The unfortunate death of Goodman Hughes

My fourth great-grandparents Edward Hughes, a builder (1803 – 1876), and his wife Elizabeth Hughes née Jones (1798 – 1865) were Welsh; Edward was from Newmarket, Flintshire; Elizabeth from Cardiganshire. They were married in Liverpool in 1825. Of their eight children three survived to adulthood.

Their fifth child, Goodman Edward Jones Hughes, born in 1834, died aged thirteen in 1847. The Registrar recorded the cause of death as ‘consumption’. His burial record has ‘Kings’ Evil’. This was scrofula (mycobacterial cervical lymphadenitis), a disfiguring disease of the neck lymph nodes, often caused by the bacterium responsible for pulmonary tuberculosis, consumption.

Goodman Edward Jones Hughes is mentioned in several records:

1. Baptismal

Goodman Edward Jones Hughes was born on 15 May and baptised on 8 June 1834 in the Great Cross Hall Street Welsh Baptist Chapel by the Reverend William Griffiths of Holyhead. Goodman was the son of Edward Hughes, joiner, of Drinkwater Gardens, Liverpool, and Elizabeth, formerly Jones, his wife.

General Register Office: Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths Surrendered to the Non-Parochial Registers Commissions of 1837 and 1857; Class Number: RG 4; Piece Number: 939 : Liverpool, Great Cross Hall Street Chapel (Independent), 1815-1837 Name Goodman Edwd Jones Gender Male Event Type Baptism Birth Date 15 May 1834 Baptism Date 8 Jun 1834 Baptism Place Liverpool, Lancashire, England Denomination Independent Father Edwd Hughes Mother Elizabeth Jones

2. 1841 Census

At the time of the 1841 census Edward, Elizabeth, four children (Samuel, Mary, Henry, and Eliza) and a child Goodman Jones, possibly a nephew of Elizabeth’s, were living at Drinkwater Gardens, Liverpool. Edward was a joiner. There were no live-in servants.

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1841 England census Class: HO107; Piece: 559; Book: 26; Civil Parish: Liverpool; County: Lancashire; Enumeration District: 35; Folio: 43; Page: 29; Line: 1; GSU roll: 306941

It is possible that the child Goodman Jones who was aged 7 was in fact Goodman Edward Jones Hughes and the census-taker misunderstood the relationship to his parents. I have not been able to find a child named Goodman Hughes living elsewhere in 1841.

3. Death

Goodman Edward Hughes died of consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis) on 8 July 1847 at Marine Terrace St Julian Shrewsbury. He was the son of Edward Hughes builder and his wife Elizabeth. The informant was Annie Jones, present at the death, address Marine Terrace.

Death certificate: Name Goodman Edward Hughes Registration Year 1847 Registration Quarter Jul-Aug-Sep Registration District Shrewsbury Page 131 Volume 18

I have traced the Jones family of Marine Terrace, St Julian, Shrewsbury, on the 1851 census. Annie Jones married in 1850 to George Wilton. She and George and a newborn daughter were living with Annie’s parents Evan Jones, his wife Mary, Annie’s married sister Mary Hughes, and a niece of Annie’s aged 13, also called Annie Jones. Evan Jones, born in Cardiganshire, was a sadler, aged 66 (born about 1785). He may have been a brother of Elizabeth Hughes née Jones.

Shrewsbury is 60 miles distant from Liverpool. Goodman may have attended a school in Shrewsbury and returned to live at his uncle’s house when he became ill. In 1851 Goodman’s younger brother Henry, then aged 12, was a pupil at the Kingsland Academy in Shrewsbury run by Mr J. Poole.

4. Burial

Goodman’s body was brought from Shrewsbury to Liverpool, sixty miles north, for burial.

Goodman was buried on 13 July at the Necropolis (Low Hill Cemetery), Merseyside. His last residence was Shrewsbury. The cause of death on the burial register was King’s Evil.

Liverpool Record Office; Liverpool, Merseyside, England; Liverpool Cemetery Registers; Reference: 352 Cem 2/2/3 Necropolis (Low Hill Cemetery) Name Goodman Edwd. Hughes Age 13 Burial Date 13 Jul 1847

Scrofula was called the King’s Evil because it was believed to be curable by the touch of the sovereign, through the annointed monarch’s divine power to heal. Conveniently, scrofula often went into remission spontaneously. Some people saw this as proof of the efficacy of the king or queen’s physical contact.

The cause of scrofula was not known until the late 19th century. The illness caused chills, sweats, and fevers. Due to the swelling of the lymph nodes and bones, skin infections and ulcerated sores appeared on the neck, head, and face. The sores grew slowly, sometimes remaining for months or years.

Scrofula of the neck. From: Bramwell, Byrom Edinburgh, Constable, 1893 Atlas of Clinical Medicine. Source: National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, USA. Image retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

In 1846 Benjamin Phillips, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, presented a paper to the Statistical Society of London on the prevalence and alleged increase of Scrofula. Phillips estimated that “the marks of Scrofula obvious upon simple inspection, among the children of the poor of England and Wales, between the ages of 5 and 16 is, as near as may be, but rather under, 3 ½ per cent.” The latest mortality figures Phillips quoted were from 1831. “In 1831, the population was 1,233,000 the general mortality was 20,910, or 1 in 61; the deaths from consumption were 4,735, or 1 in 258; and the deaths from scrofula 9, or 1 in 135,888 of the population.” Phillips concluded that Scrofula was less present in the present day (the 1840s) than it had been in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Tuberculosis, or consumption, was a leading cause of death in previously healthy adults in Britain in the 1800s. An 1840 study attributed one fifth of deaths in England to consumption. In 1838 the death rate in England and Wales from tuberculosis was around 4,000 deaths per 1 million people; it fell to around 3,000 per million in 1850. The declining death rate at that time before any known cure has been attributed to better food and nutrition.

