Robert Neville Grenville via The National Motor Museum Trust

Saw this vehicle yesterday and the name rang a bell with me. I took a photo of the information so I could look it up.

And behold, it looks like we're distant cousins. Our nearest ancestor being John NEVILLE b1328 in Durham.

List of Vehicles - The National Motor Museum Trust: "The Grenville steam carriage is believed to be the oldest self-propelled passenger-carrying road vehicle still in working order. It was designed about 1875 by Robert Grenville with some assistance from his friend, George Churchward – later Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Great Western Railway. It is thought that the carriage took around fifteen years to complete. The vertical boiler, a type used on steam fire engines, is understood to have originally been supplied by Shand Mason & Co., a well-known fire engine builder. It consumed about five gallons of water and 6 lbs of coal per mile. The driver had control of the throttle and cut-off levers, a foot-operated whistle and the brake pedal. On the driver's left and in charge of the tiller sat the steersman. Behind, there was seating for four passengers. The fireman had a small seat in the engine compartment and was responsible for firing the boiler and maintaining its water level. On the flat, the carriage could attain a speed of just under 20mph/32.19kph."

I'm in a whole different part of the tree right now, so I'll have to tag this for later mapping via:
http://www.thepeerage.com/p10164.htm#i101634

Ralph de Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland was born circa 1364 at Raby Castle, Durham, County Durham, England.3,4 He was the son of John de Neville, 3rd Lord Neville and Maud de Percy.2 He married by contract, firstly, Lady Margaret de Stafford, daughter of Hugh de Stafford, 2nd Earl of Stafford and Philippa Beauchamp, before 1370.2 He married Lady Margaret de Stafford, daughter of Hugh de Stafford, 2nd Earl of Stafford and Philippa Beauchamp, circa 1382 at Stafford, Staffordshire, England.4 He married, secondly, Lady Joan de Beaufort, daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and Katherine Roët, before 29 November 1396 at Château de Beaufort, Maine-et-Loire, Anjou, France.5,4 He died on 21 October 1425 at Raby Castle, Durham, County Durham, England.6 He was buried at Staindrop, County Durham, England.6 He was buried in October 1425 at Staindrop, County Durham, England.4 His will (dated 18 October 1424) was probated.6

Millicent Hall Marriage

Stumbled across this record whilst searching for another Millicent Hall. Place and father's name match elsewhere. Must come back later to investigate.

Search Results—FamilySearch.org — Free Family History and Genealogy Records:
groom's name: John Gregory
groom's birth date: 1858
groom's birthplace:
groom's age: 23
bride's name: Millicent Hall
bride's birth date: 1858
bride's birthplace:
bride's age: 23
marriage date: 22 Oct 1881
marriage place: St. Mary'S, Cromford, Derbyshire, England
groom's father's name: John Gregory
groom's mother's name:
bride's father's name: Gamaliel Hall

Charles William Worsley and the Croix de Guerre

Charles William WORSLEY
b July 1869 in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England to
William WORSLEY and Eliza Jane WEBB

Thanks to Google indexing old documents, I've discovered a supplement to the London Gazette from 18 July 1918 which notes that Charles was awarded the "Croix de Guerre", conferred upon him by His Majesty the King of Belgium (Albert I of Belgium).

The World War I Croix de Guerre was an award for bravery or other military virtue on the battlefield and was only awarded to individuals. It was modelled on the French Croix de Guerre, the ribbon is red with three vertical green stripes in the center and one vertical green stripe nearer the edges. 

The Croix de Guerre was not only awarded for bravery but also for three years or more of service on the front line, or for good conduct on the battlefield. It was also awarded to volunteers older than 40 (like Charles William WORSLEY) or younger than 16 after a minimum of 18 months of service, to escaped prisoners of war rejoining the armed forces, and to military personnel who were placed on inactive duty because of injury.

