Finding a Knight in My Tree

 

Recently I’ve been devoting free time to digging deeper into my mother’s English ancestry.  Both her parents were born in Ramsgate, Kent England and her lineage is solidly England for many generations.

Finding that my ancestor Solomon Hougham aka Huffam was a young Knight immortalized in a stained glass window in a Parish Church in Kent England was thrilling. 

Solomon Hougham born 1475, in stained glass window st Nicholas church in Ash, kent, England. He is the second figure from the left.

A second find (see image below) gave more details of Solomon and his life. Now I am researching why Solomon had elephants on his cloak and shield. I want to know what their significance was to him or his family.

I Goofed and Created a Genealogy Mess

In October 2014, I messed up big time.

Discovering my error I realized the mess I created, genealogy-wise

In the image on the left you can see many jpg files with names starting with "GBPRS_CANT_" followed by a string of numbers.

Because they do not have identifying file names in the format I tend to use - surname_firstname_ date_event) I started opening them. They are a mix of baptisms, burials and marriages from "somewhere" in Kent England. The dates range from 1607 to 1832.

One of 47 images that are not identified. The years are 1639 and 1640. I don't know who I'm looking for....
 

Because the images are challenging to read and I don't have all my mother's Kent ancestors memorized, I looked in the meta data for each file for information. Nothing. Nada. It is blank for each one.

That means I was too excited and too lazy to pause and add the meta data or  rename the files with the surname of my ancestor! Either of those would have helped me figure out who each record is for. I also wish I had taken the time to annotate each one with an arrow pointing to the ancestor found on the page.

Baptism of NIcholas Widlbore in 1611. I have now added an arrow & labelled this one correctly. 

 

 

Caught up in the excitement of new finds, I am now going through each image, and trying to match names with my master list of surnames.

I hope I have learned a lesson. I pray I never repeat this silly mistake in future! 

 

What ridiculous mistakes have you made as you've gone along in your genealogy research?

Q is for Quackley

1629 Marriage Judith Quackley & John Stevens

Olive Tree Genealogy is continuing a new Alphabet Genealogy series of blog posts. I'm not following the usual way of going A-Z surnames. Instead I will create a one word "tag". Then I will share an ancestor (mine, my husband's, an inlaw's or one of my children's) who fits the tag

Today's letter is Q for Quackley. I'll be interested if I connect with any other Quackley descendants!

My 9th great-grandmother was Judith Quackley. I know nothing about Judith except that on 06 May 1629 she married John Stevens in Sandwich, St. Peter, Kent England. My best guess for her year of birth is 1613 or earlier. I may never find out any more about Judith but I'll keep searching.

Do you have a Quackley in your family tree?

K is For Kent England Ancestors

Olive Tree Genealogy is continuing a new Alphabet Genealogy series of blog posts. I'm not following the usual way of going A-Z surnames. Instead I will create a one word "tag". Then I will share an ancestor (mine, my husband's, an inlaw's or one of my children's) who fits the tag

Today's letter is K for Kent UK. My mother was first generation Canadian. Both her parents were born in Ramsgate, Kent UK. Her lines on both sides go back many generations in Kent.

Here are some (but certainly not all) of my Kent surnames:

Fuller, Caspall, Norris, Phylpot, Simpson, Stead, Elvery, Laming, Fryer, Hinds, Wildbore, Page, Sutton, Rayner, Friar/Fryer, Prigg, Peerless, Hubbard, Smithett, Badcock, Moses, Ellington, and more.

I started writing books about my Kent ancestors so that I could share them with my adult children. I've only just touched the tip of the Kent iceberg with these:


The Caspall Family of Kent England

 The Caspall family can be found in Kent England with John Caspall's birth circa 1710-1717. This book follows the descendants of John Caspall and his wife Mary Prigg for six generations.










The Wildbore Family of Kent England by Lorine McGinnis Schulze
 
This book follows 4 generations of descendants of George Wildbore and his wife Alicia Pamphlett (nee Sackett) who married in Minster, Thanet, Kent England in 1571.