Scrofula is now treated successfully with antibiotics. Untreated it can develop into pulmonary tuberculosis, with a high risk of death. Perhaps this was the manner in which the disease progressed in Goodman Hughes. He was simply unlucky, unable even to hope that the sovereign’s touch would cure him. Queen Victoria did not attempt to perform the small miracle; the practice had ceased with George I more than a century before.

Related posts

• F is for Flintshire
• Y not Y?

Wikitree:

• Goodman Edward Jones Hughes (1834 – 1847)

Y not Y?

My fourth great-grandparents Edward Hughes and his wife Elizabeth Jones were Welsh; Edward was from Newmarket, Flintshire, and Elizabeth from Cardiganshire. Hughes, however, is not an unusual surname in Wales, nor is Jones, and for a while I’ve been muddling them with another Welsh couple from Flintshire with the same names.

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  Photographs of Edward and Elizabeth Hughes from pages 67 and 72 of Cherry Stones by Helen Hudson

When three years ago I wrote about Edward and Elizabeth I believed, mistakenly, that they had married at Ysgeifiog (also written Ysceifiog) in 1821 and that this was Elizabeth’s birthplace. Edward was from Holywell, a couple of miles north.

I have since ordered Elizabeth’s Victorian death certificate. She died on 4 July 1865 in Brighton, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia.

Australian death certificates include much information useful to the genealogist, though the reliability of this depends on the knowledge and good will of the informant. In Elizabeth’s case the informant was her husband Edward Hughes.

The 1865 death certificate of Elizabeth Hughes

From Elizabeth’s death certificate I learnt that she was born in Cardiganshire to Edward Jones, who was a farmer, and Elizabeth Jones née Humphreys. She was 66 years old when she died, so she was born about 1799. Elizabeth and Edward married about 1825 in Liverpool when she was twenty-six. They had eight children:

• Mary, dead;
• Samuel aged 37 years (at the time of Elizabeth’s death in 1865, so born about 1828);
• Mary aged 35 years (born about 1830);
• John dead;
• Eliza Ann dead;
• Elizabeth Humphreys dead;
• Goodman Edward Jones dead; and
• Henry aged 24 years (born about 1841).

At the time of her death Elizabeth had been in Victoria for twelve years eleven months, so she had arrived about August 1852. Although she died in Brighton, the home address of her husband Edward was View Street, Bendigo (the town at that time was also known as Sandhurst), a hundred miles north. The cause of her death was recorded as chronic disease of the liver and stomach trouble. She had been ill for two months, which perhaps implies that she had come from Bendigo to Melbourne for treatment.

Elizabeth Hughes was buried in Brighton General Cemetery on 13 July 1865. The gravestone inscription reads:

In memory 
of 
Elizabeth
Beloved wife of 
Edward Hughes 
of Sandhurst
Died 10th July 1865 
aged 66.
Precious in the sight of the lord is 
the death of his saints

(The verse is from Psalm 116.)

The Bishop’s transcripts, copies of the parish registers which had been sent to the bishop, of Liverpool marriages includes a record at the church of St Philip for a marriage by banns on 24 April 1825 of Edward Hughes and Elizabeth Jones. Neither had been previously married; both were of the parish. A transcript of the marriage register shows the witnesses were John Parry and G. Jared; I believe the witnesses are not related to the bride and groom.

As this record is a better match for the details given at the time of Elizabeth’s death I am more confident that this is the record of the marriage of my fourth great grandparents Edward and Elizabeth Hughes. Unfortunately, details which would help to confirm that we have the right couple, such as their parents’ names and occupations, are not recorded.

Building a family tree with common surnames such as Hughes and Jones is often more difficult than not, because there is more likely to be confusion over two people with the same name. From the information on Elizabeth’s death certificate, it seems that I was wrong: my fourth great grandmother was not from Ysgeifiog and my Edward and Elizabeth were not married there. I have corrected my tree and added the new information.

RELATED POSTS

• F is for Flintshire

Wikitree:

• Edward Hughes (1803 – 1876)
• Elizabeth (Jones) Hughes (abt. 1798 – 1865)

M is for Merseyside – 1854 departure of the “Dirigo”

On 10 June 1854, some two years after the death of her husband Kenneth Budge, my 3rd great grandmother Margaret Budge née Gunn (1819 – 1863) married for a second time, to Ewan Rankin (1825- ?), a carpenter in Wick in the far north of Scotland.

Soon afterwards she and her new husband, with the four surviving children of her first marriage, made the long journey—nearly five hundred miles—from Wick to Liverpool, planning to emigrate from there to South Australia.

The family sailed as assisted immigrants, passengers whose fare was paid by a Government body.

McMinn, W. K. 1852, Emigration depot at Birkenhead Illustrated London News, 10 July 1852 retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135889210

They embarked on the new emigrant ship Dirigo, launched that year in New Brunswick, Canada. She was 1282 tons, owned by Coltart and Co, and registered in Liverpool.

In light of what unfolded we are fortunate in having quite detailed records of this voyage of the Dirigo, much of it correspondence between officers in the Colonial Land and Emigration Office; some of it even tabled in the House of Commons.

The Dirigo got off to a bad start:

“She was to have been ready for the reception of her emigrants at noon on Friday, the 24th June, but owing to various delays, the whole of her passengers could not be embarked before the 3rd of July ; and although moved into the Mersey on the 29th June, she could not, from the rainy and tempestuous weather, finally sail until the 6th July.

“At the final muster of the emigrants on the 4th of July, when the sailing orders were delivered, the number on board was equal to 426 statute adults [passengers over the age of 12] ; and with the exception of diarrhoea among children (a very common complaint in emigrant ships at starting), and the case of an emigrant named Nottage, who was recovering from an attack of the same malady, all the people answered to their names, and were to all appearance in good health.”

