Peering Through the Fog

Time fogs the view, with changed street names, changing cities, changing cultures. Looking at original documents can tell us a whole lot about our ancestors and the times they lived in, but sometimes it takes a bit of research to understand what the story really is.

Taking a leaf out of Geoff Rasmussen's book, from the Legacy Webinar series "Watch Geoff Live", I have decided to take you through what happened when I received a death certificate from England in the post a few months ago. It was for my third great grandfather, but when it arrived I wasn't quite sure about it. The dearth of information was a little disappointing, for starters. We are quite spoilt with death certificates in Australia. Once government registration got properly underway in the 1850s our certificates carried a lot of information (still do). Date and place of death, name, occupation, sex and age, cause of death, parents' names including mother's maiden name, informant, Registrar, date and place of registration, where buried, minister, undertaker, place of birth, how long in colony, spouse and when married, children (often listed with age at the person's death). Like I said, spoilt. England is rather less generous: date, name, sex, age, occupation, cause, informant details, registrar, date of registration. That's it.

So a little detective work was called for, just to make sure that this is the death certificate for my ancestor.

Death Certificate of George Leonard, 3 Feb 1874. From General Register Office, Southport

He had a distinctive name if you used the whole of it - George Valentine Leonard. His middle name was for his mother's father, Valentine Groves. Unfortunately, the death certificate just has "George Leonard". I know he was born about 1798-1799 in Little Hampton in Worcestershire, and his age tallies with that. I know he died between 1871 and 1881, thanks to the Census. George and his wife Ann had been living with one of their daughters, Emma Alderman Ruckes and her family. In 1871 the Ruckes and Leonards were at 28a Chapel Place, Southwark. In 1881 the Ruckes were in 3 Salterton Street, Islington. A check of freeBMD found no George Leonards in Islington or in Worcestershire, and a few in Southwark, only one of which was anywhere near the right age. That's how I managed to order the certificate in the first place.

According to the certificate, George's place of death was 5 Nelson Street, which doesn't match his last known Census location. And if you go looking for Chapel Place and Nelson Street on modern maps or GoogleEarth you won't find them. Old maps are just the ticket. Did you know there are lots of historical maps online? And quite a few of them can be accessed for free, such as Weller's 1868 map of London? Then there is the Charles Booth Archive. If you are interested in London's East End in the C19th this site is a must. Booth was a reformer working from 1886 to the early 1900s. He walked all over London, compiling a street-by-street analysis and colour-coding every street and area according to set criterior to create his "Poverty Maps". He made notes about the state of houses, the level of dress of children (such as whether or not they had shoes), the occupations of residents, levels of crime (he was usually accompanied by a local policeman), and so on. Although his journals are written after George's death, Booth refers to the East End as it had been as well as its condition at time of recording.

Lots of close scrutiny of old maps. Nelson Street was easy, thanks to Mr. Booth. In Book 364, page 45, Booth lists "Kipling St. (late Nelson St.)". Chapel Place was harder. I ended up getting an old map and a new map and comparing them. Turns out Chapel Place has been renamed Hankey Street. When you look at these on GoogleEarth, what do you know, they are a hare's breath (or is it a hair's breadth?) from each other. Below is an Ordinance Survey map from 1896 showing both streets with their original names. I don't know which house was 28a Chapel Place.

Chapel Place and Nelson Street, Bermondsey. Entrances off Long Lane are marked with blue crosses. The building marked in red is 5 Nelson Street. From Southwark Historical Mapping, Southwark Council

If you are interested in the history of this area, have a look at Bermondsey Yesterday and Today. As well as having photos of different parts of Bermondsey in the past and in more or less the present (give or take a couple of years), there are also discussions of areas, detailed memories and commentary. It is a good site, but can be a bit disheartening. During World War II, the East End was heavily bombed. The Docks and all the factories made for prime targets. What the Luftwaffe didn't destroy was finished off by planners and developers. Yes, there were appalling slums, and few people probably shed a tear when they were bulldozed, but there were also very beautiful buildings, along with ordinary but old buildings that spoke of the character of the area, and buildings that had community significance. It looks like few of these have survived, replaced instead by soul-less boxes and towering monstrosities, or empty lots, although there seems to be more parkland and more trees, so it's an ill wind...

According to Charles Booth, Chapel Place was rated "Fairly comfortable, good ordinary earnings". He described the street as having "a good many broken windows". There were prostitutes resident, but no brothels, and there were thieves about¹. However, the area was not poverty stricken and improvements had been made. Chapel Place was so named because it was next to the Wesley Chapel.

Chapel Place, about 1900? From Bermondsey Yesterday and Today page 89

Nelson Street, meanwhile, was "mixed, some comfortable, some poor". 5 Nelson Street was a house somehow attached to the Greenwich Charitable Organisation Society to which I can find no references beyond Booth's notebooks.

So George's death address shows this could well be my George Leonard. Next clue is the informant. E.A. Pember is not a relative in my tree. Initially when I saw the name it was one of the reasons I was in doubt about this being the certificate for my George Leonard, but a little investigation proved interesting. The Metropolitan Free Hospital, founded in 1836, was for the treatment of the destitute. It started out in Carey Street, Stepney but due to budgetry constraints could only treat out patients. It moved to Devonshire Square, Spitalfields and then into a warehouse in Commercial Street East. The move officially occurred in 1876, but negotiations had been underway for some time. As to York Street, this was the location of the St Margaret and St John Workhouse - the street is now Petty France. Attending George at his death was someone from a workhouse  and a hospital for the destitute². That and the fact that where he was living was attached to a Charitable Organisation doesn't speak well of his circumstances.

