This month has mainly been taken up with work on the December 2009 issue of the Shropshire Family History Journal, and looking at the results of the research I have done on Ancestry.co.uk, searching the London parish registers that have recently become available on that website. The journal is now almost completed, I'm pleased to say. Just one or two queries to be ironed out in the next few days before I can place the order with our printers.
I had intended to work on arrangements for a reunion of John Bankes descendants, which I had hopes of holding next year, but I simply have not enough time to do this, so at this stage it looks as though it won't happen in 2010. If you are a Bankes descendant and have any thoughts on this project - positive or negative - I'd be interested in hearing from you. Personally, I think it's an idea with great potential.
It's almost time for me to think about preparing updates for the Geoff's Genealogy website. I have found so much "new" material this year that it is hard to know where to start. At the moment I'm concentrating on updating my family history data, so that when we next upload the tree to the website it will be as up to date as possible.
Now to the London parish registers.
My 2 x great grandfather was a certain John Brown Smith (1829-1875). He married Mary Ann Archer (1830-aft 1880), a Bankes descendant, and they had several children. For much of his career John was an Excise officer, and as such was moved around England a lot. Excise officers were moved from one place to another quite often because their role in levying taxes on maltsters left them open to bribery, so it was deemed prudent for them not to be in one place for too long. This means that tracing the births of the children of Excise officers can be problematic - you don't know where to find them!
Some years ago I obtained details of John Brown Smith's Excise postings and therefore became aware of the places he had been posted to during his career. With the help of a fellow Smith researcher I was then able to identify the births of all his children. It all tied in with the census returns, and seemed to be a "done job". However, Helen & I were looking at the London baptisms that recently appeared on Ancestry.co.uk, and were amazed to find an event in Clapham, South London, on 13 March 1864.
This record chronicles a double baptism - two children of John Brown Smith and Mary Ann. One of them we already knew about - George Smith (1858-1937), but the other was a complete surprise to us, as it introduced us to a new figure on our family tree - Michael Archer Smith (b 17 August 1863). I looked him up on Free BMD, and it seems that his birth was registered in Shoreditch registration District. Shoreditch was the usual stamping ground of my Smiths, and was where the family was recorded on the 1861 census. I haven't yet been able to trace Michael Archer Smith on any other sources, but be sure that I shall be trying!
John Brown Smith was dismissed from the Excise service in December 1860, "following feigned survey at maltsters and other neglects and irregularities" whilst stationed at Wantage Ride, Reading. The evidence suggests that he then made his way to London, bacause, as mentioned above, in April 1861 he was at Shoreditch. His occupation on the 1861 census was recorded as "Wine Cooper", so presumably he was putting to use his experience of the booze trade. The civil registration entry for the birth of Michael suggests that the family was probably still at Shoreditch in August 1863, but by the time of Michael's baptism - March 1864 - it seems that the family was at Clapham, in south London. Not only that, but John Brown Smith's occupation was described as "Clerk". It seems likely that the family's situation had changed considerably. The 1871 census shows the family back at Shoreditch, John again being recorded as a "Clerk". However, when his son, John Henry Smith (1855-abt 1909), married in August 1874 John Brown Smith was described as a "Railway Clerk", and when he was admitted to Fisherton Anger Asylum in Salisbury in October 1874 he was described as a "Ticket Collector".
Given the above occupational information about John Brown Smith, it seems to me quite possible that "Clerk" is synomynous with "Railway Clerk" or "Ticket Collector". This theory is strengthened a little by another Smith find in the London parish registers on Ancestry.
John Brown Smith's father was James Bayly Smith (abt 1800-1850), another Excise officer. He married Alice Brown (abt 1801-aft 1851) in Edinburgh, and they had a number of children. As was the case with John Brown Smith, we had thought that we had found all of his children, but we now have to add another twig on the tree.
The discovery Helen made was a marriage between Michael Bayly Smith (age 42) and Ann Eason at St Saviour, South Hampstead on 1 January 1870. James Bayly Smith, Gentleman (deceased) was shown as the groom's parent. Definitely our man! We searched Ancestry for more information about Michael Bayly Smith. There he was, on the 1851 Census, a lodger, born at Wolvercote, Oxfordshire, c1828, living alone in Melksham, Wiltshire. Occupation: Railway Station Clerk.
So far we have failed to locate Michael on the 1861 census, but by 1871 he was married to Ann, and they were living at Brixton, South London. Michael's occupation was "Railway Superintendent of Goods Traffic".So this man, like his brother, was working on the Railway. I wonder whether there is a connection there. Maybe when John Brown Smith was down on his luck, having been dismissed from the Excise and looking for an alternative career, his brother helped him to get a job with a railway company. Is it significant that Clapham, where John Brown Smith was apparently living in 1864, is not far from Brixton, where Michael was in 1871? Bear in mind that we have so far failed to find Michael in 1861.
The death of Michael Bayly Smith was recorded in the Civil Registration Indexes in June quarter 1873, just three years after his marriage. We searched the online catalogue of The National Archives, and found a reference to a staff record relating to his service with the Great Western Railway Company (RAIL 264/3/20). The description of the source states: "Michael Bayly Smith, age on joining as clerk: 20; date of entry: Aug 1846; last date of salary increase: July 1861; cause of end of service: Resigned Aug 1862". As you may imagine, I shall be looking at this item when next I go to TNA, Kew, but for now we can draw from it the conclusion that when the census was taken on 7 April 1861 Michael Bayly Smith was probably still living somewhere in the West country of England. The 1871 census entry tells us that his resignation from the GWR was not "the end of the line" for his career on the railway. He may well have left GWR to take up a post with a London railway company, and this would lead on to the information on the 1871 census entry I referred to above.
This lengthy narrative outlines the difference that just a couple of finds among the London parish registers that are now viewable on Ancestry.co.uk have made to my research, and how they have led on to further sources and lines of research. There are many other great finds I could tell you about, but I've probably rambled on for far too long already, so I'll spare you that.
Saturday, 31 October 2009
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Geoffs Genealogy Update 30 September 2009
On the whole 2009 gave us a disappointing summer in the UK, but the UK weather in September has been good - dominated by high pressure that was conspicuously absent during July and August. Now, however, the autumn equinox has passed. The leaves on the trees are turning brown, and soon they will be falling to the ground. There are things I love about the British winter - some lovely scenes as the sun shines on a frosty ground from a blue sky, the football season at its peak and the five nations rugby to name but three. However, on the whole I tend to spend the winter looking forward to the spring and summer, in the vain hope of some good weather.
From a treeing point of view September has been quite an exciting month, for a number of reasons.
In the middle of the month I went to The National Archives for a day's research which turned out to be interesting on a number of counts.
I had placed an advance order online to ensure(?) that a couple of original sources were available for me to view on my arrival at TNA, so I made my way to the Map Room to look at them. One of the items I had ordered was a Court of Chancery Bill of Complaint dated 1846, relating to the cause Collyer vs Ashburner (piece no c14/503/C118). According to my interpretation of the TNA catalogue this source comprised one document, but in the event when I opened the bundle I saw that there were, in fact, half a dozen items to look at. I know, from past experience of looking at Court of Chancery documents in the causes relating to the John Bankes Trust, that these documents come in all shapes and sizes, and are often covered in dust! They can be very hard to handle, due to their size, and equally hard to read. On this occasion I was helped greatly by a member of the TNA staff, who perspicaciously realised that I was likely to have difficulty handling this bundle of documents and came to my rescue, showing me the best way to tackle the job.
