Bird family Guernsey

[ceronn]

Hello Bill and Nev,
The name was Hendewerk [no r ] Usually written Handwerker  or similar, c.f.English "Handworker".The 1881 census shows Robert 56 a merchant, born Danzig [ now Gdansk]and Margaret 51 [understated] living in Ealing, Middlesex, naturalised British citizens, and daughter Maud, 21. This daughter was born Emily Maud Mary Grierson in Cardiff 18.71859 and was adopted by her Aunt known as 'Madge' according to information from the New Zealand family. Maud married a Benjamin Pierce and died 1933.It seems that Margaret Stonehewer Bird and her husband had no children of their own.
sincerely
Ceronn.

[Bill1]

Hello Cerron, Nev and Mary Sue
Two additional children for William (Iron) Bird b 1805, and Sarah Buck;
Florence b 1837 d 1843
Kate Lewis b 1840 d 1841

Both are buried with William and Sarah in Highgate cemetary (along with catherine b 1839 d 1862)

regards Bill

[shamwari]

For Ceronn and Nev Fouiller:  I am new to this chat business – I fell into it by accident this morning, and when I saw your message of 26 July 2008 about George Gwynne Bird I was worried that you were off on a wrong track.  After some messing about I got back to the subject and found that you and the others have steamed ahead with Birds relevant to your families.  I just wanted to let you know that I am a relative of George Gwynne Bird (all three of them!) and that they are a Herefordshire family.  Their crest does indeed have martlets on it, but my grandfather's motto was 'Volare sperno'.  My grandfather was the one who updated the Bird entry in Burke's Landed Gentry some time in the 1930s I think, as he and his forebears had kept careful records about the family since 1570.  However, George Gwynne Bird MD, son of George Gwynne Bird and Elizabeth Priest, was my grandfather's first cousin twice removed and he may not have known all that much about him.  Could you please tell me where you got the information – all new to me – about GGB emigrating to upper Canada in 1833 and trying farming, and that later he was physician to Swansea Infirmary, published a booklet about cholera 1849, and believed in the 'miasma' theory of disease.  I would love to add these details to my research but I need to know the source.

[Bill1]

Follow the link re miasma theory and GGB

www.genuki.org.uk/big/wal/Cholera.html

regards
Bill

[ceronn]

Hello all,
I have only just now read the last two posts. I have not been asleep, but discovered another of my cousins, and she has alerted me to the fact that Matilda Thomas born in Nantgarw Wales did not die by 1870 as I stated in my reply no. 46. Matilda married William St.Leger Dowden in 1875. They lived at Rochford Victoria, and had three children Albert Arthur b. 1876, Matilda Maria Lucy b. 1878, and Sophia Alice Elizabeth Matilda Dowden b. 1879. Matilda [Thomas] Dowden, also known as Sarah Matilda died in 1882 at Lancefield, leaving the three young children motherless.William Dowden died in 1915. Now we are searching for the Dowden descendants.There are two portraits of Matilda, one taken at Ballarat, the other by a Melbourne photographer.
regards Ceronn

[kermie62]

William and Sarah Bird were buried in the old Adamsdown cemetery. Roath Churchyard has memorial inscriptions to John Bird 1761 to 1840 and his nephew John Bird 1816 to 1874, mayor of Cardiff 1862/3, son of James Bird and Sarah Young, also his wife Jemima who died in 1858 and his mother-in law Mary Ann Strutt who died in 1865. There is an obelisk for the first mentioned.
Regarding ships, John Bird the alderman, channel pilot etc. had a share in a schooner named 'Diana'. His grandson John Williams Bird was a mariner who died at sea off Spain in 1848. He had been educated in Guernsey acc. to the diary, so the family had a continuing association with the C.I.
Elizabeth Thomas must have had good advice re. ships, because young children often failed to survive the journey to Australia.After 1852 the ships started to improve, but I have always thought she was brave. She was actually 50 years old, although the manifest of the "Africa" states her age as 45, and the youngest child was 5.
Her cousin Elizabeth Grierson, daughter of William Knowles Bird who was mayor of Cardiff in 1850, migrated with husband and a large family to NewZealand in 1860.It is possible William Knowles Bird inherited a ship or ships from his wife's family, the Stonehewers of Carmarthen.His son Hugh Bird traded in just about everything acc. to the trade directories, and was deputy mayor under his cousin John, 1862/3.William Knowles Bird died in 1881, he had been a printer and bookseller in earlier life.
Thanks for the information from Guernsey. It made my day!
Sincerely Ceronn.

ceronn, I think we must be cousins of about the 6th degree. My gx4 grandfather was Mary Ann Strutts Brother and his daughter my gx3 grandmother married her eldest son (yes they were cousins). I particularly want top follow this line. Also Matilda Strutt was one of Mary Ann Strutts daughters/ Jemimia Birds sister. John Bird eventually married his sister in law but not Matilda but that is why there is a Matilda bird

Love to catch up

[fezworth]

Hi
Did John Williams Bird have a sister Mary or Mary Ann born approx 1815 in Guernsey.She is my gggreat grandmother.She appears on later English censuses as Mary Cobb living in Newark.Does anyone have any information about her and family on Guernsey and why she left for Newark.If 1815 is correct as her birth year she would have been pregnant with my great great grandfather William Watkin Bird when she was about 17 as he was christened in Newark in January 1833 his father is named as a George Rogers.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Anthony Bird

[shamwari]

  Sorry, fezworth, we have no John Williams Bird, and the only Mary Anne Bird was born 1805 and married firstly Charles William Tasker Bird and then Daniel Lawrence -- no issue from either marriage.  In the 1930s our Birds had connections in Jersey, not Guernsey.

[ceronn]

Hi Fezworth
John Williams Bird was a grandson of John Bird the diarist and was lost at sea in 1848. He had a sister Hannah born in 1812, most likely in Cardiff. No other sister is mentioned.John Goodwin Bird's first marriage was in Guernsey to Ellen Groves but since he was born in 1798 he was most likely too young to be the father of Mary Ann. He did have a son from this marriage, also lost at sea.
there are many other Birds about whom I have no information including a Thomas Bird an attorney in 1796 and an Isaak Bird, also another John Bird, a painter born in Cardiff and died in Whitby.That is to say I don't know where they fit into the family.
Sincerely Ceronn.