| STANTON / MacLEAN Family History | |
| Enquiries to Neil Stanton | |
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Progress Made in 2004
(since last letter to everyone Xmas 03) N.B. recent additions to these notes are at end of document. ---------------------------------------------------------------- This years discoveries MacLEAN A visit to Glasgow and Edinburgh was very productive There is no mention of a M(a)cLEAN in the shareholders list for the collapsed City of Glasgow Bank. This indicates that the money that the family ‘lost’ at this time (1878) was probably just from the downturn of their business, caused by the Bank collapse, rather than actually losing money in the Bank. In Edinburgh, I finally traced the family all together on the 1841 census, thus proving my theory that William was the father of William (and grand father of William and gt grandfather of William !..). Later census's indicate that 3x gts William and Jessie came from Perth. Apparently moving to Edinburgh c 1820. The parish records in Perth show two William McLEAN's born about the correct time (c1799/1800). I knew that William's father was another boot maker called William, so assumed that I could identify the correct son from that. However, both of the 'possible' births had a father called William who was a bootmaker, so this line of research is somewhat stalled. 3x gt. Jessie (or Janet) WHILLER is more of a problem. The only positive identification I have is her marriage to William, and later births of their children. The name WHILLER does not appear anywhere else in Scotland, or England (that I can find!). I am wondering if perhaps her family where English "WHEELERs", and it was misspelt (with a Scottish accent!). I also made progress on the family of gt gt grandmother Sarah RUTHERFORD - tracing two sets of her gt gt grandparents (our 6x). They moved into Edinburgh from the villages to the east of the city (now of course just part of the city!). STANTON Still trying to prove the very likely connection from William STANTON (died 1558 in Ripley Surrey) to 4xgt grandfather James (1783-1848). All that is lacking is one or two 'positive' pieces of evidence (e.g. a will) - still looking !. In Ripley churchyard are a number of family graves, including an unusual double headstone to James STANTON and his wife Esther (BAVERSTOCK), who are buried next to James' parents James and Sarah. PHILLIPS I have now identified over 50 grandchildren for our gt gt grandmother Harriet (nee PHILLIPS) UPTON (our grandmother Mary Catherine was one of them). Harriet herself appears to have had an interesting and unusual life. My (pure blind!) guess is that her parents (John and Maria), or perhaps their parents, were attracted into Leek, Staffs. by work in the silk industry (I need to find where they came from, but that is largely guesswork without more clues). At some point between Harriet's birth (1826) and the birth of their next known child (Eliza 1831), the family had moved from Leek to Coggeshall (Essex) - no mean journey, but presumably work was the driving force again (Coggeshall is also a silk making town). By 1841 they were back in Leek, then in the next ten years, they moved to Kingston on Thames and back again to Leek (they left two newly married daughters in Kingston, Harriet being one of them). WEEKES The story continues – I returned to Devon Record Office, to view the family papers that had been deposited there, An exciting collection for me to view, although I already had most of the important details. What was interesting was that a well known Family Historian (Ethel LEGA-WEEKES who may be related) had performed the same research c1905, and come to the same conclusions as me. Although this is probably because we were both looking at the same infomation. The most spectacular piece of information to come to light this year was the reason why gt gt grandfather Dr John WEEKES did not marry Mary MAHANY, when she was pregnant with gt grandfather Walter John. The reason is simple - when she was two months pregnant he went back to Devon and married his cousin !. It would be so interesting to discover what happened ! - the marriage was by License (so no time to call banns ?). As far as I know there were no children from the marriage, and when Dr John died seven years later, he left all his money to Mary (wife Ann not even mentioned). Ann certainly moved to London, where she was living with her mother (she died 11 years after her husband in 1874, as "widow of Dr John WEEKES"). MAHANY no progress, still my biggest stumbling block. The only positive evidence I have for her existence is her name on Walter John’s birth certificate and on Dr. John's will. SMITH Gt grandmother Ellen Alice SMITH (mother of "The Old Man") was the daughter of Samuel SMITH and Mary Ann (nee SMITH) SMITH. so I have two SMITH families in the Bristol coalfields to research, this is proving difficult (to say the least!). The families were originally based in Bedminster, which is across the Avon from Bristol, then also across the county border in Somerset, but now part of Bristol. this makes research even more difficult, as records are split between Somerst and Bristol record offices. I have managed to find the deaths of Mary Ann's parents John and Elizabeth (who "turned up" on the 1891 census thirty years after I 'lost' them, and had assumed them dead!). John appears to have been a sailor until after the birth of Mary Ann, when he started working in the mines. At some point he appears to have stopped working underground, and started working as a clerk in the mine offices. Later he went back to his nautical 'roots' and became a secretary of a seaman's mission (which is where I hope to find him during those missing thirty years). Samuel's father (James) appears to have moved to Dudley for a time, presumably to work in the clay mines there. Whilst there he obiously met and married