In genealogy I was back to looking at the 1921 censuses, seeing as I had Findmypast membership which had a monopoly on this, focusing on my Maxteds and their extended family members. And why did William Maxted's Irish wife Mary Dolan, on the 1921 census, say she was born in Cork, rather than Westmeath? Those parts of Ireland were so far apart. Notes online about this giving of different birthplaces suggest that this information gets more accurate as one gets older. Had Mary sought to hide her origins? Skeletons in the cupboard? Could there have been a single mother born babe at a convent, she being either the mother of the babe? This remained a mystery. But, yes, babes out of wedlock were there in her family, with her granddaughters Norah and seemingly my nanny Eileen. So this looking at various 1921 census for Maxted descendants was my own personal detective challenge of the moment. My Maxteds had originated in the apparently haunted Kent village of Pluckley, at some point relocating into London, and then ending up in the Hampshire town of Eastleigh. That was where William Maxted and his Irish wife Mary Dolan were living in 1921, where William worked as a boiler maker for the railway. The families married daughter who lived on the same road, Market Street, Mary Green, had begun by 1921 naming all her daughters after flowers. Another married daughter, Florence, my own ancestress, was far away in Parkestone, Essex, at 2 Bridge Cottages, for which I found a picture and recalled in this even having been there as a child when my nanny friend Nina (?) lived there, a time I'd been made to sing for everyone, where pigeons were kept at the end of the garden and all manner of home made wines were being created from fruits, barks and flowers. For all such censuses I thereafter tracked down I sourced if possible accompanying pictures of where these families had lived or pictures connected to their occupations. Some of the Maxted family had remained in London, such as William Maxteds brother and sister, Matilda and Henry, still in Nine Elms where they'd all been born. Henry worked there as a crane attendant for the railway. Other family members had moved to Brighton, Luton, Plymouth and the Isle of Wight, one of Williams brothers Frederick Maxted being an armourer of rifles, pistols and machine guns at the Admiralty supply depot in Plymouth. Back in London, at Islington, two of William's cousins, the Arnell sisters Molly and Minnie, who never married, worked worked for the animal food business of Joseph Thorley Limited at Kings Cross, specifically for the cattle foods department. And two brothers John and William Maxted, who were nephews of our own William Maxted, being sons of his deceased brother John, worked in Fulham, London, for the biscuit manufacturer Marfalane as dispatcher and packer. Of those who had moved to Luton, one cousin, Henry Pratt, the grandson of William's deceased sister Sarah, worked as a painter of the cars of the famed Vauxhall Motors long situated there.
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I continued my mission, while in London, to visit places specific to my ancestors and that involved a considerable amount of working around, 19 klms in full. My first port of call was the orphanage with my ancestress Eleanor Caroline Barton had grown up in, close to where I was staying in Whitechapel, at 66 Great Prescott Street. Nothing is as it was. Modernity has crushed all that was for my peoples homes. Just a grand building with no antiquity. The man at reception knew nothing of the history of this place. I carried on retracing the steps of my ancestors. I was excited to at last approach the church of St Sepulchre, family church to my Bartons, when they had lived in Cock Lane just beyond. Quite a lovely church, associated with blessing those being taken from the jail to their execution, the bell which rung for them still to be seen in a glass case. A grand organ. The fine baptismal font with its faces of cherubims where our Barton babes were baptised. Cock Lane was again ultra modern and lost to its past, although one building retained the name of an old inn 'The Saracens Head' and at the other end of Cock Lane was reference to another old pub 'The Fortune of War', a golden statue of a naked boy high up there on a plinth, he being a symbol of gluttony (it was gluttony which was thought to be the cause of the Fire of London). This last mentioned pub had been a hang out for former body snatchers. As I had researched, body snatching was quite a thing locally in days gone by. The pub had a special room in which the dead bodies were laid upon benches around the walls, bearing the names of those who had stolen them from whichever graveyard, awaiting surgeons to come and buy whichsoever they wanted. Cock Lane was not only famed for its ghost called 'Scratching Fanny', but was another locale associated with prostitiutes. One prostitute, named Clarice, born in 1732, was early on educated in the finer arts of the profession (a courtesan one may say then) and was the areas most famous 'harlot'. She died of the pox at the age of 43. Just a little further along was the old Smithfield live animal market (now of dead animals only). This used to be the place of execution. Even wives would be sold here till as much as the early 1800's. Further beyond still was Cowcross Street, where also my people had lived. Cocks and cows, all connected since very old times to livestock sales. More of my families lanes I now walked, again all modernised and lost to their past - the former Field Lane where had lived my Bartons and Bunneys. Only their family church of St Andrew had kept its historical roots. I had another church to visit, that one overlooking Trafalgar Square, St Martin in the Fields, which by the time I got there was closed. This was where my Hannah Bunney married her sailor Philip Barton in 1814.
