Integrating Searches

A family historian contacted me through my Online Parish Clerk (OPC) website last week looking for information that might confirm a family relationship. The problem brought up two things genealogists should always be concerned about: using a variety of sources; and the limitation of indexes.

Jeremy commented: “According to a transcript on Find my Past my 2nd great grandfather, William Saunders, married Jenny Adams in Malborough on the 22nd January 1834. I am trying to confirm that his parents were William Saunders and Elizabeth Widdecombe and am hoping that the original details of William and Jenny's marriage will provide some additional information. I wonder whether you can help by sourcing the original marriage details?”

I replied that I did not have copies of the original parish registers for Malborough parish in Devon, so could not look up the details of the event in my own OPC files, but could help with looking at other data. That parish is not one that has images of its registers on FindMyPast (FMP) as many Devon areas do. The marriage  predated the establishment of civil records so Jeremy could not order a copy of the record from the General Record Office.

The Devon Family History Society (DFHS), however, has scanned the records of many parishes that do not have an agreement with FMP and they are available for society members to view. Malborough is one of the parishes the DFHS has in its library. When I looked up the event on their website, I found an image of the marriage entry that has some interesting information on it. In addition to the names of the bride and groom, of course, it also had the names of the witnesses to the event: Richard Adams, Elizabeth Adams, Mary Jane Adams, Mary E. A. Gellard, George Barkwill, and Wm. Widdicombe. That last name was a clue as to a possible relationship to the family connection Jeremy was wondering about.

The marriage entry also said William Saunders was from “Charles in Plymouth” and Jenny was living in Malborough parish. While accurate as far as their being residents in those places, it was not helpful in terms of where they were born. Plymouth is 17 miles from Marlborough, 22 miles by road, so something must have brought William to the area.

The 1841 census has the family living in Blanksmill, Malborough parish, with three of their children. A fourth, as it turned out, was staying in the area with another family member, Mary Adams. Later censuses showed the children were born in Plymouth and Jenny was born in Slapton, Devon. So, everyone was far from home! William died in 1844 in Plymouth. We find the rest of the family living in Charles, Plymouth, in all subsequent censuses from 1851 to 1891, Jenny remaining a widow until her death in 1894. Because of his death year, census records could not tell us where William was born.

The marriage of William Saunders and Elizabeth Widdecombe that Jeremy referenced actually took place in Ugborough parish, Devon, in 1803, another area to take note of. On that entry in the marriage register, available on FMP, William is shown as being from Hartford and Elizabeth from Ugborough. Now there are a few places named Hartford, but they are in Cheshire and Cambridgeshire. While it is possible William was from one of those places, it is more likely that the clerk made an error in the record and he was actually from Harford parish, Devon, right next door.

Harford is the area where a William and Elizabeth Saunders lived for many years and had nine children. I am the OPC for that parish and have copies of all of the BMD registers. One of those children was William Saunders, baptized 30 October 1805. That date fit with everything else we found about William and Jenny Saunders and the conclusion is that he is the person Jeremy was seeking information about even though we cannot yet prove the relationship.

William died in 1834 in Harford at the age of 60; Elizabeth died there in 1863, aged 86. That gives us birth years as 1774 and 1777, respectively, for the them. The 1851 and 1861 censuses show us Elizabeth was born in Modbury parish, Devon. A baptism record from that parish shows a William Saunders born in 1774. It appears they were both from the area. Note that scans of Modbury parish registers are also only available on the members only part of the DFHS site.

As I stated in the beginning, two elements of genealogical searches were important in this study. Looking at a variety of sources was necessary to find all of the relevant data: FindMyPast, Ancestry and Devon Family History Society. Individual parish registers for Harford, Modbury, Malborough and Ugborough showed us detail indexes do not. In order to put together enough information draw any conclusions we had to look at several data sites and, in particular, at copies of the original records.

In addition to investigating and integrating data from a variety of sources, I recommended that Jeremy join the DFHS in order to access much more data than database sites of Ancestry and FMP can offer for the region.

