Thinking Out Loud About Great-Great-Grandpa Fuller

Charles Fuller's son Charles

My great-great grandfather on my mom's side was Charles Fuller. He has long been a thorn in my side. I have his marriage record to Georgiana Golding in 1858 in Lenham, Kent England.  You can read more about Georgiana and the confusion over her surname at "What About The Women"

The marriage certificate states that Charles is a labourer, "of age" (meaning over 21) and that his father is John Fuller, a labourer.  I have researched the witnesses and they are connected to Georgiana's family so no help re Charles.

Charles is found in Lenham in the 1861, 1871, 1881 and 1891 census records. Believe it or not there is more than one Charles Fuller of the same approximate age running around Lenham while my Charles is there. But the census proves that I have found the right Charles since his wife in 1861, 1871 and 1881 is Georgiana. She isn't in the 1891 census as she died in childbirth in December 1882. The 1891 Charles is a widower with children who match children in previous census years so his residence areas are known from 1861-1891.

Charles Fuller's grandchildren

But here's the catch - in each of those census years he gives a different place of birth and of course, just to be difficult, his ages don't match up exactly. Neither of these two discrepancies concern me in terms of thinking I have the wrong Charles Fuller. But what they have done is make my search for Charles' parents much more challenging!

Here's the detail for Charles in each of those census years:

* 1861. 32 years old born Milton, farm servant (gives an approximate year of birth of 1829)
* 1871. 44 years old born Faversham, agricultural labourer (gives an approximate year of birth of 1827)
* 1881. 52 years old born Lenham (gives an approximate year of birth of 1829)
* 1891. 60 years old, widower born Frinsted, agricultural labourer (gives an approximate year of birth of 1831)

He should be in 1841 and 1851 census. Remember, his father was John according to the marriage certificate and he did not marry Georgiana until 1858. At the very least he should be found as a 10 to 14 year old in 1841, hopefully with parents.

In 1851 there is more than one Charles Fuller who could be my great-great-grandpa but the best fit is a 25 year old single man born Faversham and living in Lenham as a servant in the home of a farmer named Edward Buss.

In 1841 there are several Charles Fuller individuals who "fit" the requirements to be mine. But the best fit is a young boy Charles Fuller age 14 living in Lenham with his mother Sophia age 50 and sister Harriet age 12.  Since Sophia is not with a husband and English marriage records don't give a mother's name, I can't be sure this is the right family.

I do find Sophia Fuller in a later census with her husband John. This fits but there is still no proof this is the right set of parents for my Charles Fuller. I need a birth record and even that would not be final proof since there are a number of men named Charles Fuller all born around the same time.

Here is what I know about John and Sophia Fuller:

1841 census Lenham. Sophia Fuller, 50 with children Charles 14 and Harriet 12. No husband listed
1851 census Lenham. John Fuller age 72, born Lenham, agricultural labourer living with wife Sophia, 62. Sophia was born in Pittham or Petham
1861 census Lenham. John Fuller age 81, born Lenham, with wife Sophia age 73 born Petham
1871 census Hollingbourn. In Hollingbourn Union Workhouse. Sophia Fuller age 81 born Petham

This is truly my proverbial "brick wall". I welcome any ideas or suggestions for me to pursue. 

Searching for an Ancestor's Siblings - How to Start

Greg sent an email to Olive Tree Genealogy asking for advice on finding his great-great-great grandfather's siblings. Because it's a genealogy question that many of us might face, I thought I'd share my suggestions with readers. Here is Greg's email and a scan he provided of their names and birth details from an old book.

My 3rd great grandfather William Johnson (16 Jun 1823 Holme On Spalding Moor, Yorkshire, England - 10 Oct 1905 Huron, Ontario, Canada) and his spouse Charlotte Colton (16 Feb 1822 [Bardney Lincolnshire?] England - 4 Oct 1888 Huron, Ontario, Canada) immigrated to Canada from Yorkshire, England about 1850.  By the census in 1861 and for the rest of their lives, they lived and farmed in or around Morris or East Wawanosh, Huron county, Ontario.

