BURROWS

[jburrowsml]

I should also add a word of warning about online trees that you may find purporting to trace this line.

I have seen one which claims to be descended from one of the sons of George Vincent Burrows. They have misidentified their ancestor, as the son in question was gay, never married, and never had any children (I got this information from his younger sister, my great aunt, who scattered his ashes in the Potomac after he died in America ... so I think her information may be relied upon as accurate).

The tree in question makes errors further up the family ... and other trees may have copied these errors. I have e-mailed the owner of the tree I saw to share the information above so that they can go looking for their correct ancestor; but they have neither acknowledged my e-mail nor corrected their mistaken identity of their ancestor.

[Pam Downes]

Hello Jeremy,

Welcome to British-Genealogy.

Hopefully Jane will receive notification of your post.

I'm presuming you know the dates of death of your grandfather, great-grandfather, etc, in which case I would suggest a look at the British Newspaper Archive (and except for possibly the very latest updates, also available on Findmypast). I know I've seen obituaries where it's mentioned that Fred was a member of such-and-such Masonic Lodge.
There may also be mentions in earlier newspapers such as Fred was elected chairman (can't remember what the proper title is) of a Lodge.

Pam

[Pam Downes]

Re-read your post and picked up on the name George Kipling Burrows.
Was he the one born in 1863, died 1931, aged 68 in West Ham registration district?
I did look for anything re his death in the BNA, but nothing came up.

Don't know how easy it is for you to get to Newham library, but they would appear to have local newspapers.
https://www.newham.gov.uk/libraries-...ory-archives/1
As you are likely to have a date of death it wouldn't take you long to look through two or three weeks of papers for an obituary and/or funeral.
The library might even look for you. Even if they charged you, if the cost was less, or only a fiver more, than the train fare then it would be very cost-effective.
You would need to tell them full name, date of death, date of burial (which I believe you know), and address so they can look at the most appropriate newspaper(s).

[Pam Downes]

Done a bit more digging.

I'm assuming George Vincent Burrows is the one born in 1891, died 1955? Lived in Forest Gate when he died?
Looked for Forest Gate library, and from what I can see that also comes under Newham libraries.
https://libraryopeningtimes.co.uk/listing-2054.html
So Newham itself probably has the newspapers for Forest Gate as well. You will need to check.

[jburrowsml]

Now why doesn't that surprise me, Pam? We family historians cannot resist the temptation to dig, can we?

The dates of my various Burrows ancestors are:

Grandfather. Frank Herbert Burrows. 27.2.1912 - 16.8.1963
Great grandfather. George Vincent Burrows. 7.4.1891 - 24.6.1955
Great x2 grandfather. George Kipling Burrows. 1863 (certificate still to obtain) - 8.6.1931
Great x3 grandfather. John Burrows. circa 1835 - 1902
Great x4 grandfather. John Burrows. 7.8.1808 - 1866
Great x5 grandfather. John Burrows. circa 1785 - date unknown, but certainly after 1811

More remote than this is highly speculative ... but if I hit a rich seam of father-introduces-son to the craft in the Masonic records, I may be able to firm up some of the more remote ancestors.

Its all Colchester (Dutch quarter), Coggeshall and East End of London. The evidence is all certainly consistent with the family tradition of Dutch Huguenot descent ... but I have no definite proof of that as yet. I need to get a bit further back, and ideally to find the original Dutch family name, before the Huguenot Society records are likely to be much help ... but I am steadily chipping away at that one!

[Pam Downes]

To save FMs duplicating research that Jeremy has already done in the last two decades, he already has hundreds (a lot, at least!) of BMD certificates and presumably he has all the census details available for everyone as well.

Re-reading his first posts in this thread #20 and 21, it would seem that he mainly needs help with any non-conformist records, Masonic records, and possible links to the Huguenots in Colchester.
(Hopefully, I've summarised that correctly.

[jburrowsml]

That's right Pam. I'm not seeking assistance with these lines ... rather offering to share my notes with anyone else researching them.