The Hubbard Family of Kent England by Lorine McGinnis Schulze


 Isaac Hubbard married the widow Mary Ducy in St. James in Dover in 1698.This book follows Isaac and Mary's descendants down four generations through their son Isaac, their grandson Philip, their greaat-grandson Philip and their great-great-granddaughter Milly Elizabeth who married John Caspall. 





The Hinds Family of Kent England


The Hinds families were in Ramsgate Kent England for many generations. This book follows the descendants of Thomas Hinds and his wife Sarah Ammis who married in 1693 in Canterbury.








The Laming Family of Kent England
by Lorine McGinnis Schulze


The Laming family is found in Thanet and Minster Kent England for over 200 years. This book follows six generations of descendants of William Laming born circa 1610 and his wife Mary Culmer.







The Norris Family of Kent England
 
This book follows two distinct Norris families in Kent England. The first is the Norris family found in Lenham Kent in 1773 when Edward Norris and Catherine Earl were married in the Lenham parish church. Four generations of their descendants are followed. The second is the Norris family of Elmsted and Waltham Kent.
 

Learning to Read Old Handwriting

Sometimes we are lucky enough to find a very old document concerning an ancestor. I don't know about you but I'm so excited when I do find an old will or inventory from the 17th or even 16th century!

So I have studied hard over the many years I've been researching family, and can read very basic Dutch or English documents from those early years. In fact I created a few tutorials and wrote a few articles to help others with some of those early letter formations.

Reading 16th Century English Records

How to Read 16th & 17th Century Handwriting

Tricks to Deciphering Old Handwriting

Palaeography: reading old handwriting 1500 - 1800 A practical online tutorial

Help Reading 17th Century Dutch Church Records

But still I struggle with these old documents and find myself floundering, unsure as to what I am reading. That's why, when I found out this booklet on Reading Tudor and Stuart handwriting existed but was out of print, I went on a hunt for it.

Just before the Pandemic began I received 17 wills of ancestors ranging from the earliest will of my 13th great-grandfather Alexander Cullmer dated 1551 to the 1748 will of my 8th great-grandfather Thomas Hinds. I haven't had much time to go through them carefully but I've skimmed them. Now I'm anxious to use my new book and start going through them very slowly.

Some are inventories, not wills, and those are the most fun as I feel like I am walking through their homes as I read about the belongings in each room.

I hope you are finding time to work on your genealogy during this Stay At Home era.

Help Needed 1577 Inventory of my 12th Great Grandpa

I have many English ancestors. My mother was a first generation Canadian with both her parents born in Kent so you can imagine my huge British ancestry. 
  I only recently discovered that I could order wills and inventories for my British ancestors from the Kent History & Library Centre in England. After a few hours searching I found and ordered 17 (yes 17!!) for my direct ancestors. 

This is page 2 of the 1577 Inventory of my 12th great-grandfather Sylvester Spencer.

This is one of the earliest that I received and I am slowly struggling through it.  

Take a look at the enlarged portion below with the bits that I've managed to figure out (I haven't done the cash amounts for each item):

 
Item: His wearing apparrel

Item: three featherbeds that belong to (Thomas smyth?)

Item: ????

Item: One tablecloth and two rowels [rolls] and fower [four] pillowcotes [ancient word for pillowcases] and fower [four] table napkins

 

Feel free to drop your suggestions here! This is tough. It's a 2 1/2 page inventory and his will which I have not yet looked at is one page.

Announcing Four New Family Tree Books

I'm excited to announce my four new family tree books now available on Amazon. If you have Caspall, Laming, Hubbard, or Wildbore ancestors from Kent England you may find these books of interest.

The Wildbore Family of Kent Englandby Lorine McGinnis Schulze  8.5x11". $6.99 28 pages This book follows 4 generations of descendants of George Wildbore and his wife Alicia Pamphlett (nee Sackett) who married in Minster, Thanet, Kent England in 1571.

The Hubbard Family of Kent England by Lorine McGinnis Schulze 26 pages. 8.5x11" $6.99  Isaac Hubbard married the widow Mary Ducy in St. James in Dover in 1698.This book follows Isaac and Mary's descendants down four generations through their son Isaac, their grandson Philip, their greaat-grandson Philip and their great-great-granddaughter Milly Elizabeth who married John Caspall.