George died on 3 February 1874. At the time of his death, he had been working as a Commercial Agent. This means he was selling goods, services or insurance on commission. He had gone from a retired man living with his wife, daughter and family to a working man living on his own in need of charitable assistance. Something went wrong here and I don't yet know what it was.

George's cause of death was Chronic Bronchitis, which had lasted for about six weeks. London has long been noted for its fogs and smog, made worse by the Industrial Revolution. The East End, full of factories and situated in a bowl so the fog could not clear, was the worst area. The fog of 1873 began around 9 December. R. Russell in his book “London Fogs”, published 1880, described a London fog as:

“brown, reddish-yellow, or greenish, darkens more than a white fog, has a smoky, or sulphurous smell, is often somewhat dryer than a country fog, and produces, when thick, a choking sensation. Instead of diminishing while the sun rises higher, it often increases in density, and some of the most lowering London fogs occur about midday or late in the afternoon. Sometimes the brown masses rise and interpose a thick curtain at a considerable elevation between earth and sky. A white cloth spread out on the ground rapidly turns dirty, and particles of soot attach themselves to every exposed object.”⁴

Of the 1873 fog, Russell noted it “was one of the thickest and most persistent of this century... in London there was a dense black fog all day, and many accidents occurred on the river and in the streets... many of the fat cattle exhibited at the Great Show at Islington died of suffocation. It was not possible during a great part of the day to see across a narrow street, and in the evening a choking sensation was felt in breathing.” He reported that on 14 December there was a pitch blackness, beginning about 10.15am, “like that of night”. During the fog “deaths exceeded the weekly average by about 700”³. That's a 40% increase. The most common cause was bronchitis, although there was also a marked increase in drownings as people walked into the Thames in the gloom. George's bronchitis set in during the fog. It is fair to say he was one of its many casualties.

Basically, I am now pretty confident that I have George Valentine Leonard's death certificate. What looks on the surface like a simple document has unfolded into something much more, telling a tale, albeit an unhappy one, of the end of my third great grandfather's life. I'm glad I took the time to clear away some of the fog of time, I just wish I could have done something for George.

1 Booth Charles, B364, pp.38-39, http://booth.lse.ac.uk, London School of Economics
2 see "The Workhouse" by Peter Higganbotham, http://www.workhouses.org.uk/StMargaret/

3Russell, R. “London Fogs”, Edward Stanford, 55 Charing Cross, SW, London, 1880, p.21

4Ibid., p.22

What happened next - William Kerswell and Hannah Maria Rymes

So, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, William and Maria, reunited at last, headed off on the train to a happy new life together in Springville, Utah. But what actually happened next?

(By the way, Maria is pronounced to rhyme with "fire", as in the old song "They Called the Wind Maria")

They did live in Springville, but contrary to the newspaper report (probably based on William's information) it wasn't that simple. There was William and Maria, but there was also Sarah, William's second wife, who most certainly was not dead. Both women would have had a lot of adjusting to do. According to Owen Pearce, things did not go well:

"as time went by Maria began to exert her strength of character, which had carried her through many a tight and apparently untenable situation in the past. Slowly and surely she began to dominate in the home until she had completely taken over from the meeker and more placid Sarah. Furthermore she once again had her huband back after forty five years and had no intention of sharing him if it could possibly be avoided."¹

For many years, Sarah's mother, Elizabeth Buck Garlick, had lived with Sarah and William and their children. Old Mrs Garlick died in 1888 and was buried in the Kerswell family plot in Springville Cemetery. By 3 November, 1904 her daughter had joined her, dying, according to Owen, of a broken heart². Whether that was really the case, Sarah had lasted less than two months from the date of William and Maria's remarriage.

I am not sure what happened between 1904 and 15 April, 1910 when the Census was taken, but the fact is that William and Maria did not stay together. According to 1910 US Census returns, William was living with his and Sarah's daughter, Talitha, her husband, Stephen Hutchings, and their children in Spanish Fork, Utah, while Maria was in Springville with William Jnr and his two youngest daughters (the other two having left home as soon as they were able – William Jnr was a strict disciplinarian with a tendency to corporal punishment). I do wonder how William felt when he arrived in Utah, finally met his Dad and found that he had a younger half-brother also named William.

On 7 July 1910, Maria was admitted to the Utah County Infirmary, suffering from senile decay. She spent four years in the Infirmary, finally passing away on 4 February, 1915³. She was buried in the Provo Cemetery. There is no headstone or marker.

Meanwhile, William had moved to Idaho in 1912, to a place called Moore, in Blaine County, with one of his and Sarah's sons. He died on 12 May 1916 at 7.30am, of Senile Decay and apoplexy⁴. He was buried in Lost River Cemetery, Custer County. His headstone reads:

William Kerswell

Aug 31 1827 May 8 1916

There is a triangle between the two dates⁵.

Not effusive, but more than Maria got.

With both parents dead, William Jnr returned to Australia in 1919, his daughters remaining in America where they married and had families. He was welcomed by his brother and sisters and their families, and by his two sons, and spent his years travelling amongst them all and overstaying his welcome.

