Boastfully Yours!

After last week's confession about overstating things, I hesitated somewhat about today's title but it seems to fit.  Earlier this week I watched a video on YouTube about the famous Mitford sisters, whose fame - or notoriety - dominated the first half of the twentieth century.  They were a family of six girls and one boy, born between 1904 and 1920, and their relevance to this tale is incidental, but will be apparent later.

In recent weeks, I've been polishing my records of the family of a distant cousin on my father's side, whose origins were to be found on both sides of the Norfolk-Suffolk border, near the town of Harleston.  This week I continued tracing the family of her great-grand-parents, Robert Warnes and his wife Martha, née Botwright.  Their third daughter, Mary Ann had married Charles Leftley in 1875, and by 1901 Charles and Mary Ann's son James was no longer at the family home in the village of Rushall.  I found him, aged 27, living in Harleston, with wife Eliza and daughter Lottie.

So far, so good, but was there some mistake in Lottie's age?  She was shown as 12 years old, and in 1891 James had already been found with the rest of his family.  His wife was a few years older and the obvious conclusion was that she had been married before.  I checked out their marriage, in the Suffolk district of Hoxne, in the June quarter of 1894, and found that she had been Eliza Francis.   Problem solved, I looked for Lottie's birth as Lottie Francis.  It didn't exist.

Step by step, the story of a whole afternoon's research could become boring, so I'll skip a few bits and tell you that I eventually discovered that Lottie was illegitimate, born Lottie Boast in 1888, Eliza had married James Francis about eighteen months later and was widowed towards the end of 1890.  Eliza and Lottie were found in 1891 living in Harleston, visitors at the home of farm labourer, 49-year-old William Gardner.  William had three young children and Eliza was described as 'nurse' on the census.  Why would she be there, and so soon after the death of her husband?  Could there be a clue in the fact that William's wife Kate was only 25?  Could she be a sister of Eliza?

That did prove to be the case, but there were more puzzles - those three children were named on the census as Edward W, (born in Mendham, aged 5; and Jessie, 3, and Herbert W. 2, both born in Redenhall (in other words Harleston, which was still at that time a part of the parish of Redenhall).  When I eventually traced their births with some confidence, I found that George Edward Boast had been registered, illegitimate in 1885, in Hoxne district,  Jessie Alice Boast had been registered, illegitimate in 1888 in the Depwade district of Norfolk, and Ernest William Gardener had been registered with mother's maiden name Boast in Depwade in 1889.  I later discovered the marriage of William Gardener and Kate Boast in the December quarter of 1888.

So, what of those sisters, Eliza and Kate Boast?  Eliza's birth was registered in Hoxne district in 1869, and it seemed that Kate was actually younger than William Gardener (or Gardner) had thought, for she was registered in the March quarter of 1868, meaning that in 1891 she would have been only 23!  The 1881 census revealed that they were the two eldest daughters of George and Emma Boast and were all living with siblings Rosetta, William, Ellen, Florence and Lottie in Mendham, Norfolk.  

I might add here that Mendham in those days was a village divided by the river that ran through the middle, between Norfolk on the left bank and Suffolk on the right, although all within the Hoxne registration district.  This is illustrated by the 1881 census record of the Boast family, who had obviously moved house within the village during the previous ten years, for the birthplaces of Kate, Eliza, Rosetta and William were shown as Mendham, Suffolk, and of Ellen, Florence and Lottie, as Mendham, Norfolk.  In 1885, the northern part was transferred to Redenhall, and this fact is underlined by a later note neatly added to the census page ... although no doubt the inhabitants would have still regarded themselves as being in Mendham.

Finally, I'll spoil the romantic idea of a parallel with the Mitfords by adding that the 1871 census revealed the existence of an elder daughter Rosanna, a year older than Kate.  I didn't follow up to see what happened to her; I decided that I gone into this genealogical rabbit-hole quite far enough.  As it is, I still have to decide what to include in my tree and what to leave out! 

"Mine's Bigger Than Yours" ... and What Follows!

A week or two ago, I made a comment on social media of which, I confess, I'm not immensely proud.  Someone had posted that they had found an ancestor who had had a family of 11 or 12 children, although not all had survived infancy.  I replied, "The best I've seen is a family of 18, born between 1868 and 1892, and all alive in 1911."  This rejoinder was not relevant to the matter in hand, and was offered in the spirit best expressed in my title today.  Furthermore, it was, of course, no credit to me anyway, but rather to the parental skills and good fortune of a woman who died some 88 years ago.

