Rees Family Conundrum

[Janet in Yorkshire]

Hi OC,

I'll have a look into that.

Arthur

Arthur, you need to read and sort out your family tree forum private messages (see notifications tab at very top right of the page, near "Welcome XXX") as someone may have good information for you.

In 1865 a George Rees married a Sarah Brigstock in Newport Monmouthshire registration district - this would fit with daughter-in-law Sarah of 1871 census.

Jay

[Old Supporter]

Hello Jay,
Many thanks for the info. I will try and work back or forward from that and see if anything matches up. As you say it all seems to fit in with the 1871 census.

Regarding the first part of your posting, I have 6 private messages, all of which relate to the problem that FTF had in connecting to my email account to confirm my registration.

I appreciate the time and touble you have been through to help me.

Arthur

[Janet in Yorkshire]

Hi Arthur - I'm still getting a message from FTF that you need to clear some of your "in" messages before I (or anyone else) can send you a private message.

I think it is the marriage for the son of your Thomas & Ann, but I can't find George, or Sarah or any of the 3 girls after 1871 census. George could have died and Sarah remarried and the girls taken stepfather's surname; the family could have emigrated; they could have moved to England; been recorded as Rhys, Reece or any other variation of the name.

Jay

[Old Supporter]

Hi Jay,

First of all I have managed to match up George Rees with Ann as his mother in the 1851 census. I haven't found any death for George, nor can I find Sarah going forward. I have tried to look at emigrations , but what I can see is limited as I don't have world wide subscription. I thought that I found some of Sarah.s children living away with other families, but I need to cionfirm this.

Regarding the message box, I have cleared the ones relating to my registration, but it tells me that there are 5 stored. As you may have realised I have only just joined and don't really know my way around. How do I get to see the stored ones?

You are being very helpful and I appreciate that, thanks very much.

Arthur

[Old Supporter]

Hi Jay,

Further to my post a few minutes ago, the 5 stored messagese my replies about the registration problems, which have now been deleted, so my message box is now empty.

Arthur

[Janet in Yorkshire]

Arthur, I've just come back on site - have sent you a pm.

No idea where George was in 1871 - perhaps down the pit on the night shift??
If you post your possible sightings of the three girls of George & Sarah after 1871, perhaps someone will be able to have a look for you.
Doesn't help with your initial problem of Thomas's absence in 1851 I know - but my feeling is that it was the same Thomas throughout.

Jay

[Old Supporter]

Hello Janet,

I agree with you about your thoughts on Thomas Rees. At the moment I cannot find what I thought I saw regarding the 3 children.

But I don't know if it is relevant or not. A George Rees was found not guilty of Larceny at the Midsummer Quarter Sessions in Haverford West, Pembrokeshire in 1871.
Also from the Census record for 1900 in the USA, it lists a George Rees and his wife Sarah Rees both born in Wales, in 1839/40, as having emigrated to the USA in 1871, and athough not listing them, it states that there are 7 living children.

I would be pleased to hear your thoughts on this.

Arthur

[Old Supporter]

Hi Janet,

Further to the above post I think I can confirm that is correct.

The 1880 census for Missouri USA shows the family living in Browns Statoon, Broome Missouri. They have it down as Ress being the surname

George Rees` 40 born in Wales
Sarah 41 born in Wales
Lizzie (Elizabeth) 14 born in Wales
Annie 6 born in Pennsylvania
Sallie 2 born in Missouri
Charles Gather non family member
Martha 11 born in Wales
Edwin 4 born in Pennsylvannia
Maggie (Margaret) 13 born in Wales

So I guess when I get to the 3 remaining children from the 1900 census, that will put this side of the family to bed.

Arthur

[Janet in Yorkshire]

Sounds a reasonable bet for this branch of the family. A lot of the Pennsylvanian coalminers were immigrants from the UK - I've read that "recruiting officers" were sent over to UK mining areas and that sometimes help/a loan was given to assist with the passage cost.

Jay

[Christine in Herts]

Hi Christine,

Yes thanks, I am aware of the varients for the Rees Name.

I do start to doubt the Thomas Rees who is given as born in Birmingham though. I wonder if there was some sort of a mix up. In the 1871 census it shows this Thomas and Ann living with a Sarah Rees, listed as a daughter in law, plus her 3 daughters. That would mean tat this Sarah would be married to a son of Thomas and Ann. So far I have not found this connection.

Arthur

Then the variants route isn't going to work. I mentioned it only because I sometimes find that I fall over some resource that everyone else has known about forever, so I never presume that anyone knows any specific piece of useful info, however knowledgeable they are about the overall topic.

It's these occasions when you wish you could go back to the original documents, like those that we have for the 1911 census, so that you could see what people actually submitted, instead of what the enumerators made of it.
I have someone on a census, whom I reckoned must have been described/named as "Mother": given the first name of 'Rhoda', and the same surname as the male head of household... but all the circumstantial evidence (including that uncommon first name) points to her being his M-i-L.

I have someone who was born in Barkingside, but whose PoB on many censuses is given as 'Maidenhead'. I suspect that he was sometimes asked a question which was interpreted as "where are you from?", so he replied with the place where he'd spent most of his childhood. Is something like that a possible source for the confusion in your hunt?

Christine

[Old Supporter]

Hi Christine,
I think this part of the puzzle was solved by the USA connection as above.

Arthur

[Old Supporter]

I'm still struggling to find the marriage of the original Thomas Rees and Ann. I have been searching high and wide in the Glamorgan site, which was where Ann was believed to have been born. The only sniff of an Ann with a connection to a Rees, is for Ann Lewis to have been born in Aberavon in1806. She married a Thomas Rees in 1829 in Merthyr Tydfil. Surely this cannot be the one I am looking for because of the distances involved, even though the dates are about right.

Arthur

[Anne in Carlisle]

You'd be surprised at how far our ancestors travelled for work, marriage and other reasons. Its less than 30 miles from Aberavon to Merthyr Tydfil so I wouldn't rule it out.
Anne

[Old Supporter]

Thanks Anne. I am doing a write up for the family, and until proved otherwise, I have assumed this to be correct.

Arthur

[Christine in Herts]

You'd be surprised at how far our ancestors travelled for work, marriage and other reasons. Its less than 30 miles from Aberavon to Merthyr Tydfil so I wouldn't rule it out.
Anne

I have a birth in York which is almost certainly associated with a baptism quite soon afterwards in Portsea! It is supposed to be my husband's ancestor - but only if his daughter were born after an extraordinarily long pregnancy, ;) or he managed to sneak home to a major naval port while on the run from naval authorities who would almost certainly have flogged him to death had he been caught. :(

Christine