Maria's obituary in the Salt Lake Tribune always annoys me:

Aged Woman Died

Special to The Tribune

PROVO Feb. 4. - Mrs. Maria Kerswell died here today from old age. She was 85 years of age, a native of England, and came to Utah from Australia in 1902, locating in Springville. She is survived by her husband, William Kerswell, and several children who live in Idaho, and one son, William Kerswell Jnr., residing in Provo.⁶

It's as if the family in Australia doesn't exist. But we do, and if I had the money I would put a headstone on Maria's grave, to read:

Maria Kerswell ni Rymes

born 1 Feb 1829

died 4 Feb 1915

From England to Australia and then USA

Never forgotten

1Pearce, Owen “Rabbit Hot, Rabbit Cold”, Popinjay Press, ACT, 1991, p.459

2Ibid., p.465

3 Utah State Board of Health, death certificate 56 (1915), Maria Kerswell; digital image, FamilySearch, "Utah Death Certificates, 1904-1956," FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 18 Jan 2012)

4 Idaho State Board of Health, death certificate 54 (1916), William Kerswell; digital image, FamilySearch, "Utah Death Certificates, 1904-1956," FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 18 Jan 2012)

5 John Tipton database, Find a Grave (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 16 Sep 2013), database entry for William Kerswell memorial #37774611.

6"Aged Woman Dies" Salt Lake Tribune, 5 February 1915, p. 7, col. 3; digital images, Utah Digital Newspapers (http://udn.lib.utah.edu : accessed 17 Aug 2013)

A Question of Truth - William Kerswell and Hannah Maria Rymes

When looking into your family history, have you ever found something that has made you furious? Something so audacious or brazen or just wrong, done by an ancestor, that made you want to reach through history and give that person a good slap? Last week I was visited by just such a feeling.

We grew up knowing that my third great grandfather had abandoned his family in Australia and gone to America. My grandmother had always said he was a Mormon, but that was about all I knew as a child. In my teens I found out a little more of the story, and then in the last ten years I got the full story, partly from Owen Pearce's "Rabbit Hot Rabbit Cold" and partly from research. Last week another piece dropped into my lap.

First, the story so far, and a photo of the culprit, William Kerswell (1827-1916)

William Kerswell, from the Hunting Bagley Collection, digital image from L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University

I wish I had a better photo of his wife, Hannah Maria Rymes, my third great grandmother, but that's the way of it.

Hannah Maria Rymes from Rabbit Hot Rabbit Cold by Owen Pearce

William and Maria were from Devon. Both had become members of the LDS Church while in England. William could read and write, Maria could not. The couple married in August 1848, then in March the following year made their way to Australia aboard the Florentia, landing in Adelaide on 20 June 1849. During the voyage their first child, Elizabeth, was born. The family lived in Norwood, South Australia, where William worked as a brickmaker and three more children were born - George, William and Hannah. Both parents continued in the LDS Church. After about eight years William decided that the family would move to New South Wales to seek greener pastures. They did the sensible thing and travelled to Melbourne, with plans to continue up the coast to Sydney. The land between Adelaide and Sydney is particularly challenging, even now. I have done that trip in a car - twice. We stripped a tire the second time and were stranded all day in the baking heat. Never again. I can't imagine it with a horse and cart.

In Melbourne things went badly wrong. The family split over an argument. Owen Pearce was told that William was asked by members of the local LDS Church if he would take his family to Utah. He said yes, but when he told Maria she flatly refused. They had a huge fight and William went anyway, leaving his wife and four young children behind. The date is unclear, but going by other records this would have been some time in 1857.

Maria and the children continued on to New South Wales. By February of 1858 they were in the Burragorang Valley, where Maria gave birth to her fifth child, a boy named Heber¹. Maria worked in Camden and in Burragorang, doing what she could. She worked for a while as a housekeeper to Joseph Folden, unitl his early death. Members of the LDS Church helped out, with the Mannerings of Goulburn taking in George and seeing to his schooling. Each child obtained work as soon as possible to contribute to the family's survival. Heber died in 1871. 

So what happened to William? He sailed first to England (Owen Pearce was told he stowed away in a barrel - this is unlikely) and from there to the US, leaving Liverpool aboard the Empire on19 February 1858, bound for New York². On the 1860 US Census he was living in Springville, Utah with his new wife Sarah (ni Garlick), her three sons from previous marriages and her mother. He owned a farm valued at $100 and had a personal estate valued at $150³

In 1866 he served in the Indian Wars for 42 days (or at least there are three sworn affidavits to that effect from 1910⁴).

In 1877 William travelled back to England where he visited his family and Maria's. He also on this trip copied a letter written from Maria to her mother after William's disappearance. He travelled back to America aboard the steamship Wisconsin, leaving Liverpool on 19 September, 1877⁵.

Between 1860 and 1876 William and Sarah had seven children, four boys and three girls. All these children attended school and could read and write. He had a difficult relationship with his stepsons. A letter from one of them, John Albert Strong, transcribed in “Rabbit Hot Rabbit Cold”, is very acrimonious and outlines a number of serious grievances the boys had against their stepfather⁶.