I had no prior knowledge of these particular Chancery proceedings, but I did know that members of the Collyer family had been named as beneficiaries in the Will of Robert Pounds, which was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in May 1846. It was clear from this Will that Robert Pounds was a significantly wealthy man, and the bequests to the Collyers were of high value by most people's standards. I had seen that a certain John Ashburner, of Wimpole Street, Middlesex was named as an executor of Robert Pounds' will, so assumed that these proceedings were in relation to this matter. I was correct in this assumption.
The original Bill had been raised in 1846 in the name of Sarah Ellen Collyer (1824-1847) and her siblings Robert Pounds Collyer (1832-1851) and Dulcybella Jane Collyer (1829-1861). They claimed that the executors of the will were dragging their heels in paying out the bequests of Robert Pounds, and asked the court to force them to pay her out without further delay. As Robert & Dulcybella were minors, their mother - Mary Collyer (c1787-1864), widow of John Collyer, Carver & Gilder (1783-1840), was named as their representative in the proceedings.
The next document was the response of Ashburner to the Bill. This stated that although he had realised many of Robert Pounds' assets, he did not think that he had sufficient funds to pay out the sums bequeathed to the beneficiaries of the will. This response certainly rang bells with me, because in the 1720s the executors of the Will of John Bankes (c1652-1719) used an identical defence when answering the Chancery Bill raised by my ancestor, Mary Mitchell (c1668-c1739). It would seem that it may have been a common legal device in days of old in such cases.
Tragedy struck the Collyer household soon after the Bill was raised, when Sarah Ellen Collyer died suddenly in 1847. This caused the proceedings to be abated (ie stopped), and if the beneficiaries wanted to restart them they needed to raise a Bill of Reviver. This they did, later in the same year.
I do not know how the action progressed, but in 1851 Robert Pounds Collyer died, and again the proceedings were abated. They were restarted later in the same year, thus the only people now named as oratrixes (female plaintiffs) were Dulcybella Jane and her mother, Mary Collyer.
The documents in the bundle told me all this, and they included several other pieces of information of the type that we family historians thrive on - dates of birth and death, addresses, relationships and the like. As it happens I already had most of this information from other sources. What I really wanted to sort out was the nature of the relationship between the Collyers and the Pounds family. They were obviously very close. A couple of the Collyer children were given "Pounds" as their middle name, and the two Pounds wills that I have obtained both mention members of the Collyer family. However, these documents did not help me to answer this question. I shall have to look for other ways of tackling the problem.
As I mentioned above, these documents vary greatly in size. Some are very large indeed, and others merely large! In the time i had available at TNA it was not possible to study them in depth, so I wielded my trusty digital camera and photographed the most interesting looking of them, for future study at home.
Most of the rest of my day at TNA was spent searching the 1911 census. Things have changed since my last visit, in May. The 1911 census is no longer treated separately from other censuses. In searching it you use the same computers as you would for any other census. Similarly, TNA no longer provide staff dedicated to helping 1911 census searchers. The available staff now work on all the censuses. Personally, I wasn't impressed with the help I received when I asked for it, but no doubt others would disagree with that comment. We speak as we find, after all.
You may know that Ancestry have placed on line a collection of parish registers for London. These are baptisms, marriages and burials for varios dates in the late eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They are fully searchable, and you can study them either in your own home (for a fee) or in a large number of record offices and libraries around the UK (free of charge except for printing costs). I have been busily working through these over the past couple of weeks, and by doing so am managing to fill some of the gaps in my family history and the Bankes Pedigree. I am particularly pleased to have solved a few long standing research queries:
1. I found the previously elusive marriage of Thomas Hunt (1798-1879), the doctor, and his first wife - Martha Mary Colam (1808-1861). This ceremony took place by licence at St Sepulchre Holborn, in London on 8 August 1727. Interestingly, the bride was aged under 21, so would have needed parental consent to marry Thomas.
2. For many years I have been seeking the marriage of John Collyer (1783-1840), Carver & Gilder, to his wife, Mary (mentioned above in relation to Collyer v Ashburner). The Bankes Pedigree Book states Mary's surname as Powell, but I wanted to verify that. I wondered whether her maiden name may have been Pounds, in which case it would explain the connection between the Collyer & Pounds families (mentioned above). Well, I found the record of marriage, which took place on 28 September 1823 at St John Hackney. This confirmed the bride's name as Powell, and also showed that the groom was a widower. This set me off looking for John Collyer's previous marriage, which I found. He married Frances Fell by banns on 9 September 1819. I could not trace Frances's death, but it seems likely that she died within four years of the marriage.
3. Some years ago I noted that in his will, proved in 1871, Samuel William Archer (1790-1870), a brother of my ancestor Nathan Archer (1793-1845), named his wife as Ann, and his brother in law as James Woosnam. The relevant entry on the 1841 census also showed Samuel's spouse as Ann. As the only marriage I have ever found for Samuel was to Alice Blandina Hawkins at St Pancras church in 1831, I deduced that he was most likely to have had more than one marriage in his life. However, frustratingly, I have never been able to find a second marriage - Until now!
By searching the records on Ancestry I found that in 1835 at St Mary Islington Samuel, a widower, married Ann Woodman - not Woosnam - my reading of the Will was incorrect. I then searched for the burial of Samuel's first wife and duly found it, Alice Blandina Archer was buried at St John, Hackney, on 11 September 1832. The baptism records for St John Hackney show that Samuel and Alice's daughter - Alice Blandina Archer - was baptised on 10 October 1832. It therefore seems reasonable to hypothesise that Samuel's first wife died as a result of childbirth.
I have previously identified another son of Samuel William Archer - William James Archer (c1835-1857). He was recorded on the 1841 and 1851 censuses, and was buried at Abney Park Cemetery in London in October 1857, having died at the age of 22. Whereas I had previously assumed that William was a son of Samuel's first wife, it now appears that this was not the case. I have not managed to trace his baptism, but presumably he was the offspring of Samuel and Ann Woodman.
So there we have it. More and more research material is becoming available on the internet, and gradually many of the long standing queries are being resolved, which is great. However, my biggest two posers remain. Who were the parents of John Culshaw, born c1760 in the Ormskirk area, and who were the parents of John Bankes and his half siblings?
Maybe I'll find out one day.
If you think you can help me in the search you know where to find me!
From a treeing point of view September has been quite an exciting month, for a number of reasons.
In the middle of the month I went to The National Archives for a day's research which turned out to be interesting on a number of counts.
I had placed an advance order online to ensure(?) that a couple of original sources were available for me to view on my arrival at TNA, so I made my way to the Map Room to look at them. One of the items I had ordered was a Court of Chancery Bill of Complaint dated 1846, relating to the cause Collyer vs Ashburner (piece no c14/503/C118). According to my interpretation of the TNA catalogue this source comprised one document, but in the event when I opened the bundle I saw that there were, in fact, half a dozen items to look at. I know, from past experience of looking at Court of Chancery documents in the causes relating to the John Bankes Trust, that these documents come in all shapes and sizes, and are often covered in dust! They can be very hard to handle, due to their size, and equally hard to read. On this occasion I was helped greatly by a member of the TNA staff, who perspicaciously realised that I was likely to have difficulty handling this bundle of documents and came to my rescue, showing me the best way to tackle the job.