Among my grandmother Olive's family history records is the back cover of a leather-bound volume on which is recorded the birth dates of William and his 13 siblings.  (If only I were able to "Ask Olive!")  The ex-volume is probably from the mid-19th century.  I base this on the stamp "Watkins Binder" on the cover itself.  Watkins was a bindery in London from the late 18th century to at least 1850.

Family groups often migrate together.  Based on that, my question is this:  Might have any of William's siblings also immigrated to Canada and can they be traced through government or church records?

The first part of this question is fairly easy - the short answer is "Yes" William's siblings could have stayed in England or emigrated to another country. Canada and Australia were often favourite locations for English emigrants.

As for finding William's siblings, I wouldn't advise you start on a random hunt in Canadian records. That would be hit and miss and you're working with some fairly common names.

My advice is to follow the standard genealogy method which is to start with an individual and trace that person. Usually you are searching backwards, finding ancestors of an individual. In your case you want to research forward.

What I mean by this is, you would take each of William's siblings in turn and track their lives in England. Find them in every census year you can. Look for deaths and marriages. Basically you are trying to prove or disprove that they lived and died in England.

So if you are searching them in census and they disappear and you can't find a death record, there's a possibility that they left the country. You might then have a hunt in ships passenger lists for a record of travel.

There is another challenge with a ships passenger lists search. Ships passenger lists arriving in Canada did not have to be kept until 1865.  For help and links to online projects of Ships Passenger Lists before 1865 you may want to refer to Filling in The Gaps.

Other countries like Australia had other regulations and you would have to investigate to find out what ships passenger lists exist and where they can be found.

Another more obscure search would be in local newspapers in England. Let's say for example that a sibling or two disappear from English census records after 1851.  If you could find a local newspaper for the area you might find reference to a family group leaving the community to settle elsewhere. That's a long shot but it is another avenue of research.

The bottom line is that you have a lot of slogging and digging into records ahead of you but it should be a very interesting journey!

NEW! Poor Law Union Immigrants to Canada 1836-1871 ONLINE

For the past six months Olive Tree Genealogy has been working on a new project to reconstruct names of passengers on ships sailing from England to Canada before 1865.

I'm pleased to announce that 23 ships with the names of pauper immigrants sent from England sent by the Poor Law Union to Canada between 1836 and 1853 are now online and freely searchable.

The Poor Law Union Act of 1834 was responsible for determining if impoverished individuals and their families were to be sent to the Workhouse, supported by their parishes, or given passage to a British colony such as Canada, New Zealand and Australia. 

As well as the newly reconstructed ships passenger lists, there are hundreds of immigrant names listed by year from 1836 to 1871. The yearly lists are individuals who were offered passage on board ships sailing to Canada, but the specific ships each sailed on are not named.

There are no comprehensive ships passenger lists of immigrants arriving in Canada prior to 1865. Until that year, shipping companies were not required by the government to keep their passenger manifests. This reconstructed set of passenger lists and emigrants by year is a valuable tool for those genealogists whose ancestors left England for Canada in this time period.

Please take a few minutes to have a look at POOR LAW UNION IMMIGRANTS TO CANADA

You can also consult the other projects for ships passenger lists to Canada before 1865 at Filling in the Gaps

This new project consists of names extracted from the Poor Law Union records. More information and details on individuals can often be found by using the reference sources given on each page, and sending a request to National Archives UK. 

I have also included bits and pieces of extraneous detail that helps us understand the plight of these impoverished people. For example the ship Albion sailed to Quebec in 1836. Included in the Poor Law Union correspondence is a lengthy and interesting description of the passengers being held for 24 hours on arrival in Quebec. It seems the master of the ship did not receive his money (poll tax) from the Poor Law Union. So he demanded it from the passengers, who could not pay. This resulted in him imprisoning them on board until they were ordered released.

Hopefully you will find an ancestor or two in this new, never before published, lists!

