Mythology - Wotton-under-Edge?

[arthurk]

Hi Mythology

I can't find a way to contact you either by email or private message, so this seems the best way...

I was interested in your reference to someone from Wotton-under-Edge - it's a place where my wife has ancestors, who also moved around a bit, and she has a fair bit of info on them and related families. Can we compare surnames?

Arthur

[Mythology]

"Can we compare surnames?"

Well, that won't take long, Arthur - precisely one! :D

Incorrectly recorded or mistranscribed (I haven't seen the orginal) - Barfield.

Just passing through, no historic connection with the place - Thomas, the father of the two kids I have there, was in the Excise, so he's in Ewell, Surrey, in 1806 (most likely the detached bit of Ewell that adjoins Reigate), then Wotton-under-Edge 1808 and 1809, then Saffron Walden, Essex in 1812.

This is a branch that I've only just started on, with a makeshift "tree" cobbled together from a few notes and photocopies that I made at Chelmsford plus what I can find on the web and things like the West Surrey FHS marriage and burial indexes that I bought, so a lot of it is still vague and iffy, but, as I see it...

"Maria Ann Baifeild" on the IGI baptised 1808 is the last child of Thomas and his first wife, Amy Dewdney. Maria married William Turner in Reigate in 1825, kids in Surrey then off they go to Halifax.

"Osmond Banfield" on the IGI baptised 1809 is the first child of Thomas and his second wife, Louisa, whose surname I don't yet have, but she reckons she's born Redhill, near Reigate, Surrey, so I'll be surprised if she isn't another Dewdney or a Staning/Stanning (the Dewdney and Staning families are well and truly tied up, so the Stanning middle name that one of the kids has could be from something like Louisa's mother rather than being her maiden name) who he rapidly grabbed from Amy's side of the family (Amy is of Reigate at marriage, and there are Dewdneys there stretching back to the 1500s) when she fell over.
Osman is in Birmingham 1841, but then died in Carmarthen (where Louisa was living with some of the other kids) in 1849.

[arthurk]

Thanks, but none of those seem to fit in at present - her ancestral surnames in Wotton include Orchard, Webb, Savage, Iles, Hawkins, George and Smith.

Arthur

[Mythology]

No surprise there, then. ;)

Whichever branch I investigate, I do seem to have a disproportionate number of vicars, schoolteachers, and so on, people with jobs that involved getting shunted around all over the place, so the idea that a name is associated with a place usually falls flat on its face with my lot.

They seem to have kept in touch though. I looked up an 1862 marriage not long ago - the groom is the Vicar of Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, the bride was born in Whittlesey, has two previous marriages both in Whittlesey, and is still living there in 1861, but that's before she got tied up with my lot, so, of course, this 1862 marriage is not in Whittlesey, it's in Pimlico, at St Michael, Chester Square, the groom having borrowed a rellie's Coleshill Street address.
Marriage ceremony performed not by the usual fellow there - instead we have a guest appearance by the groom's brother, Vicar of Stratton, Cornwall.
It figures.

(Oh - and in this lot, one of Maria Ann Barfield's granddaughters has turned up on the 1901 as a visitor at her late sister's remarried husband's place and shown as "Missionary China" - you'd be hard pushed to find anywhere that my lot haven't polluted at some time or another)

[arthurk]

So in your family's terms, does that make you a bit of a black sheep by sticking to London (sort of)? Incidentally, have you seen how many views this conversation has notched up? Aren't other people nosy? :D

Arthur

[Mythology]

Yes, I'm definitely letting the side down - my sister's the one who's following the family tradition. Having lived all over the shop anyway, she and hubby sold the house a few years back and bought a houseboat instead (a proper one, not a tupperware one), so you never know where she might be until an e-mail arrives.
Currently not that far from here - having left Nottingham to terrorise the Grand Union Canal, she's fallen over (no details given - on the way back from the pub I expect! ;)) and fractured her arm, so is laid up at Two Bridges, between Watford and Rickmansworth, and says "I should be down this part of the world till autumn so I will get to see you", which will be nice, as I haven't seen her for about five years now. :)

[Patrisia]

Incidentally, have you seen how many views this conversation has notched up? Aren't other people nosy? :D

ArthurNot nosy, just interested; because we all know that Myth is always good for a laugh as well as nuggets of wisdom! ;)

[Mythology]

Well, I don't know about you having a laugh, but I certainly am with this lot. Half them don't know what their names are or how old they are, so I've stuck the odd note in my draft version of the tree...