This week has been exceptionally busy.  For a start, there were two items of 'aftermath' following the furniture exchange that formed the basis for my post here last week.  Firstly, I found in the bottom of the new cabinet an album of photographs, that I wanted to return to the former owner, some 14 miles away.  And there was also the disposal of the remains of the old cabinet.  Furthermore, came a new project from WEBBS for me to start work on.  This is the new (as of last March) occupation that has taken the place of my former work in the charity warehouse before my relocation in the summer.  Those who are curious can find more information here.

In addition, I welcomed the invitation to visit my cousin, who has been unwell.  Perhaps it was no surprise, given my interest in family history, for the conversation to involve the comment, "What's so special about this 1921 Census that's in all the news bulletins?"  Of course, I was pleased to begin airing my knowledge (albeit that, as I readily admit, I don't know all the answers).  I mentioned that I had read of people finding a full set of four grandparents and eight great-grandparents, and began to think around my corresponding ancestors, totting up how many would have been alive in 1921.  My cousin's husband inevitably began thinking on the same lines.

This is where the circle closes.  It just happens that his grandmother was the twelfth of those eighteen children mentioned above.  It's potentially useful on these occasions to let someone else take centre stage and, as he ruminated about his family, he recalled that one of his great uncles was killed in the First World War, and therefore wouldn't be found in this new genealogical treasure chest, the 1921 Census.  Unfortunately, he couldn't remember which great uncle this would have been.

Not one to let such a challenge pass by, and having a useful app on my phone, I immediately opened this up, thinking that by simply comparing death dates, the solution to his memory loss could be overcome.  To my shame, I have death dates for only four of those eighteen children, and only two of the eight sons (who both died well into the twentieth century), so I was unable to shed any light.

At least I know now the next area upon which to focus my current 'family history polishing' campaign!

Someone to Look After Me

Words from a song of long ago came to mind as I wracked my brain for a title for this week's story.  I think it fits - literally, if not in the context of the words usually associated with it.

One of the uses of my spare room is a place to do the ironing and, as I got the ironing board out of the cupboard a few days ago, I was reminded that most of the space in there is taken up by a stock of empty boxes that 'will come handy one day' ... more of them later.

After completing the essential task of that afternoon, my eye lit upon the cabinet in the far corner of the room.  When I relocated here during the summer, it was one of only two casualties of the move.  The top hinge of one of the doors got broken so it looked lopsided when closed, and wouldn't stay put when open, unless I propped it with something.  "I must do something about that one day," I muttered, and hurried off to put away what I'd ironed.

The very next morning, in my daily scanning of the posts on Trash Nothing (formerly Freecycle), I spotted a smart item described as a 'TV/DVD cabinet'.  Thinking of its injured counterpart upstairs, I looked more closely at the measurements.  The capacity of the offered piece was about the same, slightly taller but narrower than what I already had, but certainly a candidate for a replacement.  I enquired about a couple of details, got a prompt and satisfactory reply, and later in the day drove over to collect it.

One significant detail I hadn't considered was the weight of this solidly-built item.  Fortunately, the lady who had placed it had foreseen the difficulty this presented and was quite willing to help me get it into the car.  As I drove home, my mind was going through various possibilities of getting it through the door, lounge and dining room, let alone up a steep flight of stairs.

First things first.  I brought forth some spare sheets, spread these on the road behind the car and managed to get the cabinet out of the vehicle.  As I pondered my next move, the front door of the neighbouring house opened and a voice asked "Would you like some help with that?"  I looked up in some relief to see the man coming down the steps almost before I had told him that was very kind and yes, please.

I have to admit that, as the two of us lifted it across the pavement, up two steps, through the front door and into the lounge, I realised that my embryonic plans would never have achieved this, without damage either to the cabinet or myself ... let alone getting it up a steep flight of stairs.  I was very relieved when my co-worker suggested that he help me get it up there ... a journey in which he bore the greater burden by a goodly margin!

The following afternoon found me emptying the contents of the cabinet all over the floor of the spare room, demolishing the empty shell and storing the bits in the far corner for disposal.  Given its original purpose, the new arrival had the apparent disadvantage of three great holes in the back.  I was aware of these, but had considered this no problem given the simple purpose I had for it.  However, as I now viewed the piece of hardboard I'd taken from the back of the old cabinet, I realised that it could probably be put to good use!  Amazingly, within a couple of inches either way, it matched the complete back of the new one, and was quickly screwed into place without the need to cut it at all.