I'll be off to Masonic Grand Lodge in a week or so to find out if there's anything useful to assist there.

And there's a few VERY specific queries which need particular expertise / research interests ... such as WHY george Vincent, who was a clerk on the Great Eastern Railway at the time, suddenly moved to Guildford for 6 months or so in 1918 (one of his children was born there; and there's a press report of him being fined 7/6 for riding a bucycle without a rear light in Guildford, and the address which is given for him is the same as that on teh child's birth certificate; but by the time his next child is born he is back in his original East End address, where he is also to be seen in the 1921 census). I'm ASSUMING that this was something to do with additional experienced traffic routing clerks being required south of the river to support the rail resupply effort for the 1918 offensive in France ... but I don't know. If there's a railway historian with deep knowledge of the home railway operations to support the BEF in France in 1918 then I'd love to hear from them ... )

As for the rest, I've been over and over the main online searchable records and know all of the "possible connections"; I keep revisiting the nonconformist records as more of them become available in the hope that further links in the chain can be established. There are lots of burials in and around Coggeshall that I have yet to fit into the overall family structure; but piece by piece I am slowly fitting them into the jigsaw, too.

[Pam Downes]

Re the railway worker check out this post especially the bit about The Railway Magazine.
https://www.british-genealogy.com/fo...estern-Railway
Swindon Library are no longer a forum member so you'll have to use a search engine for their contact details.

That thread is one of 198 in this sub-forum.
https://www.british-genealogy.com/fo...198-Railwaymen

It might be worth a gentle meander through the posts to see if any of the replies give you a clue re your query.

[JMorrow]

Hi JMorrow -

This may be an old thread ... but it's helped to bring a lot of us Burrowses together. I am another one ... great x4 grandson of John and Maria, via their son John who married Sarah Kipling, via their son George Kipling Burrows via his son George Vincent Burrows via his son Frank Herbert Burrows, via one of his three sons (my father ... whom I shall not name on a public forum because he is still living).

My brother lives in Australia too; I am still in England.

I have done a lot of research on this line, and have visited as many of the relevant locations as I am able.

If you care to e-mail me on jbmountainleader AT gmail DOT com I shall be happy to share my notes and queries; and would be delighted to receive any notes and queries which you may have in return.

I have got the line back into the 18th century but it is very difficult to piece together. They were nonconformists, and not all of the nonconformist records are currently available digitally, so there are a number of brick walls that I am currently scrabbling at. Family traditions have been invaluable in providing little hints here and there, so I would be very interested in any that you have heard.

The main and most interesting family tradition which may yet enable some breakthroughs to be made is that we are descended from Dutch Huguenot immigrants. I have picked this up from three different sources ... but I have not yet managed to establish whether they are independent of one another, or if two of them got it from the third (or one from the second, who in turn got it from the third). John the elder's brother Joseph was a Colchester seedsman and nurseryman, and I have found a reference to a court case where he obtained judgement for the unpaid price of tulips. Not proof positive of the tradition, by any means ... but certainly consistent with a Dutch connection ... and Colchester was definitely one of the centres of Durtch Huguenot immigration.

If this tradition is correct then it raises the possibility that the family adopted the name Burrows in honour of the great Colchester puritan preacher of the 17th century Jeremiah Burrows (a possibility that is particularly tantalising for me, as I am Jeremy Burrows ... ). There has almost certainly been a name change if we ARE of Dutch Huguenot descent, since Burrows is not exactly a very Dutch name. And that then raises the problem of identifying WHO changed their name, and when, and most importantly what their previous name had been.