"Both Amelia's parents had been married before, but proper records such as Amelia's birth certificate, not just the census and GRO index, would be needed to establish Ann Morgan's maiden name. Williams looks a strong possibility, but being on the census as 31 in 1861, then 46 in 1871, then 60 in 1881, doesn't exactly help!"

"Richard Singer having married Ann Gould Smith in 1859, his wife appears as "Sarah A." in 1861, and plain "Sarah" in 1871. In 1881, he's finally remembered which of his two girlfriends he actually married, so, from then on, she is Ann. She does not use Sarah on the 1851 census or the 1859 marriage record, and is "Ann Gould Singer" on her 1905 death record, so "Sarah" appears to be entirely the invention of her husband."

[Mythology]

"I'd want to see what the birth certificate says to be sure, but Ann Taylor's mother appears to be yet another one who doesn't know what her name is. In parish terms, Longford is Foleshill, and that is where Mark and Mahala are on the 1851 census, their eldest child being aged 4. The surname Taylor may be common, but the forename Mark isn't, and his marriage surely has to be the 1846 Foleshill one on the IGI to Amelia Jones. I don't see a likely death for Amelia between then and 1851 in the GRO index, nor a remarriage to Mahala, so it looks as though Amelia and Mahala are one and the same."

"Sarah Ann Telford's previous marriage was in 1885 to John Clement Cowen, who died in 1892. Four children from this marriage, three died young, the other is with grandma Cowen in 1901. Sarah also appears to have shacked up with a Jones fellow before marrying Milton Barrett, as Crewe is decidedly lacking in Cowen families, and Vera Jones Cowen, born in Crewe over two years after Sarah's husband died, appears as the granddaughter of Sarah's parents, James and Mary Ann Telford, up in Cumberland in 1901."

And one who I'm not sure of the identity of, don't have the marriage, but I think I've worked out who she is...

"Willetta's birth date is taken from the SSDI entry, and the SS5 may identify her, but she probably didn't know who she really was. I'm guessing that she is the girl who appears on the census as the daughter of an Avery couple in 1920, but as their adopted daughter in 1910. In 1920, they show Willetta's parents as born Michigan, but this seems to be an invention on their part, as on the 1910 they freely admit to not having the faintest idea. I expect that, disappointed at having no children of their own after eighteen years of marriage, they nicked her from a pram outside Walmart and didn't really know any more than you and I do, so would not have been able to enlighten her."

I reckon they'll keep me busy for a good few years - and, of course, if that fellow "Edward J. Barfield" born in Norway on the 1881, a 23 year-old boarder with the son of 3xggf's half-brother, really is Edward J. Barfield, not some totally unrelated fellow who they didn't put a surname for so the enumerator shoved him down a Barfield, then I'm in for some real fun, as that means 3xggf has shoved off to Norway after his second bankruptcy, which is why we lose him but his wife reckons he's still alive - none of the others go missing around then, so I can't see who else his father can be.

[arthurk]

Is this one of yours?

"This person is found under a variety of pseudonyms, and is known to change them on a fairly regular basis. These include Augustus de Lainey and Henry Anderson. He claims to live in London (sort of), but this is insufficient to distinguish him from 10 million other individuals. Indeed, it is not certain that he is even male: it is entirely possible that this is an unmarried female with a speech impediment whose real name is O. Logie (or variant). In fact, given the amount of uncertainty surrounding his/her identity, doubt has arisen as to whether he/she actually exists."

Arthur ;)

[busyglen]

:D I like it!! In the words of Sir David Frost..`the clues are there!' ;)

Glenys

[Mythology]

Very good, Arthur - I like Miss O'Logie. :D

Forgetting the name does seem to be a family habit though - I remember that once when we went to see grandma (on mum's side, a Barfield descendant) she greeted mum with:
"Hello, Vi, Kath ...." and went through about half a dozen other names before she got to the right one for mum. :)

[AnnB]

OK, I admit (again) to being nosey, but I refuse to believe that Mythology (or his alter ego Miss O. Logie) does not exist. If he is a figment of our imaginations, then we are all off with the fairies....... :rolleyes:

Best wishes
Ann

[Mythology]

Incidentally, Arthur, in case you should happen to come across this one in your Gloucestershire rummagings and think "Oh, I wonder if this one is Myth's", the answer is "Yes" - with, of course, the usual "sort of" proviso.

