A Strange Connection

 

                                                                                Books about Jack the Ripper

My maternal and paternal lines have their origins in the UK. Those origins are generally from different regions although there is one county they both have links to, Dorset. Strangely enough, both of my parents were unaware of this link. Of course, given the draw of that city, their families eventually ended up in London. In the case of my mother's family that didn't happen until the 1930s. I've been unable to determine when the first of my father's forebears ended up in the East End of the city but it was at least 100 years earlier.

Tales of life in the shadier part of the Big Smoke have added to the picture of my ancestors' lives but the story I have particular interest in is that of Jack the Ripper. He roamed the streets of the East End from 1888 to about 1890. His deeds would have affected the household of my 2 x great grandfather, Henry Cavanagh most particularly as the extended family, which contained many female members, lived at 82 Wentworth Street where I found them in both the 1881 and 1891 census. The body of Martha Trabram, one of the Ripper's victims was found just around the corner from the Wentworth Street address.

I know the murders would have affected my paternal family connections but my recent research into the Hinton family, connections on my maternal side, also turned up a link to the murders. A Wikipedia article alerted me to the fact that James Hinton appeared in From Hell, a graphic novel about Jack the Ripper. It makes me wonder if I'll stumble over any other connections between the maternal and paternal sides of my family.

Sources:

Wikipedia article about James Hinton, surgeon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hinton_(surgeon) 

An adaptable research plan

 

                                     The portion at the top of the Strange tree showing Reverend Thomas and his sisters

The two weeks I spent in Salt Lake City were heavy into genealogy. The first week my friend and I were with the Ancestor Seekers group who were very helpful in suggesting ways to find the information we were searching for. Then in the second week leading up to Rootstech we also spent time in the FamilySearch Library but it was getting busier day by day and by that point we were getting a bit punchy from staring at computer screens so our days in the library were getting shorter and shorter. I still got a lot done and I think taking breaks helped.

I'm glad to report that I followed my plan of using the family tree that I found stuffed in my Strange family binder. Not that I followed up with the Ohio relatives that Mary Strange, the daughter of Reverend Thomas Strange, had written about in her letters. I got sidetracked because I saw that the information on the found family tree for Reverend Strange's sister, Mary Strange, only stated that she had married Thomas Hinton and didn't name any descendants. I just knew, maybe from half remembered information I'd picked up somewhere that the Hintons were of interest. In fact, previous research about Reverend Thomas turned up the fact that he taught young people one of whom was his sister Mary's child, James Hinton. That fact stayed with me in part because it showed the connections between nonconformist faiths as Thomas Strange was a Congregational minister, while his nephew James became a Baptist minister.

I'm happy that my research plan was adaptable so I could go where the research led me. There was much more to learn about the Hintons, so much so that it took up much of my research time at the library and, now that I home, I'm discovering more. I just hope my enthusiasm continues as I get back to those Ohio family connections.  

A Rootstech visit

 

                                                           The Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City

At the end of February every year emails about Rootstech start appearing in my inbox. Shortly thereafter, I access the site and start building my schedule. I also take note of all the unwatched sessions still sitting in my playlists from previous years. I really should get to those. This year, I didn't set up my watch schedule right away. Instead, I trawled the offerings looking for the in-person events. For the first time ever I was going to be in Salt Lake City for the event!

I've been to genealogy conferences before but none as big as Rootstech. But I'm sure that there aren't as many people attending live since the pivot to online offerings during the COVID years. There were still lots of people in the conference center and there many vendors in the sales area showing off their wares with some offering special event promotions.

As in most genealogical events, tech was in use with a phone app to keep attendees aware of their schedule of sessions and the "Relatives at Rootstech" app to show if there were any cousins close by. The nearest match I came up with was a sixth cousin but I'm sure people whose ancestry was concentrated in the US would likely come up with closer connections.

I enjoyed my time at the conference and took lots of old school notes. Now I have to make a plan to look at them before I file my notebook away or I'll be in the same boat as I was when I got ready for my trip. I don't want to go back where I was when I started planning this year's research trip. There has to be a better place to begin than not knowing where to start my research so I don't duplicate my efforts. 

