Mademoiselle Leonora Tourrier

This particular bit of research was prompted because two Australian Tourrier relatives contacted me quite recently. So I thought I'd do a bit more Tourrier investigation for them!

Georgiana Eleonora Aglae Tourrier was born in Marylebone, London, England, on 19 December 1844 to Jean Furcy and Constantia Eleonora Tourrier (née von Holst), the third youngest of (by my count) ten children.

She was baptised at All Souls Church Marylebone on 12 July 1846. She was noted in the 1851 English Census as living at 69 Charlotte Street, Marylebone, with her parents, and a sister, two brothers and two servants.

I have not been able to find the Tourrier family in the 1861 Census. Perhaps they were in France visiting relatives - Jean Furcy Tourrier was born in Paris.

The next we hear of Leonora, as she was often called, was in a periodical article about a musical soirée to inaugurate the opening of the "Young Ladies College" in Regents Park in January 1865 (The Orchestra Musical Review, No. 70, 28 Nov 1865, p.279). "Mdlle. Tourrier", as one of the soloists, was to sing a cavatina "La Sonnambula" by Bellini and a song "Leggiero Invisible" by Arditi.

It would seem that Leonora made a small career out of singing before her marriage. In November 1867 she was a vocal soloist at a pianoforte recital at Westbourne Hall, Westbourne Park, Westminster (The Orchestra Musical Review, No. 216, 16 Nov 1867, p.117). In December of the same year she performed in a second recital at the same place, and was encored in her performance of a serenade (The Orchestra Musical Review, No. 221, 21 Dec 1867, p.196). She also sang at a concert in the Beethoven Rooms in July 1868, and at the inauguration of a new branch of the Marylebone Penny Readings in Paddington Green in February 1869. In June 1869, as a pupil of Madame Therese Leupold (well known in musical circles in those days), she performed some classical songs at a musical soirée of Mme Leupold's. "The singing of Madlle. Tourrier in Glück's "Chè farò," was in every respect excellent... the duet, "Voga tonio," by Madlle. Tourrier and Miss Goodall, and two vocal trios, in which the above mentioned ladies were joined by Miss Ogle, were received, as they deserved to be, with the most spontaneous applause." The Musical Times, 1 July 1869, p.148.

By 1874 Leonora was married, to Anthony Charles Montague Jellicoe, a former soldier in India, China and the Cape of Good Hope. They were married at St Matthew's Brixton, Leonora aged 29 and Anthony 33. Anthony was listed as a "Gent", and they both lived in Acre Lane - and at a guess they lived together - they had four children together, all boys, with their first child born two years before they married.

I do wonder what calibre of "Gentleman" Anthony Jellicoe actually was - he was made bankrupt in 1866 and apparently spent time in the Debtor's Prison, he got Leonora pregnant before they were married, and eventually, when he died in 1895, he left all his money (£300) to some spinster named Annie White even though he was still married to Leonora!

Anyway, Leonora lived out her days with her sons (at least for some of the time), until her death in the fourth quarter of 1923, her death registered in Brentford, Middlesex.

Samuel Wickham, butcher of Linton

Samuel Wickham (born about 1749, died ?) was my 5x great grandfather. Samuel was baptised at St Peters Tunbridge (also known as Tonbridge), Kent, England on 17 May 1749. His parents were Samuel Wickham and Ann Humphery. My research shows that Samuel was the youngest of six children, though there may well be other children I haven't uncovered, but all the known children were baptised in Tunbridge.

Samuel married Ann Duddy, from Hunton, on 16 November 1776 by licence. Samuel, a bachelor, was noted as a butcher in the village of Linton, and Ann was a spinster.

Samuel and Ann had six children all presumably born and definitely baptised in Linton - Rebecca (born about 1777, baptised 10 Aug, 1777), Thomas (my 4x great grandfather, born about 1778, baptised 27 Dec 1778), Samuel (born about 1780, baptised 14 Aug 1780), Edward (born about 1782, baptised 10 Feb 1782, buried 24 Feb 1782), Ann (born about 1783, baptised 4 Apr 1783), and Mary (born about 1784, baptised 14 Jul 1784, buried 4 Sep 1784).

Samuel's wife Ann died in Dec 1784, and was buried in the St Marys Hunton churchyard on 17 December 1784.

What happened to Samuel then is a matter of guesswork. I have found a marriage (by licence) record for a Samuel Wickham and a Mary Duddy in Lambeth, London, on 25 May 1785. Both Samuel and Mary are noted as living in the parish of Lambeth St Mary, and tellingly, Samuel is a widower. If this is my Samuel, the fact that he married a woman with the same surname as his late wife suggests she may well be a relative, perhaps Ann's sister.

I have also found a record for a child named John Wickham, born to Mary Duddy and "Wickham" (no first name noted), who was baptised in Hunton, Kent in 1785.

So if this is my Samuel Wickham, marrying his sister-in-law, or at least his late wife's relative, I wonder what they were doing in Lambeth, London? Did baby John come before or after the wedding? That they married in London and later returned to the Linton-Hunton area suggests to me that perhaps John was conceived before they were married, they went to London to hide the pregnancy from the locals of Linton-Hunton, then returned, married, with a new baby. I'd be interested to know where Samuel's other children were while all this went on. Of course, this is all my guesses - I don't know for sure that it was my Samuel Wickham, but I suspect it was.

As for when he died, there are many family trees on Ancestry which suggest he died in 1802, but I can find no evidence for this.

The Baumgartens of Germany

The other day I wrote about looking up the marriage records on microfilm (1189776) for a couple of Baumgartens in Lahr, Baden, Germany at the local LDS Family History Centre.

I have transcribed the records as best as I can, though there are a few words that I just can't decipher.

The marriage of Juliana Ernestina Baumgarten and Johann Friedrich Haberkorn:
Johann Friedrich Haberkorn, zeitlicher Cantor und Praeceptor Secundarius und Wittwer dahin und Juliana Ernestina, Herr Nicolaus Baumgarten der zeit Cantoris und Praeceptoris Secundari zu Usingen, eheliche ledige tochter.

The marriage of Christian Leopold Baumgarten and Maria Salome Dieterlin:
Christian Leopold Baumgarten Praeceptor und Organist zu Altensenn(?). Herr Joh. Nicolaus Baumgarten Cantoris und Praeceptoris zu Usingen, ehelicher ledigen Sohn und Jgfr [Jungfer] Maria Salome, Jacob Dieterlin das ...... ......... und Weiss E....s, und Stadt Musici ehelicher ledigen tochter.

I was talking to a German friend, who has studied Latin, about the Latin words in the records, which apparently refer to occupations - Cantoris and Praeceptoris Secondari(us). She did a bit of research for me and found that Cantoris is likely to refer to a music teacher, and Praeceptoris means someone who teaches Latin. Secundari(us) is likely to refer to the fact that the Latin teacher is not the head teacher, but a lower ranking teacher of Latin.

It's the musical bit that interests me the most. Samuel Baumgarten, my 5x great grandfather, could be the son of Johann(es) Nicolaus Baumgarten. Samuel, being an apparently talented bassoonist, might well have inherited some musical talent from a music teacher father. It certainly appears that the family moved in musical circles.

So I'm chipping away at this Baumgarten mystery. My thanks go to Miriam for her Latin help!

Not him

I recently was able to look at the Register of Seamen's Tickets 1845-1854 (LDS microfilm 1482525), which included the ticket (no. 56694) for one William Rich of Bridgwater, Somerset. I hoped it would answer the question of how my great great grandfather William Rich reached Australia.

Unfortunately, it didn't help me - my William Rich was born in about 1832. The William Rich of seamen's ticket 56694 was born in 1818 and first went to sea as an apprentice in 1835. Shame. So my William Rich must have swum here after all!

The Baumgartens from somewhere in Germany

Quite some time ago I found out the names of the siblings of my 5x great grandfather the bassoonist Samuel Christian Frederic Baumgarten, according to the will of their brother John Henry Baumgarten. Although both Samuel and John lived and died in England, it has long been believed that Samuel was of German birth (according to musical history sources), but no one knew exactly where he was from. Once I knew names of Samuel and John's brothers and sisters I hoped that information might help me narrow down where the Baumgartens came from. The names were Leopold Baumgarten, Frederick Baumgarten, Gertrud Schwein, Magdalen Schmied, Julia Haberkorn, and Frances Baumgarten.

My best hope was FamilySearch, so I plugged all the names into FamilySearch, focusing particularly on the married sisters - this was because I had an extra name to work with - not just the maiden name but also the married name. I possibly found something with Julia Haberkorn - a marriage record for a Juliana Ernestina Baumgarter to a Johann Friedrich Haberkor in a protestant church in Lahr, Offenburg, Baden, Germany on 17 February 1757. Despite the slightly different spellings I thought it was enough to order the microfilm of the parish records for Lahr in to my local LDS Family History Centre.

The microfilm arrived this week and I was able to make the time to have a look. I found February 1757 and looked for the names Baumgarten and Haberkorn. I was confused to find an entry for Christian Leopold Baumgarten rather than Juliana Ernestina Baumgarter/n. But she was there as well, only her brother Christian Leopold was married ten days before her.