Yorkshire Vital Records Online

A few days ago I discovered that Ancestry.com has Yorkshire England records online. If you have Yorkshire ancestors, you'll want to run, not walk, to search them.

My son has Yorkshire lineage through his dad (Schulze, Hill, Dewhirst, Metcalf, Scholfield, Horner and more) and using these databases on Ancestry.com I was able to find dozens of church records for ancestors I already had in my genealogy program, and learn new names to add to his family tree.

Even for the ancestors I had previously found, what a bonus these Yorkshire records are! The marriage records give the father's name and occupations of both fathers, plus the groom. Residences are listed. In one day of intensive searching I found literally dozens of new details and several new ancestors for my son's paternal line.

The new Yorkshire records that are on Ancestry.com are:


* West Yorkshire, England, Births and Baptisms, 1813-1906

* West Yorkshire, England, Marriages and Banns, 1813-1921

* West Yorkshire, England, Deaths and Burials, 1813-1985

* West Yorkshire, England, Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1512-1812

* West Yorkshire, England, Confirmations 1859-1915

A Chance Genealogy Revelation

Some of Olive Tree Genealogy blog readers know about my good luck genealogy-wise on a day last week when I was bored. Well, my good luck continued the next day!

After the success I had finding genealogical information about my 3rd great grandfather John Sandwell Stead and his wife (my 3rd great grandmother) Emma Sutton and her parents and siblings, I decided to google a few more ancestor names.

Since this wasn't my usual methodical search method, I opted to continue with the random typing of ancestor names and places of birth into various search engines. Maybe Stead was a good one to continue with and yep - there it was - a hit on one of my Stead "relatives" from Australia. This hit interested me because the blurb showed that Ramsgate was also mentioned.

Ramsgate England is where my Stead ancestors were from and some settled in Australia in the mid 19th century. In fact my 2nd great grandmother Sarah Stead (nee Elvery) died in Sydney Australia in 1867 on her way from Ramsgate to make a new life there with her husband and children.

What I'd found in my search was a 2009 newsletter called "About Ramsgate" in .pdf format. Included in the newsletter were extracts (and photos) from several 1923 letters sent by Jessie Broadfoot Stead to her family in Australia while she was visiting relatives in Ramsgate.  Jessie was my great-grandmother's cousin through their grandparents John Sandwell Stead and Emma Sutton (my 3rd great grandparents).

The letters were fascinating, as Jessie was a very detailed and descriptive writer. Never having been to Ramsgate personally, I enjoyed reading about the town and the people and Jessie's impressions. She also talked about the social customs and the food, all of which I found interesting as  I could imagine my great grandmother Sarah Simpson (nee Stead) being part of it all.

Then came the surprise.  Among the photos published was a photo of six women in front of a house. The caption read

40 Grove Road, Ramsgate, July, 1923. 2nd from left Jessie Stead

The author of the article with Jessie's letters and photos explained that his aunt Jessie had boarded a few weeks at 40 Grove Road. 

What astounded me was that I own the identical photograph! It was given to me by my mother many years ago and I know who two of the women are in it.

The lady third from the left is my great-grandmother Sarah Jane Simpson, nee Stead and beside her (4th from the left) is her sister-in-law Jane Stead nee Kingsland.

40 Grove Street today

The boarding house at 40 Grove Road belonged to my great-grandmother Sarah Jane! She ran it for many years and my grandmother (her daughter) often told me stories of the lodgers who stayed there and the wonderful meals my great-grandmother cooked for them.

In fact my great-grandfather David George Simpson died in that home in 1921.

I never knew who the other women were or when the photo was taken although I knew it was taken in Ramsgate. Now I know one other woman - Jessie Broadfoot Stead. Perhaps one day the identities of the other women (no doubt Stead cousins or in-laws) will come to light.