On 7 July Captain Trevillick telegraphed the owners:

“From Trevellick, Queenstown, to William Coltart, Son & Co.,
Chapel-street, Liverpool. SATURDAY —Ship “ Dirigo,” from Cork ; three deaths; seven cases cholera; two cases fever. Expect to see or hear from you. (Reply by magnetic telegraph.)”

William L Echlin, Surgeon Superintendant of the Dirigo wrote to the Emigration Officer at Dublin:

Sir, Ship “Dirigo,” Cove of Cork, 8 July 1854, 5 A. M. IT is my painful duty to inform you that sickness of a very serious nature has broken out on board the ship “ Dirigo,” Captain Trevellick, commander, which sailed from Liverpool on Thursday the 6th instant at 1.30 p. m. About this time, a girl aged 13 years, was reported ill; she was promptly attended and every attention was paid to her, but she expired about 3 p. m. Her father, who was in attendance upon her, sickened and expired upon the following night at 8 p. m. On the 7th instant, about 7 p. m., cholera appeared on the lower deck, attacking two men, one single and the other married. At 11.30 p. m. another case presented itself on the poop deck.
On the 8th instant, between the hours of 2.30 a. m. and 5 a. m., three other cases appeared, two amongst the single women, and one on the lower deck. There are also two cases of fever, but I am happy in stating they are progressing favourably. It is almost impossible that those persons suffering from cholera can recover. 
Under such circumstances as the above, I have considered it prudent to order the ship into Cork, with the hope of having the sick promptly removed, so that the health of the remaining passengers may be insured. I trust that the urgent necessity of the case will be sufficient excuse for the order I have given.”

On 8 July the Dirigo arrived in Cork. The Government Emigration Officer advised the Colonial Land and Emigration Office that he had landed the sick, but had no means of landing the healthy passengers. When inspecting the ship with the medical examiner of emigrants, the Government Emigration Officer found 7 dead and 19 persons were in confirmed cholera, and more than half the passengers suffering from diarrhoea and premonitory symptoms. The Government Emigration Officer sent the Dirigo back immediately to Liverpool, in tow of the Minerva steam ship, as he believed the passengers would be provided with accommodation of a better description and at an earlier period than could be effected if they stayed in Cork.

The Dirigo arrived back in Liverpool on the morning of 10 July. It was towed to the dock gates at Birkenhead. The authorities there, however, were reluctant to allow the emigrants, sick or healthy, to be re-landed. There had been three more deaths and there were likely to be more before night. There were about 100 cases with cholera or with premonitory symptoms. There was much alarm among the passengers. At 1 am on 11 July 300 of the healthy emigrants were eventually brought ashore in a steamer to the depot.

“... large fires at both ends of the dining hall having been previously lighted, and tea already made to serve them. The thankfulness of these people at finding themselves once more in the depôt, and as they said, out of danger, more than repaid the anxiety of those engaged in attending their wants.”

McMinn, W. K. 1852, Government Emigrants’ Mess-Room in the Emigration depot at Birkenhead Illustrated London News, 10 July 1852 retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135889210

At 3am on 13 July a second party of 65 emigrants were landed leaving 20 on the ship who were sick or convalescent. These were landed the following night.

C. Stuart Bailey of the Colonial Land and Emigration Office who was in Liverpool wrote:

“I did not, however, overlook, while attending to my other duties, the importance of carrying out the Commissioner's instructions to induce the people to take daily walking exercise in the country. On several occasions I took parties of women and children to spend part of the day in the park, adjoining Birkenhead, regaling them with cakes and milk ; at another time, I hired half a dozen spring carts, and conveyed the whole of the people, men, women, and children, a few miles into the country ; giving them, in addition to their usual rations, which we took with us, a liberal supply of cakes and milk, and a small allowance of beer for the men ; and still further to encourage them to take exercise in the open air, away from the town, a notice was posted at the depôt, that such as might desire it should have cooked rations for the whole day served out to them in the morning.”

Ewan Rankin was among 118 passengers who signed a memorial concerning the cholera outbreak. Although they had made a number of complaints in the memorial, many of those who signed re-embarked and continued their journey to Australia. The Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners investigated and settled their complaints before sending the Dirigo to sea again.

Fifty-seven people from the Dirigo died of cholera from 8 July to 9 August.

The Dirigo left the Mersey at 7 p.m. on 9 August to continue her voyage to Adelaide. All her passengers were reportedly in good health and spirits. The voyage was more than a month delayed in setting off but the passengers had been ashore for four weeks recuperating from their ordeal.

The Dirigo . . . Arrived from Liverpool on the 22nd November, after a passage of 107 days. She landed 482 immigrants. Fourteen deaths and twelve births took place at sea. This ship arrived in a very excellent order. The cleanliness, general management and discipline of the people reflected the highest credit on Mr. W.L. Echlin, the surgeon-superintendent.

South Australian Government Gazette 1855.

At the same time the Dirigo was having trouble with cholera, another emigrant ship, the Bloomer, was leaving Liverpool. Amongst the emigrants were the Ralph family, ancestors of Greg. The Bloomer left Liverpool on 20 July but had to leave from Liverpool, on the other side of the Mersey, rather than Birkenhead because of the cholera at Birkenhead. The Bloomer arrived in Portland, Victoria on 21 November 1854 after a voyage of 124 days.

In reading the correspondence about the cholera outbreak on the Dirigo I was impressed by the efficiency of the officials dealing with the Dirigo cholera outbreak and struck by their kindheartedness. I was particularly touched by the conclusion of a report prepared on 10 August by C. Stuart Bailey, the Commissioners’ Despatching Officer at the Birkenhead Depot, an officer of the Colonial Land and Emigration Office:

"I have much gratification in pointing to the success which attended these simple efforts to promote the healthful recreation and amusement of these people; for instead of leaving, en masse, dispirited and discontented, long before the time came for a general muster preparatory to re-embarkation, good health, good spirits, and confidence were restored, and the number of those who had returned to their homes, instead of being 250, as at first threatened, did not exceed 50 adults altogether ; that is to say, the number in adults of the original passengers who re-embarked was about 300."