Meanwhile, back in Australia, Maria and the elder Kerswell children managed as best they could. The children married and had families of their own. Maria lived with Elizabeth and her husband, George Pearce. Then, in 1894, more than thirty five years after William's departure, a letter arrived out of the blue from Mapleton, Utah. This must have been something of a shock. It certainly caused waves. Over the next few years there was a strong flow of correspondence between Utah and New South Wales, with Maria's children and grandchildren reading her the letters and writing her replies. William claimed, amongst other things, to have left Australia because of “important business”⁷. He also wrote that he had given up hope of ever seeing his family again, that he had thought them lost in a shipwreck, but also that he had been in contact with Maria's family (in 1877) when he had copied her letter (but not thought to write to her?). He outlined all the things he had – land and livestock and interest in a mine. After about 18 months of writing William finally told them he had a second wife and family. All this and then he asked Maria to consent to be sealed to him so that they could be husband and wife in eternity. It was carried out by proxy.

In most of the letters William expressed his dislike for Australia and exhorted his Australian family to sell up and move to Utah. According to Owen Pearce and others, this caused divisions within the family. William Jnr's wife, Margaret (ni Maxwell), left him for a while until he came to his senses. George Pearce demanded Elizabeth make a definite decision and then inform her father, which she did (she chose to stay in Australia). Her branch of the family took firmly against the LDS Church (members of the local branch had been asked by William to stick in their oar, which was not well received - although I doubt he told them the full and unvarnished truth). My mother remembers Elizabeth's daughter Hannah and her husband George Shoobridge being fiercely opposed to any visits from Mormons. I understand this reaction, but personally I think it was misdirected. That William was a Mormon merely dictated where he went, it didn't dictate that he went. That, I think, would have happened regardless.

When William Jnr's wife died as a result of complications in childbirth, he determined to take his children to Utah and see how things would go. His two eldest children, both boys, flatly refused, but William, his four daughters and his mother, Maria, set sail aboard the Mariposa, landing in San Francisco on 25 May, 1903. They made their way to Provo, but William Snr did not meet them, nor arrange for them to be met, which I always thought was strange.

Then last week, as a result of a Legacy Webinar, I was made aware of the Harold B. Lee Digital Collection on the Brigham Young University website. I searched “Kerswell”, hoping to find out some more about William Jnr's four daughters, who made their life in the US and never returned home to Australia. Well, I did find some things pertaining to them, but I also found a newspaper article, which I have transcribed below. As you read it, bear in mind the actual course of events as outlined above.

OLD FOLKS ARE WEDDED AGAIN

Happy Ending to a Sad Story.

Were Separated by Fate for More Than Forty Years.

Reunion Brought About by Meeting of Father and Son at Mormon Conference.

Seventy-six and seventy-five years were the respective ages of a bride and groom who took train for their future home at Springville a few days ago. Not until after their departure from Salt Lake did the romance of their marriage come to light. It then transpired that William Kerswell, the groom, had led the same woman, then a blooming girl, to the altar nearly half a century before. She became the mother of his four children; they listened to the strange teachings of the Mormon elders and were won over to the new faith; together they started for the holy city of the West. It was then that fate forced them apart – a separation lasting for thirty-seven years and which ended with their remarriage in Salt Lake. Fiction affords no stranger histories than theirs.

Were Married in England

William Kerswell and his wife lived for the first two years of their married life in England, after which they sailed to the northern part of Australia. Here they lived for eight years with their little family of four children, two boys and two girls. About this time they were converted by missionaries to the Mormon religion, and became at once possessed with the desire to make Zion their home. To this end they saved, and were finally able to make the trip down to Melbourne, from which place they were to take ship for America. What was their sorrow to find that they were too late for the vessel on which they wished to embark! They could only stand in a huddled group on the wharf, the children crying miserably as they clung to their mother's skirts, and watch the vessel fade away to a speck on the horizon.

Somehow, in the unaccustomed rush and excitement of the city, the little family became separated from the father, and the mother, with her four little ones, found herself hedged on every side by strangers to whom she felt she could make no appeal.

Sought Husband in Vain.

She made her way through the crowd vainly trying to find her husband, but the quest was useless, and, with her children, she seated herself where she thought he might most easily find her. Here the little group waited until darkness fell, the little ones beginning to sob and cling to their mother, whose heart beat with even wilder fear then their own, but without anticipation of the pitiful fate which had even then overtaken her.

For, while she had been seeking her husband, another ship had arrived. He had previously purchased their tickets. When the ship was about to depart, and he could not see his little family on the wharf, he concluded that the mother had taken them aboard, and hurried upon the vessel. When he discovered his error he was frantic with grief, and being a simple countryman, supposed that he might easily go ashore, but this was impossible, and the next land upon which he set foot was America.

Son Comes to Zion.

It is needless to picture the heartsickness and grief of the desolate woman in a strange city. It never came into her mind that her husband might have taken the outgoing ship. She gave him up for dead or a deserter, but she never ceased to love him.

A volume might be written concerning her struggles for the existence of herself and children. It is enough to say that the brave woman succeeded, and about forty years after the fateful night when the family found themselves deserted on the wharf at Melbourne, seemingly doomed never to reach the loved Zion, the woman's son set sail with his own young family for Utah, where he made his home in Provo three years ago. The mother remained in Australia.

A Remarkable Meeting.

The most remarkable part of the story comes at this point. The son, being a Mormon, was attending conference in the tabernacle at Provo one Sunday, when he heard the name of “William Kerswell” called from the speakers' rostrum. Turning at once to see who might bear the family name, the son came face to face with his father, whom he had not seen for thirty-six years. After a few words, father and son recognized each other and were overjoyed at the reunion.

Then the old man explained how he had tried to reach his family by letters, and, having failed in this, without money to return to Australia, he had given them up in despair. Some years after he married again and by this marriage had several children. His wife was now dead.