In the space of about an hour and a half, the filled but injured store had been replaced in the corner by something smarter and more serviceable.  The next task will be to deploy the contents in their new home.  Given the fact of this not having an internal shelf (why would it have?), I may well need to make use of some of those empty boxes in the cupboard!

What do you make of this sequence of thoughts and events: noting a problem one day, spotting a solution the next, the necessary, but unrequested, help to load and unload it, the matching size of the hardboard, and the speed of replacement of one by the other?  Some would call it good fortune, others coincidence; I knew someone who would have used the term 'God-incidence'. ... I will be more explicit and say that I believe it was an answer to an unspoken prayer.  Didn't someone say that He knows our needs before we even ask? 

Don't Let the Facts ...

... (or the lack of them) get in the way of a good story. It's the would-be historian's motto.  I don't claim to be a well-researched historian, but I do try to stick to the facts where I can.  This new-year yarn is fertile ground for truth to give way to fiction.

Having cleared my decks before the holiday period, and having no great desire to join the crowds sampling the latest excitement, i.e. the 1921 Census, I looked around for another area of my family history to which to apply some spit and polish.

It didn't take long to pick up some details given to me getting on for twenty years ago by my fourth cousin, once removed, whom I shall call Jane. Our common ancestor is my 3xgreat-grandfather, Robert Botwright (1759-1847); Jane is descended from his third son, John, and my line is that of his second son Robert.

Apart from entering this family into my tree, I've done virtually nothing with the data since the day Jane's e-mail fluttered into my inbox.  Just a few births and marriages had been found in the National Indexes, but that's about all.  While waiting for my 'other job' to re-activate, I started tracing Jane's family in the early censuses.

Her great-grandparents, James and Caroline Tyrrell married in Bungay in 1877 and were living in Mettingham in 1881.  This is the first of three villages along the road from Bungay to Beccles in the Waveney Valley of north Suffolk.  James was born about 1851 at another of those villages. Barsham.  His middle name Scaggs suggests that he might have been illegitimate, and I've parked him to look at another day.

His wife, Caroline Warnes, was born at Wingfield, some fifteen miles to the south-west of Mettingham, in 1856, and was recorded there in 1861 along with her parents and eight siblings.  Her father, Robert Warnes, was a local man and her mother Martha was born about three miles away at Brockdish, just over the border into Norfolk.  Martha was the daughter of John Botwright mentioned above.  The puzzling thing so far was the fact that - according to Jane - Martha and Robert were married at Pulham, another six miles or so further into Norfolk.

I must explain here that Pulham is actually two villages, not one. Each has a medieval church, dedicated to St Mary, so that negates the saint's name as an identifier as is the case in several places.  (If you want extreme and local evidence of this, just look eastward to South Elmham and to Ilketshall, where about a dozen different villages in total are known simply by their saint's name, with either South Elmham or Ilketshall tagged on almost as an afterthought.)

But both Pulham villages are St Mary's.  Nowadays the northern village is the larger and has a market, or did in former times,  so its name is Pulham Market, while its neighbour rejoices in the original Pulham St Mary.  However, it's not the same actual saint in each case and I found this fact utilised for distinction in some of the earlier censuses, where the larger village is referred to as Pulham Magdalen and the other as Pulham Virgin.

Robert and Martha were married in 1843 at Pulham Market Methodist Church.  You could be forgiven for thinking that that explains why they married so far from the bride's home, although there was a Methodist chapel in Brockdish from the 1800s.  Maybe that wasn't licensed for marriages - if that was a factor in those days - or maybe it wasn't big enough ... the present church (now converted for other use) wasn't built until 1860.

I said that Caroline was living at her birthplace in 1861; given the venue for her parents' wedding, why was I surprised to find the whole family living at Pulham St Mary in 1871?  All of the children, born between 1844 and 1865, had been born in Wingfield; why should they up sticks after twenty-odd years and move to the village where they married?  Could it simply be the ongoing search for employment (Caroline was described as a servant, her father and elder brother as agricultural labourers but the younger children were scholars), or was there some other reason?

