How did they meet? Part 2

For generations starting with the great-grandparents, it is more difficult to determine how they met. Often one can surmise how it happened if they lived in the same area around the time they got married, either alone or with family members. So, what follows here is part guess, part deduction.

Our Great-Grandparents

James Shepheard & Mary Elizabeth Pearson (m. 17 June 1890)

For my great-grandparents, James Shepheard and Mary Elizabeth Pearson, how they got together is not quite as straight-forward.

On the 1881 census, Mary’s siblings, Thomas (age 16), John (12) and Louisa (8) are still living with their parents, Charles and Susannah, in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England. Fourteen-year old Mary was not at home, nor was she living with any of her other siblings. Mary may have been at school or working, possibly even in Devon. We just don’t know.

In that year, James was living at home, with his parents John and Mary, in Torquay, Devon. He was working as a gentleman’s servant.

By 1890, of course they were married and living in Torquay, 192 miles from Leamington Spa. We might assume one of them travelled to the other’s home city where they could have met but there is no information that confirms that idea. Interestingly, the marriage banns were posted at the Parish Church of St Mary’s in Leamington Priors (Spa), but the marriage took place at the Parish Church in Ellacombe, now part of Torquay, on 17 June 1890. On the marriage record, both gave their residence as Princes Road which was the home of James’s parents.

It is possible that Mary travelled to Torquay to work and that they met there. She is not shown with an occupation on the marriage record, however.

James & Mary Elizabeth 1890

Newton Isaac Thompson & Margaret Mary Anderson (m. 1884)

Both Newton Thompson and Margaret Anderson, other great-grandparents, had arrived in North Dakota with their families from Ontario: Newton in 1879 and Margaret in 1880. They settled in the farming community of Cass County which is where they undoubtedly met. They were probably married in Wheatland County, North Dakota, but no marriage record has been found and no details are shown in the family bible.

Margaret was a widow with one daughter at the time of their marriage. Newton took on the care of both and together they had six more children.

Newton & Margaret in 1885 (left) and 1917 (right)

Isaac Mayfield Miller & Alice Jane Keith (m. 27 November 1866)

Isaac Mayfield Miller was born in Ohio in 1843. His parents, John Conrad Miller and Hannah Tunstall Mayfield, had come to Cincinnati from Indiana around 1840. When John died – about 1846 – Hannah moved back to her father’s farm in Indiana. It was there that Isaac grew up.

Alice (Allie) Jane Keith was born in Indiana in 1846. Her parents, James Blare Keith and Sarah Jane Baker, had farmed in Jennings county, Indiana, from around the time of Allie’s birth.

Issac fought and was wounded with the 22^nd Regiment of Indiana Volunteers (Union Army) between 1861 and 1864, during the US civil Ware, afterward returning to Indiana. It is possible Isaac and Sarah met through friends or relatives. Following their marriage on 27 November 1866, they left the state, going first to Illinois, where their first daughter was born, and then on to Kansas.

In 1893 they resettled in Yukon, Canadian county, Oklahoma where they spent the rest of their long lives together. Allie Jane died in 1914 and Isaac in 1925.

Isaac & Sarah Jane (both seated) with children ca 1892

Asa Harvey McDaniel & Margaret Eleanor DeBusk (m. 15 September 1851)

Both Asa Harvey McDaniel and Margaret Eleanor DeBusk were born in Washington Co9unty, Virginia, Asa in 1827 and Margaret in 1835. They grew in the area and no doubt knew each from childhood. The story is told that Asa and his brothers often rode the wagon full of grain to the mill on Rush Creek, in part owned by Margaret’s father.

They were married on 15 September 1851 in the county. They made their home there for almost ten years, having five children, and then moved 100 miles west to Lee County, Virginia, where they had eight more.

Margaret died in 1880. Her obituary spells out the joy and happiness of their almost 30-year marriage, which in part records “during her last illness . . . [s]he was in a happy frame of mind and talked freely and joyfully of her departure. It was a season of refreshing to all present. Just before she entered "the valley of the shadow of death" she called her husband and children around her bed and took an affectionate leave of them, requesting them to meet her in Heaven. Then quietly, yet triumphantly, she passed away to the land of immortality. She leaves a husband and twelve children . . . May they all keep the promise they have made and meet mother in the "sweet bye and bye."

Asa eventually followed his children west to Oklahoma, where he spent his last years, dying in 1901.

Old DeBusk Mill on Rush Creek, Virginia (left); Asa with granddaughters ca 1915 (right)

FHF REALLY USEFUL Family History Show - Final Program Listing

 

FHF REALLY USEFUL Family History Show

Saturday 10 April 2021.