Pretty amazing that I'm related to both Charles William Worsley (4th cousin, 4 times removed) and Albert I (29th cousin, 6 times removed), though it would have been even more amazing had the been related to one another!

Bravo Charles. What a good egg.

Charles Auty - Painter

How cool. An artist in the family!

My fourth cousin, four times removed ended up a sculptor and then a painter living with wife May on the Isle of Man. Produced some pretty awesome oil paintings, it seems.

A far cry from working in a Shoddy Mill like some of this not-too-distant cousins. Life throws you dice eh?

Fred Auty - A Cornet Player in the tree

Nice to get a little "flesh on the bone" of some distant relatives. In amongst the usual wool weavers and general labourers, noble trades I'm sure, I found Fred Auty (4th cousin, 4 times removed), listed as a Cornet Player or later a "Cornettist"!

Auty Genealogy :: Auty Family Genealogy: "When Fred moved back to Yorkshire he left behind a son, Charles F Auty. Charlie had been well trained by his father who I am told also trained his two daughters and his wife, to play the cornet.
Apart from playing with the Borough Band he would often conduct the band when required to do so, but like his father, Charles also interested in orchestral work and formed and conducted his own orchestra, very well known as the "Bohemians". This type of band or orchestra would often be engaged by travelling pantomimes and plays appearing at the local theatres but also played for public dances and private parties held by the gentry."

Go Fred!

Cloth Percher

Historic occupation #3 in one evening: CLOTH PERCHER

The job seems to be a quality control role, checking for imperfections and stains in the material.

Occupations: Piecener

Another old occupation stumbled across: PIECENER: one who worked in a spinning mill, employed to piece together any threads which broke (usually a child or woman).

Shoddy Mill

Stumbled across a job title I'd never heard before: Teamer at Shoddy Mill.

A SHODDY MILL appears to be a Mill which produced clothing made from material created by grinding old rags (I guess today this would be called recycling!). This seems to be responsible in part for the term "shoddy" as in "shoddy workmanship".

A TEAMER seems to be an occupation relating to driving or organising teams of horses.

Eliza Twort (nee Pinnick)

WB:

I was wondering how you have Eliza on the 1901, I cant seem to locate her. I cannot find Ernest on any census either.

Me:

In 1901, I have Eliza, William, Robert and Ernest at:

42 Clarendon Road, Shirley, Hampshire, England

I just tried to find it again, but no joy - almost certainly a transcription error in there somewhere.

WB:

Found them at the address you said under the name Pivoot and came from Beanlisn (Beaulieu) it seems Bernard George has changed his name to Ernest, on the 1911 William is on the Isle of Wight with his family and Robert is overseas in the military 

 

George Willey

George Willey, b c1880, Hull, Yorkshire, England
son of Charles Willey and Annie Elizabeth.

George Willey, b c1880, Hull, Yorkshire, England
son of Henry Willey and Ann

So, lucky guess which is which, or what?

Scandal: Annie Gamwell Ashwell

Ooh, potential scandal:

1911 England Census - Ancestry.co.uk: "Annie Gamwell Ashwell"

Young Annie is 4 months old.

Head of the household is Herbert Gamwell, born c1881 in Hull, Yorkshire. MARRIED.

Also in the household, Gertrude Emily Ashwell, Housekeeper, born c1884 in Hull, Yorkshire. SINGLE.

I guess I'll have to wait for the 1921 Census :/

UPDATE:

Discovered Herbert's wife across town housekeeping and she has their child with her:
Hannah Elizabeth Turner, born c1883 in London, England.
Daughter: Nancy Helen Gamwell, born c1906 in Hull, Yorkshire, England

A Bird in the Hand

Researching BIRD in Fiskerton, Nottinghamshire; Woordborough, Nottinghamshire:

Samuel BIRD
b c1807 Fiskerton, Nottinghamshire, England
(1851 Census)

Yet to find a record for Samuel in 1861.