We smile condescendingly at Dickens’ portrayal of Victorian bureaucratic tanglements—Little Dorrit‘s Circumlocution Office is an example—so it is useful to be reminded that our forefathers were also very capable of doing things well.

Related posts

• Margaret Gunn (1819 – 1863)
• The death of Kenneth Budge (1813 – 1852) – Captain Budge died of cholera
• B is for Bookmark
• B is for the barque Bloomer arrived 1854

Further reading

• SHIPPING REPORT. (1854, November 1). The Hobart Town Advertiser (Tas.), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article264615098
• Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons, Volume 46. Emigrant Ship Dirigo: Correspondence between Officers in Charge of Emigration Depot at Birkenhead, and Colonial Land and Emigration Coms. in relation to outbreak of cholera on board emigrant ship Dirigo. Retrieved through Google Books.

Wikitree:

• Ewan Rankin (abt. 1825 – aft. 1863)
• Margaret (Gunn) Rankin (1819 – 1863)

Merseyside 12 May

On 12 May 2019 Greg, Peter, and I drove from Manchester to Liverpool, forty miles to the west. Charlotte stayed behind to catch up with one of her English friends. We visited St Helens, the Walker Art Gallery, a National Trust property called Speke Hall, and St Mary’s Church Hale.

There’s a family connection. Greg’s 3rd great grandfather James Cross (1791 – 1853) was from Windle, near St Helens, about half-way between Liverpool and Manchester (see ‘W is for Windle‘), and some of his forebears were from Hale.

The countryside near St Helens and Eccleston

It was a perfect spring day, and the countryside looked very pretty. We drove to St Helens, our first stop, wondering where the grimy industrial North had got to. Not a satanic mill in sight…

St Helens town centre

The Parish Church of St Helens associated with James Cross and his family burned down in 1916. However, the rebuilt church was open, with Sunday morning service just about to begin. We talked to a few people, all of them very friendly and welcoming.

A brief history of the church was on display. The church burned down in 1916, the church we were looking at was not the one Greg’s forebears knew.

St Helens Parish Church

The former Pilkingtons headquarters St Helens, but in 1937, well after the Cross family lived there. The St. Helens Crown Glass Company was formed in 1826 and became known as Pilkington Brothers from 1845. The company still exists.

Mersey Gateway Bridge

In Liverpool we drove past the docks to get to the city centre. The enormous port handles about a third of England’s sea-cargo. (L is for leaving Liverpool)

The Walker Art Gallery has a splendid collection of pre-Raphaelite and other Victorian art, much of which we had seen in reproduction. It was great fun to see familiar works for real, close-up.

On the walk to the gallery we passed crowds of football fans on their way to the stadium, singing their team songs. There’s footy crowds in Australia, of course, especially in Victoria, where we live, but not much singing. A pity. A large number of voices raised in unison can be very stirring.

Liverpool Football Club fans singing before the game

Orderly queues for transport to the football game. Cenotaph in the foreground and the North Western Hotel is behind.

Walker Art Gallery

Walker Art Gallery: Greg in front of Dante’s Dream by Gabriel Rossetti

In the afternoon we visited the National Trust property of Speke Hall, a wood-framed wattle-and-daub Tudor manor house. It was presented as it had been used in Victorian times. For afternoon tea, I tried the National Trust tea-room’s local delicacy Wet Nelly, a bread and butter pudding. My own is better, says Greg.

Speke Hall

On our way back to Manchester we visited the pretty village of Hale, ten miles or so up the Mersey estuary, home of Greg’s Bailey forebears. At the door of St Mary’s Church were Bailey headstones. Unfortunately these were not those of Greg’s fourth great grandparents Ellen Bailey née Swift (1771 – 1836) and her husband Thomas Bailey (1759 – 1843), but an Ellen Bailey who died in 1830 and a Thomas Bailey who died 1858. I shall have to work out if and how these Baileys are related. Even so, coming across the Bailey headstones was a bit of family history serendipity.

St Mary’s Church Hale

Related posts

• W is for Windle
• L is for leaving Liverpool

Looking for George

My husband Greg’s great-great grandfather George Young (1826 – 1890) was from Liverpool. George probably arrived in Australia at the time of the gold discoveries in Victoria, perhaps lured by the chance of striking it rich, though it’s hard to be sure, for as yet I don’t know exactly when or why he emigrated, and I know nothing about his parents or his family.

This photo of George Young was passed to us by Noel Tunks of Maryborough

In any case, by 1853 George, following the rushes, was trying his luck on the  goldfields. He met his wife-to-be Caroline Clarke on the Ovens diggings, near the border with New South Wales. Their first child was a boy, George, who was born and died as an infant at Beechworth in 1854. George and Caroline had twelve more children. Greg is descended from their oldest surviving child John Young (1856 – 1928).

Greg has had his DNA analysed by Ancestry.com. I have uploaded the results to Family Tree DNA, My Heritage, and GedMatch. His aunt B S has also tested her DNA. Through the DNA results we have connected with cousins descended from George Young and Caroline Clarke. This confirms the documentary evidence for the Young family in Australia, such as it is. 

spreadsheet of DNA cousins who are descendants of George Young and Caroline Clarke and have tested at either AncestryDNA or MyHeritage

Greg and the cousins descended from George Young also share DNA with descendants of two men, James Young, born about 1838 in Liverpool, and Philip Young born about 1837 or a few years later in Liverpool. 

We don’t yet know how George, James, and Philip are related.

From the amount of the DNA they share we know that B S and her second cousin P L (both great granddaughters of George Young) can be estimated to be about fourth cousins of A A, who is descended from James, and of H S F, who is descended from Philip. H S F and A A can be estimated from the DNA evidence to be about second cousins. Fourth cousins share third great grandparents and second cousins share great grandparents.

spreadsheet showing DNA matches with great grand daughters of George Young and descendants of John Young from Liverpool, plus some other matches that are related but we don’t yet know how.

