General Chat

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Over the years I have had many Brick walls...They drive you crazy, don’t they?

But when they do, I find the best thing to do is leave them be for a while and perhaps help research some-one else’s tree.

When I go back to my own it is then with fresh eyes and also more experience.

For a couple of years now I have been chasing up the wrong tree, even though it was closely connected.

After much research I had come to the conclusion that my Grandfather was the lodger’s son. There wasn’t conclusive evidence, but enough to make me wonder.

He couldn’t have been the son of the Father of the rest of the children in the household of 1901 because the ‘Husband’ had died two years before. The lodger had lived in the household for 2 censuses and when I finally found the birth and sent for the certificate, it transpired that the middle name was the same as that of the surname of the lodger. This still wasn’t conclusive but the death certificate of the ‘lodger’ gave me the answer. It had as the person who registered the death, the half sister of my Grandfather who was stated to be ‘stepdaughter’. This to me is more proof that the lodger was indeed my ‘real’ Great Grandfather. Of course, only a DNA test would make it absolutely positive but it is enough for me to know that I should be researching the ‘lodger’s’ family.

What am I trying to say?.......Don’t give up!.......always get certificates and don’t forget the death certificates……sometimes they hold the clue. Death certificates have been a great help to me in my research, even if it was just the address that confirmed the correct connection & the person who registered the death is also an important clue.

Cor blimey, Mrs, how complicated lol

Any luck with my W.W.?

I had a photo of my Great Aunt Flora with her husband and son the other day from the person I found on here who is her grand-daughter. She was my paternal Grandfather's sister.
Lizx

I have, to date, never been in contact with anyone who has photos.....sigh!......we are a very complicated lot.......nearly all of them on my Father's side used their middle names......If I could go back in time it would be to hit them with the bricks from my brick walls.....I find them in the end but ohhhhhh the searching....drives one up the proverbial brick wall.

WW?? remind me by PM

I spit on your death certificates! ;)

My gr-grfather's sister Ada, he and she having changed their surname from Hill, as they were born in Cornwall, to Monck ... I know now why he did (desertion from the military after 5 years in India when he was to be sent to the 2nd Anglo-Afghan war in 1878 instead of home as promised), but not why she did at least 3 years earlier, or why she was registered with Monck as a middle name in 1854 ... Anyhow, her daugher died in 1896. Ada herself had disappeared after 1883 in Cheshire, her husband Coke went bankrupt and changed *his* and their kids' surname to McCock, by 1891, when he shows up in Somerset with a newer younger wife allegedly born in Canada who never existed before or after that census ... and the daughter dies in 1896 in Rugby, of the family affliction, tuberculosis.

And who is the informant of death? Amy Parkinson, "grandmother".

Now how can somebody whose mother was the daughter of Francis Hoare Hill and Sarah Emma Hill née Bond (if she ever really was Hill), and whose father was the son of James Simmons Coke and Eliza Gaitskell, have a grandmother named bleeding Amy Parkinson??? Who also seems never to have existed anywhere in any record, except that there's an Amy Parkinson about old enough to be the deceased girl's *mother* in a house on the same street in the 1901 census ...

So. I spit on your death certificates! All they do is make me crazy. ;)

Wmsl Kathryn

I know....drive you crackers don't they?.......I am sure there must be a logical explanation lol ( to them anyway )......what amuses me is that they were all supposed to be so high and mighty when it came to morals.... with one one of my lines... I don't think any of em married......I think moving about so much made them not worry too much about it...after all...who would know.....sigh!

Just off to wipe me certs....all this spit and venum does em no good yer know LOL

PS....HILL you say.....from Cornwall too....Hmmmm!....wonder if it was the James Hill who was cited as Father to one of me Husband's baseborn Ancestors.......Nah! couldn't be....could it? Lol

Well, you inspired me.

I went and looked some more. And discovered that I had made a big mistake in the past, and the Amy Parkinson I'd found in Higher Bebington in 1891 -- that being where my gr-grfather was living in 1881, while his sister was living in Barrow with the child who died in 1896 -- was *not* the Amy married to somebody and living in Liverpool in 1901.

And in 1891, this Amy Parkinson was a governess in St Peter (Bebington), Cheshire; in 1901, a schoolteacher.

In 1881 her father (deceased by 1891) was a cotton broker -- the class my gr-grfather's sister was or at least married into (her father was a mining agent, her husband's uncle was a copper baron).

And this raises the distinct possibility that I have found "my" Amy Parkinson -- a governess left in charge of the 15-yr-old daughter when her father wandered off to South Africa, or Canada, or wherever he did wander off to. Although he could still have been in the country in 1896. He was busy hiding from creditors he cheated in the 1883 bankruptcy, as near as I can guess.

So there we go. The death certificate may tell me something yet. ;)

James Hill from Cornwall you say?? James Hill was my grx3 grfather, and also my gr-grfather's older brother. Which one did you have in mind? ;)

The latter was born in 1846 and died in 1873 in London. yes, the tuberculosis. He'd married in early 1871, and I have no idea whether he managed to breed before he died. Can't find his widow anywhere after that.

The former was probably born around 1790-95, having had children in Tamerton Foliott in 1819 and 1822 -- but I think they were from Cornwall, as I think I've identified his wife's family (Hoar/Hoare) and possibly the marriage.

I'll take any James Hill connection you've got to offer!

Sorry...you can't have our James Hill....he was born abt 1798 in Wales.....his offspring ended up in Cornwall....his 'partner' was an Andrews and I don't think they married.