I had no prior knowledge of these particular Chancery proceedings, but I did know that members of the Collyer family had been named as beneficiaries in the Will of Robert Pounds, which was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in May 1846. It was clear from this Will that Robert Pounds was a significantly wealthy man, and the bequests to the Collyers were of high value by most people's standards. I had seen that a certain John Ashburner, of Wimpole Street, Middlesex was named as an executor of Robert Pounds' will, so assumed that these proceedings were in relation to this matter. I was correct in this assumption.
The original Bill had been raised in 1846 in the name of Sarah Ellen Collyer (1824-1847) and her siblings Robert Pounds Collyer (1832-1851) and Dulcybella Jane Collyer (1829-1861). They claimed that the executors of the will were dragging their heels in paying out the bequests of Robert Pounds, and asked the court to force them to pay her out without further delay. As Robert & Dulcybella were minors, their mother - Mary Collyer (c1787-1864), widow of John Collyer, Carver & Gilder (1783-1840), was named as their representative in the proceedings.
The next document was the response of Ashburner to the Bill. This stated that although he had realised many of Robert Pounds' assets, he did not think that he had sufficient funds to pay out the sums bequeathed to the beneficiaries of the will. This response certainly rang bells with me, because in the 1720s the executors of the Will of John Bankes (c1652-1719) used an identical defence when answering the Chancery Bill raised by my ancestor, Mary Mitchell (c1668-c1739). It would seem that it may have been a common legal device in days of old in such cases.
Tragedy struck the Collyer household soon after the Bill was raised, when Sarah Ellen Collyer died suddenly in 1847. This caused the proceedings to be abated (ie stopped), and if the beneficiaries wanted to restart them they needed to raise a Bill of Reviver. This they did, later in the same year.
I do not know how the action progressed, but in 1851 Robert Pounds Collyer died, and again the proceedings were abated. They were restarted later in the same year, thus the only people now named as oratrixes (female plaintiffs) were Dulcybella Jane and her mother, Mary Collyer.
The documents in the bundle told me all this, and they included several other pieces of information of the type that we family historians thrive on - dates of birth and death, addresses, relationships and the like. As it happens I already had most of this information from other sources. What I really wanted to sort out was the nature of the relationship between the Collyers and the Pounds family. They were obviously very close. A couple of the Collyer children were given "Pounds" as their middle name, and the two Pounds wills that I have obtained both mention members of the Collyer family. However, these documents did not help me to answer this question. I shall have to look for other ways of tackling the problem.
As I mentioned above, these documents vary greatly in size. Some are very large indeed, and others merely large! In the time i had available at TNA it was not possible to study them in depth, so I wielded my trusty digital camera and photographed the most interesting looking of them, for future study at home.
Most of the rest of my day at TNA was spent searching the 1911 census. Things have changed since my last visit, in May. The 1911 census is no longer treated separately from other censuses. In searching it you use the same computers as you would for any other census. Similarly, TNA no longer provide staff dedicated to helping 1911 census searchers. The available staff now work on all the censuses. Personally, I wasn't impressed with the help I received when I asked for it, but no doubt others would disagree with that comment. We speak as we find, after all.
You may know that Ancestry have placed on line a collection of parish registers for London. These are baptisms, marriages and burials for varios dates in the late eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They are fully searchable, and you can study them either in your own home (for a fee) or in a large number of record offices and libraries around the UK (free of charge except for printing costs). I have been busily working through these over the past couple of weeks, and by doing so am managing to fill some of the gaps in my family history and the Bankes Pedigree. I am particularly pleased to have solved a few long standing research queries:
1. I found the previously elusive marriage of Thomas Hunt (1798-1879), the doctor, and his first wife - Martha Mary Colam (1808-1861). This ceremony took place by licence at St Sepulchre Holborn, in London on 8 August 1727. Interestingly, the bride was aged under 21, so would have needed parental consent to marry Thomas.
2. For many years I have been seeking the marriage of John Collyer (1783-1840), Carver & Gilder, to his wife, Mary (mentioned above in relation to Collyer v Ashburner). The Bankes Pedigree Book states Mary's surname as Powell, but I wanted to verify that. I wondered whether her maiden name may have been Pounds, in which case it would explain the connection between the Collyer & Pounds families (mentioned above). Well, I found the record of marriage, which took place on 28 September 1823 at St John Hackney. This confirmed the bride's name as Powell, and also showed that the groom was a widower. This set me off looking for John Collyer's previous marriage, which I found. He married Frances Fell by banns on 9 September 1819. I could not trace Frances's death, but it seems likely that she died within four years of the marriage.
3. Some years ago I noted that in his will, proved in 1871, Samuel William Archer (1790-1870), a brother of my ancestor Nathan Archer (1793-1845), named his wife as Ann, and his brother in law as James Woosnam. The relevant entry on the 1841 census also showed Samuel's spouse as Ann. As the only marriage I have ever found for Samuel was to Alice Blandina Hawkins at St Pancras church in 1831, I deduced that he was most likely to have had more than one marriage in his life. However, frustratingly, I have never been able to find a second marriage - Until now!
By searching the records on Ancestry I found that in 1835 at St Mary Islington Samuel, a widower, married Ann Woodman - not Woosnam - my reading of the Will was incorrect. I then searched for the burial of Samuel's first wife and duly found it, Alice Blandina Archer was buried at St John, Hackney, on 11 September 1832. The baptism records for St John Hackney show that Samuel and Alice's daughter - Alice Blandina Archer - was baptised on 10 October 1832. It therefore seems reasonable to hypothesise that Samuel's first wife died as a result of childbirth.
I have previously identified another son of Samuel William Archer - William James Archer (c1835-1857). He was recorded on the 1841 and 1851 censuses, and was buried at Abney Park Cemetery in London in October 1857, having died at the age of 22. Whereas I had previously assumed that William was a son of Samuel's first wife, it now appears that this was not the case. I have not managed to trace his baptism, but presumably he was the offspring of Samuel and Ann Woodman.
So there we have it. More and more research material is becoming available on the internet, and gradually many of the long standing queries are being resolved, which is great. However, my biggest two posers remain. Who were the parents of John Culshaw, born c1760 in the Ormskirk area, and who were the parents of John Bankes and his half siblings?
Maybe I'll find out one day.
If you think you can help me in the search you know where to find me!
Thursday, 3 September 2009
Geoffs Genealogy Update 3 September 2009 (As 31 August 2009)
August was a busy month as far as family history is concerned. Not particularly in terms of research done - I haven't made any excursions to visit records offices, or spent much time researching online - but in terms of contacts made and correspondence.
I was delighted to renew contact with Shelley, who is a fellow descendant on the Smith line. She is descended from Jessie (Smith) Codd (1880-1941), and Thomas William Walter Codd (1877-1945). Jessie was a sister of my grandfather George William Smith (1886-1940), and therefore an aunt of my mother. Shelley and I have never met, but were in contact with one another in the 1990s, sharing research information. In the intervening years we have both made progress, trying to piece together the history of the Codd family. I think I've mentioned in previous blog entries that we believe there were fifteen children born to Thomas & Jessie, and that many of them died young.
Not surprisingly, given that the Codds were Shelley's direct forebears, she has made more progress than me with this research, but it is good to see that on the whole our research findings coincide, so there is a fair chance that we have drawn the correct conclusions. Assuming that there were fifteen Codd children we still have three left to trace, but hopefully we shall be able to do that between us.
