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Messages - BeccaH

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Hampshire & Isle of Wight / Re: Isaac Harris, Isle of Wight

« on: Thursday 26 April 12 00:04 BST (UK) »

Thanks so much for those!

I wish I had some way of knowing which Isaac Harris is mine, but unless some more evidence comes up, I don't know that I ever will.

I had seen that marriage between Isaac and Hannah in 1822 - if it is my Isaac, though, that's yet another marriage I knew nothing about! Do you have a name for the son baptised in 1816?

Thanks again for your help!

Hampshire & Isle of Wight / Isaac Harris, Isle of Wight

« on: Tuesday 24 April 12 22:33 BST (UK) »

I think I may have posted about this family on here before (I lose track of where I've posted what) but it's long since sunk into the depths of the archives here, and I have more information than I did when I was last posting here.

I am searching for information about one Isaac Harris, born in around 1793/4 on the Isle of Wight, Newport area, probably Carisbrooke (he isn't entirely consistent about his birth year or place). He married at least three times, and probably four. I know nothing about his first wife, except that they apparently produced a son, Isaac, in 1817. In 1826, however, he married Sarah Dunkinson, at which point he is described as a widower.

In 1841, he appears on the census in Carisbrooke, with his son by the first marriage, and several other children. His wife at this point is named Jane. However, I have looked at the index record for the birth of his youngest child, Martha, in 1839, and her mother's maiden name is given as Dunkinson, which leaves me with three possibilities (unless there's something I haven't thought of):

1. Sarah and Jane were in fact the same person (unlikely, but possible - I have come across someone on another branch who is known as Margaret on one census and Annie on another, her baptismal name being Margaret Ann...).

2. Isaac had two wives, Sarah and Jane, both with the same surname (even less likely).

3. Sarah died after 1839 and Isaac had already remarried Jane by 1841 (a small window, but possible). I can't find any obvious marriage record for him between 1839 and 1841, or any obvious death record for Sarah Harris.

Jane died in 1859, and in 1861, Isaac married again, this time to widow Ann Burt, nee Coward (in a bizarre twist, Isaac's son Henry had married Ann's daughter Mary seven years previously...).

Isaac is listed variously as a labourer, a miller and a market gardener, and there is also a record of declarations which I believe is by him, which lists him as a coal merchant. He lived in Carisbrooke, Newport and Whippingham, and his known children are: Isaac (1817), Mary Ann (1827), George (1829), Jane (1832), Henry (1835), Thomas (1837) and Martha (1839). He died in 1878.

I would love any information on him or any of his family - I know what happened to most of his sons, although Isaac seems to have disappeared (I have a possible death record for him, at the age of 24), but what happened to his daughters is unknown, except that Mary Ann married a soldier by the name of Bevan and then also disappeared. I would also like to solve the mystery of the multiple wives...

The Lighter Side / Re: Am I the only person that does this?

« on: Sunday 22 April 12 20:24 BST (UK) »

Of course, the prosaic explanation (mis-spelled name in the census, missing page in the census, etc) usually turns out to be the correct one...

But I also have a story where the truth has turned out to be stranger than I expected, although the mystery isn't quite solved yet. I will post it here, for anyone who is interested in reading the whole thing...

My g-g-g-grandmother was a Frances Patrick, from North Walsham, Norfolk, England. She married my g-g-g-grandfather in 1866, moved to Kent and had a whole lot of children - no mystery there. But trying to trace her family further back has proved more difficult. Her marriage certificate gives her father as James Patrick, Saddler. As she was born in 1844, she is not on the 1841 census, but I found a James Patrick, Saddler, in North Walsham, with wife and five-year-old daughter. Reasonable to assume that I had found Frances' parents and sister. But looking for them on any subsequent census? Not a trace... And therefore no accurate idea of when or where her parents were born, as the 1841 information is so vague.

Frances herself pops up again in 1861, but by this time she is living and working as a servant in London. On her marriage cert, though, there is no suggestion that her father is dead. So where is he? Not to mention her mother, and all her siblings (FreeBMD provides me with a whole list of probable siblings).

The answer is surprising. With the help of a fellow-researcher on here, I found a family who were almost certainly mine - there is James, there is his wife, he is a harness-maker (similar to a saddler), he lives in London but was born in Norfolk, all his children were born in North Walsham, and the names and dates match up exactly. Only problem? Their name is Watts.

Delving a little deeper, I found a marriage record for James and his wife (he married twice, but that's a different and less puzzling story) on which his father's name is given as Henry. There is no obvious baptism record for him, but there is a marriage between a Henry Patrick and a Mary WATTS...

Are they James' parents? If so, why did he move to London and assume his mother's maiden name? I thought I'd found the answer when I discovered that Henry Patrick was deported for cattle-stealing, but the deportation happened fifteen years or so before James changed his name (there is a fairly small window of time for him to have done so - he had a child born and baptised under the name Patrick, in Norfolk, in 1850, and appears in London as Watts in 1851...).