Sent for His Aged Wife.

When the situation was understood, the old man communicated with his former wife in Melbourne. Finding that she still loved him after all these years of uncertainty, the old man and his son set to work to save enough money to bring her out to Utah. The old couple wanted to be married again, and last Wednesday this event took place after a delay of one day which the old lady took very much to heart.

When the ceremony was actually performed, reuniting the husband and wife, it was the old man who shed tears of joy, while both old figures trembled with the stress of their feelings.

From the Salt Lake Tribune, 31 August, 1904, page 10⁸.

I have little doubt that the information for this article was supplied by William, possibly as a letter to a journalist. That it is full of lies built on kernels of truth is obvious enough. Some may have been as a result of confusion by the journalist (exacerbated by poor knowledge of Australian geography), but the level of detail goes beyond that, points to inside information. There is a subtle air of blame over Maria's reported actions on the Melbourne wharf. That the couple converted in England is rewritten so that the drive to head for Utah is readily understood as newly converted zeal. William's supposed impoverishment in Utah is belied by US Census returns, which repeatedly show him with property and assets, and by his trip to England. If he was so desparate to find his family, why didn't he go to Australia instead, or, failing that, ask Maria's family where she was, or write to her after he copied her letter?

I do wonder if Sarah ever found out that she was supposedly dead when William Jnr arrived.  And as to that arrival, without his mother, and the VERY public reunion in the Tabernacle in Provo, suddenly William Snr's lack of a welcome to the Australian party made sense to me. William Jnr seems always to have been the one most wanting to meet his father again, and the one most likely to be gracious and warm at such a meeting. So William Snr made sure that that first meeting was where everyone could see, where he could get material for his own spin on things. If the journalist went asking, he would be told of a surprise meeting in the tabernacle, where father and son warmly embraced. Why muddy the waters with the truth, or the knowledge of lengthy correspondence? And why diminish William's heroism in the matter by making it clear that he had not paid a cent for Maria's passage, that the money had instead come from William Jnr selling all he had?

Remember, Maria couldn't read. She would be relying on others to read the paper to her. William Jnr had settled in Provo, while Maria and William, along with Sarah, were living in Springville. Once they had "taken train", Maria would be at William's mercy in regard to what parts of the paper were read to her, if that particular issue of the Tribune happened to make its way to their home.

It is an arch piece of propaganda, but totally in keeping with what I and others have found that reveals William's character. Owen Pearce tried to find something good to say about William, but I find myself unable to be so gracious. He seems always to have put himself above his family and to arrange life to suit his own needs. And that article really irritates and angers me. William tried to make sure that there was a public record of his own version of the truth, where he was painted as a pitiable yet noble figure. Annoyingly, he has probably succeeded. He got his article in the premier newspaper of his state, and now it is digitised, increasing its life span. The real truth is out there, but is in bits and pieces, needing to be pulled together. This blog post is an attempt to do that in a small way, but its life span will not be the same as the Tribune article.

1 Wesleyan records, Camden, NSW BDM V18586010 121C/1858

2 James Lovett Bunting (MS, Provo, Utah, 1857-1877), p. 214; digital images, Brigham Young University, "Overland Trails Diaries," (accessed 4 Sep 2013).

3 1860 U.S. census, Utah, Utah, population schedule, Springville, p. 270, dwelling 2409, family 1894, William Kerswell; digital images, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M653, roll M653.

4 "Indian War Affidavits," database and images, Utah Sate Digital Archives (http://archives.utah.gov : accessed 24 Oct 2012); Affidavit of William Kerswell in 1910.

5 "The Emigration: List of Passengers per Steamer "Wisconsin"," Deseret News, 10 Oct 1877, p. 16, col. 1-2; digital images, BYU Harold B. Lee Library Digital Collections (http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu : accessed 17 Aug 2013), Deseret News Collection.

6 Owen W. Pearce, Rabbit Hot, Rabbit Cold: Chronicles of a Vanishing Australian Community (Woden, ACT, Australia: Popinjay Publications, 1991), pp465-466

7 Letter from William Kerswell to Maria Kerswell, 23 Feb 1896, Mapleton, Utah, cited in Owen W. Pearce, Rabbit Hot, Rabbit Cold: Chronicles of a Vanishing Australian Community (Woden, ACT, Australia: Popinjay Publications, 1991), p 454

8 "Old Folks are Wedded Again," Salt Lake Tribune, 31 August 1904, p. 10, col. 3; digital images, Utah Digital Newspapers (http://http://udn.lib.utah.edu : accessed 17 Aug 2013).

Join the Army and See the World - the life of Hugh MacKay

Hugh MacKay (c1756 – 1840) was my fifth great grandfather on my maternal grandfather's side. He was a weaver on a heavily overpopulated Isle in the Hebrides, yet, because he joined up to fight Napolean, he ended up travelling not only to Europe but also into the Middle East. This is a quick, and inadequate rundown of his life.

Hugh MacKay (c1756 – 1840)

Wife: Ann MacDonald (c1765-1802)

Children:

Catharine (1785-?)

Donald (1787-?)

William (1787- ?)

George (1790-?)

Lachlan (1793-1861) (guess which one is my ancestor)

Francissa (1795-?)

John (1798-?)

Hugh MacKay was born on the Isle of Tiree, Argyll, Scotland. The Isle of Tiree Community website describes Tiree thus:

“One of the Inner Hebrides, Tiree is twenty-two miles west of the nearest point on the Scottish mainland, Ardnamurchan. ...Britain’s twentieth largest island, it is just over ten miles at its longest, five miles at its widest, and a little over half a mile at its narrowest.