Her mother, Martha Botwright, was living in Brockdish in 1841, with a young labouring family, perhaps as a servant.  Meanwhile, Robert (known then as WALNE, and also when he married Martha, and in 1851), was found recorded in ... Pulham St Mary.  The household there, on North Green, consisted of Isaac & Sophia Elmar, 38 & 35, their teenage sons George and James, Sarah Walne, 60, and Robert, 20.  Isaac and Robert were agricultural labourers and Sarah was described as 'independent'; Isaac, his sons and Sarah were born in Norfolk, the other two not.

Since Robert was born in Wingfield, why had he and his mother now moved so far away?  Given the limitations of the 1841 census and the absence of any earlier record, we can only guess at possible family structures.  Further research is clearly needed, but my present guess is that Sarah, now widowed, and her (given her age, youngest) son had sought security with family members.  It's possible that Sophia was her daughter, or that Isaac was her brother.  Either way, it establishes an earlier connection with the village that was maintained by Robert and Caroline years later.

We are constantly reminded that distance was no barrier to movement in past times, either for a daily commute or for the longer term.  Even so, movements were rarely random, and we should always look for other links to support the decisions behind them.

A Rose by Any Other Name ...

I confess that I'm not familiar with the scent of new-born babies, beyond the mere existence of the phenomenon, so I'm not going to comment on the second part of Shakespeare's famous line!  The first half is enough to announce my theme with accuracy.

During the past week or two I've been looking into the family of one Albert Flatman, who has two links to my family, being the father-in-law of my grandfather's brother, and also the brother-in-law to said grandfather's uncle.  Albert had the dubious pleasure of a somewhat unusual second name, Seymour.  That said, some of my discoveries associated with the rest of his family, vary from uncommon to rare, to the frankly bizarre!

Albert Seymour Flatman married Edna Florence Pemberton on the 8th April, 1897 and promptly started building their family of six children.  Doris, Joyce, Nigel, Muriel, Evelyn and Lorna don't sound too far from usual, and the same can be said of five of their choices for second names: Emily, Violet, Albert, Ivy and Harriett, but Muriel Mona had my eyelids elevating slightly, though unaware of the delights to come.

In 1919, Doris, the eldest, was the first to marry, and she and her husband, Arthur Ernest Button carried on this trend, calling their firstborn Monica Inez Audrey Edna - as if two or three forenames weren't sufficient!  Monica's siblings couldn't compete, being accorded a mere two each, and by the time baby Carl arrived in 1935, the second-name well had run dry.  Monica led the way into the next generation, finding a husband named Peter Geale Dickson, whom she married in 1941.  Not to be outdone, Carl managed to carry the unusual into the dimension of surnames, by marrying in 1961 Pauline M Oban.  I presume she or her family were Scottish.

Joyce and my great-uncle Frederick could only manage the 'less common', calling their only son Clive Frederick.

In 1929, Nigel Albert married a girl with the delightfully informal name of Sinfi Eva, which I first thought was Cynthia, misheard by the registrar, until I found not only that it followed her through life (although her death registration entry of Sini E was tagged 'gender unknown'), but that there were also a few more examples of the name.  Sinfi was the eldest child of of a horse dealer named Algar Taylor; he passed his name to his second son, who completed the circle by marrying Nigel's sister Evelyn Ivy the following year.

Muriel Mona married one James S G Dann, whose middle names included his mother's maiden name Grapes.  Unfortunately his father's handwriting fooled those who transcribed the 1911 census, and changed it to Grayes - equally unknown as a forename.  That family schedule kept giving.  I couldn't believe that James's mother and sister were named Milby, so I had to look at the original more closely, and discovered that mum was Milly Elizabeth and sister was Milly Madeline Beatrice.  However, there wasn't an equally accommodating explanation for the younger sister named Councy Elizabeth, whose registration I found confirmed by the GRO website.

After all this excitement, Albert and Edna's youngest daughter, Lorna Harriett played a safety shot, marrying one Charles James Wharton.  It wasn't without its own originality, though.  This name offered several matches in 1911, the nearest of which was a family headed by Charles and Jane Wharton.  The GRO website revealed that Charles James' mother's maiden name was Fulcher, so I could resort to finding his parents' marriage to make sure I had the right census entry.   And it was here that I almost came unstuck, for there was no marriage within an appropriate date range for Charles Wharton and Jane Fulcher.  Before panicking, however, I removed Jane and looked again at the one result in the right area.  One of the two possible brides of Charles John Wharton was Sarah Jane Fulcher.  How often have we found people known by their second name instead of the first?  It's certainly not as uncommon as some of the names I've seen this week!