The final program is now set for the REALLY USEFUL Family History Show sponsored by the Family History Federation. Here is the list of great talks.

My own presentation is set for 3:30 pm UK time which is 8:30 am where I live. No worries, though. Once premiered the talk recordings will be viewable on the website for up to 7 days (availability may vary after 48 hours) finally ending at Midnight on 17 April 2021

Talks will premiere throughout the day and will not be available for viewing before the published times.

Where possible speakers will be available at the end of their talks for live questions & answers but participants will be able to leave a message on the chat on the day for a response by e-mail if the speaker is not available at the designated time.

It’s not too late to register. Go to the show website at https://www.fhf-reallyuseful.com/events/fhf-really-useful-family-history-show/

RELEASE SCHEDULE (All times are UK DST)

10.15am

·         Beginning your family history research – Steve Manning

·         Missing from home – David Eniffer

·         Mind mapping and its place in organising and guiding your genealogical research – Linda Hammond

·         Researching British India family history for free using online sources – Valmay Young and Beverley Hallam

11.00am     

·         Muck and muscle: canal & railway navvies – Ian Waller

·         The real Mr Selfridge: History of shopping – Ian Porter

·         From Victorians to Elizabethans: Some sources for tracing our English ancestors from 1901-1952 – Janet Few

11.45am     

·         Wartime volunteer medics – Ian Waller

·         Searching for ancestors when you are adopted – Penny Walters

·         The MyHeritage photo world – Daniel Horowitz

12.30pm     

·         Using Irish wills and testamentary records – Natalie Bodle

·         DNA for dummies – Linda Hammond

·         Pauper prisons, pauper palaces: Life in the workhouse – Gillian Draper

1.15pm       

·         Wills pre-1858 – Les Mitchinson

·         Coram’s children: The history of the Foundling Hospital – Jane King

·         The family detective. A forensic look at the history of family photography – Stephen Gill

2.00pm       

·         Searching for Irish Ancestors – Penny Walters

·         The art of criminal conversation: Divorce – Claire Moores

·         Deaths at sea – Ian Waller

2.45pm       

·         The Commonwealth War Graves Commission – Ian Everest

·         Researching women of the Caribbean – Sharon Tomlin

·         Give you research the WDYTYA? treatment – Sarah Williams

3.30pm      

·         Jewish Immigration to the UK from re-admission to WW2 – Jeanette Rosenburg

·         Using parish & other records to determine how natural phenomena affected people and communities – Wayne Shepheard

·         Engaging young people in family history – Merrill White

How did they meet? Part 1

 Many of our ancestors were born and lived at some distance from each other. So, I am curious as to how they met. I have tried to track the location of past generations of mine and my wife’s, to see where they all were at the time they got married, if not just before. Some searches have been successful; others are still guesswork. The stories I will tell in this and future posts will hopefully shed some light on how love bloomed in past generations of our families.

Our Parents

William Calvin Shepheard & Norma Mabel Miller (m. 1 October 1939)

Bill was born in Irricana, Alberta, a small rural town just outside Calgary, in 1914. Norma was born in Cornvallis, Oregon, USA, in 1917. She arrived in the area in 1929 with her mother, Mattie, to join her father, Ed, who had come up the year before to establish their new farm.

My 1^st cousin, once removed, Hazel (Lester) Hewitt-Morrell, told me that she was the one that introduced my parents to each other, probably about 1933. She went to school with Norma in Irricana. All the cousins from Bill and Hazel’s side of the family were close, and she seemed to think that her new friend Norma would be a great fit for Bill. She was right!

Bill & Norma in 1939 (left) and 1969 (right)

William Alexander McKay & Jessie Walker Cooper (m. 31 July 1931)

Bill was born in the small coastal village of Findhorn, Scotland, in 1905. He came to Canada in 1927, initially to work on his uncle’s farm near Tregarva, Saskatchewan. Within a year he had migrated further west to Calgary.

Jessie was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1908. When she finished school, she decided to immigrate to Canada, arriving in Calgary in 1930. She immediately went to work in a local household, in part to repay her travel expenses.

Bill and Jessie met at a local Scottish association get-together, one of many organized by the St- Andrews Caledonian Society, shortly after her arrival. They hit it off almost immediately and tied the knot in 1931. 

Jessie, in 1938 (left); Bill in 1929 (centre); Jessie & Bill in 1970 (right)

Our Grandparents

James Pearson Shepheard & Carrie Jane Thompson (m. 8 April 1914)

My grandfather, James Pearson Shepheard, came all the way from England in 1907, eventually settling in Alberta in 1909 where he was later to work for my great-grandfather, Newton Thompson. During that time, he met his future wife, Carrie Thompson, one of Newton’s daughters. The Thompson family had emigrated from North Dakota in 1911.

