#52 Ancestors Month 1 Foundations

My choice of Foundations was quite simple as I had recently had a death certificate, for a Christmas present no less!!!  It was for my 2x great grandmother Alice Tilbee who had married Samuel White in 1842 in Kent.  This is on my father's maternal side.

My father's side of the family has always taken a bit of a back seat in terms of research.  One side is hampered by illegitimacy in the family direct line and the other by the lack of many images and resources for the family in Kent but that is now changing courtesy of Find My Past.  It also got put to one side as my father died and I wanted to concentrate on my mother's side all the whilst she was alive.

The topics for Foundations include Favourite find, favourite photo and curious.

My favourite find has to be the time, admittedly a few year ago now, that I found I had a name error for my paternal great grandmother and her surname wasn't Simpkins at all, but Linkins.  I was then able to visit the correct registry office and get a copy of the certificate and have an enjoyable time going round some of the villages the family lived in.  

Going back to Alice Tilbee it was great to find that there was a One Named Study for Alice's mother, Dorcas Vant.  The ONS have been so helpful in sharing information with me.

Favourite photo has to be one of my grandmother and two similar looking ladies....who are they?  She only had one sister.  Photos of my grandmother on the top row and I believe she is on the right in the bottom photo.

Curious has to be, and always will be, how my female ancestor met and had a relationship with the father of her illegitimate child.  Had he moved down from Scotland before or after the child was born.  It will be something that will never get an answer.

This is my monthly posting for the #52 ancestors project by Amy Johnson Crow.  It sets the scene for the family line I will be exploring in the months to come.

Next month will see me finding new information for "Branching Out"

2022 Family History Goals

 I really don't know why I choose goals for my family history when I don't make New Year's resolutions!!!

This year I am going to try to be a little more committed about my family history because I have found that covid and other personal issues have taken my mind off the ball.  It is almost as though there is little room left in my brain to tackle DNA and brickwalls.  It has been so easy to watch webinars, follow ancestry tweeps on Twitter and occasionally be prompted by a new match on my DNA.

To that end, my goals are fairly small and can be broken down into small bits but it will need the support of my family history friends to keep me on track and kick me up the posterior sometimes.

My first goal is to switch on my laptop more as that is where I find it easier to work across multiple internet sites and compare to matches and research finds.

My second goal is take part in 52Ancestors in 52Weeks run by Amy Johnson Crow.  She sets topics for every week of the year to prompt you into doing research and sharing but this year it is also possible to do 12Ancestors in 12Months by just working on the month's theme.

My third goal is to do more about researching on my Dad's Kentish side from the villages around Ashford, Kent.

Finally my fourth goal is to start writing short stories about my ancestors so that my grandchildren are more likely to be interested.

I haven't included a DNA target because I am hoping that will come naturally within my four goals.

Maternal Fan Charts

 My previous post showed my paternal fan charts and thi post is about my maternal ones.

This is my mother's paternal fan chart.  Her ancestors came from Sussex, where she grew up.

I am lucky in that a don't live far from The Keep, the archives for East Sussex; Sussex Family History Group have some excellent records available to buy or search if you are a member; most of the parish registers I need to view are available online at Family Search.

Weston Line

I have concentrated on the Weston side which is rather obvious when you look at the chart.

Clark Line

This looks like research has been fairly well balanced except in reality I have another couple of generations beyond the outer filled in segments.  Margaret Anne Hoad is a brickwall.  I know her father was Henry Hoad a shipbuilder but the identity of her mother and Henry's parents need more work to confirm them.  I need to do more work on the Poile/Stapley side but they appear to go back into Kent and I have less access to records there.  The Hawkinge/Hawkings line has just taken a back seat for some reason.

Paternal Fan Charts

 Fan charts are a useful way of identifying which sides of your tree you might need to put more effort in to researching.  

Jackson Line

This is my father's paternal side who are based in Scotland. Very easy to see my brickwalls here!  I need to work on them now that the Scottish Kirk Sessions have been released.  The records aren't yet indexed so it will be scrolling through page by page which is fine if you know where the people came from and where you should be able to find them.  I don't for 3/4 of them!!!

I did a quick search for Charles Telfer on Find My Past and was interested to find a transcription that lists the name Hood as well as Telfer.  Some of my DNA matches have Hood in their family trees ...... certainly an area to pursue.

