Where was John Wilkey born?

My 3x great grandfather John Wilkey died in August 1877 in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England, aged 65. He was a tobacco pipe maker. He married Elizabeth Bath at St John the Baptist, Bedminster on 11 March 1833. 

My biggest question is where John was born. 

The 1841 Census has him living in Great George Street, Bristol, with his family and two other families, including his in-laws. It gives his age as 25, though the 1841 Census ages for adults are rounded to the nearest 5 or 10. It says he is from Out of County - therefore he was not born in Gloucestershire.

In 1851 the Census lists John and his family living at New Street, Bristol. His age is given as 38 and he was supposedly born in Bath, Somerset. The rest of his family are all listed as born in Bristol, Gloucestershire.

The 1861 Census has John, his wife Elizabeth, son John, and grandson James living in Prospect Place, Bristol. John is aged 48, and his birthplace is given as Bath, Somerset.

The 1871 Census has John and his wife Elizabeth living together, gives John's age as 58, and once again his birthplace is listed as Bath, Somerset.

One would think this is all pretty compelling evidence that John Wilkey was born in Bath, Somerset in about 1813. Unfortunately, I cannot find any record for a John Wilkey born around 1813 in Bath. 

Searching using FreeReg, I widened the search to the whole of Somerset, in 1813, which produced one record - a baptism for John Wilkey in 1813 in Taunton, Somerset, to Joseph and Susanna Wilkey. Widening the search further, for Somerset between 1810 to 1815 found three baptism records, John Wilkey (as above), William Wilkey, in 1811 in Wilton (part of Taunton), who was John's brother, and Mary Wilkey, in 1814, to William and Diana Wilkey, in Templecombe. The distance as the crow flies from Bath to Taunton is about 65km, and from Bath to Templecombe is about 40km - neither place being particularly close to Bath.

For good measure, I searched all counties in England on FreeReg between 1810 and 1815 for Wilkey baptisms. This produced eight records, from Devon, Somerset and Cornwall. The only John Wilkey was the one from Taunton, Somerset in 1813.

I changed the setting to names that might sound like John Wilkey and it produced the following:

Name	Baptism	Place
John WALLIS	20 Feb 1813	Frome
John WELCH	18 Apr 1813	Kilmington
John WELLS	12 Jun 1813	Shepton Mallet
John WILLS	27 Jun 1813	West Chinnock
John WILKEY	25 Dec 1813	Taunton

The fact that there is only one John Wilkey makes me choose him as the most likely option.

I realise that FreeReg doesn't have a comprehensive record of all parish record baptisms in England, so I searched FamilySearch for a John Wilkey baptised in 1813 in England. Once again, the only John Wilkey baptised in 1813 in the whole of England in their records was the one baptised in Taunton to Joseph and Susanna Wilkey.

So we could assume from all this that our John Wilkey was born in Taunton, baptised at Taunton St James on 25 December 1813, born to parents Joseph and Susanna Wilkey. However, there is still the chance that our John Wilkey's baptism hasn't yet been transcribed, or even that he was never baptised, hence no record of his baptism in Bath. I haven't found any evidence of a Wilkey family living in Bath at that time, but that doesn't mean there wasn't one.

For now, though I have decided to assume that our John Wilkey was born in Taunton to Joseph and Susanna Wilkey, and will continue to wonder whether it is actually correct or not. I guess the only way to definitely know might be through DNA, which so far, I haven't delved into.

And then, of course, we wonder what made John Wilkey move to Bristol and settle there...

James Sheldon's ancestry

I love it when everything falls into place, after struggling to make sense of something!

A distant relative contacted me recently - a descendant of James Sheldon, who was married to Adelaide Catherine Gustavia Martha Weiss, the first child of Charles Nicholas and Benigna Catharina Weiss. James Sheldon was a Church Missionary Society missionary in Kurrachee, India (now Karachi, Pakistan). I've been able to find out a reasonable amount about him and his family in India, and then in England, after they returned from the mission field, but not much of his ancestry. Just that he was from Walsall, Staffordshire. So armed with a little bit more information from James' descendant, I went digging.

I collected so many bits of information from all over the place that I put it all into a timeline in a spreadsheet, to try and make sense of it all. I coloured-coded information about different people, to make it easier to note where the information about a certain person seemed to end (helps to target a timeframe for a death/burial notice).

We knew that James Sheldon was born in Walsall on 7 Oct 1828, and from his marriage record, that his father's name was also James Sheldon (henceforth "James Sheldon senior" here). We also suspected his mother's name was Ann Hannah Middleton. I had found him in the 1841 Census living with James and Ann Bullock, and his sister Mary, and brother Humphrey Jarvis. Humphrey was still living with James and Ann Bullock in the 1851 Census, and was named as their grandson. I also found information that suggested James Sheldon had a brother called John.

So we had to make sense of the surnames of Sheldon, Bullock and Middleton. On FreeReg I found baptism records for the four known Sheldon children, which confirmed that their father was James Sheldon, publican, their mother was Ann, and they lived in Park St during the period those children were born. The Sheldon family seemed to be involved in running pubs in Walsall (of which there were many), so I focused on that. I found information from historical directories - it turned out there were Middletons and Bullocks running pubs too - and put it all in my timeline. I also found info on a very helpful website about the historical pubs of Walsall (and other areas in Staffordshire). 

After I had found all the information I could about who ran which pub, I started searching in historical newspapers for any information on either Joseph Middleton (who apparently ran the Royal Oak before James Sheldon senior took it over), James Sheldon (senior), and James Bullock. And that was where I really struck gold. Advertisements about James Sheldon senior selling land, pubs, goods, going bankrupt, then dying "in the prime of life", and then Ann taking over the pub he was running before he died. Apparently James wasn't too good at running a business, and perhaps the stress of it killed him. 

Further research revealed an application for a marriage license for Ann Middleton, widow, to marry James Bullock. Ann Middleton was widowed... who was she previously married to? The penny dropped... Joseph Middleton? Had he already died by then? Yes! I searched for a marriage record... yes! Was the Ann who was married to James Sheldon senior actually Ann Middleton, daughter of Ann and Joseph Middleton? Yes! I haven't found any information on her having a middle name of Hannah, so we'll discount that middle name. I searched further and found marriage and birth records to corroborate what I suspected. I also found that James Sheldon senior's widow Ann remarried, to a Charles Holmes, and they went on to have children of their own. This helps to explain why her children with James weren't living with her in 1841, but instead with her mother and stepfather. I also discovered that the maiden name of Joseph Middleton's wife Ann was Jarvis. And she happened to have a brother called Humphrey - there's the answer to the mystery of the strange name of James Sheldon's brother "Humphrey Jarvis Sheldon".

Now I just have to work on James Sheldon senior's branch of the family tree. I suspect his father was John Sheldon, and his mother Margaret, but I haven't yet found proof.