A further will to add more Strange information

 

Gravestones of John and Mary Strange

at Yelvertoft Independent Chapel

When looking through the documents I'd already gathered for the Strange family, I came across another will, that of John Strange, Mary Strange's brother. His will, like Mary's was also proven in 1842 so it looks like they died within months of each other. I thought that spinsters left the most detailed wills but his was a gold mine of information. He named many relatives also giving addresses and other telling details. There was also a tally of the number of children of his sister, Elizabeth Norton, and brother, Thomas Strange, grocer of Kettering. This information will help when adding descendants to my family tree.

There was also something in John's will that I hadn't come across before. In it he left money for the maintenance and support of William Strange the son of John's nephew, Thomas Strange, as he judged that William would never be able to support himself because of his affliction. It makes me wonder what ailed William and what happened to him if he survived his parents.

In the document, John Strange also included the various places he had lived. At the time it was written, he lived in Yelvertoft. He had, when he was married, lived in Chatham, Kent and left instructions that his body was to be buried with his wife in Chatham. I'm not sure if that final instruction was carried out as his gravestone sits against the garden wall of Yelvertoft Independent Chapel. 

                                            

Further documents to help prove a family tree

 

                                       Independent church in Yelvertoft, England where Mary Strange lived her last days

The tentative family tree that I found stuffed in the front of the Strange family binder reminded me of another member of the family who I had researched. Mary Strange, Reverend Thomas's daughter, had lived life as one of those wonderful family connections, a spinster. Even more important, she was an educated woman. Somehow the Northampton Record Office had copies of some of the letters she had sent.

I'm not sure how that came about because I noted down the name and address on the envelope of Mary's letter that I transcribed. The addressee was Mr. Norton Townshend, Avon, Ohio, North America, which goes someway to proving one of the people in that tentative family tree. Why a copy of her letter to America was held at a UK record office was open to question but it's a great source. The date of the letter was 1837 and I'm not sure how much I'll be able to find out about this nephew in America at that time. I have done very little US research at this point and none in this area of the country.

I'll have other information to follow up on too as Mary Strange left various bequests in 1842 that I want to know more about. Spinster's wills can be a treasure trove when searching for family connections. Besides, most of the people named in her will were in England, a place where I'm more familiar with the records available.

Sources: 

Northampton Archives, Northampton, UK – personal search for Strange family letters etc

PCC wills pre 1858 – accessed when databases were simpler. Research guides at The National Archives can provide further information this research https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/wills-1384-1858/

Clues in an overlooked family tree?

 

                                                           Tentative family tree received from a fellow researcher

Last weekend's free access to Newspapers.com and MyHeritage's marriages distracted me but I think that's all to the good. It made me jump forward in my preplanning to take a look at the information I've gathered on the Strange family. I'd been able to find out a lot about this family of well educated nonconformists, most particularly about the Reverend Thomas Strange, the first minister of the nonconformist church in Kilsby, Northamptonshire.

When I pulled out the Strange family binder (I haven't gone completely digital yet), I found a bunch of papers stuffed in the front of it. That means I had new discoveries and decided to deal with them later. With them was an envelope from a fellow researcher which I received in '05 or '06 according to the post office cancellation. Sometimes it takes a long time for "later" to get here but the timing is perfect for it to come to light. Back in the day, an Australian cousin sent me her tentative tree of this family's descendants. Once I check out those family lines, I'll be well on my way to expanding this part of my family tree. 

DNA update

 

Last year I did some work with my DNA matches, searching out the parents of two of my 2 x great grandmothers, Mary Maidment and Sarah Minister. Since then I've been able to take their family lines back further. It was very satisfying to be able to use both DNA and genealogical evidence in that way. For a while there, I was on a roll but lately I haven't done much work with my DNA.

I'm still learning, watching webinars and taking peeks at my DNA matches, but nothing jumps out at me. One problem is that I haven't continued expanding my family tree. I did start broadening my tree by adding collateral relatives to the skeleton tree I have on Ancestry but I didn't get very far. That might be hampering my efforts to identify how my matches fit into my family. Instead of finding 3 x great grandparents, it's their descendants that I need to identify and tack onto my tree. Then the descendants of those descendants and so on. Maybe then I'll be able to sort out my Australian links and figure out why Ancestry has included Virginia and Eastern Kentucky Settlers among my ancestral journeys. Looks like it's time to stop thinking about expanding my family tree and actually get the work done!

