Cornish Mystery

[Valda]

A very interesting find, though a second illegitimacy will prove tough to prove, supposing we ever get through the Amelia 'blockage'.

There may be a bastardy bond for Christian's son, but it is not on the A2A index (the survival rate of these documents is not great).

My only problem with Charles' illegitimacy is it is rare for an illegitimate child to take his or her father's name, unless there is a later marriage of the parents. This Charles would have grown up with his maternal George family, or if his mother married possibly with his stepfather - tendency there for illegitimate children to sometimes to take their stepfather's surname.
 
A loose end is a loose end - so what happened to this Charles' mother?

Breage 20 Jul 1771
John EDWARDS 
Christian GEORGE

Adjacent parish to Sithney to the west.

Children of the marriage on the IGI

MARGARET EDWARDS
Christening: 20 MAR 1772 Breage, Cornwall
DOROTHY EDWARDS
Christening: 04 JUL 1773 Breage, Cornwall
THOMAS EDWARDS
Christening: 23 APR 1775 Breage, Cornwall
CHRISTIAN EDWARDS
Christening: 10 NOV 1776 Breage, Cornwall

Burial
Breage 17 Feb 1820
Christian EDWARDS
Aged 84

What happened to the George grandparents? Did Charles stay with them or move with his mother?

The good news is I can't see a Charles Edwards/George in Breage parish registers

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~althea/

but single men could go anywhere and in this case under at least two other surnames. It will be difficult to prove even though he is in the right area at the right time, that he is the same man as the one who appears in Helston (whose burial and therefore age we do not have - sorry to keep going on about that burial but it is another loose end) -

Personally I'd also like to know his occupation, though I see on Benjamin/Abednego's daughter's baptism in Helston, Abednego was a butcher.

CARNARTON Mary Jane 1827 07-Jan F - - Abednego & Mary CARNARTON Helston, butcher

Much better than the later boatman occupation and much more in line with tanning.

Regards

Valda

[peterpjw]

Good points raised.

I can add to the uncertainty.  Let's say the elder Christian (who married William GEORGE) was born around 1720.  By the time Charles CARNARTHEN was baptised in 1768, she would have been only 48 years.  So which Christian GEORGE is his mother?  Mrs Christian GEORGE or her daughter Miss Christian GEORGE (later EDWARDS?) bapt 1737?  Hard to say at this point, isn't it?

Cheers

Peter

[JAP]

Bearing a child at the age of 48 in 1768 would not have been impossible - but it would surely have been incredibly unusual.  Most women back then seemed to cease childbearing at about age 42 in my experience with just a few going on for a further year or two (but I'm more than willing to be corrected).

Let's follow William of Occam/Ockham's Razor and go for the simpler explanation i.e. that it was Christian jnr 

JAP

[Valda]

Loose ends should always be tied up where possible and can be very useful. Since I'm supposedly spring cleaning I was hinting someone else might like the George grandparents search - but in a lull from window cleaning here they are.

Helston burial parish register

1797 23-Jan
GEORGE Christian  87 yrs Sithney  wid, pauper

with an option on this being her husband

1781 11-Mar
GEORGE William  75 yrs -

I think for the mother to have openly had a child by another man in an adulterous affair would have caused some comment in the register of a small Cornish village. She would also have been according to her age at burial -  be around 58.

From the IGI - the unusual surnames just keep on coming

WILLIAM GEORGE 
CHRISTIAN CHEFFER 
Marriage:  15 SEP 1736   Falmouth, Cornwall

CHRISTIAN CHEFFERS 
Christening:  07 SEP 1713   Falmouth, Cornwall
Parents:
Father:  CRISPIN CHEFFERS 

So 55ish on the baptism of Charles and 44ish on the baptism of her last child.

Regards

Valda

[deb usa]

hi Good People
well...i think that the search for Amelia's dad may be over ...as i have just called the cornwall records office re; requesting further info on Mary Carnartons removal  orders etc.
The archivist who i spoke to , at great length , could not help at all ...as she said that the information that we have is all there is . She says that because of the dates of removal orders being so early in the 1800's that there were no other supporting details and that removal orders  could be for anything...ie; no job preggers etc!!!!!!
i am dissappointed, as you can imagine!
i don't know where to go from here....but i still want to say a big thanks to everyone in finding my family.......
i am very grateful that we have delved back as far as we did...especially with all the confusion with forenames/surnames/crazy spelt names LOL
 and we found a great cornish musician !!!! yey
hope to hear from you all soon
take care
deb x

[Valda]

Debs
To confirm precisely what the 'etc' was in your conversation with the archivist -
she said the quarter sessions were completely indexed for the period 1817/18 on the website A2A and there was therefore nothing further as there was for example with Mary Duff's child in the quarter sessions (this wasn't a removal order but a claim for maintenance by the parish of Kenwyn in the courts)?

Quarter Sessions Order Book - ref.  QS/1/10  - date: Jan 1820-Jan 1825
item: Sessions held at Bodmin - ref.  QS/1/10/347-372  - date: 15 October 1822
Application by Kenwyn concerning female bastard born at Kenwyn 5 Aug. last, dau. of Mary Duff of Kenwyn, singlewoman. Charles Carnarton jun. of Kenwyn, alleged father.

or a separate 'Bastardy order' existing - this would not be a court record?

If that is the case then you can only rely on a baptism probably in Falmouth but possibly in Kenwyn and that the parish clerk gives some information about the father as well. Personally getting information on Amelia's father would have been the icing on the cake, because I thought we were really only trying to prove the Carnarton connection.

Without some evidence of Amelia's birth that is it for Carnarton, because there would be no proof one way or another of who Amelia's mother actually was (we think Amelia was illegitimate but have no actually proof she was). The 1841 census has an Amelia with Margery who could be the younger Amelia. Your Amelia gives Charles Carnarton, tanner as her father. Other than Amelia's marriage and possbily the 1841 census (but then the other Amelia would be missing from that census so where was she) we have no evidence for this Amelia Carnarton or her father's existence before Amelia's marriage.
So the bottom line is we think there is a connection (it all looks good), but there is no definitive evidence so far for that connection to the Carnarton family of Helston.

Illegitimacy can often be extremely difficult to trace back from and even if we do succeed in getting past Amelia, the possibility of a further and earlier illegitimacy of her 'potential' grandfather where the connection to Carnarton would have to be on the male side might be just too difficult to prove.

Regards

Valda

[whoosh]

Great story,
I stayed up till past 3am reading thihs thread last night.
Have to re-read and constrcut a family tree to follow it all.
Marvellous detective work!
Bye for now,
Darren M Flowers
Wyrallah NSW
Australia

[deb usa]

Hi Darren
Isn't it amazing what all these wonderful people on here can help you find!?
It's a great read...but imagine living it...wow. It is all still very confusing as to why the changed their names from Slack to Smith and yet still registered their children's birth under SLack.....
Amelia Carnarton/slack/smith really got under my skin...i still think of her everyday lol....wish i could heve met her!!!!!!
anyway thanks for the reply.glad you enjoyed!!!
take care
Deb

[Chris Penrose]

Hi

Just a quick comment.

I have a full set of the Non-Conformist Registers transcribed and published by Sheila Townsend in 2000 and there are no "Carnartons".

If anyone else wants anything looked up, then just let me know.

All the best

Chris Penrose