Indexing Concerns

As an Online Parish Clerk (OPC) for four Devon, England parishes, I have occasionally been asked about the data I have collected and used and how to go about searching for ancestors. Of course, experience in family history studies helps as we all learn things over time through reading and asking questions ourselves.

Just this week I was asked by a family researcher, Ron, about how to distinguish between two individuals named Richard Hillson, both born in Cornwood parish, Devon, in 1812. One of them was his 2^nd great-grandfather but he was not able to tell from the information he had who, Richard’s parents, his 3^rd great-grandparents were. Ron’s 2^nd great-grandmother was Eliza (nee Horton).

The couple and their family had been found on various censuses and on indexed lists on FamilySearch, but telling which one came from which family was confusing. Ron contacted the Churchwarden for Cornwood parish who looked up the baptisms and basically confirmed what was on the indexes. She then directed him on to me. It appears he had not yet found my own OPC webpages.

One thought Ron had was that perhaps one was baptized as Hilson and the other Hillson and the spelling might be a way to tell them apart. FamilySearch showed the two different versions of the surname for the two Richards, information apparently taken from transcriptions of the England, Devon, Parish Registers, 1538-1912.

But when I looked at the images of the parish register pages, I found that both were baptized as Hillson. One Richard was baptized on 1 August 1812 to James and Elizabeth Hillson; the other was baptized on 11 October to George and Elizabeth Hillson.

All the censuses for the two Richards show Cornwood as their birth place, so that narrowed down the searching somewhat. But, as we all know, census records frequently have problems with spelling of names, both surnames and forenames. Indexing in general among most databases is replete with errors, so care must be taken in identifying individuals. It is the main reason why I decided to obtain copies of all the parish registers in my OPC areas and transcribe them and the censuses myself, with the help of several volunteers it should be noted.

Richard and Eliza married in 1837 and are shown on all censuses from 1841 to 1901 living in Cornwood. The family consistently was shown as Hillson. Their nine children were all baptized in Cornwood although two of them were recorded by the Vicar as Hilson.

Richard Hillson and Mary Jane Lumley married in 1838. They were shown living in Cornwood in 1841 (as Hillson) and in Plymouth Saint Andrew in 1851 (as Hilson). Ancestry shows the family as Helson on the 1851 census, further complicating the search. The couple had four children in Devon, one born in Cornwood and three in Plymouth. By the mid-1850s the family had moved to Ontario, Canada where they had one last child in 1856. Mary Jane died before 1861.

Back to the problem of which family Ron’s 2^nd great-grandfather had come from: I told him how I thought he might find the right connections, even with the indexing problems, by looking at certain family data and records:

1.      First, he should be careful with indexed spelling. Both Richards were baptized as Hillson, so FamilySearch was wrong on that count. Both married as Hillson as well, so some of the census information was not recorded correctly.

2.      Naming patterns in Europe and the British Isles in past centuries often resulted in children being given the names of grandparents. Thus, he might expect one Richard to have a son named George and one with a James, after their respective fathers. The bride's father might also be there, along with her maiden name as a second name of some children. The Richard who married Eliza did have a son named James, born 1853 but no George. They also had a daughter names Fanny Northmore, born 1841, and a son named Philip Horton, born 1858, probably after their maternal grandparents. The other Richard did not have sons with either name of James or George, so that was not much help.

3.      Marriage records in England and Wales after September 1837 show the fathers' names of both groom and bride. If Ron was to obtain the 1838 marriage record for Richard and Mary Jane it should likely demonstrate who Richard’s father was.

With this information I believed that Ron would be able to identify his 3^rd great-grandparents and hopefully move on to finding ancestors even further back. What is important is to look at copies of the actual records, especially those from parish registers and not necessarily accept information that is second-hand from indexed sources.

Does sharing the same name make you a relative?

We can find many people with the same surname around the world who come from different family lines. Often, they may even have the same unusual spelling that matches our own. But does that mean that they are in any way related to us? Not necessarily!

The people I am talking about might be found within our "families" but are not blood relatives. I have already written about mixed families and individuals that have been adopted (Don’t Forget About Those Half-Brothers and Sisters, 13 January 2015). Some were under formal agreements but, in the distant past, there were frequently never any paper records that demonstrated such relationships. People just took in nephews, nieces, half-cousins or siblings and raised them as their own.