There is, on the IGI, an extracted record for...
Ludovica Barfield Harris - Female
Birth 19 Sep 1825, Christening 26 Feb 1841 Clifton, Gloucester, England
Father - Thomae Barfield, Mother - Ludovicae

No source given, but why is it in Latin in 1841? It's Roman Catholic - this is something they've got hold of from what was later the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton, so I'd be wary about assuming that "Clifton" is the actual location - it's probably all been labelled "Clifton" in the same way that all their (Anglican) Archdeaconry of Sudbury transcripts are labelled "Sudbury" instead of giving the parish.

Be that as it may, this is Louisa, daughter of Thomas and Louisa, and her birthday, 19 September, agrees with the birth date given in the baptism entry in the Saffron Walden parish register. The only snag is that it's 1815, not 1825.
She married one of father's Excise mates in Carmarthen in 1839 - John Harrison, not Harris, an Irishman, and they are in Bristol on the 1841 census. One of the daughters is in a Roman Catholic orphanage later, so I think we may safely conclude that John Harrison was Roman Catholic, and this is his wife being converted, but Father Ted had been to Bristol Docks that morning to unload the latest cargo of poteen from back home, and sampled it to make sure the travelling hadn't spoiled the quality.
Myth (whose Latin is not very good) pencils "testes in toto" in the margin of the register. ;)

[Mythology]

Louisa, by the way, appears to have been close to her brother, Pickaname the Twice-bankrupt, as his wife was a Talbot, and Louisa has used this as a middle name for one of her kids.
Now...
John and Louisa have two kids in Kingswood (the Bristol Kingswood, not the Wotton Kingswood) in 1841 and 1844.
Meanwhile, Pickaname is in Brighton in 1841 calling himself Samuel, then has a kiddie in Brighton in 1842 (father is "Thomas Samuel Arthur Barfield" on the birth cert), but then decides that Augustus is a nice name, so we find "Augustus Thomas Arthur Barfield trading under the name of Augustus De Lainey" going bankrupt in February 1846 - in Bristol.
The Harrisons' next kiddie is in 1846 September quarter - in Stepney.

Conclusion. Pickaname went to Bristol to scrounge off his loving sister, but her husband was a sensible fellow, so promptly applied for a transfer. :)

[arthurk]

Thanks for the explanation - haven't come across these names, though. I was going to say that in view of their itinerant and dissolute lifestyle I probably never will, but maybe that makes them the sort that suddenly leap out at you in the most unexpected places. Have you ever considered applying for an ASBO, control order etc for them? :D

Arthur

[Mythology]

"Have you ever considered applying for an ASBO, control order etc for them?"

What a good idea - I will get on to Old Street police station right away and ask 272G Arthur Barfield to get the legal process underway.
Oh. No - hang on a minute... he's not there, he got the boot for being found in a coffee house while on duty, didn't he?
Darn it - another good idea down the drain.
(Not that he was really "Arthur", of course, that was his middle name, but, well, just because you're working for them doesn't mean you have to be daft enough to give the police your real name, does it? ;))

[Mythology]

I hope, Arthur, that none of your wife's lot strolled down the road to Frampton Cotterell and got tied up with one of a number of Bryant families there, or you're in trouble. ;)

"Pickaname" Barfield (twice-bankrupt 3xggf) married Charlotte Hurtnole Talbot. Her sister married Charles Overton - yet another in the same line, a Customs Officer - and their daughter, Marler Sulyard Overton, married Oliver Bryant of Frampton Cotterell. They have three kids, the last in 1883, then on the 1891 the missis is in Norwood, still says married but I can't find Oliver, and instead of sitting at home with a couple of servants, twiddling her thumbs, she is "Principal of Young Ladies School". Something fishy here, methinks.