A walk of forty six miles would take you around its coastline, much of it along white beaches of shell sand. Tiree is divided into 286 crofts and five farms although there are today probably fewer than a hundred active crofters. The land is split into thirty one crofting townships, each controlled by a grazing committee. It is the most fertile of the Hebrides...

The weather dominates life on Tiree in a way it often fails to do on the mainland. Weather reports from the island are familiar to listeners to the BBC’s Shipping Forecast and Reports from Coastal Stations.

Like the rest of Scotland’s west coast, the island is bathed by the warm Gulf Stream. The surrounding seas keep the island’s climate mild in winter and cool in summer. Sea temperatures are at their lowest in March, and at their highest in September.

The prevailing south-westerly winds bring a succession of weather systems from the Atlantic... There are gales here on average thirty four days a year.”¹

Tiree is without woodland, and has only three sizeable hills.

Tiree, withing Argyll and Bute, from Wikipedia

Finding birth records for Hugh has proved problematic, although pursuit continues. His father, if Hugh followed tradition, would have been Donald (as this is the name of his eldest son – the tradition was to name the eldest son for the paternal grandfather). However, this is presently conjecture. Little has been uncovered of Hugh until the birth of his first child, and even then the details are sketchy.

In 1785 the birth of Catharine is recorded in the Parish Records of Cornaig, Coll to Hugh MacKay and Anne MacDonald². They were already married as the child was not listed as “begot through fornication”. Luckily, the custom in Scotland was to record the mother's maiden name. No marriage records for Hugh and Ann have yet been uncovered.

All the subsequent Mackay children were born on Coll, although in differing Parishes (Cornaig, Sodistal), with the possible exception of Lachlan (this will be explained later), whose birth does not appear in the Old Parish Records (OPR).

Coll, the island directly north-east of Tiree on the map above, is 20.9km long by 4.8km wide and these days has a population of about 200. It has sandy beaches and one notable “mountain”, Ben Hogh in the south west of the island which rises to a height of 104m³. Coll's official website boasts a list of things the island does not have, including “nowhere to go whilst it rains.”⁴

Coll's population has been much higher. There were 938 residents in 1776, and over one thousand by the early nineteenth century, eventually rising to about 1500. Added to the human population was all the accompanying lifestock. There were cows, the lucky families having one per household for milk, and sheep, with many on the island listing their occupation as weaver. Hugh McKay was among these.

Clabbach, Coll, from www.visitcoll.co.uk

A typical Coll house was a small affair, one or two rooms, with a thatched roof held down by a complex web of ropes weighted with stones. Where windows existed they were small. Light came into the first room through the door and any windows. The external walls were about six feet thick, made of two layers of stone with a gap between filled with sand and peat. The roof came only to the gap and grass and food plants were grown in the fill. There was no chimney and the sooty thatch, when replaced, was ploughed into the fields as fertiliser. This all doesn't sound too bad. Somewhere to live, well-insulated for the winter, extra growing space. However, only part of this house was for the human occupants. Half to two-thirds was dedicated to the livestock, which would have to live indoors in the colder months, and whose dung would be removed each spring by breaking a hole in the wall and shovelling the dung out onto waiting carts. If you were very poor, there was no dividing wall between your family and your animals, which were tethered to prevent incursions into the living quarters.

In 1793, the call went out for men to fight Napoleon. Hugh was among the first on Coll signed up to the 79^th Regiment of Foot (Cameronian Volunteers). The Regiment was established on August 17, 1793 at Fort William from among the members of the Clan Cameron by Sir Allan Cameron of Erracht. A new tartan was devised, based on a combination of the MacDonald and Cameron tartans.

Initially Hugh and his comrades were stationed on Malta. There is a record of a Lachlan McKay being born there in 1793, implying that the whole family went along too, although currently that Lachlan cannot be indisputibly linked to Hugh. Families travelling with soldiers was not uncommon at the time, so it is possible. In 1794 the Regiment was sent to the Netherlands. The campaign went badly and the men were evacuated back to Great Britain, the 79^th foot listed for disbandment. However, this did not happen and the Regiment was instead posted in 1795 to the West Indies. Hugh, along with a number of other men, was sent home during this time and his last two children, Francissa and John, were born. In 1799 the men were recalled and joined their Regiment, bound for Holland

The 79^th Foot saw active service at Egmont-op-Zee in October and in 1800 joined an unsuccessful assault at Ferrol on the Spanish coast. From there, they went to Egypt and were part of the force that eventually saw the surrender of the French at Cairo. As a result a sphinx with the word EGYPT over it was added to the Regiment's colours and badges⁵

The next few years were spent in Minorca, where Anne died. George, Donald, William and Lachlan were already serving in the army as soldiers, Lachlan having been signed up at the age of six as a drummer boy, but the death must have come as a blow to the family The assumption currently is that Catharine bore the bulk of the care for Francissa and John.

In 1804 the 79^th Foot was made part of the British Army, and it is from this point that the Chelsea Records commence. A second battalion was formed as a draft-finding unit and Hugh served in this Battalion from 20^th Sept 1804 to 24 December, 1807, whereafter he was transferred to the 1^st Battalion. The 1st Battalion had, during 1807, served in Denmark. Hugh joined them on their return to England.