UNCONFIRMED death, Samuel Parker Bird Apr-May-Jun 1857, Basford, Nottinghamshire, England

Wife:
Elizabeth
b c1819, Stow, Cambridgeshire, England (1861 Census)
b c1816 Fiskerton, Nottinghamshire, England (1851 Census)
b c1796 Nottinghamshire, England (1841 Census)

Elizabeth Bird listed as married in the 1861 census, but Samuel is not present in the same dwelling.
UNCONFIRMED birth: Elizabeth Ann Bird Died Oct-Nov-Dec 1864 in Basford, Nottinghamshire.

UNCONFIRMED marriage:
Elizabeth NEWBUTT, Oct-Nov-Dec 1845, Basford, Nottinghamshire - location is accurate, but unable to locate a birth record for Elizabeth Newbutt.

UNCONFIRMED Christening, Elizabeth NEWBUT, 09 NOV 1823, Basford, Nottingham, England (IGI)
Father George, Mother Mary



Parents of

George BIRD
b c1842 Woodborough, Nottinghamshire, England
(1881 Census)

Maud Bird - There you are, Flo!

After hoping for three years, access to the 1911 Census has indeed revealed the connection I've been seeking.

Maud Bird, my great grandmother, is actually:

Florence Maud Bird b. c1898 in Counthorpe, Lincolnshire, England
Father, John William Bird b. c1867 in St Peter At Gowts, Lincoln, England, a Railway Signalman as he is on the marriage certificate I have.

So why just plain Maud on the Marriage Certificate?

Back to the trail...

There's My Horse!

Wow! Hadn't realised it had been so long since I posted. So busy building UK Digital Marketing Agency, Tillison Consulting, that I've had little time for Genealogy.

If you've sent me messages via any forums, I apologise. I'll get to them and respond as soon as I can. I've been spending any Gene-time piecing together ancestors and their descendants over at http://www.familysearch.org/ for the most part - no small task.

For now, I'm deep in Holstein's, Furstenberg's and Rantzau's, among many other aristocratic lines across Europe in the 16th-19th centuries. See you on the other side.

Two Wives (Part 2)

OK - an article on Wikipedia confirms my suspicion. The Mormon's practiced polygamous marriages back in the 1800's.

The Mormon practice of plural marriage began in 1843, and was introduced by Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon church. It was then practiced privately until 1852, when it was publicly announced as a principle of Mormon doctrine. At this time, the Mormon-dominated legislature wanted to keep this practice under legal protection, so they framed laws that favored the practice without actually using the word “polygamy” in order to keep it from coming to the attention of the U.S. Congress.

Polygamy was able to continue for the next while without being noticed. With the Compromise of 1850, Utah was officially deemed a territory, and therefore became subject to a federally appointed governor and judiciary. Brigham Young [also in my tree], the president of the church at the time, was elected the first governor, along with an all-Mormon legislature. One of the first acts of this legislature was in 1851, when they awarded their probate courts extended jurisdiction. Thus, “probate courts possessed concurrent jurisdiction with the district courts and offered an alternative to the federally appointed, non-Mormon officers of the district courts”. Because bigamy was prohibited at common law, the territorial legislature rejected the common law in 1854. Therefore, the legal protection of the Mormons who chose to practice polygamy were relatively free from federal intervention until Congress passed the Morrill Act in 1862, which was the first federal law that specifically prohibited bigamy. On the whole, the Mormons who practiced polygamy avoided the federal court systems all together. Rather, they settled disputes with an ecclesiastical court system established by the church. Thus, the practice of polygamy in the Mormon communities continued.

At its height, at least 25 percent of adults in these communities were members of polygamous households. In 1890, however, Wilford Woodruff (the president of the church at the time) issued a “manifesto” forbidding the practice. Currently, some breakaway groups still follow polygamist lifestyles, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon church) now opposes the practice.

So there we go - he married sisters and had kids with them at the same time. The data appears correct.

The Two Wives of William Dresser Huntington

Rooting through the Ancestral File on familysearch.org, there is some conflicting data for the family of William Dresser Huntington.

