PDA

View Full Version : EARLY, Bovey Tracey and thereabouts


GeoffD
12-11-2007, 11:21 PM
I would be interested in hearing from anyone researching the EARLY family of that part of Devon. The reason for my interest is that members of this family turn up in quite different parts of my family bramble bush.

George EARLY, born about 1860 in Bovey Tracey, was my great-uncle Frederick William DREW's father-in-law. He migrated to Queensland in 1883 on the Earl Granville. His wife, Annie Bertha SHORTER, was born in Long Ashton, Somerset, though they married here in Brisbane.

George's elderly parents, William and Anna, came to Queensland in 1888 on the Jumna. With them came the youngest son, Henry James EARLY. William appears to have been born in Stoke Canon, but I am not 100%on this, and Anna in Chagford.

George's brother, Richard Dewdney EARLY also migrated. His wife, Bessie Hall HOOPER (married Dec Q 1875 in Newton Abbott district) , born abt. 1850 in Totnes, migrated to Queensland in 1890 on the Merkara with children Henry John and Maud A. Another child of Richard, Frank George, also migrated at a time as yet unknown to me, and married Elizabeth Ellen MAUNDRELL, niece to my great grandfather John TUCKER's first wife, Ellen MAUNDRELL.

(See what I mean about a bramble bush?)

I am slowly tracking through the life histories of other children of William and Anna (whose maiden name I am still trying to confirm - Queensland BDM says DODD, but other information I have seen says DEWDNEY).

GeoffD
13-11-2007, 12:17 AM
I had been able to easily trace William EARLY and some of his family from 1861 through to emigration, and had a good possible in 1841. But 1851 eluded me. Knowing that he was married by then, I decided to search on his wife's forename and place of birth. After all, how many Annas could have been born in Chagford in the mid-1820s?

And there, at Shuttimore, Chagford, was William and Anna HURLEY, with a toddler daughter that I didn't know about, and a visitor with the surname DEWDNEY. So, even if the enumerator was a local, he couldn't quite work out what William stated as a surname, and I guess that William was illiterate and couldn't suggest anything more accurate. |laugh1|

The presence of a DEWDNEY in the household has helped a lot, too.