“In 1808 the 79th Foot moved to Portugal, moving to Spain in the following year and participating in several major battles of the Peninsular War:

* Corunna in 1809,

* Busaco and the defence of Cadiz in 1810,

* Fuentes d'Onor in 1811,

* The Battle of Salamanca, the occupation of Madrid and the siege of Burgos in 1812,

* the Battles of the Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive in 1813

* The Battle of Toulouse in 1814

Following the abdication of Napoleon in 1814, the regiment moved to Cork, Ireland. However, with the return of Napoleon from exile, the 79th Foot travelled to Belgium in May, 1815. The regiment took part in the final battles of the Napoleonic Wars at Quatre Bras and Waterloo in June.”⁶ All soldiers who served at Waterloo received a special medal. The medal is silver, is 1½ inches across (37mm) and is attached to a ribbon by an iron ring. It was the first medal to have the recipient's name impressed around the edge by machine. Unfortunately many were lost as the iron ring rusted. Whether Hugh's medal still exists somewhere is at this point unknown.

front and reverse of Waterloo medal, from

http://www.kingsownmuseum.plus.com/medalsa.htm

Hugh MacKay, Private, was officially discharged on 16 October, 1815, although his service record gives the conclusion date of his service as 24 April, 1816 (the extra time a credit for serving at Waterloo and Quatre Bras). He was discharged on the grounds of “Infirmity through age” being at that time 59. Given that Quatre Bras and Waterloo alone accounted for 21 800 dead on the British side, Hugh did remarkably well to survive the entire war.

His discharge papers, held in the National Archives, London, give a physical description of Hugh. He is given as “fifty nine years of age, five feet, six inches in height, dark brown hair, grey eyes, dark complexion”, his trade listed as “weaver”. His place of residence is “Coll, Tobermory, Argyll”. Hugh signed the papers with a cross.

Following the war, his family scattered, while Hugh returned to Coll to quietly live out his days, a weaver who had travelled the world.

Nothing more is yet uncovered about Hugh, except his death date, 1840. However, this is not yet verified, and comes from an uncertain source. There are few death records for Coll or Tiree as burial was not considered a sacrament (John Knox wrote that death rites led to Popery, and Knox had the last say in Scotland). The search continues.

1http://www.isleoftiree.com/history.html

2Christening records OPR accessed through Scotland's People website. OPR frame no FRCH2V1P60

3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coll

4http://www.visitcoll.co.uk/Coll.php?p=about

5"Historical Record of the 79th Regiment of Foot, or Cameron Highlanders" by Captain Robert Jameson, William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, 1863, p.15

6http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/79th_Foot

Banging Your Head On a Brick Wall CAN Work

Well, actually, I got lucky. Serendipity is a great thing.

I have been researching George and William Pearce for ongoing convict blogs, trying to work out where in Somerset they came from, and, while I haven't had much luck with them, I solved a puzzle for another ancestor.

Last week I was at Wyong Family History Group, using one of their Ancestry computers, checking through their Somerset records. Firstly there was the frustration of "I have specified Somerset, UK, and you keep giving me Somerset, US results. Aaaargh!" Ancestry can be really annorying that way. Then there was the frustration of only finding what I already have (I need to rethink the search parameters). But...

I came across parish records for Evercreech in Somerset. St Peter's, Evercreech has records going back into the 1500s. It even at one point had a priest who would give a potted family history or interesting family fact with each entry. Genealogical gold. Pity we can't retrospectively make that sort of thing compulsory. Oh, for a time machine.

St Peter's, Evercreech, photo from Wikipedia

Evercreech niggled at me. Someone in the family tree has a connection with it, but I had only brought George and William's details with me (I wasn't going to be there all day). When I got home, I did a search in my file and there it was - Sarah Alicia Shepherd and her sister, Elizabeth, christened in Evercreech. Sarah's father, William Shepherd, is one of my brick walls. There is a lot of information floating around about his wife, Sarah Ann Burgess (these are my third great grandparents on my maternal grandmother's side). She was born and baptised in Market Lavington, Wiltshire. I can go back another four generations from her on a couple of lines, and three on the other ones. There is a lot about her marriage to her second husband, John Jessop, and a fair bit about all her children. But for William, all I had was his death date (8 October 1857, in Burragorang Valley), a calculated birth year of 1811 and that he arrived in Australia with Sarah aboard the Hydaspes in 1852. They were accompanied by their daughters Sarah and Elizabeth. This is outlined in Owen Pearce's book, "Rabbit Hot, Rabbit Cold" (pp.613-614), but is also part of family lore. I remember being told this by my grandmother when I was about twelve years old. I have been looking for more on William for a number of years, but it has always been a bit half-hearted because I never had much luck (well, you can see that one going round and round).

I don't have an Ancestry subscription, and wouldn't be able to get back to WFHG for several days, so I got on to FreeREG. Admittedly it's only transcripts, and it is still a work in progress, but, hell, why not? For those who don't know, this site is run by the FreeBMD and FreeCEN people, but is England and Wales Parish Register transcriptions carried out by volunteers. You can search according to Parish and/or Country and by name, with the ability to put in date ranges. It is not the same as looking at images or indeed the real thing, but it is a great resource. Evercreech has been extensively transcribed, so I started by putting in my great great grandmother, Sarah Alicia Shepherd. Remember, I had her listed as baptised in Evercreech. Um, no. Nothing. Elizabeth? Also no. Uh oh. Plus there is the problem that I put them in early in my research, when a lot of the time I didn't put in citations. University education, citations should have been second nature. Hello. What happened there? Regardless of where I got that information, it's wrong. Or there is an error or omission in FreeREG (they warn about this themselves). Guess who forgot to select Soundex? Missing this vital option, I decided to enter their parents, William and Sarah Ann...

