Mothers’ Day

This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day which, for genealogists should perhaps more properly be called Mothers’ Day because we have all found so many mothers in our families.

I am very lucky because I have photos of many mothers going back several generations. So what a treat it is today to share them.

This is my mother, for whom – for me at least – Mother’s Day was invented. She has not been with us for a very long time but she lives still in my heart and in my memories.

 

Norma Mable (Miller) Shepheard 1917-1974.

I knew both of my grandmothers though did not appreciate who they were and what they had accomplished in their lives until they were gone and I was researching my ancestors. Both were born in the US but chose to come to Canada – fortunately for me as my parents got to meet each other.

 

Grandmothers: left – Martha Alwilda Jane (McDaniel) Miller 1875-1956; right – Carrie Jane (Thompson) Shepheard 1889-1959

This photo of my two grandmothers was actually taken on Mother’s Day, 1940. It is a very unique and special remembrance of them.

A lady who became a mother to me, especially after the loss of my own mother, was the mother of my wife, Linda. She was someone very special to our whole family.

 

Jessie Walker (Cooper) McKay 1908-1998

I never met any of my great-grandmothers. They were all gone by the time I was born. But I do have photos of three of the ladies, so I can see, at least, what they looked like.

 

Great-grandmothers, left to right: Mary Elizabeth (Pearson) Shepheard 1866-1891, my paternal grandfather’s mother; Margaret Mary (Anderson) Thompson 1857-1919, my paternal grandmother’s mother; Alice Jane (Keith) Miller 1846-1914, my maternal grandfather’s mother

Learning about the families of my 2^nd great-grandmothers has been fascinating. I am lucky to have photos of some of them that have survived the years.

 

Great-Great-Grandmothers, left to right: Mary Crispin (Carpenter) Shepheard 1830-1890, a great-grandfather’s mother; Hannah Tunsal (Mayfield) Miller 1815-1909, another great-grandfather’s mother; Susan (Phillipo) Anderson 1836-1905, a great-grandmother’s mother; Sarah Jane (Baker) Keith 1823-1919, another great-grandmother’s mother

And then, of course there is the mother of my children. My mother loved her almost as much as I do. She has been there for me, in thick and thin, truly! She is my partner, my love and my best friend.

 

Linda (with Keltie)

Last, but not least are the mothers of my grandchildren. They are very important people in my life and in the family as they continue the roles of “Mother”.

 

Alice and Tamara

Among my family memorabilia are a number of cards and letters that go back several years. This one was sent to my grandmother, Carrie Jane Shepheard, by her daughter, Ethel Mae, in 1952, just a year before she, herself, became a mother.

To all the mothers, past and present, HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY!

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated

Finding Uncle Will in 1881

For some time, I could not locate the whereabouts of my Great-granduncle William John SHEPHEARD in 1881. He did not appear to be on any census list for that period, at least in the areas he grew up. He did surface in August of that year when he married Jane PAWLEY in London. It was just a small hole in my family history but one that proved to be quite illuminating when I finally filled it.

Why was he important? Well, he and his wife basically raised my grandfather, James Pearson SHEPHEARD, after his mother died seven months after his birth. Grandpa SHEPHEARD’s father, James SHEPHEARD, spent much of his time away, as a ship’s steward and was not around to take care of his son. It kind of fell, I think, to “Uncle Will”, as Grandpa called him, to step in and help out. He and Jane had no children and they had a stable life owning and operating a dairy business in Torquay, Devon where my grandfather had been born. So I wanted to learn a bit more about this man.

 

Left to right: brothers, John, William John and James SHEPHEARD’ photo taken in Taunton, Somerset about 1900

In 1871, at age 15, he was still living at home with his parents, on New Road, Ivybridge, Devon.  On Plymouth Road nearby lived Jane PAWLEY, a servant to Agness LIDDELL. By 1891, Will and Jane were married and living at 8a Cromwell Mews, Kensington in London. That address was the one he gave when he married. Jane lived at 14 Wyndham Place, Marylebone, London, some 2.3 miles away, across Kensington Gardens. It is not likely they were able to visit each other very often, so they must have kept in contact in other ways from the time they both left Devon – sometime in the 1870s.

 

1871 England Census – Family of John and Mary SHEPHEARD, living at New Road in Ivybridge, Devon

1891 England Census – William J. & Jane SHEPHEARD, living at 8a Cromwell Mews in Kensington, London

1881 marriage record for William John SHEPHEARD, of 8a Cromwell Mews, Kensington, & Jane PAWLEY, of 14 Wyndham Place, Marylebone (certificate obtained from General Record Office)

I searched for Uncle Will on both Ancestry and FamilySearch, under several different spellings. A William SHEPHARD, age 25, was shown on the 1881 census index, apparently living with an Eli CROSS at Brook House in Westbury in Wiltshire with a number of other people. When I opened that particular census page image, however, it showed only Eli and four other people by the name of BENNETT. The household list, though, had a number of other people including many members of a LOPES family. That did not make any sense and every link to a Lopes family member, or separate search on the Ancestry website ended up at the same Eli CROSS page. (That was five years ago. The links and searches still take you to that page now in 2015!)