General Election 1886, Times, 17 July - Biographies of Candidates, eighth instalment...
"MONMOUTHSHIRE.
BRYANT, O. (Monmouthshire, South Division). - Mr. Oliver Bryant (Gladstone Liberal), of 2, Pump Court, Temple, is a son of Mr. William Bryant, of Frampton Cotterell, Gloucestershire, and was born November 9, 1850.
He was educated at the British School, and afterwards privately under the Baptist minister of Nottingham. He was articled to a solicitor in the City of London, and practised for five years as a solicitor in the City, but retired from practice in April 1884, and subsequently joined the Middle Temple.
He married Marler Sulyard, only daughter of Mr. Charles Overton, late of Hackney, formerly of Her Majesty's Customs."

Sounds as if he's doing OK, doesn't it?

(continues)

[Mythology]

But, 1 May 1889...
"A first meeting was held under the failure of Oliver Bryant, described as late a solicitor of the Supreme Court and now a student for the Bar, late of Elm-court, Temple. No statement of affairs has been filed, but proofs amounting to £34,506 were dealt with, and it is said that the aggregate liabilities, secured and unsecured, will probably reach about £100,000."

And in a libel action in 1890...
"Between the years 1885 and 1887 the plaintiff was engaged in various building and land speculations in company with a Mr. Oliver Bryant. This latter gentleman was originally a solicitor, but, having become engaged in land speculation, he obtained large sums of money by means of duplicated mortgages and other fraudulent methods, and, ultimately, on March 8, 1889, absconded. After leaving the country he wrote a long letter to the defendant, containing the passage in question..."

I really don't know why I waste my time trawling the GRO index and the census - I may just as well go straight to The London Gazette and The Times when I can't find them! :D

Incidentally...
I have a hundred-plus certificates that I need to buy. Do me a favour and lend me a thousand quid, will you? Your money will be in safe hands, I'm not going anywhere... ;)

[arthurk]

Incidentally...
I have a hundred-plus certificates that I need to buy. Do me a favour and lend me a thousand quid, will you? Your money will be in safe hands, I'm not going anywhere... ;)
Sir,
It is with the greatest regret that I must inform you that I am unable to accede to your recent request. In view of the manner in which you have been parading your antecedents in these forums and, it would seem, taking positive delight in their follies and misfortunes (not to mention your own use of the name of one of the worst of these as an alias), it would be a foolish man indeed who entrusted so much as a penny into your keeping. Should you in due course decide to descend from a more reputable family, any further request might possibly be considered on its own merits.
:D

[Mythology]

"Should you in due course decide to descend from a more reputable family..."

No chance! I'm proud of these dodgy characters.
I have the usual bunch of snobs in some branches of the family who are convinced that all our lot were wonderful, descended from the aristocracy, all the usual sort of rubbish. I laugh like a drain every time I find one like Oliver - it's one in the eye for this stuck-up shower, and I hope they're reading it! :D

And there's another one. The wife's side, the Overtons, were evidently close to their Joslin rellies, as Henry Overton is with the Joslins in 1871.

In the stuff in the Gazette, when Oliver was still a solicitor, one of his bankrupt clients in 1883 is none other than Alfred Benjamin Joslin. :)

[AnnB]

"Should you in due course decide to descend from a more reputable family..."

No chance! I'm proud of these dodgy characters.
:)
And so you should be.

Just think, without these 'dodgy' (I prefer fascinating) ancestors, you wouldn't have the tales to tell - nor the genes to make you such a good story teller........ ;)

[busyglen]

And so you should be.

Just think, without these 'dodgy' (I prefer fascinating) ancestors, you wouldn't have the tales to tell - nor the genes to make you such a good story teller........ ;)

Now you know why he's called Mythology! ;)

Glenys

[Mythology]

Oh dear, oh dear - I've just had an e-mail from one of our regulars trying to be helpful, and it's my own fault, I knew about this one and should have mentioned it earlier, I suppose, so, better late than never...

If anyone happens to notice an IGI entry for the said Oliver Bryant born November 1850, son of William and a lady whose name left the odd enumerator and Register Office clerk scratching their heads (her marriage and Oliver's baptism both have "Bathshua", so I'll go with that), which says that he died in Frampton Cotterell in 1914...