1921 Census Day, new records released, as revealed at midnight. In a few locations in England one can view this freely, but I am in France. Therefore I would have to pay. At first I was not going to look, as it wasn't that I expected to find any vital information there. Rather I messaged my London based daughter, Eleanor, to let me know if she visits Kew Gardens, as this was one of the locations of free access (in and around the Kew Archives). But as a keen genealogist I couldn't then resist to at least have a little look, firstly just at my Welsh family (simply by transcript), then I saw that for just a little extra money one can download the originals and in my excitement ended up doing this for everyone. So the Welsh Harrisons of Varteg were the first I looked at. I already knew their ages, places of birth and occupations. What I did learn was which colliery they worked at. It was on the Varteg Hill that my great grandfather, John Harrison, worked as a colliery examiner for John Vipond & Co. My pop, his son George, was at that time a 12 year old boy. Ok, secondly I looked at my Maxted's of Eastleigh, to the family of my great great grandfather, William Maxted, who was a boilermaker on the railways. His Irish wife, Maria, who had always been a mystery, having previously said she was from Westmeath, now claimed in this 1921 census to have been born in Cork. So, yes, armed with his new information I looked once more to finding something of her origins, but still found nothing. What I did find from this census, which I had not known before, was that one of the daughters, Norah, herself had at this time an illegitimate baby in the family home, a little girl named Norah Maria Kathleen, the names of both her mother and grandmother. As for William and Maria Maxted's daughter, Florence, she had married a ships cook, Percy Spencer, and was living with him at 2 Bridge Cottages, Dovercourt, with my little 'nanny' Eileen, aged three years. Florence's younger brother, Henry, was also living with them and working as a local postman. My Shetland Inkster's I couldn't look ar as no Scottish records had been as yet released. I now looked at my Seagrove's of Greenwich. I already knew that my great great grandfather, Thomas Seagrove, was a salvage hand (retired) for the Port of London. And I looked at the Bane's . My great great grandfather, Richard Bane, was newly a widower, aged 81, living with his daughter Alma's family in Walthamstow, Alma's husband, George Reynolds, being a school teacher. All of this I knew. What was new information was Alma's birth in Barbados having been fine tuned to the location of St Anne's, where there had been a British garrison. So this was where my Bane's had lived while they were in Barbados. My 'granny' Isabelle Bane can be seen aged three living with her family at 13 Lee Road in Dovercourt. I'd not so easily found them at first, due to her father, D'Auvergne Bane, using his middle name only of Robert. I already knew that he'd worked as a checker at Parkeston Quay. In the census it specified that he worked for the Great Eastern Railway. That was it for my family in the 1921 census, nothing excessively riveting. But little by little colours are added to the family story.