The Laming Family of Kent England by Lorine McGinnis Schulze  8.5x11". $6.99 24 pages The Laming family is found in Thanet and Minster Kent England for over 200 years. This book follows six generations of descendants of William Laming born circa 1610 and his wife Mary Culmer.

The Caspall Family of Kent England by Lorine McGinnis Schulze 40 pages. 8.5x11" $11.99  The Caspall family can be found in Kent England with John Caspall's birth circa 1710-1717. This book follows the descendants of John Caspall and his wife Mary Prigg for six generations. John was from Stonar Kent but he and Mary baptized all their children in Sandwich Kent. Other locations where Caspall families lived include Folkestone and Ramsgate.

New Book on Norris Families in England

The Norris Family of Kent England
by Lorine McGinnis Schulze

This book follows two distinct Norris families in Kent England.

The first is the Norris family found in Lenham Kent in 1773 when Edward Norris and Catherine Earl were married in the Lenham parish church. Four generations of their descendants are followed.

The second is the Norris family of Elmsted and Waltham Kent. This family was in Elmsted in 1680 when John Norris was baptised in St. James the Great church. By the time of his marriage to Mary Carr in 1710, he had moved to Waltham. His descendants are followed for three generations.

Documents and family group charts are included.

8.5 x 11 ", 32 pages

New Book: The Wildbore Family of Kent England

  The Wildbore family is found in Minster, Thanet, Kent England as far back as 1550. The surname has been found as Wildbore, Wildebore, Wildboar, Wyldbore, Wyldboar, Wyldebore, and Wilbore.

  The Wildbore Family of Kent England by Lorine McGinnis Schulze is now available on Amazon.   This book follows 4 generations of descendants of George Wildbore and his wife Alicia Pamphlett (nee Sackett) who married in Minster, Thanet, Kent England in 1571.

Only $6.99 in paperback.  8.5x11 inches

Available soon on Amazon.ca

The Gillies Archives from Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup

During the Great War (WW1) a special hospital in Kent England restored facial injuries suffered by soldiers.  The Gillies Archives from Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup  has many artists' renderings of the patients. There are Canadian as well as United Kingdom soldiers in this database.

Pictures of the Week contain many heartbreaking images but they are an invaluable historical record.


The Sidcup Archives as explained on the website is divided into

• WW1 casenotes and Rooksdown Hospital Notes (military to 1946 and civilian to 1960) are now at the Royal College of Surgeons, London
• Plastic surgery ephemera and images are held by BAPRAS. This link takes you to the "History" page where you can learn about the Antony Wallace Collection and other archive material
• General military medical material has been donated to the Army Medical Services Museum, Keogh Barracks, Aldershot
• The WW1 medicine and surgery library is now housed at the Brotherton Library, Leeds (The Bamji Collection)

Gregorius Wildbore: Now That's a Name!

Gregorius Wildbore. It has a certain strength when you say it out loud. I imagine the man who had this name bestowed on him - strong, tall, a brave warrior...... but in all likelihood he was short, thin and stoop-shouldered from years of toil. 

Gregorius was my 11th Great-grandfather on my maternal side, and he was born ca 1550 in Kent England, probably in Thanet. I suspect he was a farmer, struggling to grow a few crops in the tiny parish town of St. Mary Minster, for that is where he married, raised his 7 known children, and died in 1606.

1571 Marriage Georgig (Gregorius) Wildbore & Alice Pamphlett (bottom line)

1606 Burial of Gregorius Wildbore (bottom line)

I am lucky to have found a copy of Gregorius' will but it is not easy reading. In the will he is named as George Wildbore which is a bit of a letdown from the romantic notion of a strong and regal Gregorius. But reality is reality and I know that Gregorius was just the Latin rendition of his very ordinary name.