Breed?.....you have such a way with words Lol



Just had a thought......Perhaps Amy Parkinson had remarried...hence the name of Parkinson

Well I never, you two related lol

It's funny, the Great Aunt on the photo and my cousin who I am supposed to be visiting soon, look so similar lol I can see the family chin too.

Lizx

Well -- I don't know where my James Hill the first (not likely the first) came from! he could have come from Wales!

The only trace I have of him is his name on the baptism of my grx2 grfather in 1819. And another son also born in Tamerton Foliot in 1822, who promptly disappeared. He was a gardener / labourer. Mother was Ann, no surname.

Oh, and on son Francis's marriage certificate in 1871, when he married a woman in Islington whom he already had a child with: James Hill, gentleman, which is what an apparently quite well-off fellow such as himself would call his deceased ag lab father when he married I think. ;) As far as I can tell, Sarah Emma Hill née Bond, mother of all Francis's other children, was still breathing in 1881, as Emma Monck. I've always smelled pay-off.

But I suppose yours was accounted for around 1820, and you probably even have yours in a census somewhere. It's so unfair.

Nope...he disappeared by 1820....the son was born in 1818 and James Hill was no gentleman in any sense of the word.....he was a flax dresser....had his evil way and scarpered.....I wonder if he paid his dues like wot he wos supposed to have according to the laws and documentation of the time

1808 is my annus horibilis -
I have Josiah Bull, John Cousins and Eliza Hearn all born that year, and I cant find any of their births!
Apart from them all my lines are firmly in the 18th century.

xxx mick

Where are your John Cousins and Eliza Hearn from?

Well ... when in 1818?

This is the marriage I suspect of being mine:

St Columb Minor Cornwall
17th July 1817
James Hill to Ann Hoare.

So ... he could have fathered a child born in 1818 ... early 1818 ...

When and where in Wales was the child born??

I'm easy, you know. You wanna be my cousin, I'll take you go my bosom. Just ask Brian in Essex. ;)


Re Amy Parkinson -- the one I found on the same street in 1901 where my Violet Coke/McCock died in 1896 -- she was in fact a Parkinson by her 2nd marriage. And if that didn't take some tracking down!

I'm quite liking the governess one from Bebington. It would make sense that if Charles's "wife" Clare split after 1891, he had a governess in 1896 for the kids born 1879-1882. Or he had shacked up with her too, having known her from when his mother-in-law lived in the same place, and she being the same age as his "wife" in 1891, i.e. 10 years younger than him.

My only theory about that 1891 "wife" Clare is that she is the woman whom Charles's surviving daughter is working for in London as a "lady help" in 1901, a newlywed Clara née Goldsmith whom I can't find anywhere in 1891 ...

Loons. Pack of.

Stephen Andrews...bapt Jan 11 1818 Llangovan, Monmouthshire, Wales baseborn son of Anne Andrews and James Hill....

as for your other lot...send me a gedcom.......anyway seems as if you are the same as me....can do everyone elses but have problems with your own lol



edit.....nah!.....your just after any inheritance I find from me rich ones

gedcom ... surely you jest. Everything I know is in me head, in a vast gmail account containing all the info I've exchanged with anyone, and in a bunch of loose Word files with random info copied into them. Gedcom. Hahahaha.

Closest thing I have is the tree here at GR, which has something like 56 people in it ... half of whom are duplicates because of their charming habit of changing their g.d. names ever two years ...

Inheritance. In 1873, my gr-grf was loading biscuits in a factory in Reading. (Yes - born in Cornwall, moved to London, for some unknown reason married in Reading, moved to London, moved to Australia, moved back to London, moved to Canada ...) In 1875, his sister Ada, an actress at the Adelphi Theatre in London in 1871, married the nephew of the copper baron, who came into his own inheritance in 1879, and in 1881 they were on 50 acres in Cheshire with 8 domestic servants ... and in 1883 he was bankrupt. Four of those servants were grooms. Hmm.

Yup, I picked the wrong offspring to be descended from. If I could only find one of Ada's two surviving children, there might still be some money there, ya never know.

Her husband's sister married into the Lovett Cameron family, and *her* husband's sister's gr-grson is a Baron these days. Nice guy, works as a probation officer in Scotland. And an Arthur Hill who is somehow related to my Francis, his daughter married a Baronet; their gr-grandson, the current holder of the title, is a rather more idle member of society, according to Burke's, and doesn't reply to emails. It's not, you can see, like I haven't tried to find these people! Cousins of cousins of cousins ....

Anyhow, that's all I know of my James Hill. Probably married Ann Hoar of St Columb Minor (family probably from Linkinhorne in the previous generation) in 1817, two kids born 1819 and 1822. Poof.

He *may* be in Cornwall in 1841, a worker in a household where there is a John Dingle, who seems to have married a Jane Ann from Tamerton Foliot some time after. I suspect this Jane Ann is a daughter of my James Hill. I'll probably get around to ordering one of her kids' birth certs, since there's no bleeding marriage to be found ...

So I'll trade my gedcom for your inheritance. ;)

Have you looked on Googlebooks....I find loads of info on my Burkes lot on there....even some who are not in Burkes....silly me...course you have

Oh yeah, I found him and sent him a very polite email inquiring after his ancestor who seems to be related to my ancestor -- his was in the military and, wonderful timing, he and his older brother, also in the military (that one became a something-general), were visiting my Francis Hill in his boarding house in London in 1861, by which time my Francis and his first wife were apparently estranged.

Given that the father of those two Hill boys seems to have been a complete roué -- he too was a general, and had at least three "wives" that I've spotted in the censuses -- it could be that the present-day baronet knows things he doesn't wish to tell.