Going back to Juliana though - in the parish records her surname was actually Baumgarten, not Baumgarter, and Haberkor was actually Haberkorn - they have evidently been transcribed incorrectly by the FamilySearch transcription volunteers. Although I haven't quite worked out exactly what the entry says (it's written in German language in the German Kurrent script), it does tell me that Juliana's father's name was Nicolaus Baumgarten, and seems to suggest that both he and the groom - who was a widower - were possibly secondary teachers (Praeceptoris secundari)?

The entry for Christian Leopold Baumgarten's marriage to Maria Salome Dieterlin on 7 February 1757 shows that his father was Joh. Nicolaus Baumgarten, with the same occupation as Juliana's father. I'm pretty sure that means they were one and the same father. Interestingly, if I'm translating it correctly, it suggests that the father Johann(es?) Nicolaus Baumgarten was from Usingen (...Joh. Nicolaus Baumgarten Cantoris und Praeceptoris zu Usingen...).

So the question is: are Juliana Ernestina Baumgarten and Christian Leopold Baumgarten siblings of Samuel and John Baumgarten?

• Names: Julia could well be a diminutive form of Juliana, and with the baptisms of his children Christian Leopold was sometimes named as Leopold Christian.
• Church: that they were married in a Protestant church rather than a Catholic church fits well with the fact that Samuel Baumgarten's children were baptised in a parish of the Church of England.
• Usingen: if Johann(es) Nicholas Baumgarten was from Usingen that gives me a link to Samuel Baumgarten's daughter Marie, who was, according to the Burgerbuch of the city of Mulhouse, from Nassau-Usingen. As far as I know, none of Samuel Baumgarten's other children were born there, so what were they doing there if they weren't visiting family? It is possible he could have been on a music tour, but there is little evidence that he did anything like that - apparently only being well known as a musician in England. And would you take your apparently heavily pregnant wife with you on a music tour anyway?

So if these are Julia Haberkorn and Leopold Baumgarten, sister and brother of Samuel and John Baumgarten, where are the rest of the siblings? I haven't seen the baptism and burial records for Lahr to see if the Baumgarten siblings were born/baptised in Lahr, or if their father/parents was/were buried there. That may be my next step. And I also need to investigate the Usingen link and see where that takes me. So the circumstantial evidence points to them possibly being the siblings of Samuel and John, but there is nothing at this stage that indisputably links them. More work needed!

Trove Tuesday: An unexpected hotelier's license

LICENSING BUSINESS
The license of the Exchange Hotel, King-street, was transferred from James Merrick and Samuel Harper, executors under the will of the late Edward Sadler to Joseph Gordon.
1874. Licensing Business, The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 December, p. 5, viewed 17 November 2012. http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/13338044.

I've been putting old searches back into Trove of late, as they've been adding a whole lot of new newspapers into their databases. I was quite surprised to find this notice in the Sydney Morning Herald. I had no knowledge of there being any hotelier's licenses in the Merrick branch of the family - even if only briefly. Samuel Harper was married to James Merrick's wife's sister. Edward Sadler was the previous owner of the Exchange Hotel, where James was apparently a regular. There is an article in The Empire about a man up on charges of assault, and one of the people deposed was James Merrick, who carried on business locally in King St as a shoemaker. Apparently he was in Sadler's hotel with the accused, and swore he ate oysters with him some time around midnight, as was his custom to eat oysters at night (The Empire, 25 May 1874, page 3). This was after his first wife Mary Ann had died (Jan 1870), before he married Eliza Jane Ball (1875). I do hope that after he married Eliza Jane that he didn't stay out till all hours of the night like that!

The missing Smith children

In my last post I wrote about the children of James and Sarah Smith. And there were three for whom birth records just don't exist.

Ellen Smith was definitely born, around 1859, because she was listed as 20 years old when her father died in 1879. But her birth clearly wasn't registered. And she didn't die as Ellen Smith, in NSW at least. I looked at marriage records for Ellen Smiths, focussing on those registered in St Leonards because that's where the family was located. The most likely options (based on the date) were a marriage in 1881 to Jonathan Hinks and and an 1883 marriage to Robert Pymble. Death records for Ellen Hinks and Ellen Pymble revealed an 82 year old Ellen Hinks dying in Penrith in 1941 (no parents recorded, only her age and place of death), and Ellen Pymble dying in 1950 in Chatswood, parents Samuel and Mary Ann. So Ellen Pymble was a no-go, but Ellen Hinks could definitely fit - she was the right age if she had been born in 1859. But there the trail went cold because there didn't seem to be any obvious way of verifying the information.

Later I was filing some of my family history notes and came across some I made with Mum when she passed on the Nell Brell's Cookies recipe. And there was a reference to one of my Great Nanna's cousins - one Hilda Jouning née Hinks, whose parents were Jonathan and Ellen Hinks. Mystery solved!

Not so lucky with the missing sons. According to James' death record he had two sons who were deceased at the time of his death. In the NSW BDM no records, birth or death, can be found that relate to these two boys. And I don't think the family was elsewhere at the time of their births, I think they just weren't registered.

I rang the NSW Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages to ask about the missing registrations. The nice lady I talked to said that although civil registration started in 1856, they didn't really crack down on it until the 1890s, and some children were just never registered. The fact that there is no birth or death record for either of them suggests that perhaps the boys were stillborn or died when only a few days old. She also said that sometimes in very remote locations the births were never registered but this doesn't apply in this case - they were in St Leonards, which although it was on the north side of Sydney Harbour, wasn't that hard to get to and from!

The nice lady suggested I try church records, because although there may have been no official registration, it is possible the boys may still have been baptised. I'll have to see if I can locate parish records for St Thomas' to see if there is anything in them. I believe the pre-1930 Anglican Sydney diocese parish registers have all been microfilmed by the Society of Australian Genealogists. Looks like I might have to take a trip into the city!

More on James Smith

I received the transcript for James Smith's death certificate yesterday.

He died on 4 July 1879 at Hill St, St Leonards (now North Sydney). This doesn't surprise me because I have found records of Sarah living there after James' death.

James was listed as a labourer. I have found records which suggest he worked as a gardener, in a dairy, as a carpenter and as a quarryman. This all fits with my thought that he was a general labourer - perhaps the sort of man who could turn his hand to anything.

He died of "broncho pneumonia", which he had been suffering from for 14 days.

James' father was listed as John Smith, labourer, his mother Susan Tedfort. So obviously my speculation in this post was wrong. John Smith is the sort of name which would cause you to throw your hands up in the air and give up, however Susan Tedfort is a much more distinctive name. The only problem is that I can't find any Susan Tedforts anywhere. I suspect that the surname was not spelled correctly on the death record. Surnames I can find are Thetford, Tedford, Telfort, Titford, etc. I'll have to look into it.

James was born in Ireland, and he had been in the colony/state about 28 years (which suggests he arrived about 1851). This still doesn't help me work out how he got here - there's nothing that I can find that fits with that or is clearly him. On his son William's birth record his place of birth is listed as County Armagh, Ireland.

The children of his marriage to Sarah Ann Adamson (and their ages at the time of his death) were:

• Ann Jane, aged 24. Ann Jane was my great great grandmother and married Robert Wickham. I'm guessing she was named after Sarah's mother.
• James, aged 23. Named after his father. I haven't yet worked out what happened to James - what he did, when he died etc.
• Ellen, aged 20. I cannot locate a birth registration for Ellen in the NSW BDM. Not sure why. Also, I can't find her death record either, but that's because I have no idea who/whether she married. Named after one of Sarah's twin sisters.
• Eliza, aged 16. Full name Eliza Annie. Married Thomas William Stilling. Most likely named after Sarah's other twin sister.
• Susan, aged 14. Susan died a couple of years later, aged 16. Probably named after James' mother.
• William, aged 8. I haven't yet worked out what happened to William either. I also don't know who he was named after, but considering all the other children were named after someone in the family, perhaps his father James had a brother called William?
• 2 boys and 1 girl deceased. Absolutely no idea who the two boys were. There are no obvious birth or death records for them in the NSW BDM. I've seen the birth record for William, and they are not listed on that, so perhaps they were born after that. The girl was Maria, who died when she was 8 months old, in 1861. I also don't know who she was named after - perhaps a sister of her father?

So, how could you get away without registering the births of some of your children? I wonder how common it was? Are the NSW BDM records infallible?!

I must acknowledge the assistance of a distant relative, Joanne, with whom I have been collaborating on this Smith research. Thanks Joanne!

Trove Tuesday: George Beringer's prize for art

Amy of Branches, Leaves and Pollen started up Trove Tuesday a while ago - the aim being to write about things of interest found on Trove. I think it's a great idea so I thought I'd join in.

I was searching for references to the Beringer family today and came across a lovely article about prizes given at North Granville Superior Public School in 1906. The article is quite long so I am showing the opening paragraph and then the important one - to me anyway!

1906. North Granville S.P. School Prize Distribution, The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate, 21 April, p. 2, viewed 13 November 2012.  http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/85934165.

So it appears that George Beringer - who was later known as André de Beranger, silent film actor - always had an artistic bent.

And I must say, I do like the reason for Reginald Towle's prize.

The Adamsons from Ballymacanallen

Sarah Ann Adamson was married to James Smith and was my great great great grandmother. She was born in around 1828 in Ballymacanallen, Co Down, Ireland. Her parents were Thomas and Ann Jane.