H S F and A A are likely to share great grandparents, so it is possible that James Young born about 1838 and Philip Young born about 1840 were brothers.

If B S and P L are 4th cousins of H S F and A A, then it seems possible that George Young’s grandfather was also the grandfather of James and Philip Young. That is George was a first cousin of James and Philip.

I have traced the forebears of A A and I P. They are both grand daughters of Christopher Young (1875 – 1927),  the son of Philip Young (born about 1837-1840, died 1910). 

In 1862, when Philip Young married Mary Code (also spelt Coad)  he gave his father’s name as John Young. [Liverpool Record Office; Liverpool, England; Liverpool Catholic Parish Registers; Reference Number: 282 NIC/2/2 retrieved through Ancestry.com]

I have traced the forebears of H S F. She is the daughter of Gerald Salter (1903 – 1986). Gerald was the son of Ellen Alice Young (1871 – 1962). She was the daughter of James Young born 1839, a seaman rigger. When James married Mary Martin in 1864 he stated he was a mariner living at Cropper Street Liverpool and his father was John Young, an engineer. [ Liverpool, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1932 Liverpool Record Office; Liverpool, England; Reference Number: 283-PET-3-67 retrieved through Ancestry.com]

Another researcher has suggested that James Young’s marriage record is in error and his father was in fact James Young, engineer/engine turner, who was born about 1810 in Dundee and died in 1859 (‘late of Monks Coppenhall in Cheshire’). James had a son named James who in 1859 was named as one of the executors in his estate. He was described in the will as an engine fitter of 46 Manchester Street Crewe in the Parish of Monks Coppenhall. [England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations) 1860 for James Young retrieved through Ancestry.com]

I have traced the family of James Young 1810 – 1859. In 1861 some of the children were living with their widowed mother, Mary Young nee Harrison, at Manchester Street, Crewe in the Parish of Monks Coppenhall. James, then twenty-three and unmarried was an engine fitter living with his mother. [1861 census viewed through ancestry.com Class: RG 9; Piece: 2616; Folio: 74; Page: 24; GSU roll: 543000]

I have not yet found the death of Mary Young nee Harrison. She does not seem to be on the 1871 census. A possible death is 
Name: Mary Young
Estimated birth year: abt 1813
Registration Year: 1869 Registration Quarter: Jan-Feb-Mar
Age at Death: 56
Registration district: Nantwich Inferred County: Cheshire
Volume: 8a Page: 224

It is possible that James Young, engine fitter, died before marrying and before the 1871 census.  I cannot find him on the 1871 census in Crewe, Cheshire. A possible death of James Young engine fitter is :
Name: James Young
Estimated birth year: abt 1838
Registration Year: 1868 Registration Quarter: Jul-Aug-Sep
Age at Death: 30
Registration district: Nantwich Inferred County: Cheshire
Volume: 8a Page: 236
It seems unlikely that James Young engine fitter moved away from Crewe Cheshire and changed occupation to mariner, and it is also unlikely that his father’s name was wrongly recorded on the marriage document.

The family of James Young engineer does not include a Philip Young. The DNA evidence and the evidence of one Canadian shipping record supports the conclusion that James and Philip Young were probably brothers.

The Canada, Seafarers of the Atlantic Provinces, 1789-1935 records retrieved from ancestry.com have a James Young age 43 (born about 1845) on board the barque “Olive Mount” which departed Liverpool 19 March 1888 (discharged with mutual consent).  He was discharged 12 March 1888 at Penarth Wales. He was not literate, he signed his name with an x. He was related to another crew member aboard. James was crew number 12 and his rank was able-bodied seaman. Also on board was Philip Young, crew number 11 – I believe this is James’s brother. Although the age is young, I suspect there was pressure for the men to understate their age so as to appear fit for the job.

It is my guess that James Young, forebear of H S F and also A O and  P N is the son of a John Young engineer, not James Young (c 1811 – 1859).

Hypothesis: John Young is George Young’s uncle; John Young is father to Philip and James and George Young is their cousin -> A A and H S F are 3rd cousins. B S and P L 4th cousins to A A and H S F. As far as I know A O and P N have not tested their DNA.

Update: A O and P N have tested their DNA with AncestryDNA but neither shares DNA with Greg or his aunt B S. A O and P N are 1st cousins and share 1.104 centimorgans. P N shares 42 cM DNA with I P thus they are estimated 4th cousins. M F C, another descendant of Philip Young, also shares DNA with P N; they share 66 cM – also estimated 4th cousins. M F C shares a small amount of DNA with Greg but does not share DNA with Greg’s aunt B S.

It could be useful if A O and P N could upload their results to MyHeritage, or FTDNA or GedMatch so we could look at a chromosome browser and also see if they share DNA with other descendants of George Young, for example P L.

W is for Windle

My husband Greg’s 3rd great grandfather James Cross (1791 – 1853) was from Windle, near St Helens, about ten miles from Liverpool in England.

Map showing Windle, St Helens, Hardshaw, Eccleston, Prescot, Penketh, Hale, Halewood, and20 Grove Street, Liverpool

James Cross married Ann Bailey (1791 – 1861) on 28 December 1819 at Hale. Their marriage was announced in the Lancaster Gazette on 8 January 1820:

“Same day [On Monday se’nnight], at Hale, Mr James Cross, of Penketh Brewery, to Miss Bailey, Halewood.”

Their oldest son John (1820 – 1867) was baptised at Prescot on 28 December 1820, a year after their marriage. The family was then living at Penketh, on the upper Mersey. James’s occupation was ‘Brewer’.

The Penketh brewery was later acquired by a Methodist family called Parker. Not wanting a brewery in their village, it was turned into a tannery. The buildings were demolished in 1996.

Looking East along Tannery Lane Penketh,at the old Tannery buildings. Photographed July 1996.