Adding to a family's history through books

 

                                                            The book Northern Light and my family timelines

An avid reader, most of the books I consume are fiction but along the way a number of non-fiction tomes get included. Many of those books concentrate on history and I sometimes find facts that connect to my own family's history in surprising places. One of those reads was Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement. It was the pick of a books club I belong to or else I probably wouldn't have read a history of the suffrage movement in the US as the country I live in also has a long and fraught suffrage history of its own and I haven't read any books about that struggle. 

Still the US book related an interesting history and one chapter also gave a brief historical outline of the founding of the Dakotas. That added context to an address from which my long lost 2 x great granduncle, Alexander Matheson, wrote to his sister Margaret once he found her again. I'll have to look into that further. 

Another recent read related to this family line as well. I knew that Northern Light: The enduring mystery of Tom Thomson and the woman who loved him, would be about my cousin. Various books and articles about Tom Thomson and his mysterious death have added clues to this family history over the years. This latest read spun the theory of an illegitimate child, an interesting addition to the Thomson story which, if true, could perhaps add to my family tree. 

Families on both sides of the law

 

                                     Newly available newspaper stories about the Arment crime found on FindMyPast

I haven't completed the search plan for my Argent family yet as other things have come along to distract me. Now the plan is to get back on track this weekend. Fingers crossed that I am able to move on from the Argent family name in the next few days. But it wasn't like I shelved my preplanning completely. A fair portion of the data from previous research trips has become part of the notes I will be able to refer to so that I don't duplicate my efforts.

While checking out Argent records on FindMyPast, I did stray ahead a little to check out the next family line, the Arments. I've been able to find out quite a lot about this family especially my 3 x great grandfather, Thomas Arment. Criminal records can be a goldmine. So can newspapers as criminal activities are something they cover. I was happy to find more stories online about Thomas and his son Thomas as FindMyPast has continued to increase the newspaper records available since the last time I checked.

Looking at both family's records at the same time also made me wonder about the relationship between them. In 1840 when Ellen Argent, the daughter of James Argent, an excise officer, married James Arment, the son of Thomas Arment, Thomas ran a business but by 1849 he and his son Thomas were being tried in the Old Bailey for receiving stolen goods. I wonder how this was received in the family when one side looked to be upholding the law as James Argent worked for the excise service while the other side headed by Thomas Arment senior had two members hauled up for breaking the law in a case that was covered extensively in various newspapers.

I'm itching to put together timelines for both James Argent and Thomas Arment to see if they were active in London at the same time. But I know I should put that aside for now or else I'll never get my research plan drawn up.

Sorting through past research

 

                                                       Notebooks filled with information from past research forays

Getting my research plans in order isn't going quickly. I'm still stuck on the first family line I looked into, the Argents. Sorting through the information I have on my 3 x great grandfather, James Argent, has tripped me up. His story intrigues me and for someone who was born sometime in the 1760s (I haven't found his birth record yet but it's probably somewhere in my paperwork) there is quite a lot of information about his life.

Among the records I found a transcript of the 1824 will of Samuel Goody of Halstead, the same parish that James came from. In this will Samuel named one of his beneficiaries as "my daughter Elizabeth Argent wife of James Argent Officer of Excise No. 14 Hope Place Whitechapel Road London". That's probably where I obtained the information that James worked for the Excise. Of course that led me down the rabbit hole of trying to find out more about his work so I looked on the National Archives website at the information on Excise and Inland Revenue officers but was unable to find any mention of James Argent in those records that had been digitized.

But then, thinking that I shouldn't duplicate previous research when I embark on my next research trip, I decided to check out some of the notebooks I've amassed over the years. There, in a notebook from 2015, I found what I was looking for. It showed my notes from when I visited the TNA at Kew in person and there they were, entries in minute books from earlier than Samuel Goody's 1824 will, mentions about James Argent's time in the Excise service. 

I wonder what other information I have in those notebooks. It looks like it's time to check them out but in the meantime I've started to do a timeline of James Argent's life. It looks like he had children by more than one woman. That could complicate things when it comes to my DNA research.

Records of questionable behaviour

 

                                                     Bastardy Orders naming James Argent as the reputed father

It's going slowly, but I've started my initial steps to get ready for my research trip. Using a list of my main family names, I decided to see what information I already have and how I might be able to take my research further building on what I have already gathered. I began at the start of the alphabet with my Argent family. I know that my ancestors in this family line were in Halstead, Essex prior to my 3 x great grandfather, James, moving to London. His father was also named James and sometimes it's hard to keep it straight which one did what.