Sarah Ann's whole family came out to Australia, in dribs and drabs. The following table shows the details:

Name	Year of emigration	Ship	Religion	Native place and county	Relatives in the colony
Margaret Adamson	1849	John Bright	Church of England	Near Gilford, Co Down	No relatives in the colony
Thomas Adamson	1849	John Bright	Wesleyan	Near Gilford, Co Down	No relatives in the colony
Mary Jane Adamson	1851	St Vincent	Presbyterian	Gilford, Downshire	Sister and brother living in Sydney
Sarah Ann Adamson	1852	David McIver	Church of Scotland	Ballymacanallen, Co Down	Brother and 2 sisters living at North Shore
George Adamson	1852	David McIver	Church of England	Tullylish, Co Down	Thomas living somewhere in Sydney, Mary Jane and Sarah Ann living at North Shore
Thomas (father), Anne (mother), Martha, Ellen, Eliza, Nancy, Alexander and Robert	1855	Nabob	Presbyterian	All from Sego, Armagh, apart from Anne, who was from Tullylish, Armagh (actually Co Down)	A son, Thomas Adamson, living in York St, Sydney

Margaret and Thomas were the first of Sarah Ann's siblings to come out. Although it seems that Mary Jane arrived by herself, she actually arrived with her husband Henry Donaldson, also from Gilford, whom she married on the voyage - they were married by the ship's surgeon apparently. George and Sarah Ann arrived next, though George seemed quite confused about which sister he was travelling with - presumably because the single men and women weren't allowed to mix on the ship. Then the parents Thomas and Ann Jane brought all the rest of the children out - son Thomas paid immigration deposits for Thomas, Anne, Alexander and Robert a year before they emigrated (interesting that deposits were not required for the girls). Curiously, Thomas and Anne seem to have dropped their ages by about 20 years in order (I assume) to qualify to emigrate.

Ballymacanallen is a townland 4km north of Gilford, in the parish of Tullylish, Co Down, Northern Ireland. I tend to think they were probably all from Gilford, but the parents Thomas and Anne and the younger children may have moved on to Sego before they emigrated to Australia - who knows why. Ballymacanallen seems to have been a small farming community at the time.

Thomas was listed as farm labourer when he emigrated, as were his sons Thomas and Alexander, with son George listed as a labourer. It would appear that they all worked in labouring jobs here in Australia as well. Son Thomas bought 12 acres, 3 roods of land in "Willoughby" (possibly Crows Nest now) in 1853, though I can't work out exactly where this was - having more than one Thomas Adamson living in the North Sydney area makes it hard! Thomas the son (who, confusingly, is generally known as Thomas Adamson snr) built a weatherboard cottage at 10 Munro St, North Sydney, which still stands, and perhaps this is on part of the land he bought in 1853.

The thing which surprises me the most is the listed religion for each of the family members - there's a variety - Church of England (presumably this was "translated" from Church of Ireland), Church of Scotland/Presbyterian (are they the same thing?) and Wesleyan. Firstly I was totally surprised that there was a Presbyterian presence in Ireland. I does suggest to me that somewhere along the line the Adamsons had ancestors who moved to Ireland from Scotland. Secondly, I do wonder how attached the members of the family were to their listed denominations - afterall Mary Jane said she was Presbyterian, her husband Henry was listed as Church of Scotland, and although they married on the voyage, their marriage was registered at the Sydney Wesleyan Methodist church. Sarah Ann was Presbyterian, but married her Wesleyan husband James Smith in the same Wesleyan Methodist church. Some members of the family were buried in the Presbyterian section of Gore Hill Cemetery though, so I guess some did keep to the Presbyterians.

James Smith of St Leonards

James Smith was my great great great grandfather. I have found it difficult to find much information on him, but at least his name was not John Smith - though I believe that was his father's name!

James Smith died on 4th July 1879, and was buried in the St Thomas Cemetery, North Sydney. Although many of the headstones were removed when the site was redeveloped into a rest park in the 1970s, I think that the headstone for James Smith may still be there. I'll have to go and check it out one day. According to his headstone he was 49 years and 7 months old when he died, which suggests that he was born around Dec 1829.

James Smith married Sarah Ann Adamson in 1853 at the Wesleyan Chapel in Princes Street, Sydney. They had six children that I know of: Ann Jane (born 1854, my great great grandmother), James (1856), Maria (1861), Eliza Annie (1862), Susan (1865) and William (1871). All the children who have a district recorded on their birth record were registered at St Leonards. On Ann Jane's marriage record (1876) her father's occupation is not listed, but the ceremony is recorded as being held at the bride's residence on the North Shore. In those days it would seem that the "North Shore" was pretty much all the settlement on the northern side of the harbour, rather than the geographical area which is now known by that term (being a lot larger now). Later, in 1885 after her father's death, when Eliza Annie was married, it only lists her as living in Sydney, but her father's occupation was noted as carpenter.

I have looked at James' probate packet, held out at the State Records Centre at Kingswood. In his will he mentions real estate, though I have not been able to work out exactly where he might have owned real estate - anyone have any ideas on how to find it? At a guess it might have been in St Leonards. Interestingly, in the will, he appoints his wife Sarah as the guardian of his infant children. I calculate, of the known children, that only William was an infant at the time the will was written (24 June 1879), so I suspect that it is quite possible there were more children than the six I know of. The probate information records that the personal estate of the deceased was under the value of £40. I don't think this was a huge amount.

The will records that James was a quarryman, living in St Leonards (St Leonards seems to have been the name for what is now known as North Sydney. There was also an area in the south western part of what is now North Sydney, going down to Blues Point, which was called Victoria). There was a quarry where the corner of Blue and Miller Streets is now, so perhaps he worked there. I have also found a record from 1876 for a James Smith living in Walker St, Victoria as a dairyman - which may or may not have been him. It is my thought that James was a bit of an odd-job manual-labour sort of man, and changed his occupation more than once.

Where James Smith was born is completely unknown. I've applied for his death record to see what information that contains. There are, of course, only two options - he was born here (presumably NSW) or somewhere else - likely in Britain, at a guess. If he was born here his parents were either convicts or free settlers. If he was born elsewhere, he was either a convict or a free settler himself.

According to the death record information available online, James' parents were John Smith and Susan. There is no record of a James Smith born to a John and Susan Smith around 1829-30 in NSW. However, working on the theory that not all information on death records is correct, I thought I'd see if there was a James Smith born to any John Smiths in Sydney, about that time. Yes. In 1829 there was a James Smith born to John and Jane Smith. If he was born in December 1829 they would have had to get him registered quick-smart to be included in the 1829 records, but perhaps it is him. Looking at other possible children born to John and Jane Smith around that time there is: Elizabeth J born 1817, Sarah (1821), Maria (1822), William (1824), Thomas (1826) x2, Eliza (1830), Charlotte (1832) and Jane (1838). Looking at his own children's names, James and Sarah had a Maria and a William. Whilst William was a common enough name, Maria was not so common - Mary and Mary Ann were much more common than Maria. So perhaps James had a sister called Maria. This is all pure speculation though, and I have no idea if I'll ever know if it is actually true.

Advertising your emigration intentions

Pauleen over at Family history across the seas put me on to something the other day - apparently, when Germans wanted to emigrate they had to put an advertisement in a local paper, stating their intentions to emigrate. It prevented people who owed money from skipping the country - if Rudolf down the road owed you some money and you saw an ad in the local paper you knew you needed to get down to his place quick smart to get the money off him! Pauleen had some success finding some of the advertisements her ancestors had placed prior to emigration so I thought I'd give it a go as well.

I searched and searched and searched for a number of days and had not one bit of luck. So I shot off an email to Norbert at Rheingau Genealogie to see if he knew the names of some local historical papers that they might have put an ad in. Helpful as ever, Norbert not only knew the name of the paper "Nassauischen Intelligenzblättern", but also knew about a book where all of the advertisements had been collated - a book published in 1966 by Wolf-Heino Struck called "Die Auswanderung aus dem Herzogtum Nassau (1806-1866)".

I haven't been able to locate "Nassauischen Intelligenzblättern" on the internet which explains why I haven't found an advertisement for my Beringers emigrating to Australia. Add to that the fact that they emigrated in 1884, so they won't be in the book either. So that's one newspaper I have to track down, and one book I won't need to! Thanks Norbert!

Sorting out the Rich family of Somerset

I've been working on the family of my great great grandfather, William Rich (abt 1832-1927), who apparently came from Somerset - I'm still trying to work out exactly where. I'm hoping that if I can track down his family it might shed some light on where it was that he was born. Sometimes you just have to gather together all your information and try and make some educated guesses. So here goes.

His parents, according to his death record from the NSW BDM (6651/1927), were William Rich and Elizabeth Milton. William Rich, the father, was listed as a farmer. We can verify some of this with the death record of his known sister (known through her funeral notice), Avice Bindon, as her parents were both William and Elizabeth as well (14845/1908).

I have not been able to find a marriage record for William Rich senior and Elizabeth Milton - perhaps they weren't officially married. At about the time they appear to have started producing children there is a conglomeration of Richs in the area of Nether Stowey and Over Stowey. The Miltons are mostly found further west, around St Decumans and Sampford Brett. Wherever William Rich senior came from (which may or may not have been over at Nether or Over Stowey), I think that after he "married" Elizabeth they lived near her family rather than his - in searching for their potential children I have not found any baptisms for other Rich families in the same parishes.