Thomas Bailey Cross, the second son of James and Ann, was born on 21 April 1822 at Windle and baptised on 13 July 1823 at St Mary, Hale. On this occasion the occupation of his father James was given as ‘road surveyor’.

Ellen Cross was born 9 February 1824 and baptised at St Mary’s Hale. Her father’s occupation was road surveyor and their abode St Helens.

Ann Jane Cross was born 28 June 1826 and baptised at Prescot on 16 July. James was a road surveyor and their abode was Hardshaw.

Greg’s great great grandfather James Cross (1828 – 1882) was born 28 March 1828 at Windle. He was baptised 4 September 1828 in the parish of St Helens. He is recorded as the son of James and Ann Cross; his father’s occupation was given as Surveyor and the address as Eccleston.

William Grapel Cross was baptised at Liverpool St Peter on 19 October 1832, the son of James and Ann of Eccleston Parish of Prescot. James’s occupation was agent. Thirteen children were baptised there on that day.

Frederick Beswick Cross was baptised 12 August 1835 at St Helens, Lancashire. The family was living at Eccleston and James’s occupation was agent.

On the 1841 census James, Ann and their children James, Thomas and Frederick were living at Eccleston. The occupation of James senior is given as farmer. They were neighbours of a land surveyor named Sylvester Mercer, aged 60, and his family. ‘Mercer’ was used as a second forename in some members of later generations of the Cross family.

On the 1851 census James, Ann, and their children Thomas, William, and Frederick were living in Liverpool at 20 Grove Street. James was a retired farmer, Thomas was a coffee and sugar merchant, William was a clerk to a coffee and sugar merchant, and Frederick was apprentice to a Tailor [or so it appears; I am not sure of the transcription].

20 Grove Street, Liverpool from Google maps

 

James died in 1853 and Ann in 1861. Their son James emigrated to Australia in the early 1850s.

Sources

• Ancestry.com
  • Baptism records
  • 1841 census: Class: HO107; Piece: 516; Book: 5; Civil Parish: Prescot; County: Lancashire;Enumeration District: 14; Folio: 40; Page: 5; Line: 1; GSU roll: 306903
  • 1851 census: Class: HO107; Piece: 2183; Folio: 423;Page: 34; GSU roll: 87185-87187
• http://www.penketh.com/hist.html

 

F is for Flintshire

In 1985, Helen Hudson nee Hughes (1915 – 2005), my grandfather’s first cousin, published a family history with the rather lengthy title, ‘Cherry stones: adventures in genealogy of Taylor, Hutcheson, Hawkins of Scotland; Plaisted, Green, Hughes of England and Wales; Hale of Gloucestershire, Langford Sidebottom, Cheshire; Shorten of Cork, Ireland, and Slater of Hampshire, England who immigrated to Australia between 1822 and 1850, researched, compiled and written by Helen Lesley Hudson‘ (Berwick, Victoria: H.L. Hudson, 1985).

For me her book, based on papers, old letters, and paraphernalia she inherited from her father, is a researcher’s treasure-house. At the moment I’m preparing for a family-history trip to England, and I’m finding ‘Cherry stones‘ particularly useful, for it includes details of Helen’s travels to the “Old Country” visiting the places our forebears came from, and I’ll be doing something similar.

Helen and her husband Bill visited Holywell in Flintshire twice. She wrote about walking around the graveyard of the ancient church beside St Winifrede’s Well Sanctuary, where she found many graves of our Hughes family.

She also wrote about a visit she made to Trelawynydd, formerly known as Newmarket. My fourth great grandfather, Edward Hughes (1803 – 1876) was born at there. FindMyPast has the baptism records for Trelawnyd, Flintshire, and these include an Edward Hughes baptised 23 January 1803, the son of Edward and Ann Hughes. Helen gives Edward’s birth date as 17 January 1803. I am not sure what document she based this on. Edward Hughes is a common name – Hughes is the eighth most common Welsh surname – and there are plenty of other candidates for our Edward.

On 21 April 1821 Edward Hughes of Holywell, Flintshire married Elizabeth Jones of Ysgeifiog at Ysgeifiog. [Ysgeifiog pronounciation]. Ysgeifiog is less than five miles from Holywell. Helen’s tree had 1823 as the date of this marriage, but I have located a likely parish record at FindMyPast giving the date as 1821. Edward and Elizabeth married in Liverpool in 1825. Elizabeth Jones was from Cardiganshire.

Samuel Hughes (1827 – 1896), their eldest surviving child and my third great grandfather, was baptised at the Great Crosshall Street Chapel of Welsh Congregationalists, Liverpool. The baptism record gives his birth date as 12 October 1827. Helen’s tree has 13 October 1827 and gives his place of birth as Liverpool. Edward Hughes was stated to be a joiner of Norris Street, Liverpool.

At the time of the 1841 census Edward, Elizabeth, four children (Samuel, Mary, Henry, and Eliza) and a child Goodman Jones, I assume a nephew of Elizabeth’s, were living at Drinkwater Gardens, Liverpool. Edward was a joiner. There were no live-in servants.

On 20 January 1849 Samuel Hughes arrived in South Australia on the Gunga, which had left Liverpool on 16 September 1848. Helen states that Edward, Elizabeth, Mary, and Henry also arrived on the Gunga but there seems no record on the passenger list of any other family member.

In 1851 I believe Edward and Elizabeth Hughes and one daughter, Mary, were living in Heathfield Street, Swansea, Glamorganshire, Wales. Edward was a builder, employing 30 men.

I have not been able to find the immigration record for Edward and Elizabeth Hughes. Elizabeth died in Brighton, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, and is buried in Brighton cemetery. Edward returned to England and died 4 May 1876 at South Norwood near London. A death notice in the Melbourne Argus  stated he was late of Sandhurst and the father of Samuel Hughes. He had been living with his daughter Mary Hewitt nee Hughes.

