The Winner of Who Do We Think You Are ... 23 July

[Elaine ..Spain]

is .... Tanyal



Sorry for the delay this week - it slipped through the net! :o

Enjoy your week Tanyal - let's hope we can help knock your brickwalls down.

[tanyal]

Yay! :D

Okay, here's my first brick wall: the parentage of Mary (or Mary Ann) Hill, my 1 x great grandmother.

Mary Hill first appears in the records I have in June 1834 when she was tried in the Summer Assizes at Bristol. She was 16 years old and lived in the parish of St Peters, Bristol. Charged along with two accomplices, Caroline Hill (maybe a relative??) aged 18 of St Phillips and St Jacobs and Mary Tripp aged 18 of Combsbury, Somerset, she spent three months at Lawford Gate (a gaol in Bristol).

January of 1835 she was in trouble again, this time for receiving stolen goods, and was 17 years old. She was sentenced to seven years transportation to Australia and spent the rest of her life there. No records of her in Australia mention her parentage, not her marriage records (she married twice), nor her death certificate.

I sent an email to a lady who has transcriptions of the Bristol parish registers for the time and she sent me a number of possibilities, going right up to the 1830s. I edited the list to include baptisms from 1817 to 1825, the most likely time frame I thought.

HILL MARY JOHN SARAH 22.03.1818 St.James 2b 43 344
HILL MARY THOMAS MARY 1.09.1822 St.James 2c 49 388
HILL MARY JAMES SARAH 9.11.1823 St.Philip & Jacob 2f 135 1076
HILL MARY WILLIAM MARY 18.09.1825 St.James 2c 244 1944
HILL MARY ANN DAVID MARY ANN 31.08.1817 St.Philip & Jacob 2e 13 102
HILL MARY ANN JOHN JANE 22.06.1817 St.Philip & Jacob 2e 2 9
HILL MARY ANN SHADRACH HANNAH 24.10.1819 St.James 2b 157 1255
HILL MARY ANN NICHOLAS GRACE 21.05.1820 St.James 2b 192 1536
HILL MARY ANN JOHN MARY 13.02.1820 St.Mary Redcliffe 2a 165 1316
HILL MARY ANN GEORGE MARY 15.12.1822 St.James 2c 65 519
HILL MARY ANN JOHN ELISABETH 1.09.1822 St.Philip & Jacob 2f 22 170
HILL MARY ANN WILLIAM SARAH 4.04.1824 St.Philip & Jacob 2f 173 1381
HILL MARY ANN RICHARD LEDIA 30.05.1824 St.Mary Redcliffe 2a 257 2049

I then subscribed to Ancestry for one month, just to narrow things down and eliminated some of the baptisms due to the fact that the daughter in question was still in England in the 1841/1851 censuses (the ones in italics).

I also wrote back to the lady who sent me the entries, hoping I could find one for Caroline (perhaps she was Mary's sister?), but she hasn't, yet, gotten back in touch with me and I'm thinking that maybe I should buy the transcriptions myself. One interesting fact is that one of Mary's daughters, Catherine, was always known as Caroline during her life, not a name that I've come across in my 1 x great grandfather's family.

Any help would be appreciated. :D

[kylejustin]

where and when did your mary get married? she should have at least a father's name on one marriage cert. depending on the state, you can get a lot of information.

and do you actually have the certificates for her marriages and death? or are you just going on the indexes at the moment?

sorry to doubt, but unless she was illegitimate, there should be a name and even then a name was put down.

[tanyal]

where and when did your mary get married? she should have at least a father's name on one marriage cert. depending on the state, you can get a lot of information.

and do you actually have the certificates for her marriages and death? or are you just going on the indexes at the moment?

sorry to doubt, but unless she was illegitimate, there should be a name and even then a name was put down.

Civil registration didn't start in New South Wales until 1856. The marriage records in question were church records and didn't mention her parents.

The death certificate (which I don't have at the moment but which my mother has and I have seen) doesn't have the names of her parents.

[kylejustin]

after i posted i was hoping she may have married during civil registration. you don't really get parent's names on the earlier death certs. would the witnesses have helped? or would they all be convicts?

[tanyal]

after i posted i was hoping she may have married during civil registration. you don't really get parent's names on the earlier death certs. would the witnesses have helped? or would they all be convicts?

Probably all convicts. I have no evidence that any of Mary's family came out with her.

[kylejustin]

is there a will for her or her husband? maybe you should take a look for that caroline here in the indexes?

[tanyal]

is there a will for her or her husband? maybe you should take a look for that caroline here in the indexes?

I don't know. I'll have to check the probate indexes the next time I go to the local history library.

As for Caroline, a quick check of the IGI and I found these entries.

Caroline, daughter of James Hill and Rachel, baptised 30 June 1816, St Phillips Par, Bristol (submitted)
Caroline, daughter of Thomas Hill and Elizabeth, baptised 26 Jul 1818, Bristol
Caroline, daughter of Joseph Hill and Sarah, baptised 26 Nov 1820, St Thomas, Bristol.