Another recently established contact is Jim Smith, who hails from Pennsylvania, USA. Isn't it good how this family history lark brings us in contact with new friends across the globe?
Jim is descended on the Collyer line. Among his forebears he has Robert Mitchell Collyer (1787-1859) and his wife Ann Dujardin (1798-aft 1864), the parents of Robert Hanham Collyer (1814-abt 1891) . The family migrated to the US from England in 1836, having lived for periods in London and on the Channel Isle of Jersey.
Jim sent me the most fantastic collection of 47 family photographs portraying his forebears, accompanied by a fifteen pages long commentary. I have never before received such a fantastic volume of material in one go, and I really don't know how I can possibly reciprocate! I shall have a good dig through my records, and try to do justice to the task.
You may be able to imagine how daunting is the task of studying and archiving all this information! I can see that I am going to be occupied fully for the forseeable future.
In a couple of weeks I am off to The National Archives at Kew, for one of my twice yearly visits, courtesy of the coach trips run by the Shropshire Family History Society. These trips are fantastic value at £18, and (traffic permitting) enable me to enjoy about six hours research time at TNA. This time my efforts will be focussed on the 1911 census. I need to spend some time before the visit compiling a list of targets, and will spend as much time as I can looking for them. The beauty of searching the 1911 census at TNA is that it is free. All you pay for is the cost of the printouts which, at 20p each for each A3 sheet, are a bargain. There is also lots of help available in the search rooms, in case you are having difficulty using the facilities.
I also have a number of other items to look for at TNA, but need to organise my ideas on this.
You may be aware that the UK Government is looking for savings in these straitened economic times, and TNA has formulated plans to play its part in this. As I understand it, the plans involve the closure of the building on Mondays, the reduction of staffing levels, and the introduction of car parking charges, all of which, I believe, are quite worrying.
The argument for the Monday closures seems to be that more and more records are becoming available on the internet, so there should be less demand for actual time in the search rooms - a somewhat superficial view, I would say, and if you follow that argument to its logical conclusion we could end up with increasingly more restrictions on search room availability.
The proposed car parking charge, effective from January 2010, is £5 per day. This can be justified as a form of "green tax", but it is disingenuous, I think, to do so. The powers that be originally said that the charge would be set at a level that reflects the costs of providing parking facilities, but according to the Federation of Family History Societies, the breakdown of the costings indicates that TNA have actually set the charge to cover the costs of maintaining the grounds as a whole - not just the car parks.
As we may expect, there is the opportunity for members of the public to express their views re these issues, but one has the feeling that it is unlikely that any protests will have much effect on the decision. The need to raise money trumps all arguments, after all!
I fully understand that the country is in an economic mess,and that there is a need to look for extra ways of raising money, hopefully with minimum damage to essential services. I understand that to many people the services offered by TNA are not "essential", and are therefore a bit of a target. What concerns me is that the facilities at this wonderful institution will gradually be watered down, and public access will be reduced. To me these changes are "the thin end of the wedge", and will be followed, in due course, by further dimunition of services or increased costs. After all, what happened to the digitised Births, Marriages & Deaths civil registration indexes that we were promised when the Family History Centre in Islington closed?
Enough of this. I'm sorry this entry is a bit political, but I am afraid that I do not trust the UK powers that be - of whatever political persuasion - enough to believe that they will adequately defend the interests of TNA researchers when considering these matters.
To conclude on a slightly brighter note, I was recently carrying out a sweep of the internet, searching on "John Bankes, haberdasher", when to my amazement the wonderful Google came up with a source relating to the Bankes Trust that I would never have found by any means other than an internet search. This was an item in the Children's Newspaper dated 12 August 1933, entitled John Banks and his Money . The item referred to "kind-hearted John Banks", the bequests he made in his will, and the Court of Chancery cause. It reported the end of the Chancery actions after 200 years of litigation, and the reversion of the fund to the Haberdashers' Company. What a fantastic find! I had already discovered in The Times newspaper that the final act in this litigation had taken place in July 1933, and mentioned this in my biography of Bankes on Geoffs Genealogy, but I had never before thought of the Children's Newspaper as a possible source.
I was delighted to renew contact with Shelley, who is a fellow descendant on the Smith line. She is descended from Jessie (Smith) Codd (1880-1941), and Thomas William Walter Codd (1877-1945). Jessie was a sister of my grandfather George William Smith (1886-1940), and therefore an aunt of my mother. Shelley and I have never met, but were in contact with one another in the 1990s, sharing research information. In the intervening years we have both made progress, trying to piece together the history of the Codd family. I think I've mentioned in previous blog entries that we believe there were fifteen children born to Thomas & Jessie, and that many of them died young.
Not surprisingly, given that the Codds were Shelley's direct forebears, she has made more progress than me with this research, but it is good to see that on the whole our research findings coincide, so there is a fair chance that we have drawn the correct conclusions. Assuming that there were fifteen Codd children we still have three left to trace, but hopefully we shall be able to do that between us.
Another recently established contact is Jim Smith, who hails from Pennsylvania, USA. Isn't it good how this family history lark brings us in contact with new friends across the globe?
Jim is descended on the Collyer line. Among his forebears he has Robert Mitchell Collyer (1787-1859) and his wife Ann Dujardin (1798-aft 1864), the parents of Robert Hanham Collyer (1814-abt 1891) . The family migrated to the US from England in 1836, having lived for periods in London and on the Channel Isle of Jersey.
Jim sent me the most fantastic collection of 47 family photographs portraying his forebears, accompanied by a fifteen pages long commentary. I have never before received such a fantastic volume of material in one go, and I really don't know how I can possibly reciprocate! I shall have a good dig through my records, and try to do justice to the task.
You may be able to imagine how daunting is the task of studying and archiving all this information! I can see that I am going to be occupied fully for the forseeable future.
In a couple of weeks I am off to The National Archives at Kew, for one of my twice yearly visits, courtesy of the coach trips run by the Shropshire Family History Society. These trips are fantastic value at £18, and (traffic permitting) enable me to enjoy about six hours research time at TNA. This time my efforts will be focussed on the 1911 census. I need to spend some time before the visit compiling a list of targets, and will spend as much time as I can looking for them. The beauty of searching the 1911 census at TNA is that it is free. All you pay for is the cost of the printouts which, at 20p each for each A3 sheet, are a bargain. There is also lots of help available in the search rooms, in case you are having difficulty using the facilities.
I also have a number of other items to look for at TNA, but need to organise my ideas on this.
You may be aware that the UK Government is looking for savings in these straitened economic times, and TNA has formulated plans to play its part in this. As I understand it, the plans involve the closure of the building on Mondays, the reduction of staffing levels, and the introduction of car parking charges, all of which, I believe, are quite worrying.
The argument for the Monday closures seems to be that more and more records are becoming available on the internet, so there should be less demand for actual time in the search rooms - a somewhat superficial view, I would say, and if you follow that argument to its logical conclusion we could end up with increasingly more restrictions on search room availability.
The proposed car parking charge, effective from January 2010, is £5 per day. This can be justified as a form of "green tax", but it is disingenuous, I think, to do so. The powers that be originally said that the charge would be set at a level that reflects the costs of providing parking facilities, but according to the Federation of Family History Societies, the breakdown of the costings indicates that TNA have actually set the charge to cover the costs of maintaining the grounds as a whole - not just the car parks.