Helen Hudson wrote that there was a family story that Edward had lost a lot of money in Peruvian Bonds but she was not able to verify it. Nor can I. Helen also wrote that Edward was on the Bendigo diggings and that he and Elizabeth were living in View Street, Bendigo at the time of Elizabeth’s death.

I am glad that Helen wrote up her family researches in such detail. Much more information has become available since 1985 and online searching makes the task of finding and gathering information far easier than it was. I am sure she would have enjoyed researching today and verifying what she knew. I look forward to retracing her footsteps in Holywell during our visit to the United Kingdom in May.

St. Winifred’s Well or Holy Well, Flintshire, Wales. Line engraving by G. Hawkins, 1795 Image retrieved through Wikimedia Commons who obtained the file from the Wellcome trust.

Sources

• Hudson, Helen Lesley Cherry stones : adventures in genealogy of Taylor, Hutcheson, Hawkins of Scotland, Plaisted, Green, Hughes of England and Wales … who immigrated to Australia between 1822 and 1850. H.L. Hudson, [Berwick] Vic, 1985.
• “Liverpool: Churches.” A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 4. Eds. William Farrer, and J Brownbill. London: Victoria County History, 1911. 43-52. British History Online. Web. 12 March 2019. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol4/pp43-52.
• ancestry.com  – census records:
  • 1841 census : Class: HO107; Piece: 559; Book: 26; Civil Parish: Liverpool; County: Lancashire; Enumeration District: 35; Folio: 43; Page: 29; Line: 23; GSU roll: 306941
  • 1851 Wales census : Class: HO107; Piece: 2466; Folio: 145; Page: 57; GSU roll: 104215-104217

My Most Recent Unknown Ancestors

This week in his regular post ‘Saturday Night Genealogy Fun’ Randy Seaver asks “Who Is Your Most Recent Unknown Ancestor (MRUA)?”

The mission:
1) Who is your MRUA – your Most Recent Unknown Ancestor? This is the person with the lowest number in your Pedigree Chart or Ahnentafel List that you have not identified a last name for, or a first name if you know a surname but not a first name.

2) Have you looked at your research files for this unknown person recently? Why don’t you scan it again just to see if there’s something you have missed?

3) What online or offline resources might you search that might help identify your MRUA?

The starting point for my ahnentafel list is my children, the list formed by combining my tree with that of my husband Greg.

I know all the names of our children’s 3rd great grandparents.

In the next generation, however, I don’t know the parents of George Young (c.1826-1890), Greg’s great great grandfather. George is number 32 on the index; I don’t know the names of his parents, numbers 64 and 65.

There’s no help from his death certificate; the informant does not name his parents. Other information about him is scanty. From his death certificate I know that he was born in Liverpool, and this corresponds with details that he provided on the birth certificates of his children, but I have not found his marriage certificate. The reason may be that he and his wife Caroline Clarke were married before compulsory civil registration was introduced in Victoria in 1855, or perhaps they never formally married. I have not found a shipping record for him, and I have no evidence that he had any near relations in Australia. Land records, and I have several that concern him, give no relevant information. George did not leave a will. Frustratingly, the name Young is too common to identify George from the many other births in Liverpool about the same time or from people with the same name listed on the United Kingdom 1841 census.

I feel my best hope in identifying George’s parents and finding out more about his life before he emigrated to Australia is through DNA. Several of Greg’s cousins descended from George have tested their DNA. I hope that DNA will lead me to one or more of the descendants of George Young’s siblings.  Their research might get me past the dead end I have come to with George himself.

Greg has a number of shared DNA matches (shown in green on the chart). I have not yet identified anybody descending from a brother or sister of George Young.

I do have some DNA matches from people with the surname Young who were born in Liverpool, descendants of Philip Young (1840-1910). I have not yet found the parents and grandparents of Philip to allow me to make the connection between our two trees, although we have several DNA matches. However, having an additional line to search, which appears to be connected by name, place and shared DNA, gives me a better chance of finding the family of George Young.

S is for Suky

One of my fifth great grandmothers was Susannah Lamothe née Corrin (1741-1803).

Susannah was the daughter of Henry Corrin (1713-1769) and Susanna Corrin née Quay (1713-1784). In 1763 she married Dominique Lamothe (1731-1807), a former French prisoner-of-war.

The marriage record of Dominique Lamothe and Susannah Corrin at St George’s Liverpool on 6 April 1763 retrieved from Liverpool, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1659-1812 Reference Number: 283 GEO/3/1 through ancestry.com

Lamothe had been a surgeon on the St Lawrence, a privateer  brig, which was captured by the English and brought to Douglas, the Isle of Man, on 31 October 1760. England and France were at war, in what was later known as the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763). After their capture the officers and men of the St Lawrence were held in Castle Rushen as prisoners of war.

Two weeks after their capture the French officers of the privateer St Lawrence applied to the Governor of the Island for their liberty, and joined themselves in a bond to Messrs. Ross, Black, and Christian, of Douglas, merchants.  They were freed from gaol on parole.

In January 1761 the Lords of the Admiralty sent a British ship to take the prisoners of war off the island. All prisoners were delivered up except for Lamothe and Lieutenant Lessenne, who were exploring the island. Lessenne turned up on the evening of the next day, Lamothe later that night, but the tender for the boat had gone so Lamothe was placed back in Castle Rushen. Because of adverse winds the ship had been unable to wait. It seems that Lamothe was again freed from Castle Rushen, though there is no detail as to how this came about. There is a family story that Lamothe “attended the Governor’s wife as her medical man, and acted with great skill, and was thereupon released.”

In a letter of 30 September 1763 to Basil Cochrane, Governor of the Isle of Man 1751-1762, John Quayle ( Clerk of the Rolls for the Isle of Man and the Duke of Atholl’s Seneschal), reported on some local Manx happenings  :

the French Doctor was no sooner released from being a prisoner of war than he became captive to Suky Corrin (the daughter of his landlord, Hall Corrin). He went to France for his prize money, bought a cargo of Brandy to Dublin & this day returned to his spouse.

