RootsChat.Com

Hello everyone,

I thought I'd tack on to a thread about Dryhursts rather than start a new thread, even though this thread is very old.
 Thomas Edwards "Edwin" Dryhurst was born around 1840-1845 in the UK. He emigrated to Australia around 1865 and married Amelia Tomlins in 1867. He became a teacher and was highly regarded for his attitude to young people and teaching skills.

I know a lot about him once he married Amelia, but almost nothing before that. I was following family lines and thought he was born on 19 Feb 1843 in Toxteth Park, Lancashire, England to Thomas Dryhurst and Jane Maher. However, I have recently discovered an old family bible, and in it my grandmother has written that Thomas Dryhurst came from Wales.

I have not been able to locate immigration/emmigration records for him, so really have no evidence of which family he belongs to or where he came from.

If anyone has any information of a Thomas Dryhurst born around 1840, especially if from Wales, or perhaps a disappearing relative that might be him? Of course if he was running away from something he might not have given his real name - though I expect he'd have to give his correct name for travel by ship to Australia.

Anyhow, if you think you can help I would really like to hear your ideas.

thanks,
Melanie

Oh wow, that is a brilliant find! Thank you for that. I'm very excited by this.

Thanks Monica. Yes those are George Jnrs details. There is no birth record for him, that I can locate, but that is his death record.

There are a few family trees on ancestry - all with different parents! So I don't think any of them are necessarily accurate. So, for example the one you gave the link to, the death record for that George with parents George and Margaret Adam, only lists Jane Todd as his wife. There is a marriage record for George marrying Jane Todd in 1843. But no children, unlike the Mary Jane Todd listed in that tree.

The list on Bayanne has Barbara Gordon being born in 1805. But there were quite a few Barbara Gordon's born around the time and I can't find anything that verifies that this is the same Barbara Gordon.

There were also a few George Brechin/Brichens, so it is hard to work out who is whom. But the death record for George Junior lists his father as a land steward. Could a land steward be the same as an overseer? What about a Master Gardener?

There are 2 census records in 1841 for a George Brechin aged 12. One is the one living at Turner Hall. The other is living in a large house as a male servant. Either way, the mother was not around so I suspect Barbara Gordon may have died in 1840 or earlier.

So I think it is still a tangled web at this stage, and I can't rely on those other trees. But I have hope that I will find more evidence and will untangle the web.

So, the answer is... I may never know. How disappointing. It's a shame that the records didn't survive, and those that did were so poorly recorded. Still, it has been an interesting rabbit hole to go down.

Have others posted their results of searching for Waddells anywhere?

Do you know where I can get hold of a copy of Gavin Waddell's book? It doesn't seem to be available for purchase anywhere, or in a library outside of the UK.

Thanks for your knowledgeable reply. I appreciate fnding out what there is, or is not, to find out about my ancestors.

"What I would like to see is a nicely organised family tree of all these Waddells and how they relate to one another. Wouldn't that be great?
Yes. I've been trying to do that for decades."

Do you have a big wall chart with all the branches that are known listed?

I downloaded all the WADDELLS, with all the variant spellings from 1700-1800 from Scotlands People (just the search results, not the images) and put them into a spreadsheet. I didn't do all 96 pages of results, just those from Lanark, West Lothian and a few other parishes. I am hoping to put them in some kind of order that might help find some trees.