So I did what was logical and went directly to the 1881 Wiltshire District 9 census and began browsing through the census pages. On the very first page I found the Lopes' family, with their servants, including one William SHEPHEARD, a groom. On the Ancestry transcription, William's surname was spelled SHEPHARD, an obvious error from what was actually recorded by the enumerator. On this page, only the LOPES children were recorded at the top of the page, with no parents listed. I thought, with the mix-up in sources that there might also be a missing preceding page with the parents’ names, but everything seemed to be in order when I went backward in browsing. I decided to try to find the family in other census records of 1891, 1871 and 1861.

I did find them all at last.To my surprise, in 1881 the parents, Henry and Cordelia LOPES, appeared to be living at their London city home in Cromwell Place while the children were at home in Wiltshire. Henry was at that time “One of HM’s Judges”. The family was also split in 1871, with the mother (shown as Lucy LOPES) and children at Cromwell Place, and the father staying in a hotel in Bristol with several other lawyers. Henry must have been on business at the time. In 1891 they were all back in Wiltshire and he was by then a "Lord Justice of Appeal". Henry Charles LOPES, later the first Baron Ludlow, was quite an interesting and influential individual. I’ll have more to say about him and his family is a subsequent blog post.

1881 England Census – William Shepheard living at Heywood House in Westbury, Wiltshire with LOPES family members

It appears that William John SHEPHEARD moved to Wiltshire prior to 1881 to be the LOPES' groom and then likely was assigned to the London House in 1881 as a coachman. He may well have been working for the family when he and Jane got married as they continued to live at Cromwell Mews. If you go to a Google Map and look at the aerial photos you will see that the Mews is in back of (stables area?) of the large homes on Cromwell Place. The Street View gives you a great look at the actual buildings, now converted, of course, to private residences.

1881 England Census – Henry and Cordelia LOPES living in at 8 Cromwell Place in Kensington, London

By 1901, of course, William John and Jane were back in Torquay, running the Shepheard family dairy for Uncle Will’s ailing father, John SHEPHEARD.

1901 England Census – William J. & Jane SHEPHEARD living at 42 Princes Road in Torquay, Devon

Judge Henry C. LOPES was actually born in Devonport and his wife, Cordelia in Egg Buckland parish, both in Devon. I am now curious about whether they had any connection with the SHEPHEARDs in Devon and will check that out if I can.

 

Did Uncle Will drive Judge LOPES around London in a carriage such as this one, a Town Coach, or closed carriage (photo downloaded from La Deetda Reads)

All census images downloaded from Ancestry; copyright held by The Nationals Archives. Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated

Finding My 3rd Great-Grandmother’s Maiden Name

For a long time I wondered what the maiden name of my 3^rd great-grandmother, Mary PEARSON was.

Census records showed that she was born in Ashow, Warwickshire. The 1851 and 1861 censuses indicated her birth year was 1800; the 1841 and 1871 censuses said 1801. The 1881 census, however, said her birthday was in 1796. At least I had a place of birth, if not an exact date.

I had a document that came from my grandfather, showing accounting records for property she had owned in Leamington Priors. It was a summary of the income and expenses of her estate, dated March 1896. So I knew she had died before then. I did not find her on the 1891 census which seemed to narrow down her death as happening before that year.

A search of the death index from FreeBMD resulted in a couple of possibilities for her death, one in 1882 and one in 1884. Wouldn’t you know it – I ordered the wrong certificate from the General Record Office to start with. When the probate records finally came online on Ancestry, I was able to confirm that Mary had died in 1884 and ordered the real death certificate. That document showed she was aged 81 at the time of her death, putting her birth year as 1803.

1885 probate calendar entry for Mary PEARSON (downloaded from Ancestry; source Principal Probate Registry, Calendar of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration made in the Probate Registries of the High Court of Justice in England)

1884 death certificate for Mary PEARSON of Leamington, Warwickshire (acquired form the General Record Office of England and Wales)

But I was not satisfied that I still had the right information about Mary. The death record, official as it was, still did not fit the census data. The informant for the death was Mary’s granddaughter and I wondered if she really knew how old her grandmother was. None of this was helping me determine what Mary’s maiden name was.