June 30-July 8 Free Access to UK Records

Just in time for the Royal Visit, free access to 6 million UK historical records giving everyone the chance to explore their British heritage and search for their family fortunes

• 6 million UK records featuring 11 million names will be available for free from June 30 to July 8 in celebration of the Royal Tour of Canada
• Newly launched London, England, Wills and Probate, 1525-1858 details four centuries of inheritances of London’s wealthiest residents 
 

In partnership with the London Metropolitan Archives, Ancestry.ca, Canada’s leading family history website[i], today launched the brand new London, England, Wills and Probate, 1525-1858, detailing some of the largest inheritances passed down in the early years of the city’s history. The records date from 1525, when wills were reserved for the super-wealthy and members of the royal family. The collection contains more than 117,000 records that bring to life the economic and social growth of London, when the productivity generated from the industrial revolution produced millionaires on a scale never before seen.

To further improve one’s chance of locating an unclaimed inheritance, from June 30th through July 8th, 2011 Ancestry.ca will be offering free access to more than six million UK historical records through the England and Wales National Probate Calendar, 1861-1941 and the Andrews Collection, which will be of particular interest to the more than one third of living Canadians who descend from the British Isles.

The popular England and Wales National Probate Calendar, 1861-1941 includes information on more than 11 million names in wills proven across the 19th and 20th centuries, including the wills of more than 9,000 people who died in Canada.


To explore the free records and to sign up for a free 14 day trial, please visit www.ancestry.ca/UK.

A Cool Genealogy Thing Happened When I was Bored

A few days ago I finished my morning blog post for Olive Tree Genealogy blog and sat back, feeling at loose ends. Okay I admit, even though I hate the word,  I was bored.

"What next" I thought. Work didn't appeal to me. My almost daily trips to Ancestry.com had pretty much exhausted those databases for my personal genealogy research for the time being. Yes, I still had mom's English ancestry to explore but I wasn't in the mood for census records. Ever felt that way? It's kind of like wanting an ice cream cone so you turn your nose up at a donut.

With a bit of a ho-hum attitude, I began googling some of my English ancestor names. I've done that before and there's not usually anything terribly exciting. But this time I found an archived Geocities website that contained "Draft Wills and Indentures, Kent". One of the many pages was called "Draft Abstract of title of Mr. john Sandwell Stead & Others to 1,2,3 & 4 William's Cottages near Ramsgate"

John Sandwell Stead of Ramsgate Kent England was my great-great-great grandfather! The 3-page draft abstract contained details on John's wife's family. Her name was Emma Sutton and I knew very little about her except that her parents were William and Ann, she was born in 1812 in Ramsgate and according to her death certificate, a sister Charlotte was with her when she died.

By the time I finished reading the papers and analyzing the information contained, I knew much more - that she had brothers William Sutton (a blacksmith) born ca 1816 married to Fanny; Robert Sutton born ca 1819 married to Charlotte Elizabeth and Samuel Cowley Sutton born ca 1820 married twice, the second time to Elizabeth Petts. Emma also had two sisters - Phoebe married to a Mr. Little and Mary Ann married to a Mr. Crunden or Crumden.

Exact dates and locations of marriages of Emma's siblings was given. So were locations. This draft document was quite a find! Naturally I rushed back to Ancestry.com to start searching the census and other English genealogy records.

Four hours later I took a break. In my few hours of research I found quite a bit on Emma's siblings in the 1851 and 1861 census records. I didn't get to 1871 or later yet but I will.  I was able to verify that Emma didn't have a sister Charlotte (the one mentioned as being with her at the time of her death in 1875) but she did have a sister-in-law Charlotte. That is likely who was with Emma and that's an interesting cautionary note - to be careful assuming modern-day meanings for relationships.

I knew from my 17th century Dutch research that often the term "Brother" could mean brother-in-law and "Sister" could mean sister-in-law, but I hadn't thought to apply that to my English ancestry.

Other interesting (and possibly important) finds were that two of Emma's brothers were blacksmiths. Often such occupations in England were passed from father to son and that meant there was a very good chance that Emma's father William was also a blacksmith. No guarantees of course but a viable working theory. 