Keeping things straight was probably why James Argent was called "the younger" on some of the Halstead records which I have for him. After all, the justices of the peace wanted to be clear who was the reputed father of the female bastard child born to Hannah Putney on August 9, 1792. James was found responsible and ordered to pay 1 shilling and sixpence every week to the parish for the upkeep of the child. Hannah also had to pay but her payment to the parish was ordered to be sixpence a week.

James the younger was also named as the reputed father in two more Bastardy Orders, one in 1799 and another in 1801. The first was for a male child and the second a female. The mother on both of these orders was Elizabeth Goody or Gooday. The amount to be paid to the parish for both of these orders was the same as the first one in which James was named. I hope he had a well paying job, charges were starting to add up.

It is interesting to see these clues to James Argent the younger's life and I'm grateful to have them. Copies of these documents have been in my possession for a long time as they were sent to me by a fellow researcher looking into the Argents of Halstead back in the days when collaboration happened through email and snail mailed packages of finds. What further information will I be able to put together with our new speedy online methods of accessing sources?

Sources:

Bastardy Orders from Halstead, Essex presumably from Essex Record Office which can be searched at:  https://www.essexarchivesonline.co.uk

 

Previously untapped research hints

 

                                                              Norfolk where some of my ancestors came from

If you're like me you receive more email messages than you could ever keep up with. If you have Gmail, it's even easier to miss messages as they are divided into three different sections. I tend to ignore anything that isn't in my main messages and even my main messages are too many to keep up with. Emails tend to come from all kinds of different places, from retailers, writing related enterprises, heritage societies, genealogical societies and genealogical businesses like Ancestry or FamilySearch. It can be overwhelming trying to find the wheat among the chaff.

But, since I'm supposed to be doing my planning for an upcoming trip to the FamilySearch Library, I am, of course, now weeding through my emails with a view to eliminating a decent chunk of them. Anything to keep away from what needs to be done. Some of the emails actually look interesting which was why I clicked on one from FamilySearch that suggested they had information on my 5th great grandfather, Jonas Shipley. I'd never heard that name before but it sounded vaguely familiar so, of course, I had to look.

With the FamilySearch hints a rough family line of descent from the named person is given. In the case of Jonas Shipley, he was the father of Francis Shipley. Francis, in turn, was the father of Anne Shibley. Note the change in spelling. No wonder the name was vaguely familiar. I had run across it when looking at the antecedents of Sarah Minister, my 3rd great grandmother who moved from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk to London. Sarah who I had written about last fall.

Jonas Shipley was born in Dickleborough (Dickleburgh) and I'm pretty sure that was Anne Shibley's place of birth as well as that place name stuck with me as well. As easy as clicking on an email hint, I have a line on some research to look into while in Salt Lake City. Now to go through my emails to see if there are other hints that can point me to different areas of potential research. 

Image:

Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0> , via Wikimedia Commons

Resolutions and family history

 

                                                                 Some of the research I've gathered over the years

One piece of advice for genealogists that I've often heard is to be organized. Of course, there are many ways to do this depending on your research methods and the ways that you retain material, whether paper based or on the cloud or anything in between. Above all, the wise genealogist keeps a log of everything they have researched, otherwise they might spend time looking up the same thing not realizing that it is a repeated effort.

Year after year, I've resolved to keep my family history research organized so that I can see what I have already learned and where I need to look next for each family line. It sounds ideal, doesn't it? It also sounds like a lot of work and, to be truthful, being methodical bores me to tears.

This year, though, I need to take stock of where I am with my research because, yet again, I'm planning a trip to Salt Lake City. Of course, I've planned this trip for a while but I haven't yet done my pre-research in order to come up with a plan for where my hunt should focus when I am there.

So I'm starting to drag out the notebooks and thumb drives I've gathered from other research trips to find out what I have already gathered. This all would be so much easier if I had kept my resolution to organize my genealogy. But, then on the flip side, looking at my family history info with fresh eyes can lead to inspiration and maybe a few stories and, ultimately, that's why I do genealogical research. I want to piece family stories together from the data I've gathered. That's what makes it all worthwhile for me.