So, I found what had happened to my disappearing family, but to be honest, it created more questions than it answered...

The Lighter Side / Re: Traditional naming

« on: Sunday 22 April 12 19:10 BST (UK) »

This is a Scottish tradition...

I've got branches all over England and Scotland - the English branches don't follow any particular pattern - there are often names passed down, but there is no pattern. In fact, the most common thing I've found is eldest son named after father. The eldest daughter is often named after her mother, but it's just as common for a younger daughter to take the mother's name, and it's also perfectly common for a younger son to take his father's name. As I said, no pattern at all really.

In Scotland, however, it is quite easy to see this pattern. It's a guideline not a rule, but most of my families used it, particularly the first two stages mentioned in each case - third son being named for the father and third daughter for the mother is less predictable. It's more or less died out now - of course, you'll still find children named after older relatives, but it's not in the strict pattern any more. I'm not sure when it died out - in my family, it is still there in my Granny's generation (she was born in 1909), but she and my Grandpa didn't use it when naming their own children...

I was first told about this pattern by the archivist in my home town, some years ago. My home town is almost on the border between England and Scotland, so the records held there are a mixture of English and Scottish, and the people who come to do their research there often have ancestry on both sides of the border (as most people who live there do), so this archivist is something of an expert in English/Scottish differences, and she told me about it as something specific to Scotland. I had never noticed it before, but after she pointed it out, I realised that I had it in virtually every Scottish family on my tree!

Inverness / Re: BAILLIE of Inverness

« on: Sunday 22 April 12 18:43 BST (UK) »

Hey there, thanks for the reply!

It is something that's occurred to me, although I maybe haven't looked into it as much as I should have - I've tried using soundex where that's an option, but otherwise it can be quite difficult, because there are so many possible spelling variations/errors! For example, I wouldn't have found Isobel at all if I hadn't searched with soundex, because they have spelt her name Isabl, and while I might have tried variations such as Isabel, Isabelle, Isabella, etc, I wouldn't have thought of Isabl... I have run into the same issue on the other branch of this family, who actually appear to have changed their name from MacDonald to MacDonell, although they did it under the impression that they were changing it back to the original form, so who knows, maybe it was originally McDonell at some point.

The idea of the late marriage because they really did elope is an intriguing one... although I'd have to wonder why it was necessary, since all that was required by Scottish law was for them to declare themselves man and wife before witnesses - there was no need for parental consent, which was why English couples made a practice of eloping to Scotland... However, it's certainly an idea - I need to see if I can find out when her father died.

I have no idea if any of the Baillies might have emigrated, since I have so little information about Isobel's family, although it's quite likely that at least some of them did. My own branch stayed very much on British soil - Isobel and Archibald's granddaughter, another Isobel, was the first to move out of the Highlands, and she only went as far as Edinburgh - my own Granny was the first of the family to move away from Scotland, when she married my Yorkshire Grandpa...

Durham / Siddle/Towns - Wolsingham, Hamsterley, Bedburn

« on: Sunday 22 April 12 13:26 BST (UK) »

Just posted a request about my Turner ancestry in County Durham - this is the other side of that family, the Siddles. I have quite a lot of information on some members of this family, but I am looking either to push my research further back, or to find other connections of this family.

ANN SIDDLE, my connection, was born in 1832 in Hamsterley. She was the third child and eldest daughter of WILLIAM and MARY SIDDLE, nee DODDS, who were married in 1827, in Hamsterley. Her older brothers were JOHN (1828) and WILLIAM (1830), both of whom appear on the 1841 census and subsequently disappear - whilst stories of Ann and her sisters were passed down through the family, there was never any mention of the two brothers, and nobody in the family knew that they existed.

Ann also had younger sisters, ELIZABETH and MARY. Elizabeth married WILLIAM LAMBERT and emigrated to Australia. Her son, WILLIAM ADDISON LAMBERT, became mayor of Leichhardt in New South Wales, and her grandson represented New South Wales at Baseball and went on to have a fairly prominent political career. Mary married JOHN BROWN and remained in County Durham, having seven children (one of whom died at three years old) and Ann married first JOHN TEASDALE and then GEORGE TURNER. She had two children by her first marriage, JOHN and MARY (Molly) and three by her second, GEORGE HUTCHINSON, MARGARET ANN and FRANCES (my great-grandmother).