I also found many church records for Emma's sister Phoebe who left Kent and settled in Yorkhire. Thanks to her move, I was able to find her marriage entry in a parish church (the actual image) and learn that  father William Sutton was a blacksmith.

Aha! That helped confirm that a couple named William and Ann Sutton I'd previously found  living in 1851 in Ramsgate were almost certainly my 4th great-grandparents.  William was recorded as a blacksmith (and a pauper) but I had no proof that my Emma's father was a blacksmith. This find added more weight to my assigning this couple as my 4th great-grandparents.

I actually learned many details that day  - such as realizing that the name of one of John Stead and Emma Sutton's daughters (Phoebe Little Stead) almost certainly was in honour of Emma's sister Phoebe (Sutton) Little.  Little things perhaps but all helping to build a more complete family history.

Summing up I know now that my Sutton ancestry is:

Gen1: William Sutton born ca 1775 in Barking Essex married Ann (surname uknown) born ca 1777 in Tilmanstone, Kent

Gen 2: Emma Sutton born 1812 Ramsgate Kent died 1875 Ramsgate Kent married 1831 Ramsgate John Sandwell Stead

Today if I have time I am going to hunt for William Sutton and his wife Ann. I'm also going to find out about the four cottages that my ancestor John Sandwell Stead had title to. Also on my list is to find out about Barking Essex and Tilmanstone Kent. All these details add to my family history and I'm excited to get started.

I'm Almost Sad that I'm Right!

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post called Who's Your Dadddy It was about my ancestor Betsey Norman who was born circa 1822 in Brixham Devon. An online source (in fact 2 online trees) showed different parents for her than I had. And the online information did have pretty good sourcing for all the material and info on the family.

On checking my genealogy program I saw that I'd never obtained Betsey's marriage certificate to William Henry Williams. So I really couldn't be sure I had the right parents at all! I'd found a baptism record in the Brixham Church records and made the terrible error of assuming it was for MY Betsey!

Baptisms Brixham Devon: Betsy Norman, d/o William & Elizabeth (labourer) 13 Oct 1822

I have not yet found Betsey in the 1841 census but the online tree had her in Barnstaple (I'd have expected to see her in Brixham) as an 18 year old with father Nicholas Norman age 55

I began to doubt myself.  I do have Betsey in the 1851 census:

1851 Census Brixham, Devon. Lower Brixham:
161 Pinkey's Row:
Williams, Betsey, 28, fisherman's wife, b. Brixham
Mary A. dau, 2, b. Brixham
Hannah A. dau. 11 mos. b. Brixham
Jane Weysmouth, 15, visitor, b. Brixham

So I sent for the certificate of marriage from GRO. I'd also noted that the same source who had a different set of parents for Betsey had a different father for her husband, also my ancestor, William Williams.

I was doubting myself big time. But I consoled myself with the thought "Hey, It would be kind of fun to have two entirely new lines to research!"

Well, the certificate came today. And guess what? I was right. Both Betsey and William have the fathers I originally found for them. Betsey's father's name is given as William Norman, not Nicholas Norman as the online Family Tree has. William's father is noted as William Williams, not Richard Williams as given in the same online tree.


Here are the details the marriage record provides:

1847. Marriage solemnized at the Church in the Parish of Brixham in the County of Devon. June 13th. 

William Henry Williams, full age, bachelor, Mariner residing Brixham. Father's name William Williams, Mariner

Betsy Norman, full age, spinster, dressmaker, residing Brixham, Father's name William Norman, Labourer. Married in the Parish Church. 

Witnesses: Sarah Bennett & Sarah Edwards Narramore. William signed an "X" for his mark.

Now to search for Sarah Bennett and Sarah Edwards Narramore and see if I can figure out if they were friends or family!

And I'll have to go and post comments (Corrections) on the two online Family Trees on Ancestry.com We'll see how that goes, in the past I've found people reluctant to give up their own ideas even when presented with a definitive source.