Dominique Lamothe and Susanna had eleven children. They lived in Castletown, Isle of Man, where he practiced medicine for 47 years.

Susanna died on 9 November 1803, aged 62. Dominique on died 8 January 1807 aged 74. They are buried at Castletown.

Their youngest daughter Rose Therese Lamothe (1784-1818) married William Snell Brown later Chauncy. She had three children:

• Theresa Susanna Snell Chauncy 1807-1876
• Martha  Maria Snell Chauncy 1813-1899
• Philip Lamothe Snell Chauncy 1816-1880 my 3rd great grandfather.

Rose died shortly before her son’s second birthday. In his memoirs, Philip Chauncy wrote  “Having always resided at a distance from the Isle of Man, I have never known much of my Mother’s relations.” He knew his grandfather had been a prisoner of war and had been in correspondence with his cousin John Corlet LaMothe who had compiled the history of Dominique and Susanna from the records in the Rolls office of the Isle of Man.

Sources

• Family of LaMothe by John Corlet LaMothe in 1895 and reproduced at http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/famhist/families/lamothe.htm
• Moore, A. W.. Manx worthies, or, Biographies of notable Manx men and women. Douglas, Isle of Man: S.K. Broadbent & Co., 1901. page 151. Available through ancestry.com and http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/worthies/ch07.htm#151
• Copy of letter from John Quayle to Basil Cochrane 30 September 1763 From Atholl Papers – AP X17-25 retrieved fromhttp://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/history/ap/ap_x1725.htm The Atholl Papers are a very large archive of over 7,500 manuscripts & books donated to the Manx Museum (Manx National Heritage) in 1956 that cover the period from 1735 through to 1765 when the Dukes of Atholl were Lords of Man.
• P. L. S. Chauncy. Memoirs and other papers held by the State Library of Victoria MS 9287
• Lamothe Mausoleum was erected in 1845 in the Lezayre Churchyard, Lezayre, Isle of Man http://www.mmtrust.org.uk/mausolea/view/476/Lamothe_Mausoleum

L is for leaving Liverpool

My husband’s great great grandfather George Young (1826-1890) was from Liverpool.  Unfortunately we don’t know any more than this about him until he arrived on the Victorian goldfields at Beechworth.

George seems never to have left a document stating who his parents were. We have not been able to find a shipping record that gives this information.

The informant on his death certificate was his son-in-law John L. Tunks, and John Tunks did not even know how long George Young had been in the colonies, let alone who his parents were.

The surname Young makes it difficult to trace him. There were at least half a dozen boys born in Liverpool and called George Young in the estimated year of birth of our George Young. It was before civil registration so that is not an exhaustive list.

George most likely left for Australia from Liverpool. He would have been 26 years old in 1852.

In the Index to Unassisted Inward Passenger Lists to Victoria 1852-1953 available through the Public Record Office the only likely passenger based on age, is a George Young, adult with age not listed, who arrived on the Kalmia in 1852. I checked and the Kalmia did indeed sail from Liverpool: the Kalmia is listed in From Liverpool. (1852, October 9). Empire (Sydney, NSW : 1850 – 1875),  p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60136652 . Unfortunately there are no shipping records available for unassisted passengers earlier than 1852.

The shipping list for the Kalmia, viewable through ancestry.com or available on microfiche shows that George Young was Irish. On the slight information we have, he doesn’t seem to be our man.

The following records from the Assisted Immigrants index from 1839 to 1853 are possible matches for our George based on his age.

Family Name Given Name Age Month Year Ship Book Page

YOUNG GEO age 20 month and year of arrival MAY 1847 ship SIR THOMAS ARBUTHNOT book and page 2/3 262

YOUNG GEORGE age 27 month and year of arrival DEC 1852 ship THEODORE book and page 7 78

The ship Theodore sailed from Liverpool. VICTORIA. (1852, December 20). The Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List (NSW : 1844 – 1860), , p. 351. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article161036112

The George Young who arrived on the Theodore appears to be accompanied by a wife and child. This does not appear to match our George Young as he seems to have acquired a wife and family only after his arrival in Australia.

The Sir Thomas Arbuthnot was a convict ship that sailed from Spithead. One of the convicts was a George Young whose crime had been sheep stealing. He was from Wells which does not match what we know about George Young’s origins.

All in all it seems that our George Young is not listed in the shipping records that survive from the period.

Shipping records other than the indexes of passengers include letters of thanks from passengers to their ship’s captain that were sometimes  published in the newspapers. Some hospital records include the ship of arrival. Unfortunately I have not been able to trace George’s arrival through records of this type..

Other members of our family who arrived by ship sailing from Liverpool include:

• My third great grandparents, Daniel and  Mary Cudmore née Nihill, sailed from Liverpool in 1835 on the John Dennison
• Margaret Rankin née Gunn, my third great grandmother, who sailed with her children and second husband from Liverpool aboard the Dirigo in 1854
• The Ralph family, my husband’s third great grandparents and children, arrived from Liverpool in 1854 on the Bloomer

Sir Claude de Crespigny, the fourth baronet, visited Florida sailing from Liverpool in 1887.

I have no record of the arrival of another of my husband’s great great grandfathers, James Cross, who was born near Liverpool and arrived in Victoria about 1853.

SS Great Britain leaving Prince’s Pier, Liverpool, for Australia, 1852. ANMM Collection retrieved from http://waves.anmm.gov.au/Immigration-Stories/Immigration-history.aspx

Related posts

• Beginning to look at my Irish family history
• Margaret Gunn (1819 – 1863)
• B is for the barque Bloomer arrived 1854
• Trove Tuesday: a splinter (about James Cross)
• Tropical Hotel – Kissimmee, Florida (an 1887 visit by Sir Claude de Crespigny)