White Line

This is my father's maternal side from Kent.  It is more a that I have been sidelining this side rather than struggling with brickwalls as there is quite a lot of information out there.  Find My Past has some excellent images and transcriptions for the East Ashford area where they come from.  I am also lucky that there is a Vant One Named Study.  

🌟🌟This is a top tip 🌟🌟....... always check if there is a One Named Study for the surname you are researching.  You can find a list of One Named Studies here

Mind the Gap

 No, not another railway ancestor but another of the Weston families and this time they are missing in the 1901 census, every single one of them.

 I had been researching the family of my 2x great uncle, Samuel Weston born 1840 in Etchingham, Sussex and using a timeline technique to identify missing records for them.  Firstly I researched Samuel’s marriage to Jane Pilbeam in 1865 and then used baptismal records and the GRO indexes to find their children; Caroline Jane 1866, Alfred John 1868, Richard Samuel 1870, William Rowland 1872 and Eliza Ellen 1875.

 

Samuel Weston and Jane Pilbeam

As expected, the 1871 census showed Samuel and Jane in Burwash, with their eldest three children and Jane’s, mother who was a widow.  In 1881 census they are in Etchingham but Caroline and Eliza are missing.  Time to check the death records and indeed I found them both.  Caroline dies in 1880 aged 14 and sadly Eliza died in 1875, the year she was born.  In 1891 only William remains with his parents and in 1901 ……they were missing!!! Death records didn’t help here.

 Further research showed Richard Samuel had emigrated in July 1888 and Alfred John in 1890.  Delving further showed the last son, William Rowland had emigrated in the summer of 1891 and finally Samuel and Jane must have plucked up courage to go off and join the family in Portsmouth,  New Hampshire, America and they emigrated in 1893 aboard the SS Catalonia.

 American records and newspaper enabled me to find the details to complete my research of this family including showing that Samuel lived to the ripe old age of 99 years and 3 months!!

Looking further at American records showed that one of Samuels cousins on his mother’s side (Newick) had already emigrated in the 1870s and in fact in America there were marriages between the Westons and the Newicks.  Samuel’s eldest son, Alfred John, married his second cousin, Harriet, who had been born in America.  Samuel is both her father in law and a 1^st cousin once removed!!

Samuel Weston was an agricultural labourer living in farm cottages; it must have taken him quite a while to save sufficient funds to emigrate whilst supporting his family.  It was probably quite a while after electric lighting started appearing in streets and houses in 1881 that landowners would have modified the cottages of agricultural labourers.  I also doubt they champed at the bit to purchase any of the first Kodak cameras that was invented in 1884 or even bought newspapers that would have brought news about the Jack the Ripper murders and professional football that also started in 1884.  The event that probably affected them most would have been the Great Blizzard in 1891which caused the death of over 200 people  and 6000 animals and Devon and Cornwall were cut off for 4 days from 9^th and 13^th March.  The devastation left behind included uprooted trees and many fences and roofs were blown away also. The strong gales and heavy snowfall hit Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Herefordshire and Kent. Temperatures dropped below zero and snow drifted in places up to 15 feet high. A man froze to death in Surrey and fishing boats washed up at Hastings and 3 fishermen lost their lives so I wondered how that affected my Sussex ag labs.  Samuel’s last son emigrated in the summer that year ….. perhaps he decided he had had enough!!

 

Occupations of my four great grandfathers.

 

Robert Jackson b 1833 Kilbarchan Renfrewshire d ? 

He has a bit of a chequered story for his occupation during his lifetime.   From a wool handloom weaver in 1851 to silk weaver,wool weaver, pedlar/hawker and finally draper in 1911  From Kilbarchan in Renfrewshire to Campbeltown in Argylleshire as a pedlar and then Glasgow as a hawker and finally a pedlar. 

 Thomas White b 1854 Egerton, Kent; d 1923 Chilham, Kent 

Thomas was a typical farm labourer in villages  Egerton, Charing, Hinxhill, Boughton Aluph and Chilham.    The occupation is variously described as labouer, farm labourer and garden man on farm.

 

Albert Weston b 1855 Etchingham, Sussex; d 1931 Robertsbridge, Sussex 

From Etchingham to Salehurst and Robertsbridge he is described as a labourer, carter living on a farm and a farm labourer.

 

George William Clark b 1869 Ashford, Kent; d 1935 Hastings, Sussex 

From when he married in 1889 until his daughter's marriage he was a postman; first a rural postman and then a postman/letter carrier in Hastings.   His newspaper obituary states he was a postman for 41 years, retired in 1925 and received a long service award.