The following is a table of the potential children of William and Elizabeth Rich, mostly according to baptism records:

Name	Baptism date	Parish	Father	Father's occ	Mother	Abode
James Milton RICHE	26 Dec 1817	Stogumber	William	Yeoman	Elizabeth Ann	Stogumber
Mary Ann RICH	3 Feb 1820	Stogumber	William	Yeoman	Elizabeth Ann	Vexford
Eliza RICH	23 Jan 1821	Stogumber	William	Maltster	Elizabeth Ann	Watchet
Harriet RICH	23 Nov 1823	St Decumans	William	Maltster	Elizabeth	Watchet
Anna Maria RICH	23 Nov 1823	St Decumans	William	Maltster	Elizabeth	Watchet
Avice RICH	Abt 1828 - based on 1851 Census					St Decumans
Louisa RICH	28 Aug 1831	Crowcombe	William	Maltster	Elizabeth	Stogumber
Ann RICH	19 Jul 1836	Stogumber	William	Farmer	Elizabeth	Higher Vexford
Emma RICH	19 Jul 1836	Stogumber	William	Farmer	Elizabeth	Higher Vexford
William RICH	19 Jul 1836	Stogumber	William	Farmer	Elizabeth	Higher Vexford
Frederick RICH	7 Dec 1842	St Decumans	William	Baker	Elizabeth	London

I have looked at this information for a long time, trying to solve the mystery of whether this is two families - one with a father who is a yeoman/farmer, the other a maltster - or one where the father does all three (setting aside the final entry for "Frederick Rich"). It wasn't until I was working on the Milton branch of the family that I discovered that the second option was very likely to be true: Elizabeth Milton's sister Ellen Wood Milton married Jonathan Date, and in the baptism records of their children he was also noted variously as a yeoman, farmer and maltster (he was also a baker). Although it might be possible that there were two families of William and Elizabeth Rich, the likelihood of there being two families of Jonathan and Ellen Date, with their less common names, is much smaller. Also, the Dates lived and worked at Snailholt Farm, Watchet, and I think it is quite possible that William Rich worked with/for Jonathan whilst the Rich family were in Watchet. Snailholt Farm was quite a large farm, about 143 acres, and so the Dates would have had many workers. I can imagine that William may have worked for him.

I have not been able to find any electoral lists that cover the period in Somerset where William Rich senior's occupation is listed as a yeoman. But it would appear that he was farming somewhere around the Vexford, Stogumber area. Perhaps a change in fortune lead to him and his family moving to Watchet, to work as a maltster, possibly with his brother-in-law Jonathan Date at Snailholt Farm. A maltster made malt, usually from barley, and often the maltster farmed the barley first. Being a maltster at a farm suggests that they were also farming barley there. There was a brewery at Stogumber that the malt would have been produced for.

By about the early to mid 1830s the Rich family had moved on from Watchet, back to around Stogumber/Higher Vexford, to take up farming again. Barley? Who knows. Although I have not been able to locate William and Elizabeth Rich in the 1841 Census (or any census in fact!) living at Higher Vexford in 1841 were Benjamin, Sarah and John Milton, brother, sister and father of Elizabeth Rich. The 1841 Census also lists a 10 year old Louisa Rich (F.S. - farm servant/female servant?) living/staying with the Miltons in Higher Vexford. So I think it is safe to assume that William had been working with his in-laws in Higher Vexford. I don't know where the majority of the Rich family were during the 1841 Census. I don't actually know when either William or Elizabeth died. There is the possibility that the family moved to London for William to work as a baker, using skills he possibly picked up whilst working with his brother-in-law Jonathan Date. The 1851 Census has daughter Avice living with Benjamin and Sarah Milton in Vexford - where all the other living members of the Rich family were is anyone's guess. By 1857, when Avice was married in Lambeth, Surrey, William is listed as a farmer. He is not listed as deceased on the marriage record, but then I'm not sure if they would do that anyway.

And that's about as far as I can get with guessing what the Rich family were up to in Somerset. I can only assume that the William Rich who was baptised at Stogumber in 1836 with his sisters Emma and Ann was my great great grandfather, unless better information turns up!

William Rich - perhaps he didn't swim here...

I've never been able to work out how my great great grandfather William Rich (born abt 1832, Bridgewater, Somerset, UK; died 1927, Willoughby, NSW, Aust) got to Australia.

I knew from his death notice that he was a Crimean War veteran, and he presumably arrived in Australia after he had completed his war service. It is just about impossible to find Crimean War records, but today I found that there were a number of William Richs who served in the merchant navy, and some merchant navy ships did indeed serve in the Crimean War.

There is even a merchant navy listing for a William Rich, born in Bridgewater. His register ticket number was 56694. Unfortunately, I can only find a listing in the index for him, but there does not appear to be an actual record of his service available. So I may never know if it was him in the merchant navy, but it doesn't seem so far fetched to think that he may have been working on a ship when he came to Australia, and stayed.

James Hunter, engraver of Chester

James Hunter was the father-in-law of my 4x great uncle Willoughby Gaspard Weiss, who was married to James' daughter Ann.

James was born about 1752, possibly in Chester, Cheshire, England. He was presumably married to Jane, the mother of his children, though I haven't yet found a marriage record. I have found records for the births of seven children, two boys and five girls. Ann, my 4x great aunt, was the sixth child and fourth daughter. There are large gaps in years between some of the children so I expect there may well have been more that I can't find records for.

James Hunter was an engraver who lived and worked in Chester, mostly around the Chester Cathedral - in Eastgate St, Northgate St, Werburghs Church-yard. Historical directories also list him as a carver, gilder and copperplate printer. In about 1815 Hunter had rooms with the miniature painter Albin R Burt, who made a coloured engraving of him (which apparently is dated 1830 - that this is after Hunter's death is interesting - perhaps the date is wrong, or perhaps it took Burt a while to get around to finishing it).

A couple of James Hunter's engravings are held in the Cheshire Archives, interestingly, both of them maps. One is a "1789 Survey of the Ancient & Loyal City of Chester", surveyed by Samuel Weston and engraved and published by Hunter. The archives record notes that Hunter "was a prominent local citizen and verger of the Cathedral. His premises, "Hunter Engravers", are marked on the plan at the top of Werburgh's Lane." The other engraving is a "Map of the estates of the Dean and Chapter in and around Chester" from 1812, which includes the previous item and an additional piece apparently drawn by Hunter.

As mentioned above, James Hunter was the verger of the Chester Cathedral for many years from at least as early as 1812 until his death on 18 December 1826. His death notice in the Liverpool Mercury (29 Dec 1826) records: "On Monday, the 18th instant, at Chester, Mr. Hunter, engraver; a man respected and beloved by an extensive circle of friends and relations."

It would appear that James Hunter did not have a son who worked in the family engraving business. Instead, his two spinster daughters Elizabeth (1778-1864) and Catherine (1803-1860) took over the business on his death. Later on they seem to have given up the engraving business and instead became librarians, Elizabeth being the City Librarian in Chester, and Catherine her assistant.

James Hunter gave his name to Hunter's Passage, which was later widened and has been known as Hunter Street since the 1890s. Quite something to be immortalised in a street name!

The Grants of Margate, Kent

Rachel Wickham, matriarch of the Australian Wickhams from my family, was born Rachel Grant, in Margate, Kent, England in about 1813. She was baptised at St John the Baptist Margate on 7 Nov 1813. Her parents were Robert Grant and Rachel Solly.

Little is known about the Grant family. Certainly the surname Grant seems to be a long-standing one in Kent, and many members of the family seem to have been boat builders and mariners.

Robert Grant married Rachel Solly on 2 January 1806 by licence at St John the Baptist Margate, according to FamilySearch and the Kent, England, Tyler Index to Parish Registers, 1538-1874 on Ancestry. However, Ancestry also has a record in the Extracted Parish Records for Kent, England, based on the Canterbury Marriage Licences, 1781-1809, for a Robert Grant and Rachel Solly, dated 26 December 1805. It records "Rob Grant of St John Margate shipwright wid & Rachel Solley of the s sp." I suspect this is my Robert Grant and Rachel Solly, and discrepancy in the dates is due to the date of issue for the licence as opposed to the date of the actual marriage.

So this means that Robert Grant was a widower. I can find two contenders for Robert's first wife: Elizabeth Watler, married at St John the Baptist Margate on 29 April 1787, or Sarah Fagg married at St Peter Thanet on 9 Nov 1803 (Rob Grant of St John Thanet shipwright bach & Sarah Fagg of St Pet Thanet sp, at St Pet T. 09 Nov 1803). The marriage between Robert Grant and Elizabeth Watler produced a number of children, the last of which was born in 1807. Considering my Robert Grant was widowed and remarrying by 1806, I don't think this is the right Robert Grant. Which leaves us with Sarah Fagg being the likely first wife. There is a burial record for a Sarah Grant, wife of Robert, aged 23 years, on 27 June 1804. This fits well with the date of Robert remarrying.

Looking into Robert's job as a shipwright, there is a listing for "Robert Grant shipwright Fort Margate" in the 1824 Pigots Directory, and also in the 1839 Pigots Directory. Although I have not been able to work out when Robert Grant died (or in fact was born), it is possible that this is him. The 1840 Pigots Directory lists a Robert Grant, shipwright, in Paradise Street. This article mentions Grants and Solleys in relation to boat building in Margate.

Of Rachel's seven siblings, apart from the two who died very young, I can only trace Elizabeth, born in about 1815. In 1851 she was recorded in the English Census, living with Rachel, Rachel's husband Thomas, and their children. On a hunch I searched the NSW Birth Deaths and Marriages, to see if she had followed them out to Australia - yes! She died in Redfern, Sydney, in 1891, and was buried in Rookwood Independent Cemetery on 3 September 1891. I haven't found a shipping record for her emigrating to Australia, but she did get here somehow - perhaps she was a good swimmer!

This website has assisted me greatly in the research of the Grant family.

Adelaide Weiss/White/Sheldon

I've been researching Charles and Benigna Weiss' son Egmont and decided to plug "Weiss" into the India Births/Baptisms, Marriages, Deaths/Burials collections of FamilySearch. I was surprised to find a record for Adelaide Martha Weiss, aged 17, daughter of Charles Nicholas Weiss, marrying Patrick White, aged 32, son of Patrick White, in Bombay on 12 Oct 1846.

Huh? Adelaide Weiss, firstborn child of Charles Nicholas and Benigna Catherine Weiss, was married to James Sheldon, a Church Missionary Society missionary, and they had at least five children together. And so she was, and so they did, but in fact she was married to Patrick White first.

And that explains why I have never been able to find a marriage record for Adelaide and James - because Adelaide's surname was not Weiss but White when she married him.

The family story goes that the family was in India and when the children of Charles and Benigna Weiss were orphaned, after their parents died in quick succession in 1845, the boys stayed in India and went to military school, and the girls returned home to England. That their firstborn daughter Adelaide married Patrick White in India, only a year after the death of her remaining parent, her mother, suggests that Adelaide may not have returned to England, but in fact stayed in India.

Adelaide married at 17 to a man almost twice her age. Although this was probably more common then than it is today it is tempting to wonder if it was a marriage of convenience, in order to provide her siblings with some stability and security in India. I have not found any evidence of children being produced by the marriage. When Patrick died on 26 April 1853 (information from FIBIS and the Glasgow Herald of 20 May 1853) at age 39 Adelaide was only 23. Adelaide's sister Caroline was definitely in India during this time - she married Henry Richard Hughes in Bombay in 1851. Her brother Frederick was definitely in India from 1850 until September 1853 when he returned to England - I have copies of some of his own notes which state this.

Perhaps after her husband Patrick died Adelaide did go back to England for a time, but she turned up again in Bombay, India, on 9 July 1861, marrying her second husband James Sheldon, who was a CMS missionary in Karachi. James and Adelaide were the same age, and I find it easier to imagine that they married for love rather than convenience.

Joachim Heinrich Christian Friederichs

I recently received the naturalisation papers for Joachim Heinrich Christian Friederichs from the National Archives UK.

He was married to my 3x great aunt Carolina Helena Maria Von Holst and was born in Altona, Holstein, Germany in about 1786.

I've done quite a bit of searching on him and his wife, mainly to see if they ever had children - I can't find a record of any - but was intrigued to know more about him anyway.

Joachim Friederichs and Carolina Von Holst were married on 30 Jan 1834 at St Pancras, London. Friederichs was noted as a widower. I have not found any record of who his previous wife was, but I believe she was not English. I also have no knowledge of whether there were children from the previous marriage - certainly none have turned up in my research.

I was hoping that the naturalisation papers might give me more detailed information on where Friederichs was born in Altona - it seems that the official birth, death and marriage records for that time in Holstein are only found in the church records, which are not centralised anywhere, but you have to go to the individual parishes. Unfortunately, it didn't give me any more details. It did state that Friederichs arrived in England in April 1833, less than a year before he married Carolina.

I was surprised to find that Joachim Friederichs was the inventor of a series of maps called The Circuiteer, one of which can be accessed through the online gallery at the British Library. He drew a series of circles over the maps which allowed people to work out the proper fare for travelling in cabs, to stop the cabbies from swindling people. He published a number of editions - in 1849, 1850, 1851, and also an apparently revised edition in 1862. Interestingly, I have not been able to find record of Friederichs and his wife in England after 1851, and suspect that they may have spent time in Germany, but clearly they, or at least Joachim, must have returned long enough to update the map(s).

I also found that Friederichs had links to Count Lusi (somehow related to the Prussian Ambassador to London with the same title) - he travelled to the Port of London with Count Lusi in 1842, arriving on April 1. The naturalisation papers also state that he wanted to become a British citizen so that he could "prosecute his claims to property as administrator in England of the Late Count Lusi of Berlin."

As for when Joachim and his wife died, I have not found any records. I don't think they died in England, more likely in Germany, possibly Berlin.

Syphilis or congenital defects?

I was watching the Martin Freeman episode of Who Do You Think You Are UK recently. His great grandfather's third wife bore him 12 children, six of whom died in infancy. It turned out that most likely this high rate of infant mortality was due to syphilis. There were one or two children who were healthy, then six who died, then the remaining ones survived childhood. The sexual health expert interviewed for the program said that the most common reason for a block of children in one family to not survive was syphilis. Apparently after infection, over a period of four to six years, the first pregnancies would have resulted in miscarriage, the next few would likely have been stillborn, the next few would have failed to thrive (and lived or not), and then the next children would be healthy, after the syphilis infection had run its course. He also said that 100 years ago, the rate of infection with syphilis in the population was about 1 in 10, so therefore, most family historians were likely to find cases of syphilis somewhere in their ancestry. Today, syphilis is treated with antibiotics, so is no longer the large social problem that it once was.

I thought about families in my ancestry who might fit the bill, and the one that leaped out at me was the family produced by William Rich's first marriage. Of the nine known children, none survived childhood. Of course, there is the complicating factor in this case that William married his first cousin, and so therefore there could well have been congenital causes for many of the deaths. But I think it is worth considering that syphilis was a possibility as well, so I have put together all the relevant information I have:

Name	Date of birth, place	Date of death, place	Age at death	Listed cause of death
William H Rich	22 Jul 1861, Peel River, NSW, Aust	1862, Sydney, NSW, Aust	0-1 years	Unknown - death record not obtained
Frederick John Rich	1863, NZ	1863, Tuapeka, NZ	<1 year	Unknown - death record not obtained
Henry Bindon Rich	1865, NZ	5th Jul 1865, Tuapeka, NZ	6 months 5 days	Acute hydroceptiales (sic) - I think it should be hydrocephalus
Sydney Rich	1865, NZ	1866, Gabriel's Gully, NZ	0-1 year	Unknown - death record not obtained
Emma Matilda Rich	unknown	1868, NZ	unknown	Unknown - death record not obtained
Sampson Rich	unknown	before 1872	unknown	unknown - only known from death record of mother
Alfred Rich	1868, Hokitika, NZ	7 Dec 1872, Melbourne, Vic, Aust	4 years	Bronchitis and whooping cough
Cornelia Rich	1870, NZ	21 Nov 1872, Melbourne, Vic, Aust	2 years	Debility and marasmus
Avice Rich	10 Mar 1872, Melbourne, Vic, Aust	2 Jul 1872, Melbourne, Vic, Aust	3 months 22 days	Marasmus and apoplexy
PLUS their mother:
Mary Jane Rich née Bindon	8 Mar 1838, Crowcombe, Somerset, England	8 Apr 1872, Melbourne, Vic, Aust	34 years	Anaemia and diarrhoea

Looking at this information, I'm not sure if syphilis could be blamed for any of these deaths. I had wondered if the children's mother, Mary Jane, could have died of syphilis, and I was talking to a health professional about this and she said it was definitely possible to die from it, but it would be tertiary syphilis, and she was too young for that. That Henry died from acute hydrocephalus makes me think it was from a congenital cause, resulting from parents who were first cousins. It is so sad to think of Mary Jane and William having baby after baby and watching them all die. Such sorrow. I can only imagine Mary Jane thinking about the babies in her womb, time after time, wondering and worrying about what might be wrong with this next one.

Some missing details filled in

Recently, when I discovered that the second child of Charles Nicholas and Benigna Catherine Weiss was actually a boy named Bernard James George, as opposed to a girl named Benigna as was previously thought, I contacted the British Library Asian and African Reference Service to see if they were able to locate parish records for Bernard's baptism. They found the baptism record, and because his sister Caroline Judith (child number three) was baptised on the same day, they offered me both. Yes please!

So in the mail the other day I received a transcript of the baptisms of Bernard and Caroline. And the information I was really hoping for was there - their actual dates of birth!

Bernard James George Weiss was born on April 15, 1831, and Caroline Judith Weiss was born on 5 February 1833. The place of their births was not noted, however, from newspaper advertisements of the time which were either placed by their father, or were for concerts in which their father was performing, I believe the family was most likely living in Liverpool at the time. In fact, according to those advertisements, at the time of Caroline's birth they were living in 3 Camden Street, Liverpool. Unfortunately I cannot pinpoint Bernard's birthplace in the same way.

So that's another couple of missing details filled in!

The siblings of Samuel Baumgarten

I like a challenge. Such as nobody knowing where Samuel Christian Frederick Baumgarten was born. The general consensus is that he was born in Germany around 1729, but was definitely in England by 1750, when he was admitted to the Royal Society of Musicians.

Nothing was known of his parents nor any siblings. Until yesterday. There were a few other Baumgartens in England at the same time as Samuel Baumgarten, including John Ernst Baumgarten, a book binder of some renown at the time. I don't believe that John Ernst Baumgarten was related, even though he also was believed to be German.

The National Archives has four wills for the surname of Baumgarten: Samuel Henry Baumgarten (for 1837) of Bognor, Sussex; Samuel Christopher Frederick otherwise Christian Baumgarten (for 1798 - my relative), Gentleman of Hampstead, Middlesex; John Ernst Baumgarten (for 1782), Book Guider (sic) of Saint Mary le Strand, Middlesex; and John Henry Baumgarten (for 1770), Gentleman of Holborn, Middlesex.

FindMyPast has a Probate and Wills Records Section which contained an extract of a will held by the Bank of England for John Henry Baumgarten. It contained a surprise: John Henry Baumgarten appointed his brother Samuel Baumgarten of Cursitor Street as his sole executor. The will also noted that John Henry Baumgarten was a Quartermaster for his Majesty's Horse Guards Blue.

So, I decided I didn't have much to lose by purchasing the will of John Henry Baumgarten from the National Archives. And it turned out that I gained quite a bit for my £3.50: along with Samuel his brother, John Henry Baumgarten left inheritances to six other siblings - Leopold Baumgarten, Frederick Baumgarten, Gertrud Schwein, Magdalen Schmied, Julia Haberkorn and Frances Baumgarten. The will noted Samuel was from Cursitor Street, but none of the other siblings had places of residence noted, and Samuel was directed to distribute their inheritances to them. It suggests to me that none of the other siblings were in England. And the overall impression I get from their names is one of German heritage.

So now I've got to see if I can find any of these siblings elsewhere, which might perhaps allow me to pinpoint a place of birth. Could take a while!

Bernard (not Benigna) Weiss

I recently bought a subscription to findmypast, as I have so many English ancestors it seemed like it could be worth it. So far I've found an awful lot more information. Today I stumbled upon a record alluding to one of Charles Nicholas and Benigna Catharine Weiss' children: the second child, who we've always assumed was a girl called Benigna, born about 1831.

Why have we assumed she was called Benigna? Good question. We know that the second child's name started with "B" because Charles and Benigna followed the alphabet in naming their six children - A through to F. However there is nothing official stating that the second child's name was actually Benigna - perhaps this was an assumption because "her" mother's name was Benigna. And why do we think she was a girl? No idea!

The records in question on findmypast are the Armed Forces BMD Details. Charles Nicholas Weiss went to India with the British Army in 1840, in the 17th Foot Regiment. I have records for the two youngest children, Egmont and Frederick, being baptised in Aden (now in Yemen, then part of British India). I also have a baptism record for the eldest child, Adelaide, in England, before the family left for India. Which leaves three more - children B, C and D.

The Armed Forces BMD records show four baptisms for the surname of Weiss:

Name	Place	Year	Regt.
Weiss, Bernard J. G.	Poona	1831	17th
----- Caroline J.	Poona	1833	17th
----- Egmont J.T.	Aden	1837	17th
----- Frederic A.	Aden	1839	17th

Caroline J, Egmont J.T. and Frederic A. are all definitely children of Charles and Benigna Weiss. The years given are the years they were born, not the years they were baptised. Considering the year of birth for Bernard Weiss matches the B child of Charles and Benigna's, and the father of Bernard Weiss was also in the 17th Foot Regiment (and Weiss was an extremely uncommon name at the time in England), the chances of there being a second British Army member with the surname of Weiss stationed in Poona (now known as Pune) and in the same regiment as Charles, is highly unlikely.

So now we have definite details of the B child of Charles and Benigna Weiss - the child was male, his name was Bernard J.G. Weiss, and he was born in 1831. We must assume he was born in England as the family was living in either Liverpool or Manchester in 1831. I wonder if the "J.G." stood for Jean Gaspard, after his paternal grandfather?

We still haven't much on the D child - "Derby" according to the 1841 English Census - which, incidentally, Bernard wasn't recorded in. Considering Derby was still alive in 1841, presumably close to the time the rest of the family followed Charles to India (who arrived there in 1840), he either died before they left for India, or whilst they were in India, but before he was baptised with the others. Still not sure why the kids baptised in British India were done in two lots, one lot in Poona, the other in Aden...

Edited to add: I received an email from the British Library India Office in reply to an enquiry I sent them which confirmed that Bernard James George Weiss was baptised in Poona on 27 December 1840, along with his sister Caroline Judith Weiss. This suggests that the family may well have travelled to India at the same time as Charles, not later after the 1841 Census, as I had originally thought. That Bernard is not in the 1841 Census suggests that he may have died by that stage. I still don't know when or where Derby was baptised, considering he was in the 1841 Census when Bernard wasn't...

Henry Joynes

As established in a previous post, Henry Joynes (c1684-1754) was my great great great great great great grandfather.

Henry Joynes' death notice from the London Evening Post (July 2-4, 1754):

Last Tuesday died, at his house at Kensington, Henry Joynes Esq.; an eminent Architect, upwards of Seventy Years of Age. He was employed by John Duke of Malborough, as Comptroller and Conductor of the Building of Blenheim House, near Woodstock, and for upwards of thirty Years last past was Surveyor to the Commissioners of Sewers at Westminster.

Whilst I have not been able to establish his exact date of birth, it is likely that he may have been born in Westminster - his brother Clement Joynes was baptised in St Clement Danes, Westminster, in 1680.

In his lifetime Henry Joynes was apparently involved in the public works of a number of important buildings in England. There is no record available of an apprenticeship or other such education in terms of surveying or architecture, and one can only assume that this sort of thing happened (in those days) either on the job, or came about as a result of innate talent.

His work on Blenheim Palace is where first he comes to notice in the history books. At the age of 21 he was appointed from the Board of Works to the Blenheim Palace project, on the recommendation of the famous gardener Henry Wise. He was apparently a skilled draughtsman, and Nicholas Hawksmoor, with whom he worked at Blenheim, took him under his wing and helped develop his draughtsman and architectural skills. Henry Joynes worked at Blenheim Palace for ten years, apparently during which time he married Mary Peisley, daughter of Bartholomew Peisley, a mason from Oxford who also worked at Blenheim Palace.

Henry Joynes was working as the Clerk of Kensington Palace by 1715 - his first child, Bartholomew (probably named after Mary's father) was baptised at Kensington in May 1715. Apparently being the Clerk of the palace meant that he oversaw any work that was done on the buildings and the gardens. He worked at Kensington Palace until his death in 1754. He was also on the Board for the Sewers of Westminster for about 30 years before his death.

As well as those official roles, Henry Joynes took on a few private commissions for houses, including Linley Hall, Shropshire, the Water Pavillion at Carshalton House, London, a house at 57 and 58, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, plus he designed his own monument for his grave, details of which he set out in his will:

"... my Will is that I may be buryed in London Church Yard in the said County of Middlesex at the East End of the Chancell Building in a Grave of eight foot in Depth to lye next to the Coffin of my late dear and beloved Wife Mary Joynes who was buried there in the beginning of September 1746 and that a Monument of Portland Stone may be set up there according to a draught propos'd by me."

Henry Joynes was buried in a tomb in St Marys Churchyard, Hendon, which was indeed made of Portland Stone, and designed to his specifications.

Illuminating Blogger Award

The lovely Pauleen from Family History Across the Seas has nominated me for an Illuminating Blogger Award, established by FoodStoriesBlog. Thanks Pauleen!

The rules for the award are as follows:

1. The nominee should visit the award site and leave a comment indicating that they have been nominated and by whom. (This step is important because it's the only way they can create a blogroll of award winners).
2. The nominee should thank the person who nominated them by posting and including a link to their blog.
3. The nominee should include a courtesy link back to the official award site in their blog post.
4. Share one random thing about yourself in your blog post.
5. Select at least five other bloggers that you enjoy reading their illuminating, informative posts and nominate them for the award. Many people indicate that they wish they could nominate more so please feel free to nominate all your favourites.
6. Notify your nominees by leaving a comment on their blog, including a link to the award site.

Apparently you all need to know a random thing about me so please let me oblige you by informing you that I love bruschetta - the rustic bread, the fresh tomato, the basil.... Mmmmm - YUM!

The bloggers - and I've only got three as I don't have time to trawl through lots of other blogs each day with a young family - I nominate for the award are:

1. Pauleen from Family History Across the Seas - right back at you Pauleen! I've learnt so much about family history research from your blog, and you've always been so helpful. I think we can let you off doing the whole nomination rigmarole again though. : )
2. Trevor Cairney from Literacy, Families and Learning. Written by an academic/educator/researcher, I find it a very helpful blog as a mother of young children. If I need an idea for a book for one of my kids to read I try Trevor's blog.
3. Ruth from Ruth de Vos: Textile Artist. I love reading about Ruth's art processes as she makes her beautiful quilts.

Tracking down the Joynes family

In researching Samuel Baumgarten I had never been able to locate any details regarding his wife Mary Joynes' family. Until the other day. Cassmob mentioned that the London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes were available online, which I hadn't known, and I made a chance discovery in the London Gazette (27 July 1793):

Pursuant to a decree in the High Court of Chancery, made in a Cause Baumgarten against Caldecott, the unsatisfied Creditors (if any) of Samuel Joynes, formerly of Cursitors Street, Chancery-Lane, London, Gent. Deceased, are, on or before the 5th Day of October next, to come in and prove their debts before William Graves, Esq. one of the Masters of the said Court, at his chambers in Symond’s-inn, Chancery-Lane, London, or in Default thereof they will be peremptorily excluded the Benefit of the said Order. [Italics emphasis my own]

I know Samuel Baumgarten lived in Cursitors Street, according to his daughter Lucinda's baptism record. It seems too much of a coincidence that another Joynes might live in Cursitors Street and not be a relation.

Assuming that my assumption was correct, I then needed to work out how Samuel Joynes might have been related to Marie Joynes.

FamilySearch reveals that there was a Joynes family with both a Samuel and a Mary born to it. Henry and Mary Joynes had at least six children, all baptised at Kensington Parish. Mary Joynes was baptised in 1729, and assuming she was born sometime close to that - if it is the same Mary Joynes who married Samuel Baumgarten - she would have been about 22 years old when they married. Mary's brother Samuel was born about 1719. Other children in the family of Henry and Mary Joynes were Bartholomew, Frances, Thomas and Henry.

One way of establishing possible links between the families is to look at names. In those days it was reasonably common to carry on names from one generation to the next. In the family of Samuel and Mary Baumgarten we have Elizabeth Mary, Marie, Lucinda Worrall, Charlotte, Tully, Henry, Thomas, Frederick, William, Frances and Joynes Philip. Is it too much of a coincidence that there are four names in common with both families?

There is a bit of information about on Henry Joynes because he was a well known architect at the time, and Samuel Joynes was a prominent attorney. However, there was conflicting information on Samuel Joynes (two apparent dates of death - 1770 and 1794) which confused me a little. I spent quite some time searching for information on the Joynes in order to try to resolve the Samuel Joynes problem, and in the process discovered that the National Archives (UK) has a Documents Online search engine which allows you to download items for a small fee, including wills. And I found the wills of Henry Joynes, Samuel Joynes and Samuel Baumgarten there, all available to download as soon as I had paid £3.50 for each of them. A small price to pay for such a goldmine of information!

Henry Joynes' will confirmed for me that Samuel Joynes was his son, and Mary Baumgarten was his daughter, and therefore that he was my great great great great great great grandfather! He also had one other adult child, Henry. As an added bonus he mentioned his brothers Clement and John, and their respective daughters Susanna Downing and Mary Worsley. Interestingly, Henry Joynes expressly stipulated that none of his estate was to go to his son-in-law Samuel Baumgarten, though he provided generously for his own daughter Mary (Samuel Baumgarten's wife) and the grandchildren produced from the marriage. Was it just that Henry knew Samuel Baumgarten was well enough off on his own, and so he only needed to take care of his blood relatives, or was there some animosity between them?

Samuel Joynes' will confirmed for me his date of death as 1770, though I'm still not sure of the significance of the year 1794. Samuel Joynes was married, though his wife is not mentioned by name, and he mentions his daughter Marie Downes, his daughter-in-law Charlotte Downes and his son-in-law Tully Downes (who was actually apprenticed to him in 1761).

Samuel Baumgarten's will is most revealing. I have to assume his wife had died before him, as his will left everything - which was substantial - to his servant (mistress?) Elizabeth Cannon. He even appointed his daughter Charlotte Potter as Executor, but left nothing to any of his children. I'll bet that grated! I'll have to see if I can find out anything about Elizabeth Cannon.

Completely disinherited

I was out at State Records the other day, looking at probate records. One of the families I looked into was the Macindoes, as a result of this post. I will write about the results of that investigation another time, however this current post deals with one of the biggest surprises of the day.

Ruth Bevan Macindoe (1899-1979), my first cousin twice removed, was the second child of Norman and Mary Macindoe. She studied medicine at the University of Sydney during the late 1910s, early 1920s. She travelled to England in 1922 with her sister Mary (and presumably back again because she died in Australia), and then the trail goes cold.

The family story goes that, with her medical training, she diagnosed herself with a severe mental illness and had herself committed. I've not been able to find any record of her residence in a mental institution, but that's unlikely anyway because health records are closed for 110 years. Certainly, she disappeared without a trace. All her siblings, male and female, voted in elections (voting in elections is compulsory in Australia), Ruth did not. If she was in a mental institution she may well have been exempt from voting.

Her father's will provided for all his children except her. In fact, the typed will has a handwritten addition to it where, in setting out the share for each of the daughters and sons, it says "except for my daughter Ruth Bevan Macindoe who is to be completely disinherited".

Was it because she had brought disgrace to the family by having a mental illness? One could expect that it might be a very good reason to actually provide for her and for her care, but apparently not. If you were worried that she wasn't of sound mind and therefore unable to look after any money she might inherit then surely you could provide for her care. One family member who I talked to about this said that there were certain things in the family that just weren't spoken of, and so she didn't really have much of an idea of what became of Ruth Bevan Macindoe.

Ruth died in 1979 at the age of 80. There was no death or funeral notice published. Unlike her unmarried sisters she was not buried with her parents.

I don't know that I will ever find out exactly why Ruth Bevan Macindoe was completely disinherited by her father. It is a very sad tale and I guess we can only hope that attitudes to mental illness continue to change for the better.

A CD of Gaspard Weiss' music

A new CD has just been released by Stradivarius of my great great great great grandfather Gaspard Weiss' music. This is the first CD ever dedicated solely to Weiss' music. I have ordered a number of copies from Tobias Bonz of Antichi Strumenti, the ensemble who performed on the CD. I can't wait to get my very own copy and play it!

Should you be interested, you can listen to excerpts of the tracks here. I didn't expect that I would like it so much! Not being hugely learned in music, I was envisaging something like Jane Rutter's flute music, which really does nothing for me. However, the German flute played in the pieces sounds, to my ear, a whole lot more like a recorder than today's flute. Plus, I do like that era of music. I recommend it wholeheartedly. Beautiful, beautiful.

The CD is available from Stradivarius, Antichi Strumenti and on iTunes.

Sarah Horsey, greengrocer

Carole from Heritage Genealogy posted on council rates assessment books the other day, and I was totally unaware that they were available. Both the City of Sydney Council Rates Assessment books 1845-1948 (transcriptions and images) and the Newtown Rates and Assessments 1863-1892 (transcriptions) are available online.

Looking up some of my ancestors, I knew that Josiah Horsey worked as a corn and hay dealer in George Street, Sydney, and also owned a fruit shop in Hunter Street, so I started off with him. He and his wife Sarah are listed a number of times.

Year	Name of ratepayer	Name of building owner	Address	Building type	Building description	Annual Value
1855	Josiah Horsey	Samuel Oakley	499 George St	House	Wood and shingle, 1 floor, 3 rooms	£50
1856	Josiah Horsey	Saml Oakley	499 George St	House	Wood and shingle, 1 floor, 3 rooms	£50
1861	Josiah Horsey	John Woods	46 Hunter St	House and shop	Brick and galvanised iron, 1 floor, 2 rooms	£60
1867	Sarah Horsey	John Woods	46 Hunter St	House and shop	Brick and shingle, 1 floor, 4 rooms, out of repair	£76
1877	Sarah Horsey	D Clarkson	183 Liverpool St	House	Brick and iron, 1 floor, 4 rooms	£50
1880	Sarah Horsey	Thomas Buckland	183 Liverpool St	Shop	Wood and iron, 2 floors, 6 rooms	£72

Correlating this with entries in the Sands Directories I found the following:

Josiah was working as a fruiterer/greengrocer at 46 Hunter Street from around 1861 until (presumably) his death in 1863. His wife Sarah then took over the business and stayed at 46 Hunter Street until at least 1869, even though the conditions of the building were clearly deteriorating. We then have a gap of almost 10 years where Sarah apparently disappears and then she pops up again in 1877 at 183 Liverpool Street, once again as a fruiterer, though 1879's Sands Directory describes her as a dealer - presumably the shop had morphed into a "mixed business". By 1880 (the year Sarah died) the business was obviously doing well enough to have taken on quite a bit more of the building, with 2 floors and 6 rooms instead of 1 floor and 4 rooms. Or possibly extra space was taken up by Sarah and Josiah's youngest son, Josiah jnr, who was listed in 1880 at the same address as a hay, corn and produce dealer, the same occupation his father once had.

As for the missing years for Sarah, I've searched and searched and searched. I wondered if she might have ended up in the clink for some reason, though there's no evidence of that. There are a few clues in Trove though.

In December 1864 a Sarah Horsey, greengrocer, was convicted of having light weights in her barrow, which she used as a stall, and she was fined 20s plus costs. Although I am aware that there was another Sarah Horsey in Sydney at around the same time - the other was convicted of habitual drunkenness after my 3x great grandmother had died, there is nothing to suggest the other Sarah Horsey was a greengrocer like my relative was. So I think this probably was my Sarah Horsey. It would appear from the fact that she was using a barrow as a fruit stall that she had given up the shop in Hunter Street. Despite her inheritance from Josiah's estate, had she fallen on hard times?

In October 1873 a lost and found notice appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, for a missing milking cow, advising enquirers to apply to Mrs Horsey, fruit shop, Lyons Terrace. Lyons Terrace was a series of elegant terrace houses in Liverpool Street, opposite Hyde Park. Knowing that Sarah lived and worked at 183 Liverpool Street, a look at Google Maps showed that address was itself opposite Hyde Park. Other advertisements in the Sydney Morning Herald show that there was a fruit shop in Lyons Terrace as early as 1868, although there is no evidence that Sarah owned or managed it at that time. So I think she was probably still working as a greengrocer/fruiterer during the missing years, though where she actually lived, with her children, for some of that time is a mystery. (And as an aside, thinking of Hyde Park today, I do find it amusing to imagine a lost milking cow wandering around the park!)

