Scots or Irish accent, and many volunteers from the UK used aliases to get round the Foreign Enlistment Act.
Sometimes researching these volunteers (we have over 1,200 of them so far) is straightforward; others are the stuff brick walls are made of.

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Family History Beginners Board / Re: Burial in Bo'ness
« on: Monday 14 April 25 18:46 BST (UK)  »
Thanks. My article is similar but doesn't mention his being "pressed into service" (not a few immigrants found themselves Shanghaied into the army) or his being wounded, so that could conceivably narrow it down if I can find any record of his pension.

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Family History Beginners Board / Burial in Bo'ness
« on: Monday 14 April 25 15:03 BST (UK)  »
Seeking information about Alexander M'Callum (possibly other spellings?), who was recorded in the Edinburgh Evening News for 14th Dec. 1896 as having served in the Union army in the American Civil War (1861-1865) and died at Kinneil, Bo'ness, a few days previously. His mother's maiden name could have been O'Neill and he may be the man who died at 30 Furnace Row on December 5. Keen to find details of his service and where he is buried.

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New Zealand Completed Requests / Re: UK request for help - Charles MYERS
« on: Sunday 19 April 20 14:18 BST (UK)  »
Thanks again, all - in the all too unlikely event that I can find a signature for Charles Here, perhaps on any surviving synagogue records, that will be useful.

I have been trying to put together some relevant material from the various Myers Ancestry sites, of which there are quite a number, and paste below what I think may be helpful - though I suspect some of the information is confused or conflicting. However, it may provide some pointers:

Michael

My Charles Myers: found on the 1841 and 1861 UK Census, but strangely I cannot find either him, his parents or any siblings on the 1851 census. His father Henry died in London in 1867, and his mother Elizabeth died “after 1871” in Middlesex, but I cannot find anyone of the correct age in Free BMD.

His siblings were:
- Rachel (Rachael in 1841 census) (1831- New Zealand 1899)
- Hyman (Hyam in 1841 census) (1838-London 1907)
- Saul (1839 - ), found in 1871 census but not later. Wife Leah, daughter Rose
- Lewis (1844 - ) found in 1881 census, but not later. Wife Ann Norah Gardner.
- Sarah (1846- ) – found in 1871 census, but not later.

The Samuel Myers we are seeking, son of Charles and Ellen, was born January 1868 in New Zealand and died in Adelaide 6 July 1950. Wife Leah Lyons (1871-1939), married Adelaide 1893. The Ancestry tree only gives siblings born after leaving England – Jacob Abraham (b. Sydney 1873, died 1944), and Esther (b. Sydney, 1875, d. 1876) – so it seems Charles and Ellen had moved to Australia by 1873.

The interesting sibling of Charles is Rachel. Born Bethnal Green London, 1831, she is in the 1841 census, but although the Ancestry tree says she is living with the family at 6 Mills Court, Aldgate in the 1851 census, as mentioned, for some odd reason I cannot find any of them in that census on Ancestry.

What is curious, though, is that she next turns up in the same tree in New Zealand, in 1856 and 1857, when two unnamed children are born, followed, also in NZ, by Joseph in 1860 (no death), Elizabeth in 1862 (no death), and Sarah Elizabeth (born and died 1862). Oddly, another daughter, Sarah Elizabeth, is shown as born and died in NZ in 1864; either she was very unfortunate and determined on the name Elizabeth to honour her mother, or they are all the same child?

However, her husband – no marriage date shown – was a Charles Myers, stated to have been born in Belgium in about 1831, and died 17th April, 1865 in NZ. Maybe he is one of our Charleses – perhaps the 43rd one shown as being born in St. Helier (possibly to a recruiting clark one French name sounded the same as any others?), though I guess that would throw up problems too, as does the fact that she is shown as giving birth to two more children – (Ella Myers 1867-1913, at Nelson, NZ) and Louis Field (NZ 1872 - ), and remarrying, apparently in 1873, to a Thomas Field – so Louis was presumably born out of wedlock, and who Ella's father might have been is another matter.

Thomas is shown as born c.1839 in Stockholm, Sweden. The 1875-6 Electoral Roll shows him living in Fitzherbert Street, Hokitika, and on 30 May or 1 June, 1878, he became a Naturalised citizen of New Zealand, occupation given as Labourer.

Rachel died 7th January 1899 and is buried in Melbourne General Cemetry, Section G, Row G, Plot 308A, 2. The surname Field is shown, but her date of death is recorded in the Jewish style, 25th Tevet 5659.

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New Zealand Completed Requests / Re: UK request for help - Charles MYERS
« on: Saturday 18 April 20 23:37 BST (UK)  »
I think the caution here has to be that Myers is a not uncommon German-Jewish name, but unfortunately also a not-uncommon non-Jewish name - so, for example when I see a Christian Myers, I would be cautious about thinking he would be Jewish, even if was from Germany! There were, for example, German Hammersons out in Texas in the 19th century, but they were very Protestant!

Somewhere in my now-burgeoning file I do have a note of Charles Myers' Crimea medal, and will hunt it out. I have at least found the note from the Australian researcher who was helping me, stating that she had found his Crimean War records, serving on HMS Cossack and receiving the Baltic Medal.

But, as we seem to be querying both the 43rd man and the Waikato man, could it possibly be the same person? I don't know the chronology of the Maori Wars, but could he have come over with the 43rd, fought at Gate Pa and Te Ranga (which I believe were in 1864) with them, then received his discharge, gone to civilian life (and then called Ellen and his sons to come from England, arriving on the Matoaka on 3rd January 1865) and joined the 3rd Waikato? A man with regular army experience would presumably have been a valuable asset to a militia unit. Again, the linch-pin to this seems to be Ellen - surely, however many Charles Myers we are dealing with here (and hopefully no more than two!), there must be a limited number who were married to an Ellen?

Michael

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New Zealand Completed Requests / Re: UK request for help - Charles MYERS
« on: Saturday 18 April 20 11:51 BST (UK)  »
I looked for Samuel Myers, died age 19 in 1864 in Whitechapel, on the Free BMD site, which is pretty comprehensive, but couldn't find him.
Michael

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New Zealand Completed Requests / Re: UK request for help - Charles MYERS
« on: Friday 17 April 20 23:21 BST (UK)  »
PS - and that, I think, will include trying to find any appropriate synagogue records in London, which will have to wait until after lockdown.
Michael

9
New Zealand Completed Requests / Re: UK request for help - Charles MYERS
« on: Friday 17 April 20 23:18 BST (UK)  »
This is interesting, because if he is not the 43rd man, then I have been assuming, wrongly, that he went from the Crimean Navy to the regular Army; and his obituary makes clear that he served both in the Crimea and the Maori Wars. I therefore need to do some more searching up here to establish what he was doing beween his discharge from the Navy in 1856 and his arrival in New Zealand - and, if he was not in the regular army, why he would have gone to NZ without his family and asked them to join him later, presumably around mid-1865, if they arrived in NZ in January 1865. Or was it normal for pioneer settlers to go out without their families and call them to join them later?
Michael

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