Working from the 1851 Census I found that Thomas (age 51) and Mary (age 51) PEARSON were living in Leamington with their son, Charles (age 22), and an aunt, Mary JONES (age 78), a widow. Although the aunt was indicated as being an aunt of the head of the household (Thomas), she was actually born in Ashow, as was Mary PEARSON, suggesting that it was the two women who were related directly. That being the case I might have assumed that Mary PEARSON's mother's name would be something other than Mary if this older Mary was a sister of her mother. Of course, she could equally be the sister of Mary’s father so I tread carefully in trying to track down the both of them.

1851 census record for Thomas and Mary PEARSON (downloaded from Ancestry July 2^nd, 2007; source Census Returns of England and Wales, 1851, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK)

A search of marriages for Thomas PEARSON and a Mary between 1820 and 1830, in Warwick, turned up only three, two of which were most likely: Mary SMITH on October 23^rd, 1823, in Solihull and Mary CARE on April 16^th, 1828, in Saint Phillips, Birmingham. Solihull is very near Sheldon where Thomas was born and the surname of SMITH seemed right as well as you will see below.

1823 marriage entry in Solihull, Warwickshire parish marriage register for Thomas PEARSON and Mary SMITH (downloaded from Ancesty on April 21^st, 2015; source Warwickshire Anglican Registers, Warwick, England: Warwickshire County Record Office) Witnesses may have been Thomas’ brother and sister-in-law.

I contacted Susan Tall, the Online Parish Clerk for Ashow, to see if see could find more information about baptisms for a girl named Mary, baptized in Ashow around 1800. She mentioned that, according to her records, a daughter of Joseph and Mary SMITH was baptized August 6^th, 1797.

1797 entries for burial of Joseph SMITH and baptism of ? SMITH, in Ashow, Warwickshire parish register (downloaded from Ancestry on October 22^nd, 2011; source Warwickshire Anglican Registers. Warwick, England: Warwickshire County Record Office)

I looked up on IGI all of the girls named Mary baptized between 1798 and 1802 and found Mary SMITH's parents to be Joseph and Ann, not Mary. So my first question was: Did the microfiche records of the church registers show Mary or Ann SMITH as the mother? In a later message from Susan Tall, she told me, "Well today I was allowed to look at the originals – and what a mess they are – all loose pages as the register had completely disintegrated. And each page is very fragile (can understand now why they won't let the general public use them). But when I turned to 1797 someone had straightened the edge of the page out (it was just folded over) and there as clear as clear was Mary daughter of Joseph and Ann Smith baptised August 6^th, 1797. Just one note – I see there is a Joseph Smith baptised March 13^th, 1747 at Ashow on the IGI – could well be the father of Mary Smith (1797). However I also noticed on the microfilm the burial of a Joseph Smith on April 27^th, 1797. If this is him he died before Mary was baptised."

1797 baptism entry for Mary Smith (shown after edge of page folded down from photo of page sent to me by Susan Tall)

Then I looked for a marriage for Joseph SMITH in the area around Ashow. I found an Ann SPRASON married a Joseph SMITH on October 11^th, 1796 in Offchurch. The marriage was also recorded in Milverton on the same day. Both locations are very close to Ashow.

I looked up all of the girls named Mary – the possible sister of Ann shown on the 1851 census – baptized in Ashow between 1771 and 1775 and found only four: Mary TURNER, Mary HODGINS, Mary SPRAWSON and Mary BILLINGTON. I then looked to see if any of them had married a JONES. None had directly but Mary SPRAWSON married John SALMON in Claverdon on January 2^nd, 1806 and then Mary SALMON, a widow, married William JONES, also in Claverdon on September 9^th, 1810.

The surname SPRAWSON is very like the surname of Ann SPRASON and it would not surprise me to see that one or both of them were mis-transcribed on IGI or are variants of the same surname. The IGI shows four children with parents of John and Mary SPRAWSON including an Ann baptized in 1769 and a Mary baptized in 1772. So those fit. Others were John, 1775 and Thomas, 1778. All of this data was confirmed later when I was able to see the actual register entries on Ancestry.

After all of the round-about searches I could confidently say that this 3^rd great-grandmother’s maiden name was SMITH.

Ann SMITH did end up remarrying, to a John SHARP, in Ashow, on October 14^th, 1799. The record shows she was a widow then, seeming to confirm that the Joseph SMITH buried in 1797 was my 4^th great-grandfather.

The story and conclusions all hinge, of course, on the relationship of Mary PEARSON and Mary JONES on the 1851 census, and on the entry for the unknown female SMITH child in 1797. I like the answers I came up with. Thank goodness for relatives living with other relatives and Online Parish Clerks like me.

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated