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...

Who was Mary Ann Williams?

Mary Ann Williams was my great great grandmother. I know she was from Bristol, Gloucestershire, England, married John Wilkey in Bristol, and then they emigrated to Australia, where they had nine children.

Mary Ann Wilkey née Williams, undated.
Photo courtesy of Margaret Robinson, used with permission.

Who were her parents? According to her marriage record, her father's name was George Williams, and he was a labourer. According to her immigration records, her father was Joseph and her mother was Ann. Slightly contradictory!

Where was she born? I can only assume it was Bristol, Gloucestershire, as this is noted on her immigration records and also her death certificate. There is a baptism record which is potentially hers at St Philip and St Jacob's, Bristol, on 9 June 1844, with the parents listed as George and Ann (there is no baptism record in Gloucestershire with parents Joseph and Ann in the right timeframe). Unfortunately I have only been able to view a transcript of this record - I'd love to see if there was further information on the original parish record. There are many other Mary Ann Williams born around this time in Bristol, but the above record is the only one with a father named George, in the correct time period. Interestingly though, there is no obvious matching birth record for this baptism in the English Births Marriages and Deaths records.

Where did Mary live? On her marriage record in 1863 Mary Ann Williams' residence at the time of the marriage was Newfoundland Gardens. As they married only two years after the 1861 English Census, I checked the census records for any Mary Ann Williams living in Newfoundland St. Unfortunately the only Mary Williams living in Newfoundland St was 50 years old.

So we must therefore assume that Mary Ann Williams had moved residence between the 1861 Census and her wedding. There is no record for a Mary (Ann) Williams of the correct age living with a father George and/or mother Ann in Bristol in either the 1851 or 1861 Census. Was she orphaned? Did she have to go out and work from a young age? Or did she move away for a time?

There is a Mary Ann Williams of the right age living in New St in both the 1851 and 1861 Census, with James and Martha Vowles. Mary Ann is listed as their grandchild. It is just a coincidence that New St and Newfoundland Gardens are similar? If she was my Mary Ann Williams, this would mean that it was her mother who was James and Martha's child. However, I was unable to find a marriage record for an Ann Vowles and a George Williams anywhere. Similarly there was no marriage record for an Ann Vowles and a Joseph Williams.

Searching back to the 1841 Census, I realised that although I wouldn't find Mary Ann because she wasn't born yet, I might find James and Martha Vowles. And there the plot thickened... Listed in New Street were the following living in a single house:

James Vowles, aged 40, Labourer, born in Gloucestershire
Martha Vowles, aged 40, born in Gloucestershire
Mary Weaver, aged 75, born in Gloucestershire
John Vowles, 14 (born c1827), born in Gloucestershire
James Vowles, 10 (born c1831), born in Gloucestershire
Eliz Vowles, 4 (born c1837), born in Gloucestershire
Mary Vowles, 3mths (born 1841), born in Gloucestershire
Ann Williams, 17 (born c1824), born in Gloucestershire
Louisa Williams, 11 (born c1830), born in Gloucestershire

It seemed very interesting that there were two girls with the surname of Williams tacked on at the end there. Particularly one called Ann. So perhaps they were daughters of Martha, from a previous marriage. But then the eldest Vowles son, John, was born between Ann and Louisa Williams.... so perhaps John Vowles was the product of a previous marriage for James Vowles. Did we have an early version of the Brady Bunch here?

Further research revealed James Vowles married Martha Williams on 30 January 1836 at St James, Bristol, and James' marital status was married (though perhaps it should have been widowed?) This suggests that John and James (jnr) were sons of James Vowles senior from a previous marriage, and Ann and Louisa were daughters of Martha Williams from a previous marriage.

So if Ann's maiden name was Williams, and her daughter Mary Ann's surname was also Williams, this suggests that Mary Ann was born out of wedlock. I wonder what Mary Ann's father George's surname was? I'd have to pin down a definite birth record to be able to find out, but Mary Ann's illegitimacy may be why it is hard to find - maybe Ann was sent away to have her baby and thus it was registered elsewhere. And what happened to Ann - why was Mary Ann living with her grandparents rather than her mother in the 1851 and 1861 censuses? Perhaps Ann died, or maybe she married and her new husband didn't want her illegitimate daughter living with them.

Mary Ann's wedding
On 6 April 1863 Mary Ann Williams married John Wilkey at St Paul's Bristol, by banns.

Both Mary Ann and John were listed as of full age but this was incorrect for both - John was 18 years old and Mary Ann was 19. It would seem that there were a few white lies on the marriage record: Mary Ann's father was listed as George Williams, however from the research detailed above it is unlikely that George's surname was Williams, though it was Mary Ann's mother's surname. Did their parents attend the wedding? Mary Ann's mother was possibly dead, and one wonders if she had any contact with her father. Both of John's parents were still alive, but they certainly didn't sign the register as witnesses. In fact, the witnesses were both employed by the parish of St Pauls - William White was the parish clerk, and Mary White, his wife, was the sextoness of the parish.

Emigration to Australia

Just over half a year after they were married, on December 15, 1863, John and Mary Ann Wilkey left  Liverpool, England for Australia on the Montrose. The Montrose arrived in Sydney, on March 27, 1864. The immigration records show that Mary Ann Wilkie (sic) was 19 years old, the wife of John Wilkie (sic), from Bristol, Gloucestershire, England, her parents names were Ann and Joseph, with her father dead and her mother living in Bristol, and it also noted that Mary Ann could read and write (interesting considering she signed the marriage register with her mark!) 

So if we have established that it was more likely that George was her father, where did this Joseph fit in? Had Ann married someone called Joseph? There is a marriage record for an Ann Williams, single, marrying a Joseph Cross on 11 May 1845, at St Paul's Bristol. The bride's father's name was James Williams. This all fits. And so it would seem that Joseph Cross didn't really want his new wife's daughter Mary Ann living with them, so she was sent to live with her maternal grandparents. 

Mary Ann clearly knew that Joseph Cross was not her father because he was not named as her father on her marriage record, and Mary Ann had retained Williams as her surname. Perhaps it was just easier to put Joseph down as her father on the immigration records. Unhelpfully, I can't find a definite death record for either Ann or Joseph, nor can I find Ann in the 1861 Census, where she should be if she were still alive a few years later according to her daughter's immigration records. Maybe she remarried, though I can't find anything that confirms this.

So, most of this is completely circumstantial, but it does all seem to fit together. And I'm not sure that there is any easy way to confirm any of this, though I will keep trying!

The failing eyesight of James Arthur Wilkey

My great grandfather, James Arthur Wilkey, died in 1907, aged 30, after falling from a train, while trying to rescue his hat which had blown off.

I was searching through some of the recently added records on Ancestry this morning, plugging in some surnames to see if anything new came up. I was particularly interested in the NSW Teachers Rolls, 1869-1908, as there were a number of teachers in my own ancestry around that time. On a whim I put in the surname "Wilkey" not expecting to find anything, but....

James Arthur Wilkey, who I understood to have been a clerk when he died, had a record in the NSW Teachers Rolls! Slightly surprising.

The record says he was employed on probation as a Pupil Teacher at Darlington Public at the end of 1895, but by the beginning of the 1896 school year he had been transferred to Stanmore Public instead. Sadly though, his teaching career never really started before it was over because on February 24 of 1896 he called the Chief Inspector and stated that on account of his failing eyesight (aged only 19) he didn't feel he could continue his appointment as a pupil teacher.

No one in the family has ever mentioned his eyesight to me, probably because they didn't know about it - his son, my grandfather wasn't even born when he died. I wonder what the cause of the poor eyesight was? And now I wonder if his eyesight contributed to his death... 

Mary Ann Wilkey and her links to Casino

Mary Ann Wilkey, who lived in Burwood, a suburb of Sydney, died in Casino, a town in Northern NSW. I had never been able to work out why she was there - it was an unlikely holiday destination for a widowed 76 year old woman, if, in fact, people actually took holidays in those days...

Last night I was searching Findmypast for information on the Wilkeys when I came across Mary Ann Wilkey's probate summary. From memory, when I tried to access this record in person at NSW State Records, it was missing, so it was good to have the details summarised.

Mary Ann's will requested that all her real estate properties (four of them) be sold after her death, and that the proceeds of the sales be distributed equally amongst her living children. She also provided some money for Ellen Wilkey (named as Helen), the widow of her son James Arthur Wilkey, and directed that the rest of her belongings be given to her youngest daughter Elizabeth Elsie. She named her son Charles and her son-in-law James Hall (husband of daughter Elizabeth Elsie) as executors of the will.

It was when I got to the section of the probate record stating that Charles and James were made executors that I made a sudden exclamation, startling my husband. It recorded that James Hall was a shopkeeper, in Casino. I'm guessing that it was very likely that Mary Ann was visiting her daughter Elizabeth Elsie in Casino when she died.

It's not the sort of information that changes much, but I'm glad I've finally solved that puzzle!

Finding Thomas J Thompson

Thomas J Thompson was married to Mary Ann Wilkey, the sister of my great grandfather, James Arthur Wilkey. Mary Ann was born in 1864 in Canterbury, married Thomas in Burrowa (Boorowa) in 1885, and died on 29 April 1937 in Bankstown. They had seven children (I think), and lived in Railway Parade, Thornleigh in 1906 when their eldest daughter Ada died, aged 20 (SMH, 23 July 1906).

Apart from knowing where he was married, and where they lived when Ada died, I could find nothing on Mary Ann Wilkey's husband Thomas J Thompson. Nothing on his birth, no date of death, nor where he was buried - he wasn't buried with Mary Ann, who was buried at Rookwood Cemetery with her parents, John and Mary Ann Wilkey. I suspected from family death/funeral notices, including his own wife's, that he had died before her, but had no actual proof.

I searched and searched. I didn't know what he did for work, so that didn't help. Days later, it suddenly occurred to me that I knew that Thomas and Mary Ann's daughter Ada was buried in Rookwood as well - perhaps if he wasn't buried with his wife then maybe he was buried with his daughter. BINGO!

Thomas John Thompson was buried in the Methodist section of Rookwood Cemetery, with his daughter Ada May. He was interred on 1 July 1911, and the record notes he was 49 years old. From his date of interment I could look more accurately for a death record, and from his age at death I knew he was born in about 1862. I was completely unprepared for what I found in Trove (Barrier Miner, 1 July 1911):

An utter tragedy, compounded by the fact that Mary Ann's own father, John Wilkey, had died earlier that year (15 Jan 1911), and one of her brothers, James Arthur Wilkey, had been killed in another freak accident four years earlier. I can imagine Mary Ann at home, getting dinner ready, waiting for Thomas to get home from work, the time getting later and later, until there was a knock at the door...

However, putting aside the awful story of Thomas' death, I also learnt that Thomas was born in Victoria and was a bricklayer. I don't know if he was a bricklayer all his life, or just did different labouring jobs over the years. I've had a brief look at the Victorian BDM, but there's a few candidates that could be Thomas' birth (though only as Thomas Thompson - there's no Thomas J or Thomas John Thompson in the right range of years). I'm too cheap to go looking through them all, and I'm not sure I'd be able to work out which one he was anyway.

So that's a little about Thomas John Thompson. Not much, but more than I knew before.

A family heirloom - a hand embroidered doily

I was given this embroidered doily after the death of my great aunt - it had been embroidered by her mother, my great grandmother, Ellen Paterson Wilkey née Macindoe (1876-20 Apr 1967). I treasure it because of my own love of embroidery, and have it framed and hanging on the wall in my bedroom. One day, when I meet her in heaven, my great grandmother may well ask me why I stuck it on the wall in a frame instead of using it!

The other day I was looking through some books on Antique Pattern Library, and was stunned when I came across the pattern! There is only one small difference that I can find in the way my great grandmother stitched it compared to the pattern and I'm quite convinced it is the pattern she followed. The pattern is from a DMC pattern book, Drawn Thread Work, edited by Thérésa de Dillmont, and was published in about 1895. This definitely fits within the time that my great grandmother might have been stitching.

Why do I think this is significant? I'd been told of my great grandmother's sewing skills, but finding the published pattern shows me that ordinary women stitched these designs - it wasn't mass produced in a factory somewhere. She was definitely talented - it's not an easy pattern!

The short life of James Arthur Wilkey

James Arthur Wilkey was my great grandfather. He was born in Burwood, Sydney in 1877 to John and Mary Ann Wilkey. Comparatively little is known about my great grandfather, because he only lived to 30 years of age. For him there was no sitting around with the grandchildren, regaling them with stories of "When I was young...."

James Arthur, known just as "Arthur", was the seventh of nine children of John and Mary Ann Wilkey, though he only knew two of his older siblings because the others died in infancy or childhood.

James Arthur Wilkey on his wedding day.

The next event that history records in Arthur's life was his marriage, aged 25, to Ellen Paterson Macindoe in 1902, at Petersham, Sydney. They lived in a house in Wyatt Avenue, Burwood, and started a family - their first child, Helen Genevieve, was born in 1904. Arthur worked as a clerk. Then, in 1907, when Ellen, known as Nell, was newly pregnant with their second child, named James Arthur Macindoe Wilkey (known as Arthur, like his father), tragedy befell the family.

Evening News, 16 Sep 1907. Accessed via Trove on 21 Jun 2013. Note that Arthur's name is quoted incorrectly.

The accident occurred at about 8am on Monday 16 September. Nell sat up all Monday night, praying for her husband, with her mother, sister Maggie, brother Norman, and a few friends. I cannot begin to imagine her emotional state at the plight of her husband, especially in her pregnant condition, but her brother Norman described it thus in his diary: "Remained up all Tuesday night sharing Nell's heart agony, also portion of Wednesday night". Tragically, Arthur died the day after the accident at about 1pm. He was buried at Rookwood Cemetery on 19 September 1907.

Witnesses at the inquest into his death described how, after his train had left Burwood Station on its journey towards Sydney, as he stood on the platform of the train, his hat blew off when another train passed, and in a effort to catch it, he fell from the train. A verdict of accidental death was recorded.

Life for Nell after her husband's death was hard, though her family was there to help her. She gave birth to their son Arthur in the following April. Some of Nell's brothers took a particular interest in young Arthur as he grew up, to provide him with a father figure.

I've often wondered how the family survived financially after Arthur's death, as there was no longer a breadwinner in the family. This question was answered when I looked at Arthur's deceased estate papers at State Records: on the 31 Dec 1898 when he was 21, Arthur took out a £100 life insurance policy with the Australian Mutual Provident Society. When he died, the policy paid out £111. That would certainly have helped provide for the family.