1606 Will of George Wildbore

Larger PDF file is available for anyone wanting to give reading his will a try. The bottom section of the will is  here

In his will, which I have struggled with for many years, I have only been able so far to read "Alice my wife and Edward Wildbore my son" (Edward, who was baptised in 1580, is my 10th great-grandfather) and "Joan [Colly?] the wife of Thomas [Colly?]" and "Jerome Wildbore my son". 

Perhaps one day I will be able see the original again instead of the print I made from the original microfilm where I first found the will.

I spent time last week searching online church and parish records for Thanet Kent and have had fun and success (a good combination!) with my mother's British roots. Her family lineage goes back to 1500s Ramsgate Kent area for the most part and I have not done a lot of research on them before. It's a good feeling to organize my notes from years past and acquire copies of original cerificates to add to a book I am putting together for my children. 

It is fascinating to me to learn that Minster in Thanet originally started as a monastic settlement in 670AD. The parish church of St. Mary-the-Virgin was built during Norman times. It is quite possible that my ancestors go back to this time. I have literally dozens of surnames of ancestors who lived and died in this small area from at least the early 1500s to mid 1800s.

Not much housework or mundane chores are getting done this week in our household as I am treating myself to a week of genealogy research right here at home! If you have not done this I urge you to set aside a few days or a week and devote yourself to organizing your previous research and looking for new items to add to your tree.

How I Wish I Could Ask Uncle Wally About His Family

Walter Fuller ca 1916

My grandfather Charles Fuller was born in Ramsgate England in 1893. He died young at the age of 48 in Guelph Ontario. In an odd twist of fate, his younger brother Walter, who was born in 1912 is still with us. Uncle Wally is now 102 years old!

How I wish that Uncle Wally was not deaf as a stone because I sure would love to ask him questions about my grandfather and his parents and grandparents. 

Can you imagine the stories that Uncle Wally could tell?

Who Are You Kathleen Nellthropp?

While going through my mother's cousin Doris Simpson's photo albums, I came across this set of photos. They are of a woman called Kathleen Nellthropp and were taken in Kent England. I do not know how, or even if, Kathleen is related to our Simpson family.

The photos appear to have been taken in the late 1920s and  1930s.  One is dated 1928 and a second one 1938. A search of Ancestry.com shows only one Kathleen Nellthropp that seems to fit, and that is Kathleen Alice Nellthropp who was born ca 1908. 

In 1911 she is found in Lewisham with parents William and Alice Nellthropp. In 1954 she married Cecil Laver but that is where my search ended. She appears in dozens of Electoral Registers before marrying Cecil but is a mystery beyond that. 

I found it interesting that Kathleen lived with her parents, but after her mother's death in 1953 (her father having died some years previously), this 46 year old spinster married less than one year later. Was Kathleen the dutiful daughter who cared for her parents in their declining years? 

Kathleen & her mother who I think was Alice Peacock

What About Georgiana's Illegitimate Birth?

On March 8, I wrote a post called "What About The Women" One of my goals for March was to find my ancestor Georgiana Fuller's death and figure out more about her illegitimate birth to the widow Hannah Golding nee Philpot

There were several comments on that post and I thank everyone for their contributions. I want to answer two of the comments:

Michelle Goodrum said...
I am curious about Georgiana's father George Norris. What happened to him and why did Georgiana not use his surname?

Michelle, I don't know. I was not aware of his name until I found Georgiana's marriage to Charles Fuller in Lenham Kent England. On the marriage certificate Georgiana names her father as "George Norris"

A search of census records for Lenham turned up only one George Norris - a neighbour to Hannah Golding and her family. In the earlier 1841 census his parents and siblings are living a few houses from Hannah Golding and her family. In 1851 his parents and a few brothers and sisters live next door to Hannah and her children. In the 1861 census for Lenham, I found George, age 50, living with his mother and unmarried.

I do not know what happened to George and have no absolute proof that he is the George Norris named on Georgiana's marriage record. But Lenham was a tiny village and it seems most plausible that Georgiana's father would be someone who Hannah knew from her daily life in the village. I've not yet found George in any other census other than 1861 but searching for him is on my To-Do list.