Betty Thompson, in her summary in the family history book, Thompson Family History (2006), wrote:

During these early years Newton and Charley leased most of the land east of Keoma, the land all around Bruce Lakes and several sections further to the east. Mrs. Margaret Thompson with daughters May and Carrie could often be seen, together or separately, driving that direction with the saddle horse, Dandy, hitched to the family buggy. The ladies delivered food to the men in the family, the hired hands and any neighbours that happened along to help. All these men were mounted on horses during their shift, night and day, while tending the large herd of over one thousand grazing cattle.

There were no fences in the early days and several cattle owners ran their herds of cattle together after all were branded in the early spring. One very large herd of cattle was handled by Charley and Newton Thompson, Bill Freeman, who lived north of Ardenode and Joe Hinton. . . Newton and Charley employed their own bunch of cowboys to handle their share of the herding. . .

At the same time, an English lad, James “Jimmy” Shepheard, was living in Irricana. Jimmy was a respected and locally renowned horseman, also noted for becoming the master over any and all mean broncos. He was hired during the first years the family was at Keoma, enjoying a good life as one of Newton’s cowboys. Whether Jimmy or Newton’s daughter, Carrie, had eyes for the other one first, is lost in history, but whichever way the romance started, the attraction grew into love and they were married on April 8, 1914.

Carrie & Jimmy in 1914 (left); Jimmy & Carrie in 1949 (right)

Edwin Miller & Martha Alwilda Jane McDaniel (m. 30 May 1895)

Following the US Civil War, many families decided to make new lives in the west. The Millers arrived in Riley County, Kansas in 1868, where Edwin was born in 1870, and then moved to Canadian County, Oklahoma in 1893. Mattie was born in Virginia in 1875. Several of her siblings migrated west to settle in Missouri and Oklahoma. Mattie and her father and younger sister left Virginia in 1894 to visit family, probably ending up in Yukon County later that year or in early 1895.

Ed and Mattie no doubt met through mutual friends and relatives in the Yukon farming community, very possibly through Mattie’s older sister Rebecca. In a letter to my aunt, Rebecca wrote that "Ed Miller drove a spanking team of matched sorrels and a fancy buggy in those days. He was considered a fine catch and got himself a good wife and fine housekeeper."

Did she play matchmaker? At any rate, their courtship must have been short as they were married in Yukon on 30 May 1895. They were devoted to each other until their deaths in the 1950s.

Mattie & Ed in 1915 (left); Ed & Mattie – 50^th anniversary in 1945 (right)

            Alexander McKay & Mary Ann Milne (m. 6 June 1902)

Alexander, apparently known as Mike to his friends and relatives, was born in Findhorn, County of Elgin, Scotland, in 1869. He worked as a salmon fisherman for much of his life, until the industry collapsed in the early 1900s.

Mary Ann was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1872. By 1881, her family had moved to the village of Forres, just a few miles from Findhorn. She had two children, out of wedlock in 1897, in Forres, and 1898, in Nairn, Nairn County.

They may have met in Nairn, as for a short time around 1902 he was working as a cattleman at the Glenferness Estate at few miles away from the town. That may have been a job he worked in between fishing seasons. At the time of their marriage on 6 June 1902, in Forres, he gave his address as Glenfernees while she was back living in Forres. They moved back to Findhorn by 1903 where he resumed his fishing career.

Together they raised a combined family of nine children.

            Alexander Cooper & Elizabeth Walker (m. 25 May 1908)

Alexander was born in Brough, Shetland Islands, Scotland in 1867. By 1871 he and his mother, Elizabeth, were living in Govan, just across the river form Glasgow.

Lizzie was born in Elgin, County of Elgin, Scotland in 1882. By 1891, she, along with her parents, John and Sarah, and six of her siblings had moved to Glasgow.

Alexander was widowed when he met Lizzie, not long after the death of his first wife in December 1907. He had a twelve-year old son living from that marriage, having lost a daughter in 1895. Lizzie had a two-year old daughter. The marriage may have been one more of convenience that love although we always lean toward personal attraction as a beginning. In any case they married soon after Alexander losing his first wife, on 26 May 1908 in Glasgow.

Their life together was not to be an altogether happy one, unfortunately, as Lizzie fell ill in 1918, after having six children, and died in 1922.

Lizzie Cooper in 1910 

The stories of great-grandparents will be continued. . .