I'm still pursuing the hunt for the common ancestor I share with my DNA match. It's going slowly because other things on my to do list keep getting in the way. Where does the time go? But part of the reason I set my search aside for a while was because it seems clear that a location search will not automatically show me which of my Dorset family lines to concentrate on.
When listing the locations of my match's Dorset ancestors, I thought there would be at least one that strayed. Well, there was but that was the one that went to London. Not going there! Unfortunately, the other Dorset locations named were all in the southeast corner of the county which is not one that my ancestors seem to have strayed into.
The location information I'm basing this on comes from the Ancestry profiles for my match's Dorset family. That poses a problem because the only details there are time and place of birth and death. A lot can happen in between. At least, it does in my family, which is not one to stay put!
A case in point was my 3 x great grandmother, Eliza Chubb nee Stainer. She was born in 1821 in Winterborne St Martin, Dorset and died in Bournemouth, Hampshire in 1889. At initial glance you wouldn't think she'd travelled that far in her life. You'd be wrong.
Winterborne St Martin, or Martinstown as it is also known, is close to Weymouth which is on one of the Dorset peninsulas that jut out into the English Channel. As far as I can tell, Eliza didn't stay in the vicinity of her birthplace for very long. By 1844, she was a manufacturer of straw hats in Evershot, a town close to the border with Somerset. It was in Evershot that Eliza married William Chubb in 1844. The couple were still there in 1851 with the addition of two small daughters. By 1861 William and Eliza Chubb were to be found living in Weymouth. Perhaps they moved there around 1859 when Eliza was proposed for church membership at Hope Chapel in Weymouth. Eliza apparently was still working as her occupation was listed as a straw bonnet maker.
In 1871 they were still in Weymouth, William and Eliza living on their own, their youngest, William John Stainer Chubb, having joined the navy as a boy. Did Eliza find that time hung heavy on her hands as there was no longer an occupation listed for her? If so, that was about to change.
As I mentioned, Weymouth juts out into the English Channel which means that it's straight as the crow flies from there to St. Helier on Jersey. That was where William and Eliza moved next. It was there where William died in 1877 followed in 1878 by their son, William John Stainer Chubb. Poor Eliza left all on her own. It looked like she had plenty to keep her busy because, by the 1881 census, she had a boarder and a lodger living with her. On top of this she was a shopkeeper. A newspaper clipping dated March 14, 1885 reported that Mrs. Chubb's Queen Street shop was subject to frequent flooding due to inadequate drainage. Was that what pushed her to retire? By December 1, 1886 she transferred her membership from Hope Street Chapel in Weymouth to Independent Chapel at Wareham, Dorset. The church records then go on to note the transfer of Mrs. Chubb's membership as well as that of her daughter, Sarah Ann Chambers, and her daughter's husband, William Strange Chambers, to Richmond Hill in Bournemouth. This happened just days before Eliza died in Bournemouth. So she had come back to mainland England shortly before she ended her days.
As seen, a lot can happen between birth and death. Being born and dying in the same place or close by, doesn't mean that was where a life time was spent. But filling in the gaps calls for a lot of research. To fill in the details of Eliza's life, I have wandered far afield using marriage, church and death records from different sources as well as census records and some newspaper articles to fill in the details. It took years to gather all that information. I need to come up with a different strategy to find that common ancestor who links my DNA match with me.
Sources:
Birth and death records: certificates from the General
Records Office
St
Helier’s General Cemetery, Jersey Archives
Census records:
1861
Census return for Weymouth, Dorset 1861 census Find My Past
1871
Census return for Weymouth, Dorset LDS film 0831751
1881
Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881 Ancestry Channel Islands, Jersey, St.
Helier
Newspaper record: Jersey Independent and Daily Telegraph
March 14, 1885 Find My Past
Wareham Church Records 1740 – 1921 LDS film 1565290
Weymouth Church Records 1858 – 1939 LDS film 1565290
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