This could be VERY difficult to establish ... but I am looking into the possibility that it may all be there for us in the records of the Masonic Grand Lodge. My grandfather and great greandfather were both freemasons ... but does Burrows freemasonry go back any further? My great great grandfather, and my great x 3 grandfather (that's the younger John Burrows) were both buried in the same grave in Woodgrange Park cemetery (as were their wives). Woodgrange Park was originally an exclusively masonic burial ground; but by the time my great x3 grandfather bought his plot it had been opened to allcomers and it was a convenient loacl cemetery for him. So his purchase of the burial plot there is not conclusive that he too was a freemason, but it is certainly suggestive; and it is therefore possible that there is a long line of freemasons here with each father introducing his son to the craft, and that this will lead us back all the way to the ancestor who adopted the name Burrows. If so, then it will hopefully give us his previous name, too, and open up all sorts of further avenues for research (starting, most obviously, with the Huguenot Society). If your branch of the family has a masonic tradition too, then this will greatly increase my hopes for getting something helpful out of this line of enquiry.

I am intending to visit the Masonic Grand Lodge in the next couple of weeks to get a search for any masonic records for my great great grandfather George Kipling Burrows. This is going to cost me, as I don't know his lodge (they give you the records for free if you DO know the lodge ... )

Anyway, if you see this then do please get in touch.

Kind regards,

Jeremy

Hello Jeremy

Thank you so much for your response. I’ve only just seen it but I’m really intrigued. I had also come to the conclusion that the Burrows’ must have been Dutch because they seem to appear in Coggeshall at the time of the boom of the woolen industry which apparently came about because of Dutch settlers. I’m actually a weaver so I came upon this bit of information in a very roundabout sort of way.

Howevever my great grandfather and his father were not Weavers but were boot makers and interestingly my grandmother Kathleen Burrows worked for a seed company. My mum tells me that her grandfather Joseph was a communist and a union organiser and his marriage to an Irish Catholic was not a very happy one. He burned their shoes so they couldn’t walk to mass and on Christmas Day he invited a tramp in for Christmas dinner in an attempt to teach them what true charity was. This story was always told to me to illustrate what a monster he was but I always thought he was a hero. Kathleen went on to marry the son of a Freemason but I don’t know that her father Joseph was.

Im really interested to find out any Huguenot ancestry I shall begin a new quest....

Oh I have one other bit of family history and that is the story that Joseph Burrows had two sisters(?) who were very beautiful and had lovely hair and they featured as models for one of the pears soap adverts. I can not find any evidence for this but there is one pears soap ad that has two girls and a puppy.

All the best

Jane

[JMorrow]

Hello Jeremy

Thank you so much for your response. I’ve only just seen it but I’m really intrigued. I had also come to the conclusion that the Burrows’ must have been Dutch because they seem to appear in Coggeshall at the time of the boom of the woolen industry which apparently came about because of Dutch settlers. I’m actually a weaver so I came upon this bit of information in a very roundabout sort of way.

Howevever my great grandfather and his father were not Weavers but were boot makers and interestingly my grandmother Kathleen Burrows worked for a seed company. My mum tells me that her grandfather Joseph was a communist and a union organiser and his marriage to an Irish Catholic was not a very happy one. He burned their shoes so they couldn’t walk to mass and on Christmas Day he invited a tramp in for Christmas dinner in an attempt to teach them what true charity was. This story was always told to me to illustrate what a monster he was but I always thought he was a hero. Kathleen went on to marry the son of a Freemason but I don’t know that her father Joseph was.

Im really interested to find out any Huguenot ancestry I shall begin a new quest....

Oh I have one other bit of family history and that is the story that Joseph Burrows had two sisters(?) who were very beautiful and had lovely hair and they featured as models for one of the pears soap adverts. I can not find any evidence for this but there is one pears soap ad that has two girls and a puppy.

All the best

Jane

I’ve just been doing some reading about the cloth trade and the effect on the English language of the workers who came into Britain during the reign of Henry III. They were Flemish and to me it seems quite likely that Burrows is derived from a Flemish name rather than a Dutch name.

There may even be some documentation because a specific number of Flemish Weavers who settle down in Colchester is referenced in this document.

https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/llew001in...01_01_0011.php

My interest is to actually recreate some of this woollen cloth.

What an exciting journey!

All the best

Jane