As we may expect, there is the opportunity for members of the public to express their views re these issues, but one has the feeling that it is unlikely that any protests will have much effect on the decision. The need to raise money trumps all arguments, after all!
I fully understand that the country is in an economic mess,and that there is a need to look for extra ways of raising money, hopefully with minimum damage to essential services. I understand that to many people the services offered by TNA are not "essential", and are therefore a bit of a target. What concerns me is that the facilities at this wonderful institution will gradually be watered down, and public access will be reduced. To me these changes are "the thin end of the wedge", and will be followed, in due course, by further dimunition of services or increased costs. After all, what happened to the digitised Births, Marriages & Deaths civil registration indexes that we were promised when the Family History Centre in Islington closed?
Enough of this. I'm sorry this entry is a bit political, but I am afraid that I do not trust the UK powers that be - of whatever political persuasion - enough to believe that they will adequately defend the interests of TNA researchers when considering these matters.
To conclude on a slightly brighter note, I was recently carrying out a sweep of the internet, searching on "John Bankes, haberdasher", when to my amazement the wonderful Google came up with a source relating to the Bankes Trust that I would never have found by any means other than an internet search. This was an item in the Children's Newspaper dated 12 August 1933, entitled John Banks and his Money . The item referred to "kind-hearted John Banks", the bequests he made in his will, and the Court of Chancery cause. It reported the end of the Chancery actions after 200 years of litigation, and the reversion of the fund to the Haberdashers' Company. What a fantastic find! I had already discovered in The Times newspaper that the final act in this litigation had taken place in July 1933, and mentioned this in my biography of Bankes on Geoffs Genealogy, but I had never before thought of the Children's Newspaper as a possible source.
It just goes to show that you never know where the next piece of information will come from!
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
Geoffs Genealogy Update 4 August 2009 (as 31 July 2009)
I'm rather ,late with this blog entry, which is a eflection of the busy time that I had in July. I won't bore you with the details - you would surely find them rather tedious - but suffice to say that family history has had to take second place to other things over the past few weeks.
We went to France for a week during the second half of July - to the Loire valley. This was a really smashing break - our first visit to that part of the world and certainly an experience that would be worth repeating. We visited a number of chateaux and other places of beauty or interest, and the trip also included our first experience of Paris. We only had a few hours in the French capital, but that was sufficient to convince us of the necessity of a return visit of longer duration as soon as we can make it.
Jan and I tried to speak French as much as we could during this trip. We had been having French lessons since last autumn in preparation for this holiday, and we very much enjoyed trying to converse in the native language of our hosts. It was good fun. I don't say that we were all that brilliant, but we could make ourselves understood, and on the whole we understood the people with whom we were conversing.
Some of my kinfolk have suggested to me that there is French blood in my ancestry. This may or may not be true, but I've found no evidence of it as yet. My mother used to say that Hannah Guyatt (1857-1903), my great grandmother and the wife of James William Smith (1853 - abt 1908), was of French descent, and this belief has been repeated to me by some of my other cousins.
What I know for sure is that Hannah was born in London, and neither of her parents were French. Her father - John Guyatt (b abt 1827) was born in High Wycombe, Bucks, and her mother - Caroline Smedley (b 1820) was born in Walworth, Surrey. I don't know where her grandfather was born, or who his parents were, but it seems that he and his spouse migrated to High Wycombe
from somewhere else.
The available information on surname distribution in the nineteenth century suggests that most people bearing the name Guyatt were recorded in the south of England - in Hampshire and Wiltshire - so my guess is that the identity of my Guyatt 3 x great grandparents may lie in one of these counties. However, I haven't yet worked out how to pin down my forebears. This is on the back burner at the moment, pending a moment of inspitation!
What is apparent, however, is that although it is possible that the Guyatts do originate in France, we have to go back a number of generations to prove it.
Continuing the French theme, last Saturday Jan & I went to the Maliphant Jamboree at Bristol, which was attended by about 33 people in all. This was the first such event to be organised, and was in fact a gathering of the Maliphant clan. You may be wondering who the Maliphants were / are. Well, they appear in Jan's family history. Jan's 2 x great grandmother was a certain Ann Maliphant (1836-1916), and she married Evan Hughes (1834-1916) in 1855 at Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire.
The history of the Maliphant clan has been traced back a very long way indeed - back to the father of Henry Maliphant (d 1590) who was named Jenkin Maliphant (dates unknown). There is then a gap in the records - I believe of about 200 years - before more Maliphant sightings were found. I have to say, here and now, that neither Jan or I can claim credit for this research. Most of it was carried out by Gordon Maliphant who, I'm pleased to say, attended Saturday's jamboree, which was organised by one of his sons, Bruce. Bruce is in the process of taking over the custody of Gordon's records, so if you want to know anything about this clan he will be the person to contact.
We went to France for a week during the second half of July - to the Loire valley. This was a really smashing break - our first visit to that part of the world and certainly an experience that would be worth repeating. We visited a number of chateaux and other places of beauty or interest, and the trip also included our first experience of Paris. We only had a few hours in the French capital, but that was sufficient to convince us of the necessity of a return visit of longer duration as soon as we can make it.
Jan and I tried to speak French as much as we could during this trip. We had been having French lessons since last autumn in preparation for this holiday, and we very much enjoyed trying to converse in the native language of our hosts. It was good fun. I don't say that we were all that brilliant, but we could make ourselves understood, and on the whole we understood the people with whom we were conversing.
Some of my kinfolk have suggested to me that there is French blood in my ancestry. This may or may not be true, but I've found no evidence of it as yet. My mother used to say that Hannah Guyatt (1857-1903), my great grandmother and the wife of James William Smith (1853 - abt 1908), was of French descent, and this belief has been repeated to me by some of my other cousins.
What I know for sure is that Hannah was born in London, and neither of her parents were French. Her father - John Guyatt (b abt 1827) was born in High Wycombe, Bucks, and her mother - Caroline Smedley (b 1820) was born in Walworth, Surrey. I don't know where her grandfather was born, or who his parents were, but it seems that he and his spouse migrated to High Wycombe
from somewhere else.
The available information on surname distribution in the nineteenth century suggests that most people bearing the name Guyatt were recorded in the south of England - in Hampshire and Wiltshire - so my guess is that the identity of my Guyatt 3 x great grandparents may lie in one of these counties. However, I haven't yet worked out how to pin down my forebears. This is on the back burner at the moment, pending a moment of inspitation!
What is apparent, however, is that although it is possible that the Guyatts do originate in France, we have to go back a number of generations to prove it.
Continuing the French theme, last Saturday Jan & I went to the Maliphant Jamboree at Bristol, which was attended by about 33 people in all. This was the first such event to be organised, and was in fact a gathering of the Maliphant clan. You may be wondering who the Maliphants were / are. Well, they appear in Jan's family history. Jan's 2 x great grandmother was a certain Ann Maliphant (1836-1916), and she married Evan Hughes (1834-1916) in 1855 at Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire.
The history of the Maliphant clan has been traced back a very long way indeed - back to the father of Henry Maliphant (d 1590) who was named Jenkin Maliphant (dates unknown). There is then a gap in the records - I believe of about 200 years - before more Maliphant sightings were found. I have to say, here and now, that neither Jan or I can claim credit for this research. Most of it was carried out by Gordon Maliphant who, I'm pleased to say, attended Saturday's jamboree, which was organised by one of his sons, Bruce. Bruce is in the process of taking over the custody of Gordon's records, so if you want to know anything about this clan he will be the person to contact.