There is one other reference in the Sydney Morning Herald to a Sarah Horsey that is notable: in November 1876 a Sarah Horsey was fined 20s by the Inspector of Nuisances for allowing unwholesome matter to remain on her premises. Although it does not give an address for this Sarah Horsey, it may have been that she was selling bad fruit or vegetables from her fruit shop, if it was her.

An engraving of Charles Nicholas Weiss

I borrowed something precious from my great aunt on the weekend. She has in her possession an engraving of Charles Nicholas Weiss. I scanned it, and present it below.

The caption is "Charles N. Weiss. Engraved by F. McCabe from a Drawing by Charles Hayter. London"

Charles Hayter (1761-2 December 1835) was an English artist who specialised in portrait miniatures. He was appointed as a Professor of Perspective and Drawing to Princess Charlotte, daughter of King George IV.

There is very little information available on the engraver McCabe, however I believe he was also known as E.F. McCabe and worked in the 1820s. Two of his engravings are held by the British Museum.

If this engraving was done in the 1820s Weiss would have been about 30-something. The most obvious feature on his face is the hooked nose. Interestingly, my late great aunt, Weiss' great granddaughter, had the same shaped nose.

Edited on 16 June 2012 to add:
It suddenly occurred to me to ask my great aunt what she had known about the subject of the engraving. I rang her this morning and asked her. Her father had believed it was of his grandfather (correct). Family legend said that Charles Nicholas Weiss had gone through three fortunes in his lifetime (possibly correct - who knows?!), and her father was of the understanding that he was "pretty musical" (correct). So despite the family not really having any idea of the fame that Charles Nicholas Weiss had in his day for his flute playing, clearly a little information filtered through, down the generations. My great aunt said that they used to have it framed and hanging on the wall, and then it was put into an album. I'm glad she realised it was important enough to keep!

William Baumgarten

Samuel Baumgarten (born c1729, died 1798), bassoonist, and his wife Mary (born and died ?) had at least 11 children. I previously have mentioned the three daughters, Marie, Charlotte and Lucinda, whom I have been able to trace further than their baptisms here. Marie was my great great great great grandmother, married to Gaspard Weiss. Although they married in England, Marie and Gaspard moved to Mulhouse, France in about 1783. Marie died in Mulhouse 16 April 1798.

I was looking at Lucinda again yesterday, as the marriage record of her daughter is available to view on FamilySearch. Lucinda Worrall Baumgarten, like her sister Marie, moved to Mulhouse. She married Paul Blech in Mulhouse on 12 November 1787. They had at least three children, one of whom was Lucinde. Lucinde Blech married Auguste Debaute on 9 April 1831 in an unknown French protestant church. I took some time to study the names signed under the marriage record entry, presumably the happy couple, the minister and some witnesses. The names included: Auguste Debaute (the groom), Lucinde Blech (the bride), H Glück, Z? Engel, Laure Glück, Marie Heilmann, Le Lieutenant Gen.al B? ??? (can't read it all, but very intriguing!), [squiggle] Baumgarten, ? Debautes, S. Baumgarten Dollfus, Julie Roederer, ? Roederer, David Roederer, J. Kohler and P. Heilmann.

It was the Baumgarten surnames that caught my eye. Although the mother of the bride's surname was Baumgarten (Lucinda) and also her aunt's (Marie), I didn't expect to see any Baumgartens there, unless a male member of the Baumgarten family had come across from England too.

Googling "Baumgarten" and "Mulhouse" revealed a number of Mulhouse-related genealogy websites, mostly the same ones that come up when searching for "Weiss" and "Mulhouse". And I found a William Baumgarten who married an Anne Catherine Schlumberger, but the most telling point was that William Baumgarten was "l'époux est originaire de Londres (Grande-Bretagne)" - he was originally from London, Great Britain, and was also born in approximately 1762. Marie, Lucinda and Charlotte Baumgarten had a brother William who was born around 1764 (at least, that's when he was baptised).

A search on Gallica revealed a couple of references to a William Baumgarten of London in a cartulary for the Schlumberger family, including one which noted that he had a personal fortune of 36000 livres (a lot of money). So where did his fortune come from? I have found no references to him back in England. Was it an inheritance, from his father? Could his father, a professional bassoonist and bassoon teacher have possibly earned enough to leave an inheritance like that to one of his children?

Looking for other Baumgartens on FamilySearch in the same collection as the marriage record for Auguste Debaute and Lucinde Blech (France, Protestant Church Records, 1612-1906), I came across an entry which referred to a Baumgarten and a Schlumberger - "Guillaume Baumgarten" and "Catherine Schlumberger." Guillaume is the French version of William, plus its definitely possible that an Anne Catherine might go by her second name... Looking at the actual record (a marriage record for Guillaume and Catherine's son Médard) it recorded the place of birth of Médard as Mulhouse. Bingo! So I think we can assume that William/Guillaume Baumgarten moved to Mulhouse from London, and was most likely the brother of Mulhouse residents Marie Weiss née Baumgarten and Lucinda Blech née Baumgarten.

The final two things I was curious about were (a) which of the Baumgarten siblings arrived in Mulhouse first, and (b) considering we don't know where Samuel Baumgarten was born, was it likely that they were returning to their father's birthplace?

Gaspard Weiss returned to Mulhouse with his wife Marie and their children in 1783. Both Lucinda and William were married in Mulhouse, France in 1787 - Lucinda on 12 Nov 1787, and William on 9 May 1787. It suggests to me that Marie arrived in Mulhouse first, William and Lucinda followed at some stage, met people, fell in love, married and stayed. As for whether Samuel Baumgarten originally came from Mulhouse, I can't find any records of Baumgartens in Mulhouse going back as far as his reputed dated of birth, so it's unlikely.

Thomas Wickham, butcher of Margate, Kent

I was contacted by a descendant of Thomas and Rachel Wickham yesterday, seeking more information about the family, which got me searching a little further. It goes to show, send me an email and I might do some research you are interested in!

I have previously written about Thomas Wickham (1811-1897), the patriarch of the Australian branch of my Wickham family here and here. I was searching for information on him or his children on FamilySearch today and discovered three entries for the birth of his firstborn son Thomas (1836-1911). One entry, under "England, Births and Christenings, 1538-1975" just gives his date of birth, the other two are from the "England and Wales, Non-Conformist Record Indexes (RG4-8)", one of which gives his birthplace as No 7 Market St, Margate, Kent, the other gives it as Cripplegate, London. I think the reason for the discrepancy here is because Cripplegate is where Dr William's Library is, which is where the records for some of the non-conformist churches (Baptist, Congregational and Presbyterian) were held (they are now held by the UK National Archives).

This is interesting on two points. The first is that the Wickhams clearly attended a non-conformist church, though of which variety I have no idea. Unfortunately I have not been able to find definite birth records for any of Thomas and Rachel's other children, which may or may not have helped me to narrow it down. I do know, however, that Thomas and Rachel's son Robert Wickham was married to Annie Jane Smith by the minister of the Waterloo Congregational Church (Sydney). So perhaps the Wickhams were Congregationalists.

The second reason why this is interesting is because it names the actual place Thomas Wickham jnr. was born (in 1836) - 7 Market St Margate. Google Street View shows that the building currently at that location houses a Chinese restaurant! A search of historical directories shows Thomas Wickham, butcher, at 6 Market St, Margate in the Pigots Directory of 1840. I have found no other references to the Wickham's place of work or residence in Margate anywhere else. I don't know if 6 and 7 Margate St were beside each other or roughly opposite, but looking at the buildings in the street now, it is my guess that the Wickhams lived in the same building as the butcher shop. Perhaps Thomas jnr was born in a neighbour's house (someone who could help first-time-mother Rachel through the labour?) or perhaps they moved within the same street. I think the former option is more likely.

Gaspard Weiss and J.C. Bach

In an article on my 4x great grandfather Gaspard Weiss (1739-1815) in Sortir à Mulhouse (which appears to be a newsletter on some sort of cultural program for Mulhouse - its in French so I'm not completely sure!), number 36, a reference is made to him being one of the musicians who interpreted Amor Vincitore before King George III. I tried to find information on this a while back but was unsuccessful.

I've just come across a new reference to this in "Clarinet in the Classical Period" by Albert R. Rice (2008). Amor Vincitore was a cantata by Johann Christian Bach - youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. Rice writes that two movements of the piece have solo parts which were written for four virtuosos - Karl Weiss (flute), Johann Christian Fischer (oboe), Josef Beer (clarinet) and Georg Wenzel Ritter (bassoon). "Karl" was a German form of the French name "Gaspard", and there are other references to Gaspard Weiss as "Karl Weiss". Gaspard Weiss often worked with the oboist Fischer. Rice also says that in 1774 Amor Vincitore was performed in Carlisle House in London (on April 15), at a benefit concert for Fischer, and at a private performance for the royal family. Obviously if you were having your new cantata performed for the royal family you would make sure it was being performed by the musicians it was written for - hence we know that Weiss almost undoubtably did play for King George III.

I still have no definitive proof that Gaspard Weiss was the principal flautist for King George III as claimed by his son Charles Nicholas Weiss, in his letter to the music dictionary publisher John Sainsbury. Perhaps if the claim was an embellishment of the truth, this may have been the event Charles was referring to.