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Family History News Xmas ‘08
Dear all, Again 2008 has been a slow year for research, partly because I have been very busy at work, but mostly because more information is now so difficult to obtain. Following on from last year’s news, that I had been contacted by some distant SMITH cousins, we managed to establish that gt gt grandparents Samuel and Mary Ann SMITH had died (1915/ 1926) whilst living with their children in Gloucestershire, rather than much earlier in Bristol as I had assumed. In the middle of the year I managed to get some time off from a work trip to Scotland to photograph the addresses in Edinburgh given by our MacLEAN ancestors in the mid 1800’s. Fleshmarket Close is a street (more like an alleyway) turning off the Royal Mile, and looks today remarkably similar to an 1820’s sketch I have of it. Whilst the other addresses around Leith Street (at the end of Princes Street) have been completely replaced by huge shopping and office complexes. Photographs of all of these are on my web site. Latest MacLEAN news is that I have just found grandfather MacLEAN’s WW1 service record. This is very lucky as most such records were destroyed during the WW2 blitz. These documents show his war record as:- • 8 May 1915 enlisted at St. Pancras into the Gloucestershire regiment. • 11 May 1915 joined his regiment in Bristol (regimental HQ ?) • 23 Sep 1915 posted to the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. • 17 Feb 1916. returned to UK • 25 Feb 1916 admitted to Army Hospital suffering from “Trench Feet” • 4 Jun 1816 posted to France • 12 Feb 1917 returned from France • 8 May 1917 – 15 May 1917 granted leave. • 1 Aug 1917 discharged (unfit for service). • 4 Aug 1917 awarded Silver War Badge (indicates wounded/ injured in action). N.B. the 7th Battalion Gloucester Regiment, part of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, served in Gallipoli from July 1915 to January 1916. This may well be where grandfather served (his medal card, which I already had, merely says ‘Balkans’). They appear to have been amongst the last to be evacuated, as casualties are listed on 8th Jan 1916, with the evacuation complete by the 9th. I cant see any reason for him being returned from France, but mother believed he had been gassed, and that would explain why he was eventually discharged. Also note that he obviously managed to get home to London when granted leave in May 1917, as Uncle Jack was born in Feb 1918. This year’s major progress has come on the UPTON family. As I have mentioned before, gt gt grandparents John and Harriet UPTON had many children and grandchildren, this year I found another child (who died in infancy), making 12, and the latest count of grandchildren is 85, plus at least 8 more from an ‘adopted’ daughter. Until this year I had not traced any other descendants from this line, but I’m pleased to say I am now in contact with four cousins from this family. They have come up with some new information, to add to my research:- Catherine UPTON is descended from our grandmother Catherine Mary’s brother Alfred (and Elizabeth WOOLGAR). Catherine had found something that I had been unable to find, namely that our mutual 3xgt grandfather John Clemenson UPTON was from Maidstone Kent, where he had been apprenticed as a boot/ shoemaker in 1814. As a result of completing his apprenticeship, John was entitled to be a freeman of the city, which was granted in 1825, by which time he was already living and working in London, from where he moved to Kingston on Thames, where his son John met and married Harriet PHILLIPS. Catherine has also identified John Clemenson’s parents (William Ashdown UPTON and Frances HILDER) and grandparents (Thomas UPTON and Elizabeth ASHDOWN). However we have yet to establish where the name ‘Clemenson’ came from, possible somewhere in his maternal line that we haven’t been able to find yet. Another UPTON cousin is Leslie Debus FRAZHO who is descended from two of Catherine Mary’s siblings Gertrude and Frederick (via their respective children). Leslie has provided details of both sides of the family, in particular Gertude, who married a Serbian circus performer George SIEGRIST. Gertrude and George had six children (Catherine Mary registered the birth of their first as ‘present at birth’). Of these, two daughters followed their father into the entertainment industry, and are shown on the 1901 London census as actresses, living in Shaftesbury Ave. By 1903, both of these daughters were in New York, where they appear to have gone to pursue their careers. One, Adrienne, had already married by 1903, but the other Winifred was a rising young actress on Broadway, appearing as a singer and dancer at Weber and Fields music hall under the stage name ‘Topsy’ SIEGRIST, although only 16 years old. Topsy’s career continued until 1910, when she married, by which time she had appeared in at least 6 Broadway productions, and must have been successful as she made at least four return trips to the UK, as well as paying for her mother to visit New York four times. Eventually mother Gertrude and four daughters had all emigrated to the USA and taken US citizenship. Leslie has provided a photo (on my website) of the four SIEGIRST sisters taken in the mid 1930’s. |
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