"Where's the French connection?" I hear you ask. Well, it has long been assumed by Jan and I that the meaning of the name Maliphant is derived from the French "bad child". The story, which I assumed had some basis in research, was that the Maliphants probably came over with the Normans. However, in conversation with a number of attendees on Saturday, Gordon said that this theory of the origin of the Maliphant name was conjecture. He has never been able to put it to the test. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
Anyway, we very much enjoyed our visit to the Maliphant gathering, and thank Bruce very much for arranging it. We met a number of people who we have never met before, and Jan was able to meet up with a long standing correspondent and friend - Mavis.
All this leads me to one or two general comments.
Firstly, I never cease to be impressed at the helpfulness of family historians. We really are a very friendly lot - most of us are happy to share our knowledge with others, so you should never be afraid to ask for help. Mostly it is a reciprocal thing, in my experience. The process of helping others often results in you gaining a bit of extra knowledge or learning a new technique.
Secondly, most family historians have a taste for the exotic. If we can find a criminal among our forebears, that is just great! If he or she was transported to Australia that's even better! Gipsy ancestry is usually welcomed, and whatever reservations the English & French people may have about each other according to national stereotypes, the prospect of French ancestry is something that certainly seems to whet the appetite.
Lastly, be wary of family folk lore, or uncorroborated stories. Don't dismiss them out of hand, but bear in mind that they can be very diverting, in more senses than one!
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Geoffs Genealogy Update 30 June 2009
June has been a very busy month for me. As it is the height of the gardening season I’ve spent much of my time working in our garden, which always looks at its best at this time of the year. We’ve also been away for a short break, and on the first Saturday in June I was busily engaged on the Help stand at the Shropshire FHS Open Day. Unusually, this year it rained on the first Saturday in June – in fact, it hardly stopped raining throughout the whole day. This did not put a damper on the occasion, however. The attendance figure was every bit as high as usual, and all the stalls seem to have enjoyed a successful day. On the Help desk we were as busy as ever. It is always interesting to talk to visitors to the event – both members and non-members - about their research, and to try to help them where we can. Often the process of doing this helps us with our own research queries.
We had two first rate speakers at the event. In the morning a large gathering was entertained and informed on all things probate by Else Churchill, a well known Genealogist, who has spoken, broadcast and written widely of family history related subjects. After lunch a similarly large audience attended our second talk, which was given by Geoff Swinfield, another well known professional genealogist and family history speaker. His talk, entitled “I’m Stuck”, was a most interesting tour de force of different research strategies we can try when our research reaches the proverbial “brick wall”.
Of course, we all have “brick walls” in our research. There are a number in my research, which I’d dearly like to resolve. Firstly, of course, there is the problem of John Bankes’s parentage. This has always been a brick wall to me, from the first day I started treeing over twenty years ago. I haven’t got a strategy to solve this one, either – even after listening to Geoff Swinfield. The sum total of all my efforts on this subject is that I know that my man was apprenticed as a carpenter somewhere outside the City of London, and he went to work on the rebuilding of the capital after the great fire of 1666. He became Free of the Haberdashers’ Company by redemption in 1673, so we know that he was in the City at that time. The fact that the estimated date of his birth – c 1650-1652 - was during the Interregnum, when parish records were often not kept, does not help the quest! I, and my fellow researchers, have tried so many leads over the years that I really think we need a huge slice of luck to resolve this research problem. That doesn’t stop me trying, however.
Then there is the Culshaw impasse. When I started researching the Culshaws I was helped by my good friend, Dr George Wilson, and quickly traced the male line back to John Culshaw (c1760-1841). Research seemed so easy! Then, wham! I hit the brick wall. I still have not managed to identify the parents of John Culshaw. I have checked all the seemingly relevant Wills, but these were quite ordinary folk (insofar as anybody is ordinary), and it seems that they did not leave a will. I have not checked all the parish chest documents, and it may well be that if I did that I may find the answer to my problem, but the fact that I am about 100 miles from the records, does not make it easy for me to spend the necessary amount of time on the research . I really must get back on to this research, however, as surely there must be a way of advancing it.
There are other Culshaw “brick walls”, I’m afraid. My great grandfather was John Culshaw (yes, another one – there were lots of them), who lived from 1855 to 1924 in the Farington / Penwortham area of Lancashire, just south of Preston. He married a certain Elizabeth Bennett (1854-1931). They were Catholics. It took me years to find their marriage certificate, and when I saw it it did not tell me the name of Elizabeth’s father. Census records consistently tell me that Elizabeth was born in Leyland, but I have not been able to trace her birth or her family on the census. There are several Bennett households on the Leyland censuses, but I have so far failed to identify the correct one. Obviously, the fact that Elizabeth’s father was not named on the marriage certificate suggests that Elizabeth may have been illegitimate, so maybe the bastardy orders may help me with this research.
This same Culshaw family provides me with another of my research posers – not yet truly a “brick wall”, but at this stage it looks likely to become one. John & Elizabeth had four known children, two of whom – John (born 1889) and Elizabeth (born c 1885) are a bit of a mystery. I found Elizabeth as a 6 year old on the 1901 census, but have not yet traced her on the 1911 census. Of course, it seems quite possible that she may have married by 1911. John, on the other hand, can be traced on the 1911 census at Barton upon Irwell (now the Trafford area of Manchester). He was living in the household of John & Lucy Cunliffe, and was said to be a nephew of the household head – John Cunliffe (born c 1866 in Preston). I am trying to work out how the Cunliffes were related to my Culshaws.
As a young man my Dad knew the Cunliffes, but he didn’t know what the connection was between them and his family. I’ve had a scan through marriages of the relevant period, and also looked at some censuses, but so far have not found the key to this. I think that a bit of family reconstruction is called for here, and this may turn into a long term project. Hopefully I’ll get there in the end, but if anybody out there thinks they may be able to help me I’d be pleased to hear from you.
We had two first rate speakers at the event. In the morning a large gathering was entertained and informed on all things probate by Else Churchill, a well known Genealogist, who has spoken, broadcast and written widely of family history related subjects. After lunch a similarly large audience attended our second talk, which was given by Geoff Swinfield, another well known professional genealogist and family history speaker. His talk, entitled “I’m Stuck”, was a most interesting tour de force of different research strategies we can try when our research reaches the proverbial “brick wall”.
Of course, we all have “brick walls” in our research. There are a number in my research, which I’d dearly like to resolve. Firstly, of course, there is the problem of John Bankes’s parentage. This has always been a brick wall to me, from the first day I started treeing over twenty years ago. I haven’t got a strategy to solve this one, either – even after listening to Geoff Swinfield. The sum total of all my efforts on this subject is that I know that my man was apprenticed as a carpenter somewhere outside the City of London, and he went to work on the rebuilding of the capital after the great fire of 1666. He became Free of the Haberdashers’ Company by redemption in 1673, so we know that he was in the City at that time. The fact that the estimated date of his birth – c 1650-1652 - was during the Interregnum, when parish records were often not kept, does not help the quest! I, and my fellow researchers, have tried so many leads over the years that I really think we need a huge slice of luck to resolve this research problem. That doesn’t stop me trying, however.