There are a number of marriage records for both Caroline Clark and for Harriett Clark, both with a number of children from those marriages - but they occur during the same time period. Combined with the appearance that Harriett and Caroline are sisters, it's a total mess.

Descendants of William Dresser Huntington

1 William Dresser Huntington 1818 - 1881
+Harriet Clark 1825 -
2 Don Carlos HUNTINGTON 1845 -
+Melinda SINGLETON 1845 - 1876
2 Chauncy HUNTINGTON 1847 - 1847
2 Julias Adeline HUNTINGTON 1848 - 1851
2 Harriet Adelaide HUNTINGTON 1852 - 1922
+Martin William BIRD 1849 - 1890
2 Anna Jane HUNTINGTON 1853 -
+Solomon Drake CHASE 1850 - 1919
2 George Volney HUNTINGTON 1858 -
+Julia Hannah SNELSON 1858 - 1935
2 Lottie HUNTINGTON 1870 - 1962
+Albert Edwin LAMBSON 1863 - 1933
*2nd Wife of William Dresser Huntington:
+Caroline CLARK 1819 - 1901
2 Hyrum Fenno HUNTINGTON 1847 - 1936
+Polly Berthina CHILDS 1849 - 1938
2 Lucia Presendia HUNTINGTON 1850 - 1938
2 John Albert HUNTINGTON 1853 - 1896
2 George Volney HUNTINGTON 1958 - 1905


George Volney is even listed as the son of both mother's in different records.

A little Googling reveals further mismatches in the data:

William married Caroline Clark in September 1839, and by the fall of 1843 they had three children. William concludes his sketch by stating, “I came to Nauvoo with the first family of aints and remained until the present. Nauvoo, December 4, 1844. [Source]

So there are three children missing from these records already.

Caroline's death is recorded as 1901.

In the 1880 US Census, William is living with wife Harriett and George (21) and Lottie (10). So where's Caroline?

In Nauvoo, William's records record a high death rate from Malaria. Perhaps Caroline died from Malaria and Willaim married Harriett then, the remaining children being incorrectly recorded as those of William and Caroline? The problem with this theory is that part of William's job was to record deaths - his own mother was the first on his list - surely he wouldn't have forgotten to record his own wife's death?

I also located a marriage record for William to a Harriet Partridge in 1840 in Hancock, Illinois. This doesn't make sense either - there are plenty of records for a marriage to Harriet Clark, not least this:

CLARK, Harriet; 27 May 1842; Harriet CLARK; b. 2 Aug 1825, Antwerp, Jefferson, New York; parents Hyrum CLARK and Mary FENNO; m. 5 Feb 1843, Nauvoo, Hancock, Illlinois, to William Dresser HUNTINGTON; d. Springville, Utah, Utah. [Source]

And also that, if Harriet was Harriet Partridge and they did marry in 1840, why would their child born in 1847 carry the middle name Fenno, maiden surname of Caroline's mother?

Of the missing children, one William Dresser Huntington (29 March, 1862 San Bernardino) is the son of Heber Huntington, son of William Dresser Huntington and Caroline Clark. He lists as much in his biography [extract]:

Grandfather W. D. Huntington died a few years ago at the age of sixty-five; grandmother Caroline (Clark) Huntington, born about 1825, is living San Bernardino county.

It's possible, but unlikely, that Harriet and Caroline are one and the same person, their birth dates are just far too far apart.

So, essentially it's a big mess with no real reason to it at all. Two hours is more than enough to spend trying to find the truth. Maybe some other time.

RIP Philip David Hall 1957-2007

Trawling through family records and recording births, marriages and deaths of distant relatives and ancestors can sometimes distance you from the fact that these were real people, with families and friends that loved them.

Today, we buried my uncle, Philip David Hall at Milton Cemetery in Portsmouth. He was aged just 50 and had been unwell for some time, fighting against problems caused by diabetes. His ashes were buried in the same plot as his brother, Martin John Hall who died in 1997, aged just 37.