a local girl (Fanny BUTCHER), who returned to Bedminster with him, to raise their twelve children. James also progressed from being a miner, to 'driving' the stationary steam engine (that pumped the water from the mine). Fanny is a bit of a mystery, as she claims to be from Dudley, but there is no record of her baptism. On one census her son Joseph gave her birthplace as "Clayhills Dudley", this is very confusing, as Dudley archives have never heard of such a place!. Samuel followed his father into 'driving' engines, and certainly 'moved around' the Bristol coalfield (accoring to the births of their children and census's). The main mystery is 1891, where Mary Ann is alone in Bedminster, and I cannot find Samuel anywhere (my guess is that he is 'working away' from home). ------------------------------------------------------------------ Progress since writing the above:- UPTON (1 Oct 04) (& 9 Oct 04) I have now found 55 grandchildren for Harriet UPTON. The latest two were born 15 years after their older brother. They were the children of James CLABOURN and Helena (nee UPTON). I had had difficulty finding the family because on the 1881 census, they were listed as CLAYBOURN and this misspelling meant that I had failed to find them on the 1901 census until now. The mystery is why the big gap between their first and second children ?. I had found Helena with first son William (born 1875) in 1891, but James was not with them, however their second child (Elsie) was born in 1893, followed by Herbert in 1894, it seems they waited 15 years and then two came along together!. I have (at last) found out what happened to Helena's grandmother (3x gt grandmother) Susannah (nee DAVIS) UPTON. The annoying thing is that I've had the data for three years and not made the connections. After the death of her husband, John (1848) Susannah appeared on the 1851 census with son John (2x gt grandfather) and his family, but by 1861 she had disappeared and I could not find a death record for her. I now realise that the 1861 census entry for a "Susan" with John's brother Robert (which I have had marked as "probably an aunt") is most likely the missing Susannah. This moved the search for her death forward ten years, and I now have her death certificate, which confirms she was living with Robert in Kingston upon Thames when she died, so the earlier census record is almost certainly her. Susannah's birth is more of a problem, as the ages given on two census's and on her death certificate vary. However she seems to have been born between 1789 and 1796. One census gives her birthplace as Walworth (near Southwark, London). There is a possible baptism in Southwark Cathedral (then St Saviour's) in 1795, daughter of William and Mary DAVIS. The only marriage of a William DAVIS to a Mary (that I can find) is in 1785, in Kingston upon Thames. Is this coincidence ? or does it explain why the UPTON family came to be in Kingston in the mid 19th century (i.e. moving back to Susannah's family home) ?. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 14 Oct 04 Last Saturday (9th) I visited an exhibition in Bramley where the "Wey & Arun Canal trust" was holding an exhibition to demonstrate to residents, various proposals for rebuilding the canal through the village. As 4x gt grandfathers James STANTON and Charles BAVERSTOCK helped build the original canal c1815, and James built, then lived in the Lock Keeper's cottage in the village, there was a lot there to interest me (see the STANTON and BAVERSTOCK pages for more details of the canal). N.B. The Lock Keeper's cottage still stands (see STANTON pages), and I met its current owner again. Later in the day I visited the other end of the canal in Sussex, where the canal Trust have rebuilt Rowner Lock, which was the home of the BAVERSTOCKs, - I took several photos of the site, and will publish them as soon as I get the film developed and the pictures scanned. The drawing on the BAVERSTOCK pages was easily recognisable, although the BAVERSTOCK's cottage is long gone. (A sign of the times, to get a photo that correponds to the drawing I had to stand under an electricity pylon that spans the canal bed). 20 Oct 04 Progress on several fronts I sent for a birth certificate 'on spec', and it proved a useful guess - another child for Harriet UPTON (in 1867), unfortunately there is a death reference immediately after, so it looks like this child (also Harriet) did not survive (she is not on the 1871 census which also supports this theory). However that makes 11 children (and one adopted) for Harriet. I have managed to find one of the missing census entries (see above) for John and Elizabeth SMITH. I had over 100 SMITH references in Bristol (1861) to search, and they turned up on the third one (phew ....!!). He is not (yet) working for Seaman's Mission, which is what I was expecting, but now describes himself and an "Accountant" (he was a Coal Yard Clerk ten years earlier). The WEEKES saga continues (see above) Dr. John's wife (and mother in law) have been found in London 1861. As I suspected Dr. John is not with them, supporting the theory that he abandoned his wife to support our gt grandfather and his mother. 12 Nov 04 - Found another 4 grandchildren for Harriet - thats 59 !! - these were on the 1901 census, but most of the family fornames are identified only by initials, thus making them difficult to find!. The youngest (2 months old) is just "baby" UPTON. On top of this, there are probably 2 more (same family) who died in infancy - need the certificates to prove this, but the place is correct (Westminster) and the births/ deaths fit in "gaps" between their presumed siblings. ++ yet another one found - so now 60 ! - I had missed this one from my spreadsheet (had the information all the time!). Certificates of above now obtained - yes 2 more grandchildren - so 62 !!! |
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