Then there is the Culshaw impasse. When I started researching the Culshaws I was helped by my good friend, Dr George Wilson, and quickly traced the male line back to John Culshaw (c1760-1841). Research seemed so easy! Then, wham! I hit the brick wall. I still have not managed to identify the parents of John Culshaw. I have checked all the seemingly relevant Wills, but these were quite ordinary folk (insofar as anybody is ordinary), and it seems that they did not leave a will. I have not checked all the parish chest documents, and it may well be that if I did that I may find the answer to my problem, but the fact that I am about 100 miles from the records, does not make it easy for me to spend the necessary amount of time on the research . I really must get back on to this research, however, as surely there must be a way of advancing it.
There are other Culshaw “brick walls”, I’m afraid. My great grandfather was John Culshaw (yes, another one – there were lots of them), who lived from 1855 to 1924 in the Farington / Penwortham area of Lancashire, just south of Preston. He married a certain Elizabeth Bennett (1854-1931). They were Catholics. It took me years to find their marriage certificate, and when I saw it it did not tell me the name of Elizabeth’s father. Census records consistently tell me that Elizabeth was born in Leyland, but I have not been able to trace her birth or her family on the census. There are several Bennett households on the Leyland censuses, but I have so far failed to identify the correct one. Obviously, the fact that Elizabeth’s father was not named on the marriage certificate suggests that Elizabeth may have been illegitimate, so maybe the bastardy orders may help me with this research.
This same Culshaw family provides me with another of my research posers – not yet truly a “brick wall”, but at this stage it looks likely to become one. John & Elizabeth had four known children, two of whom – John (born 1889) and Elizabeth (born c 1885) are a bit of a mystery. I found Elizabeth as a 6 year old on the 1901 census, but have not yet traced her on the 1911 census. Of course, it seems quite possible that she may have married by 1911. John, on the other hand, can be traced on the 1911 census at Barton upon Irwell (now the Trafford area of Manchester). He was living in the household of John & Lucy Cunliffe, and was said to be a nephew of the household head – John Cunliffe (born c 1866 in Preston). I am trying to work out how the Cunliffes were related to my Culshaws.
As a young man my Dad knew the Cunliffes, but he didn’t know what the connection was between them and his family. I’ve had a scan through marriages of the relevant period, and also looked at some censuses, but so far have not found the key to this. I think that a bit of family reconstruction is called for here, and this may turn into a long term project. Hopefully I’ll get there in the end, but if anybody out there thinks they may be able to help me I’d be pleased to hear from you.
Monday, 1 June 2009
Geoffs Genealogy Update - 31 May 2009
I'm a bit late with my blog entry this time. That's because we have been away for a week - on holiday in the beautiful Scottish Borders. We had a great time - lovely scenery, lots of places to visit, and lovely cooked breakfast each morning. Sadly, though, the week has passed quickly, and now it's back to work. Oh well, it was ever thus!
In the middle of May I paid a visit to The National Archives at Kew, taking advantage of a day coach trip organised by the Shropshire Family History Society. I decided to focus my attentions this time on the 1911 Census. This has been available online for a few months in ever increasing state of completion. As I think I've mentioned before, I had been resisting the temptation to avail myself of the online facility, as I believe it to be very expensive. However, I'm afraid I did succumb early in May and bought myself £25 worth of uses. These lasted me about 90 minutes, buying me nine census entries - the original entries, not the transcriptions - which confirmed my view that the use of this site is rather expensive.
If you use the same 1911 census facility at TNA, you do not have to pay these charges. All you pay is the standard TNA charge for each printout - from memory this is about 20p per sheet - and you can have an A3 printout for that as well! Your use of the 1911 census is limited to one hour at a time, but you can have more than one block of time. I had two separate one hour spells of use.
The system has been planned very well, to make it as user-friendly as possible. I was fortunate that when I took my seat the gent on my right gave me very full step by step instructions on using the system. He was a very experienced user, and was printing rucks of copies as he pursued his one name study. Good for him! If you are not fortunate enough to have such help available from your fellow users rest assured that assistance is never far away - there are a number of members of staff constantly around the area, whose job is to help 1911 census users.
How did I get on?
Very well, actually. As ever, I had a lengthy list of targets with me, and I managed to look for all my priority entries. No, I did not find them all, but at least I started the quest, and I returned home with eighteen relevant printouts on various different lines of research - Smith, Culshaw, Hewitt, Hunt etc. I haven't had a chance yet to sort them all out and catalogue them, but will get around to that soon, I hope.
Apart from the cost, I have two other reservations about the 1911 census online:
The results you see on screen when you carry out a person search do not show birthplace information. This is a serious omission in my view, as birthplace information can be a massive help in trying to ensure that your search has identified the right person, and avoiding wasting money by viewing records that are irrelevant. For instance, if you are searching for John Smith, born London, without the birthplace information you will be faced with a long list of people named John Smith, maybe living in various parts of the country, but you will probably have little idea which is "your" man. As it stands you would need to look at the transcription to check each of these candidates until you find the one you want. At a cost of 10 units per look (over £1), this does not come cheaply, and could easily cost quite a lot of money. The cynic in me makes me wonder why this vital birthplace information has not been made available freely by the 1911 Census people. As it is provided freely by other census websites, I assume it is a deliberate policy.
Searching at Kew enables you to view the transcriptions and records without cost, and thus obtain the birthplace information.
My second reservation about the 1911 Census online concerns source references, which are not handled very well, in my opinion. If, like me, you opt to see the full census entry you will not see the source reference on the document that you see on screen and print. If you save the jpeg file to your computer the file name automatically generated is, in fact, the source reference, but if you are working at TNA you will not get this option. The only other way to get the source ref is by viewing the transcription, and maybe printing it. This is ok at TNA, as you would only pay 20p for the printout, but if you are working at home, by doing this you will eat further into your precious credits, as you have to pay to see the transcriptions.
I am usually a stickler for recording source references, but on this occasion am severely lacking in this regard, I'm afraid. Next time I go to TNA I need to reprise the entries I have obtained, seeking the references.
In addition to the 1911 census, I managed to squeeze in some other research at TNA, continuing from my previous visit.
For many years I have been seeking the final Master's Report in the first Court of Chancery cause relating to the Bankes Trust. This is important to my research because many items of evidence date family events by reference to this report, eg "so & so died before the final report in the first cause" etc. The most recent evidence I have re the date of this report comes from Thomas Hunt's tract Truth Faileth; so that Equity Cannot Enter, which stated that it was dated 1727.
On my previous visit to TNA I had checked the indexes for these sources, and ascertained that there were seven Master's Reports dated 1727 (source ref C38/388) and a further five such reports dated 1730 (source ref C38/403). I had tried to look at these last October, but ran out of time, so I made a point of searching them this time.
In fact, when I searched the files I found that the number of items relevant to the first Chancery case re Bankes's estate were far fewer in number than the indexes had indicated. C38/388 contained only one document, while C38/403 contained three. Most of these items were quite short, but one of the C38/403 items, dated 1730, is fairly lengthy and deals with arguments arising from the order dated 4 August 1727 - indicating that that was the date of the final report in the first cause. Why had I not found it in C38/388, which is supposed to include all 1727 reports? I wondered.
Convinced that I must have missed this document, I re-searched the file but - no - the document was not there. There was only one thing for it, I would have to ask somebody where the missing report may be.