Thanks for trying - but it's the usual load of old "submitted" twaddle. :(

Although the name is less common than John Smith, there are *two* Oliver Bryants born Frampton Cotterell not that far apart. This 1914 death is Oliver Bryant of 1846, son of Henry and Mary.

[Mythology]

And, finally, just for the record...
Incorrectly recorded or mistranscribed (I haven't seen the original) - Barfield.
<snip>
"Maria Ann Baifeild" on the IGI baptised 1808 is the last child of Thomas and his first wife, Amy Dewdney.
<snip>
"Osmond Banfield" on the IGI baptised 1809 is the first child of Thomas and his second wife, LouisaWell, I now have seen the original.
The IGI entries are from the BTs, not the register, and I can only assume that the Village Idiot got lumbered with the job of writing the baptisms out. The register itself is beautifully written, and in both cases, the surname is so clearly "Barfield" that even the most inexperienced of transcribers would find it very hard, if not impossible, to go wrong. Furthermore, the second wife's name is very clearly written as "Lueza" not Louisa.
The register also gives birth dates not just baptism dates, so, coupled with finding Amy's burial on 28 May 1808, the birth date of 13 April 1809 for Osman (or Osmond, as he is recorded here) *really* narrows down the date for the second marriage.
That's if there *was* a second marriage - Amy's a Reigate girl, Louisa says she's born Redhill (which was part of Reigate parish then) and I have a suspicion that Louisa may turn out to be Amy's sister, called up to look after the kids when Amy died, and the "marriage" existed only in the minds of Thomas and Louisa. :D

[uksearch]

Oh ecky thump...does that mean that I can't take the registers in any church as being " Gospel". Naw you have got it wrong...if it is it in their registers it MUST be true, they don't ever , no never, make mistakes:).

[Mythology]

UK, if they are mine, it is reasonable to assume that they are liars, or thick, or both. :D

One day, when I have all the relevant certs etc. to confirm my findings, I will tell you the story of a certain Thomas Fletcher, born in... ummm...
Ganton, Yorkshire (because I reckon the 1851 is correct)
or it could be Muston, Yorkshire (because that's where he was baptised)
or it could be Dalby, Yorkshire (because he never asked, so that's what he thinks when he's left home)
or it could be "Filagh", Yorkshire (his Suffolk-born peasant wife must have filled that one in, and thinks that's how you spell Filey)
or perhaps he wasn't born in Yorkshire at all and I should be checking the stables at Newmarket racecourse (because in 1901 he's given up trying to work out where he was born, and he's lived in Newmarket for thirty-odd years, so he's as good as native, and thinks that's good enough for the census)...
and his father, who thinks he was born in Hornby, Yorkshire.
Hornby, Yorkshire, exists - but he wasn't born there, he just can't spell "Hawnby". :D

(Oh - and the GRO decided to join in the fun, and put Thomas in the index as Hatcher instead of Fletcher)

(Oh - and we mustn't forget his brother, who actually *was* born in Dalby, but can't remember the name of this little village, so puts "Easonwold" (Easingwold), with his daughter, who was cut in half at the waist, so the top bit of her appears on the census at home with widowed father somewhere that I forget in Northamptonshire while the bottom half is in Newmarket with uncle Thomas. :rolleyes: )

Thick, thick, thick, the whole darned lot of 'em - that's why I changed the default title of "Genealogical Database" on this FT programme that I'm playing with to "Geneamnesical Database" - anything that suggests logic is totally inappropriate!

[uksearch]

UK, if they are mine, it is reasonable to assume that they are liars, or thick, or both. :D
BIB BIG SNIP

Thick, thick, thick, the whole darned lot of 'em - that's why I changed the default title of "Genealogical Database" on this FT programme that I'm playing with to "Geneamnesical Database" - anything that suggests logic is totally inappropriate!

Would that happen to run ALL the way though your family:D?

[IreneR]

Originally Posted by Arthur Kennedy
Incidentally, have you seen how many views this conversation has notched up? Aren't other people nosy?

<grin> I had an excuse Thought Mythology might have been a title rather than a name and I once tried to chase down the myths around the Cornish Bunyip.

Any other 'REAL' mythchasers around?

Irene