In genealogy I got to looking at my Welsh ancestry of Wonastowe. I knew my pop's ancestress Mary Ann Thomas had lived like him to a ripe old age, she having died at the age of 104 and he nearly aged 101. Well, now I discovered Mary Ann Thomas's mother, Mary Morgan of Treowen Gorse, was also a centenarian, she having lived till 103. This had been written of in the papers: 'Mary Morgan, aged 103, at Wonastowe. Though having reached an advanced age, she retained her faculties nearly to the last. During her long life she was actively employed in doing good, and after passing her 100th year, she was carried to the cottage of a neighbour and by her timely aid saved the life of the mother and child.' It did say on one of the census's that Mary Morgan was a nurse aged as late as 99 even, which appeared to have covered being the village midwife. 1861 Census Wonastow, Monmouthshire Treowens Gorse Mary Morgan, age 99, widow, nurse, born Wonastow Mary Thomas, daughter, age 76, widow, born Wonastow And here they were ten years earlier in the 1851 census: 1851 Census Wonastow, Monmouthshire Mary Morgan, age 88, widow, annuitant, born Wonastow Mary Morgan, daughter, age 65, widow, agricultural labourer, born Wonastow And ten years earlier still in the 1841 census: 1841 Census Wonastow, Monmouthshire Gorse Mary Morgan, age 75 Ann Thomas, age 55, and her husband, John Thomas, age 60, carpenter, he being born outside of Wales and their daughter, Esther Thomas, age 20, born outside of Wales Certainly there was a long life gene in my Welsh lineage. And there was another article I found about Mary Morgan; 'A Centanarian - Our obituary records the death of Mary Morgan of Wonastowe, better known as Molly Morgan, who has been borne to her sepulchre after an extended pilgrimage of 103 years. It is said that she was born in the house in which she died. ' This house would be Treowen Gorse in the grounds of a mansion farmhouse Treowen House. 'Certain it is, she was never known to live in any other (house). She had been a widow beyond the memory of most of us and had led a blameless and religious life. Her faculties were preserved to the last and within these three weeks she was carried to a neighbouring cottage to see a poor woman in her confinement. her memory was particularly tenacious, she would converse about even trifling incidents which had happened in former years, as well as remember circumstances of very remote occurrence. She was always cheerful and grateful for the visits of any who felt interested in her. A daughter who lived with the venerable matron' (this being Mary Ann Thomas) 'and who survives her is 79 years of age.' When Mary Ann Thomas herself died (1885 Abergavenny Chronicle): 'Death on 15th October at Wonastowe, near Monmouth, Mrs Ann Thomas, aged 104 years. Mrs Thomas's mother died in the same house at the age of 103 years.' There were other examples previously of women living till over 100 in this village. For example Ann Watkins born in 1719, she died in 1823 aged 104, being a native of Brinsop in Herefordshire, she having married and settled there, only returning to Wonastow for the last thirty years of her life to live with her son William Watkins of the Wonastow Corn Mill. She was for long a tenant to the family at Wonastow House. She had nine children.
And a relative of hers, Mrs James, had died previously at the age of 101, Ann Watkins remains being put in the same tomb as Mrs James in the Wonastow churchyard. I do so wonder if these ladies were also Ann Morgans relatives! I found a photo of my Welsh Harrison's ancestral cottage in the Welsh section of a book of Great Britian and Northern Europe that I was looking at. This was at Llanthony, near Abergavenny, not that the book said this, but I recognised it. This was the home of the original George Harrison, my great great great grandfather. My Harrison's living in this cottage as Llanthony, as revealed in the census's: 1841 Census Upper Cwmyoy The Mill George Harrison, age 50, with family, and wifes nephew Jeff Jones age 3. 1851 Census Upper Cwmyoy, Mill House, Llanthony George Harrison, age 55, miller, born in Glamorgan Margaret Harrison, wife, age 53, born Brecon Children: Lewis, 28, agriultural labourer; Margaret, 16; Martha, 11 - all born Upper Cwmyoy Elizabeth Harrison, grandaughter, age 2, born Upper Cwymyoy William Parry, visitor, age 45, unmarried, carpenter, born Upper Cwmyoy 1861 Cenus Upper Cwmyoy, Mill Cottage, Llanthony
George Harrison, age 70 and a widower, with daughter Elizabeth as housekeeper and grandaughter Elizabeth aged 12 Quite a genealogical day really - in the morning my long awaited certificates of family births and marriages turned up, and after I'd played around with my family tree folder for a while, I went to the Mormon church for a genealogy gathering. I was the only one who turned up, so I got all the attention of Jennifer, the middle aged Mormon lady who had done so much work on her own family tree, of which she showed me a lot. We watched a Mormon video about the building of their vaults in the granite hills around Salt Lake City, and all the work they were doing underground to collect data on people from all over the world, to make it safe and secure and available to those who wish to trace their ancestors, safe enough even to withstand a nuclear explosion.