I asked two people before finding a member of staff with the necessary knowledge - Chancery records are quite specialised, and not many people are really knowledgeable on the subject. Ultimately I was told that the documents that were not in the files I had searched had probably been re-used in subsequent Court proceedings, and then filed with the then current records. In other words, I can have no idea where they may turn up!
Maybe I'll come across the missing Masters Reports some day, by accident, but in the meantime, piecing together the pieces of evidence I have, and noting the wise words of Thoimas Hunt, I feel fairly confident that that the date of the final Master's Report of the first cause was 4 August 1727. Now all I have to do is seek out the relevant individuals' records in my files and see what effect that information has on their dates of birth, marriage, or death.
Sorry if this has been a bit tedious to read, but I wanted to pass on to you what I have learned, as it may save you some work sometime. If you have any (polite) comments to add, please feel free to share them with me.
In the middle of May I paid a visit to The National Archives at Kew, taking advantage of a day coach trip organised by the Shropshire Family History Society. I decided to focus my attentions this time on the 1911 Census. This has been available online for a few months in ever increasing state of completion. As I think I've mentioned before, I had been resisting the temptation to avail myself of the online facility, as I believe it to be very expensive. However, I'm afraid I did succumb early in May and bought myself £25 worth of uses. These lasted me about 90 minutes, buying me nine census entries - the original entries, not the transcriptions - which confirmed my view that the use of this site is rather expensive.
If you use the same 1911 census facility at TNA, you do not have to pay these charges. All you pay is the standard TNA charge for each printout - from memory this is about 20p per sheet - and you can have an A3 printout for that as well! Your use of the 1911 census is limited to one hour at a time, but you can have more than one block of time. I had two separate one hour spells of use.
The system has been planned very well, to make it as user-friendly as possible. I was fortunate that when I took my seat the gent on my right gave me very full step by step instructions on using the system. He was a very experienced user, and was printing rucks of copies as he pursued his one name study. Good for him! If you are not fortunate enough to have such help available from your fellow users rest assured that assistance is never far away - there are a number of members of staff constantly around the area, whose job is to help 1911 census users.
How did I get on?
Very well, actually. As ever, I had a lengthy list of targets with me, and I managed to look for all my priority entries. No, I did not find them all, but at least I started the quest, and I returned home with eighteen relevant printouts on various different lines of research - Smith, Culshaw, Hewitt, Hunt etc. I haven't had a chance yet to sort them all out and catalogue them, but will get around to that soon, I hope.
Apart from the cost, I have two other reservations about the 1911 census online:
The results you see on screen when you carry out a person search do not show birthplace information. This is a serious omission in my view, as birthplace information can be a massive help in trying to ensure that your search has identified the right person, and avoiding wasting money by viewing records that are irrelevant. For instance, if you are searching for John Smith, born London, without the birthplace information you will be faced with a long list of people named John Smith, maybe living in various parts of the country, but you will probably have little idea which is "your" man. As it stands you would need to look at the transcription to check each of these candidates until you find the one you want. At a cost of 10 units per look (over £1), this does not come cheaply, and could easily cost quite a lot of money. The cynic in me makes me wonder why this vital birthplace information has not been made available freely by the 1911 Census people. As it is provided freely by other census websites, I assume it is a deliberate policy.
Searching at Kew enables you to view the transcriptions and records without cost, and thus obtain the birthplace information.
My second reservation about the 1911 Census online concerns source references, which are not handled very well, in my opinion. If, like me, you opt to see the full census entry you will not see the source reference on the document that you see on screen and print. If you save the jpeg file to your computer the file name automatically generated is, in fact, the source reference, but if you are working at TNA you will not get this option. The only other way to get the source ref is by viewing the transcription, and maybe printing it. This is ok at TNA, as you would only pay 20p for the printout, but if you are working at home, by doing this you will eat further into your precious credits, as you have to pay to see the transcriptions.
I am usually a stickler for recording source references, but on this occasion am severely lacking in this regard, I'm afraid. Next time I go to TNA I need to reprise the entries I have obtained, seeking the references.
In addition to the 1911 census, I managed to squeeze in some other research at TNA, continuing from my previous visit.
For many years I have been seeking the final Master's Report in the first Court of Chancery cause relating to the Bankes Trust. This is important to my research because many items of evidence date family events by reference to this report, eg "so & so died before the final report in the first cause" etc. The most recent evidence I have re the date of this report comes from Thomas Hunt's tract Truth Faileth; so that Equity Cannot Enter, which stated that it was dated 1727.
On my previous visit to TNA I had checked the indexes for these sources, and ascertained that there were seven Master's Reports dated 1727 (source ref C38/388) and a further five such reports dated 1730 (source ref C38/403). I had tried to look at these last October, but ran out of time, so I made a point of searching them this time.
In fact, when I searched the files I found that the number of items relevant to the first Chancery case re Bankes's estate were far fewer in number than the indexes had indicated. C38/388 contained only one document, while C38/403 contained three. Most of these items were quite short, but one of the C38/403 items, dated 1730, is fairly lengthy and deals with arguments arising from the order dated 4 August 1727 - indicating that that was the date of the final report in the first cause. Why had I not found it in C38/388, which is supposed to include all 1727 reports? I wondered.
Convinced that I must have missed this document, I re-searched the file but - no - the document was not there. There was only one thing for it, I would have to ask somebody where the missing report may be.
I asked two people before finding a member of staff with the necessary knowledge - Chancery records are quite specialised, and not many people are really knowledgeable on the subject. Ultimately I was told that the documents that were not in the files I had searched had probably been re-used in subsequent Court proceedings, and then filed with the then current records. In other words, I can have no idea where they may turn up!
Maybe I'll come across the missing Masters Reports some day, by accident, but in the meantime, piecing together the pieces of evidence I have, and noting the wise words of Thoimas Hunt, I feel fairly confident that that the date of the final Master's Report of the first cause was 4 August 1727. Now all I have to do is seek out the relevant individuals' records in my files and see what effect that information has on their dates of birth, marriage, or death.
Sorry if this has been a bit tedious to read, but I wanted to pass on to you what I have learned, as it may save you some work sometime. If you have any (polite) comments to add, please feel free to share them with me.
Monday, 11 May 2009
Geoffs Genealogy Update - 11 May 2009
Great news!
We have now uploaded the updated Robert Hanham Collyer Chronology to Geoffs Genealogy. This is the last of our updates to the website (for now, anyway).
This Chronology is greatly enlarged from its predecessor, but is by no means the final version. In fact I doubt whether there ever will be a definitive final version, such was the amazing life of this talented and colourful character. As the resources on the internet develop we are becoming aware of new information about this man, almost on a weekly basis. One day we will get around to writing all this up, but at the moment I have no idea when that may be.
I hope that some of you will find this Chronology of interest, and useful. Please let me know if you do.
We have now uploaded the updated Robert Hanham Collyer Chronology to Geoffs Genealogy. This is the last of our updates to the website (for now, anyway).
This Chronology is greatly enlarged from its predecessor, but is by no means the final version. In fact I doubt whether there ever will be a definitive final version, such was the amazing life of this talented and colourful character. As the resources on the internet develop we are becoming aware of new information about this man, almost on a weekly basis. One day we will get around to writing all this up, but at the moment I have no idea when that may be.
I hope that some of you will find this Chronology of interest, and useful. Please let me know if you do.
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