None of them really stand out to me. The first seems to me to be a bit too early: she was 18 on 2nd June 1834. The second and third don't include any "family" names. Mary did name her first born son Thomas but her husband's name was also Thomas, whereas neither Joseph nor Sarah appear among her children's names.

[kylejustin]

hmm, none of them seem compatible with the mary's above. what about her convict papers? they didnt mention any family members?

[tanyal]

hmm, none of them seem compatible with the mary's above. what about her convict papers? they didnt mention any family members?

The ones I've gotten a hold of no: I've got a photocopy of her ticket of leave, and I've seen transcripts of her permissions to marry, and other records of her life in Australia, and someone kindly sent me information about her two trials, but I don't have any information on the time between her conviction and when she left England, or the actual transportation, other than the name of the ship, when and where it sailed from, and when and where it sailed to.

(sigh) This is why I've concentrated on her husband's line which is much easier to trace.

[kylejustin]

i wish i was more help. brick walls get ugly. if i was you, i would get all the possible mary's in the pr's, and find all their siblings. then i would trawl the census to see if those families lose any mary's and find out the possibles for them. maybe their parents left wills? in that case she could be mentioned?

[tanyal]

i wish i was more help. brick walls get ugly. if i was you, i would get all the possible mary's in the pr's, and find all their siblings. then i would trawl the census to see if those families lose any mary's and find out the possibles for them. maybe their parents left wills? in that case she could be mentioned?

Good idea.

Okay, here's another one, copy and pasted from the original thread. Hopefully, a few bricks will be removed this time.

I'm looking for the baptism (and parentage) of my 3 x great grandmother Martha Randall.

A distant cousin of mine (and a contact of another cousin) did some family history research whilst over in England and came to the conclusion that she was born in London. Unfortunately, I never got any reply to my queries as to where she got that information.

The only information I've got is her marriage record and the names of her children (she died in 1830, before the first census). I've already looked for her on the Docklands Ancestors website and come up empty. I have found one entry on the IGI that could be her (daughter of William and Ann) but without more evidence I'm not willing to accept it as yet.

Below is the transcription of the marriage, kindly looked up for me by someone on another website. I'm posting it the same way it was given to me:

Marriage Reg: William Tickle and Martha Randall both of this parish
were married in this church by Banns
this 16th day of March in the year 1811 by me Edw Wilkins
This marriage was solumnized between us
William Tickle Martha Randall (both signed their names)
in the presence of John Bayley Sakery (signed)
M Stanley (signed but he's the parish professional witness, his name is all over the register)

I haven't been able to find any trace of a John Bayley Sakery: nothing on freereg, the IGI, or any of the censuses.

As for her children, a few non-Tickle names do show up which may be clues: Henry (their second son), Hannah (their second daughter), and (maybe) Anne (their eldest daughter): this does show up in the early Tickle generations but hadn't appeared in a while.

The family moved to Birmingham (William's native place) a few years after the marriage.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Elaine ..Spain]

Where did William and Martha marry?

[tanyal]

Where did William and Martha marry?

Oops. :o

Westminster Street, St George, Hanover Square, London on 16 March 1811.

[kylejustin]

that will be why your contact thought she was born in london. but as you know, 'of this parish' didnt necessarily mean she was born there, it just meant she was resident there the 3 weeks before her marriage.

[tanyal]

that will be why your contact thought she was born in london. but as you know, 'of this parish' didnt necessarily mean she was born there, it just meant she was resident there the 3 weeks before her marriage.

I know. :(

Unfortunately, my clues are few.

[kylejustin]

there's this one:

martha randall- b.23 jan 1789, ch.22 feb 1789, egham, surrey. daughter of james and mary randall.

and this:
martha randles- b.23 oct 1794, ch.30 oct 1794, lying in hospital, endell st, holborn. daughter of richard and mary randles.

not necessarily your martha, but the igi only has 4 in the london/surrey/kent area.

[kylejustin]

here's a marriage in your area, if you find the family on the census, maybe you could rule out one baptism?

martha randall and james dowd, 13 feb 1810, st martin in the fields, westminster.

martha randall and benjamin webber, 30 dec 1816, st james, paddington, london.

martha randall and james obrien, 6 aug 1817, st james paddington, lonfon.

[tanyal]

here's a marriage in your area, if you find the family on the census, maybe you could rule out one baptism?

martha randall and james dowd, 13 feb 1810, st martin in the fields, westminster.

martha randall and benjamin webber, 30 dec 1816, st james, paddington, london.

martha randall and james obrien, 6 aug 1817, st james paddington, lonfon.

I guess I'll have to subscribe to Ancestry again soon. :D

[tanyal]

Not much luck with what I've posted so far, so here's one more. :D

Harriet Tickle married Benjamin Southwell (the name is also found as Southall) in 1823 in Birmingham. She is buried in 1834, and I've found all the burials of her children (who died young), except for one, Mary Ann (baptised 29 Sep 1829, St Martin, Birmingham).

Mary Ann seems to simply disappear and I can't seem to find her with Benjamin Southwell or Southall in any the censuses, and there's a few men of the same or similar name on the censuses.

For a while, Harriet and all her children were brickwalls: they just disappeared. Now I just need to find out Mary Ann's fate in order to smash this brick wall to pieces.