William Shepherd and Sarah Ann Burgess, married Evercreech 12 February 1849. Better yet, it gave the name of Sarah's father (which matched the documented information I have) and, joy of joys, William's father, whose name I had never known. The bride and groom were resident in Evercreech, the groom a widow. I hadn't known that before, and no one had ever mentioned it either, not Owen, not Nanna, no one.

I did a search in the Evercreech transcripts for other children potentially of William and found the baptism of William Shepperd on 23 June 1850, to William and Anne Shepperd and the burial of William Shepherd, aged three weeks, on 30 June 1850. That's a child I previously only knew as "a male who died as a child" (RHRC p.613). I wasn't sure if this was definitely that child, but now I don't have any doubts. Finally selecting the Soundex option found Elizabeth Ann Shepperd, baptised 16 April, 1849, and Sarah Alicia Sheppard, baptised 22 September 1852. How to feel stupid in one easy lesson.

Widened searches of Somerset threw up heaps of results through which I sifted. Nothing more for William and Sarah Anne or Anne, but lots of other Williams with other wives. I could rule out a few because of location. Time to get smart. And a lesson in how it pays to look at the original or at the very least at an image of the original.

Did you know that State Records NSW has digitised immigrant ship lists? You can't search by name, but you can search by ship. And you can search their immigrant database by name, which should give you a ship and a year (and a reel number). The ship lists are great. You look for your ship in the list (arranged by date) and then you get the full immigrant list for that ship. They are in alphabetical order by surname, so it isn't too bad finding someone, just be prepared to go page by page, as you would with a microfilm. They are all handwritten, recorded at the actual time, so sometimes it is fun working out what a word is, and it is complicated by accents and spelling, but that's half the fun. And the information you can get is worth a little bit of thinking time.

I have used the shipping lists a fair bit, and know that one of the things listed is native place. As I couldn't find Sarah Alicia and Elizabeth in FreeREG, I thought why not look at the Hydaspes list to see what it says about the girls. Oh dear. Yes, William and Sarah Shepherd, but both originating from Kent, and moreover, no children. The records for the immigrants are fairly meticulous, and children were ALWAYS listed, no matter how young. So, either my great great grandmother and her eleder sister were born in Australia rather than England, or this is the wrong Shepherds. Back to the immigrant database - the only William Shepherd to come out came on the Hydaspes. The database is a little annoying in that it doesn't have a Soundex option or similar. So I wrote down all the different spellings I could think of for Shepherd and then searched each individually. SHEPPERD (got that William Jnr's Evercreech records), SHEPERD, SHEPPARD, SHEPHARD, SHEPARD, SHEPPART, and so on. Luckily I had a date to stop - November 1853 when son William Henry was born at The Oaks, out near Camden, NSW. There were still a few results, however, under a number of spellings. Back to the ship lists to go through each one.

This sort of back and forth sifting does pay off. It IS worth the effort. Look who I found aboard the Bolton, arriving 23 July 1853:

Australia. "Online Microfilm of shipping lists." The Bolton. State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood. Digital images. NSW Government. State Records. www.records.nsw.gov.au : 2012

The birth place of wife, Anne, was the clincher, and there are Elizabeth and Sarah, down the bottom, with their ages corresponding to what I actually know from death certificates. Remember William was listed as a widow at his marriage to Sarah Ann? Those three older children must be from that first marriage. And all those lovely places of birth. But where the hell is Lamyert?

I don't know if you watch Time Team, the archeaology program. But Prof Phil Harding on that is from Somerset. So if you look for clips from the series, you'll hear the sort of accent William Shepherd had, which explains why his native place is written as "Lamyert" rather than the actual "Lamyatt".

Back to FreeREG. I found John, born to William and Caroline Shepherd, baptised 5 September, 1841 in Lamyatt. Albert Henry I found at Shepton Mallet, born 13 March, 1845 and baptised 27 April, 1845. Mary Jane I eventually tracked down being baptised in Pitcombe on 22 October 1843. These places are all fairly close together. No marriage for William and Caroline as yet, although FreeBMD has a possiblity in April 1840 in Wincanton. However, I did find Caroline's burial, 6 October 1848 in Pitcombe, Somerset. And here is where it gets interesting.

Caroline died early October, 1848. William and Sarah Ann were married 12 February, 1849, four months after Caroline died. William and Sarah Ann's first child, Elizabeth, was baptised on 16 April, 1849, six months after Caroline died. Oookay.

It's easy to see that there is more to do, and much more to look for. When I am back in WFHG, I'll look at the 1841 and 1851 Census records (I found William, Caroline and John in 1841 transcripts on FreeCEN). Then there are Ancestry and FindmyPast to check. When I finish this blog I'll have a look at FamilySearch. But, hey, there are enough bricks removed from William's wall that I can see where to look and who to look for. Every little bit helps.

This process made me remember a number of important things:
Always select Soundex if it is there as an option
Always look at an original document if you can or, failing that, at an image of the original
Be prepared to backtrack
Be patient and check things thoroughly
Have a look at where places are, particularly in relation to each other
Don't be half-hearted
Don't give up