What can I say about Phil?

Phil was one of the good guys. He had a heart of gold and would, and often did, help others often to his own detriment. Phil had many friends that will remember him for his charitable nature, ready wit and love of bacon butties.

Although I've not seen Phil too often in the last few years, I'll remember him for his influence on my upbringing, taking me on trips around the UK on his deliveries as a van driver and for inspiring my love of snooker.

I'm privileged to have known him.

James Cowdrey

There are plenty in my tree, people who appear in the census for a couple of years and then just simply disappear without trace. This one is worth commenting on, for future reference at least.

Born c1849 in Brighton, Sussex.

1851 England Census: James Cowdrey listed as the son of William Cowdrey and Henrietta (Stillwell) in Brighton. Birth year shown as 1844, but suspect that this is due to age 1 being mistranscribed as age 7.
1861 England Census: James Cowdrey listed as a servant, still in Brighton.
1871 England Census: Off in China aboard the 'Dove'.

Then no record.

In the Ancestral File on FamilySearch, marriages:

Spouse: Maria Elizabeth MADDOX
Marriage: 18 May 1879, Camberwell, London, England

Spouse: Harriett Jane BARNES
Marriage: 16 Mar 1889, Southwark, London, England

There is a marriage record in the BMD index for James Cowdry and Maria Elizabeth Maddox that matches, but no confirming record in the 1881 England Census. The Ancestral file also lists a son, Frederick born 1879 who also fails to appear in 1881.

There is no corresponding marriage record for the Harriett Barnes marriage in the BMD.

Another of life's mysteries. Perhaps he went off to sea and settled abroad somewhere?

Which William Twine

I have a marriage record in the Bosham Parish records for William Twine and Susannah Dudding, married in Bosham on 09 August 1770. Unfortunately, the record doesn't list the parents of either of the couple, or any other information for that matter.

I've been unable to locate a death record in the Bosham or Fishbourne Parish records for William either, so it's difficult to confirm his birth date that way.

Assuming that William was born in Bosham, there are two possible records:

05.10.1744 born to Thomas and Jane Twine
17.08.1735 born to John and Mary Twine

Searching on Ancestry, I found another user that had the same marriage in their tree, and had listed Thomas and Jane as the parents - perhaps they have some information I don't? I've sent a message via Ancestry to find out!

If William was born in 1735 the following would be true:

• Married aged 35
• First child at 36
• Last child at 62

Stranger things have happened, Susannah would have been 49 when the last child was born!

Spalding Confusion

Researching my Spalding links in Suffolk:

Having located my ggg grandfather, John Spalding born c1826 in Fressingfield, Suffolk, I managed to establish that his parents are John Spalding and Sarah through the IGI. Further to this, I established christening records for John's (1826) siblings;

Sarah Anne in 1819
Charlotte born in 1820
Louisa in 1823
Mary Anne in 1827

In tracing their descendants, I became puzzled by other records in the IGI listing a marriage record for Charlotte Spalding in 1840 in Fressingfield, Suffolk to Robert Riches; Charlotte is shown as the daughter of James Spalding and Hannah, but her birth date is 1828 in Fressingfield.

Charlotte and Robert Riches are listed in the 1840 Census, with Charlotte's birth date being C1820. They are listed again in 1851 with their children and, interestingly, Charlotte is listed as the sister-in-law of the head of household, Benjamin Collett. Benjamin's wife is Sarah Ann.

Again, in the IGI the marriage record for Sarah Anne Spalding shows the parents as James Spalding and Hannah Rose, with her birth date as 1830 in Fressingfield. In 1851, Sarah's birth date is c1820 in Fressingfield.

I surmise that the data in the IGI is a mistake. There are matching birth records for both children as daughters of James and Hannah in the IGI also and I believe that they have mistakenly been linked to the marriages of Collett and Riches.