Ann's father, William, was born in 1800, in Wolsingham, the son of WILLIAM SIDDLE, farmer at Thornley, and ELIZABETH TOWNS, of Wolsingham. He appears to have been a man of reasonable means, as he employed house servants and sent his daughters to boarding school. In 1841 he is listed as a farmer at West Rackwood Farm, near Hamsterley; in 1851, he is down as a wood merchant (I suspect that he had found that growing and selling timber on his lands made more money than farming) and in 1861, he is listed as a contractor living in South Bedburn. Given that this was the time that the railway line was being laid in the area, and that the family story states that he sold his land to the railway company, I imagine that that is what contractor refers to. He died in 1867.

Would love to hear from anyone researching any branch of this family, or anyone with additional information (I do have more information that I haven't posted though, particularly on the Brown family, and the Teasdale children by Ann's first marriage, as well as the fate of the Turner family).

Durham / Turner family of Little Stainton

« on: Sunday 22 April 12 12:04 BST (UK) »

Wondering if anyone has any knowledge of or connection to this family:

William Turner and his wife Mary had the following children, all born in Little Stainton, in the parish of Bishopton:

Christopher (1805)
Moses (1806)
Ann (1809)
George (1811)
Mary (1814)
William (1819)
Hutchinson (January 1822 - presumably died very young)
Hutchinson (December 1822)

My ancestor is George, who went to work on the railways as a platelayer. In 1861, he was to be found in South Bedburn, working on a line which we believe was at that time being run across the lands of a (relatively) wealthy farmer, William Siddle. In 1864, George married the widowed daughter of that farmer, Ann Teasdale. He was unable to sign his name on his wedding certificate, giving us the impression of a fairly wide gap between his social status and that of Ann (who had attended boarding school)...

George and Ann had three children together - George Hutchinson, Margaret Ann, and Frances (my great-grandmother).

The information on George's siblings came from the parish records in the County Record Office in Durham. William (the father) apparently died some time before 1841, although Mary (the mother) can be found on both the 1841 and 1851 censuses. She gives her date of birth to be around 1783, and her place of birth to be South Church, then a village just outside Bishop Auckland. It seems at least possible that her name was Hutchinson, as otherwise it was an odd choice for the first name of her son. In 1851, she is listed as a pauper.

I also have possible (in some cases more than possible) marriages for several of George's brothers.

Any connections?

Inverness / BAILLIE of Inverness

« on: Saturday 21 April 12 15:39 BST (UK) »

Hi,

I'm wondering if anyone has any information or help to offer on this family. My starting point is an Isobel or Isabella Baillie, who married Archibald McDonald/McDonell in the parish of Boleskine, 23 Feb 1805. They had children John (b 1805), Donald (b 1808 and presumably died young), William (my ancestor, 1809-1894) and Donald (b 1813). Members of this family can be found on censuses, and I have a pretty full set of information on them and subsequent generations.

What I am a lot more vague about is following their mother's family further back. The family story was that the marriage between Archibald and Isobel was an elopement - Archibald was a stone mason, and according to the story, her family were wealthy and didn't want her marrying a mere craftsman!

Her marriage record lists her father as James Baillie of Inverness, and the only record I can find that is remotely likely for her birth is a baptism record of an Isabl Baillie, daughter of James Baillie and his wife Katherine, in Inverness, on the 27th of September 1771. The only problem with this is that that would make her 34 in 1805, quite a late age to be marrying (I'm taking the elopement story with a pinch of salt, of course, but even for an ordinary marriage, 34 is unusually old for the early 1800s). However, there do not seem to be any other options...

If this is the right Isobel, I can trace her family considerably further, through James' father John (a goldsmith in Inverness, apparently, which would probably fit with the idea of Isobel's family being wealthier than Archibald's), but I'd like to be more thoroughly convinced that this is actually her...

I'd welcome any opinions, especially if you have any knowledge of this family!

Norfolk / Re: PATRICK surname

« on: Thursday 29 March 12 13:12 BST (UK) »

Trish, I can only say thank you once again for all this amazing information! It really does seem like this Henry Patrick/Pattrick was the father of James, linking up the fact that his father's name was Henry with the marriage record of Henry and the note about being transported...

I would have to visit the Norfolk Record Office to look for more details about his conviction, but following your lead, I have found a record for him in Australia! The convict muster of those arriving on the Moffatt lists Henry Pattrick, 45, a farm servant from Norfolk, Protestant, able to read and write, married, no former convictions but convicted for life for stealing cattle. It even gives a physical description of him, including his height in feet and inches. This is the most detail I have ever found about an ancestor, so very exciting to see! I suspect that certain older members of my family are going to be slightly shocked though...

The only thing that does not match up is James changing his name to Watts - it would be easy to say that it was through shame at his father's crime, but Henry was transported in 1836, and in 1850 James was still living in Norfolk under his own name because his son Samuel was baptised then. The change must have taken place between Samuel's baptism, and the taking of the census in 1851, around fifteen years after Henry's transportation, which suggests that James had a different reason for this...

Also interesting that when Frances got married in 1866, she used her real name, and gave her father's name as James PATRICK.