To further my family tree research I wrote a couple of letters, one to my Aunt May in Cardiff, and one to a Mr Inkster in the Shetland Isles who's traced his own family tree and is probably somewhere back related to me. Last Saturday, my mother had gone to a holiday exhibition in London and had got talking to his friend who was working on the Shetland stand. There's two types of Inksters up there, one lots from Burra Isle and the others at Scalloway. We come from the Burra Isle stock. On travelling up to london, I got to spend a day in the Census house, researching more my family tree. That was an absorbing day. I discovered I had links far back with Norfolk through the Bane's who came from the North Walsham area. I spent one more day in the Census house while in London, from which I found out quite a bit more of interest, like that some of my Welsh relatives actually came to Wales from the Forest of Dean. A big envelope arrived from the Shetland Isles, from ALan Inkster, who had lots of information about our Inkster ancestors. He said he was obsessed with finding out all about the Inksters and he is hoping in the future to form a worldwide Inkster organisation. My friends Dale and Audrey had begun tracing their family trees, an idea seeded in them by occasional visits to their house of Mormon elders. Dale had sussed out he was from fishermen Topsoms in Devon. Looking in bookshops with them I got into reading a book myself about tracing the family tree. My lover, Andy, knew already that he was descended from George Washington and the Tolpuddle Martyrs. We all visited a Norwich graveyard so Dale could see his grandparents burial place. When my mum phoned she was telling me what she knew of the family history, of crofters from the Shetland island of Burra and of a London tailors son who ran off with the maid. Along with the Topsom's, I was off to London, arriving at St Catherine's house to delve into the past of our ancestors. This was not much help, as one only had access to the indexes and had to pay £5 for each of the certificates, along with correctly supplied information. Still I could suss out a bit, like that my nanny Eileen's parents had to get married, she having been born around the same time that they got married even!!! We looked through lots of books there till it was throwing out time. On visiting Harwich I visited my granny Isabelle and asker her lots of questions about herself and her parents for my family tree quest. At my parents some days later in Burnham Beeches my godparents Chris and Carol came to visit with Great Aunty Connie, my granny Isabelle's sister. Connie had a keen memory, so I questioned her all about her parents (my great grandparents) and their parents too, and got loads of useful information for my genealogy file. I spent the next morning writing up notes on the family history. Back in Dovercourt, I now grilled my nanny Eileen and pop George for information regarding their family trees. Somehow, through nan's partial reluctance, I got to feel her father was not really her father!!! But how to find out for sure!!! Back in London, Audrey and I spent another day in St Catherine's House, trying to suss out more about our family trees. Then we went to the Census House and I found the 1881 record of my great great grandparents house in Plumstead, Alma House as it was called, which told me that my ancestor Richard Bane had been born in Norfolk; how exciting, as it was in Norwich that I currently lived. Back in Norwich I visited the local studies department in the library to check out their genealogy stuff. They had the Mormon register from which I found out more about the Inksters in the Shetland Isles. Visiting my nanny again I got to look at old family photos and I took some to get copies of.
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AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Categories
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