We have all found "cousins" whether through DNA tests or more traditional records. Many would have come down through people who had moved away from their birth places, perhaps to very distant shores. It may have only been accidentally that we ran across them again, through Internet searches and connections that now allow us to view records and databases from international sources.

It is this latter way that Mike, a 5^th cousin, found me. As an author of articles, occasional speaker, blogger and Online Parish Clerk, my name is out there where genealogists can find it. I have published many articles and stories about family members, in journals and magazines as well as on my blog. Almost all of them mention the area of Cornwood, Devon, England, where my Shepheard ancestors lived for hundreds of years. A search of 'Cornwood' and 'Shepheard' or with even alternate spellings will bring up references to my work.

OK, so what is all this leading up to?

Mike was born in South Africa and is descended from Shepheards born in Cornwood. His great-grandfather (my 2^nd cousin, 3x removed), Richard Shepheard (1861-1934) migrated to South Africa about 1890.  As it turns out, Richard’s father (Mike’s 2^nd great-grandfather, my 1^st cousin, 4x removed), Nicholas Shepheard (1839-1919), was the last person to own part of the family "estate" there. I wrote about that in a 2011 article about how the lands were passed down to Nicholas through various ancestors' wills.

Incidentally, the family dropped the ‘a’ from their surname. Richard signed his 1886 marriage entry as Shepheard. The birth of his first child was registered in 1887 with the ‘a’; the birth of his second child was registered in 1889 without it. Throughout his life in South Africa he was known as Shepherd. For Nicholas, he made his mark on his 1860 marriage entry and is shown with the Shepherd on most census and other records.

Richard’s family connection is problematic, as is his father’s in some respects. Richard married Ellen Cole (1863-1896) in Plymouth in Plymouth in 1886. They had two children, Arthur (b. 1886) and Nellie (b. 1889), in Plymouth and a third, Richard (b. 1892), in Johannesburg. Nellie Ellen was Mike’s grandmother; her daughter, Olive, was his mother. So, we have two surname changes to get to Mike.

Mike has indicted that, through a DNA test, he has found a large number of hits on his father’s side of his family, but apparently does not have any connections through the Shepheard line. We may have a reason for that.

Mike’s Great-Grandfather Richard was baptized in Cornwood on 6 February 1861 as “reputed son of Elizabeth Pascoe and Nicolas Sheppard [sic]” Nicholas and Elizabeth had married only three months prior, on 29 November 1860. It is possible, then, that Nicholas was not Richard’s biological son. That may explain why Mike has not had a Shepheard hit on his DNA test. No birth registration has been found for Richard either, under Shepheard (or variation) or Pascoe surnames, so we cannot verify Richard’s real name.

A similar conundrum exists for Nicholas. A birth year of 1839 is indicated on the 1841, 1851, 1871, 1881 and 1911 censuses. The 1891 census shows 1841 and the 1901 census shows 1840. He has not been found on the 1861 census. His age on his first marriage in 1860 was 21 and on his second marriage in 1907 was 67. His 1919 burial and death records say he was 80. From this data we can be fairly sure that he was born in 1839.

No birth or baptism record has been found for Nicholas Shepheard or variation. All of the other children of Nicholas’s parents, Richard and Sarah have baptism records. But there was a baptism in Cornwood, for a Nicholas Andrews, which was Sarah’s maiden name. Parents shown were Richard and Sarah, and with him as a carpenter, which makes one wonder if either there was a mistake in the entry, the wrong surname having been recorded, or whether Nicholas was Sarah’s biological son but not Richard’s.

Either of Nicholas or Richard being someone other than sons of Shepheard men would obviously break the biological connection. But that does not make them not part of the family!

In my opinion, families come with all kinds of complicated relationships, some with blood connections and some without. Mike and I are still cousins whether or not we can demonstrate shared DNA.

References:

Shepheard, Wayne. (2011). Analysis of the Last Will & Testament of Nicholas Shepheard (1761-1820) of Cornwood Parish, County of Devon. The Devon Family Historian, No. 139.