I also plan to send for the birth certificate of Hannah's illegitimate son Edward John Golding born 05 Mar 1843 in Lenham to see if his father is listed, and if he and Georgiana shared the same father. I may need his marriage record, as Georgiana's birth record did not have a father's name.

Brett Payne said...

FreeBMD shows the death of a Georgina FULLER, aged 44, in Hollingbourn Registration District, Kent in the 4th quarter of 1882. Despite the ages not quite matching up with what you say is shown on the 1881 Census, I wonder if that is her? Perhaps it would be worth sending off for the death certificate if it's in the right area.

Brett was absolutely correct. A cousin informed me that he had sent for that death record and it was indeed our Georgiana. She is listed as 44 years of age, the wife of Charles Fuller, a farm labourer. Georgiana died on 19th December 1882 of complications from pregnancy, aggravated by heart disease.

So now I know what happened to Georgiana. After 10 children in a 23 year time period, her 11th pregancy was her breaking point.

Georgiana's oldest child was 23 when his mother died, her youngest was 2 years old.

The Value of Military Records

Having found the photos of Ern and Cordelia Simpson sailing on board SS Canada from Liverpool to Canada in 1923 in my mother's papers, I was distracted from unpacking my mother's 11 boxes and now intrigued by what else might be in Doris' Genealogy Box!

I continue looking through Doris' Genealogy Box. For those who have not been following this story, Doris was my mother's cousin (my grandmother and Doris' father were brother and sister) and on their deaths all their papers, documents and photographs came to me for safe-keeping and sharing.

I hadn't realized how many documents there were about Uncle Ern. This is an early photo of him taken in Ramsgate England. I'd looked at his papers, skimmed through them, but never sat down to put the pieces together or think about them in any depth. The number and variety of his military records was astounding.

I soon discovered that Uncle Ern was in the 1st Battalion Kent Buffs in Ramsgate England. The Kent Buffs have an impressive military history going back hundreds of years.

But the real value in a genealogical sense was the discovery of Ern's Military Book which listed his wife's name (including her maiden name), his parents and his siblings, and their places of residence! Wow. There was his sister (my Grandmother) by name - Ruth. Had I not already known my grandmother's parents' names what a find this would have been. It just goes to prove that searching a sibling in depth can often turn up details that relate to your own direct ancestor.

Organizing a timeline of the military documents relating to the Kent Buffs in my possession helped me to understand Uncle Ern's time with that outfit:

1903. Age 19 years 6 months. Joined the East Kent Regiment "The Buffs" in the 1st Battalion. His character is noted as "very good, a thoroughly sober and well conducted man" He is 5' 4.5" with tattoos on both arms.

December 1904 - February 1905 - in the Mounted Infantry


1906. Age 22 years 6 months. There are two military documents concerning Ernie's transdfer to Army Reserve from 1st Battalion, The Buffs. There is a Certificate of Transfer dated 10 July 1906, a certificate for being in the Army Rserve dated Dover 10 July 1906.

1908. Age 24 years 6 months. Dominion of Canada Certificate of Identity of an Army Reserve Man Permitted to Reside in the Dominion. It is dated 22 June 1908 and expires on 10 July 1915

This certificate allwed Ernie to live in Canada. This paper indicates that Ern's military service to date consisted of 3 years in the Army (1905-1908) and 11 years 82 days in the Reserves. This means that he joined the Army Reserves or the Kent Buffs in 1895 at the age of 13, however I found no papers or records before 1902 in Doris' Genealogy Box


1914 Next I found a Certificate of Discharge for Ernie dated July 30, 1914. It states that he attested to the Buffs in Ramsgate on 11 July 1903, was transferred to the Reserve Army on July 1906 and is no longer fit for service. His character is once again noted as "very good, a thoroughly sober and well conducted man"

Ern's military career did not end with the Kent Buffs or his immigration to Toronto Ontario Canada. During WW1 he was posted to the historical Stanley Barracks in Toronto Ontario as a Guard, then the Royal Canadian Army Veterinary Corps after WW1.

I will write more on those two stints in these historical units plus his court-martial for letting a prisoner escape from Stanley Barracks, in a later posting.