Mistake: Week 23 - 52 Ancestors

My dad didn't think my mum was a mistake

Freda in Dunedoo 

My mother’s birth was not planned.  In fact, she was a mistake, the result of two employees in a stockbroker’s house coming together maybe fleetingly, maybe not.

He was the butler in the Forbes’ household and she was the parlourmaid, both senior servants providing a comfortable lifestyle for a family of three.  The stockbroker died later that year and must have been an invalid because two nurses were also employed as well as three other servants.

The stockbroker’s wife was born and grew up in St Petersburg, Russia but was of Scottish and English heritage.  Their only son Nevill Forbes usually resided in Oxford as a Reader in Russian.  He had spent quite some time in Russia whilst recovering from tuberculosis at his uncle’s specialist medical centre on the Black Sea.  He was probably bilingual from an early age and later became the second Professor of Russian at Oxford.

Initially, I thought that Nevill was my mother’s birth father after my mother’s half-sister told me that her aunts in England described Freda’s father as the young man of the house.

So I made the mistake of going down that rabbit hole: it appeared to make sense, especially after a researcher in New Zealand told me he believed that Nevill was his grandfather.  DNA testing later proved that neither of us was correct.  I eventually found a close DNA link with an American resident who proved to be the great-granddaughter of the butler, Henry Edward Jones. Henry was a similar age to his master’s son Nevill but was very much a similar class to my birth grandmother, Kate Palmer.  However, he was a married man with a wife and two children living in the same village and in no position nor desire to acknowledge another servant’s baby.

It seemed a sensible solution- at least for the butler but maybe also for the wealthy employers to remove Kate (known as Kitty in Australia) from the village.  Someone - possibly her employers - provided her with a travel trunk with her initials inscribed and escorted her to Antwerp where she boarded a steamship to Sydney on Christmas Eve 1911.  She arrived in Sydney at the height of summer at the end of February but it must have been a cold reception since she knew no one.

My mother, born on 5 June 1912 was immediately promised to a farmer’s wife who had delivered a still-born son and was soon taken by train to Dunedoo in the central west of New South Wales.

Freda found out that she was "adopted" at the late age of 18 when her mother told her it was time she left home.  It was a shock and she had mixed feelings about it since she didn't have a great deal of respect for her adopted mother.  The latter 'ran around town' a bit too much for teenage Freda's liking and she felt badly for her adopted father, a kindly man.

Learning who her birth mother was, she spent a weekend meeting Kitty and her new family.  However, 

before leaving, Kitty told her that "it was nice meeting you dear but I don't think we should do it again."

So at age 18, Freda felt rejected twice over.  Nevertheless, in her local town, she was befriended by some warmhearted people, including the local Anglican rector and his family of girls.  When she married my father in her early 30s, this family hosted her wedding reception.

As I grew older, I realised that my mother sometimes had a "chip on her shoulder" but at the same time. having received kindness when she needed it, she handed it out in spades.  My childhood friends always remember her with fondness as do many of the neighbours' families.

Conflict - Week 22: 52 Ancestors

John Rose of Southampton

My ancestor John Rose - my 3x great grandfather from Southampton invited conflict.  A proud working-class man, he believed that all working men should be enfranchised ie be able to vote. He also believed in education for all and access to newspapers, something the government of the day thought was dangerous as it might lead to revolution as it did in France in 1879.

Mind you, literacy and enfranchisement of women was not a concept that men of any class considered at the time.

John Rose appeared to have no respect for the conservative press.  He once made a great point of saying he “objected to the authority adduced, as he (Rose) did not now patronise the Hampshire Advertiser” (reported in 1836 in notes of a public temperance meeting aimed at removing the inducement for the poor frequenting the public-house or beer-shop)[i].  He mocked the newspapers read by the gentry and the establishment, and it would appear that he had quite a following.  The same 1836 article about ale making reported John Rose as stating:

 “They could not hinder the rich from enjoying themselves in luxury and drunkenness, and why then try to shut up beer shops, where plenty of information was to be got, &c. &c. &c.”

It is probable that William Rose, the beer seller of East Street in 1836 was John Rose’s brother or another relative.[ii]

Beer shops and public-houses were places where working men and others gathered, especially since there would have been no room to entertain at home, and street corners would have been too cold and uncomfortable for socialising.  The public houses were centres for discussion and exchange of information.  As a politicised working man with strong opinions, John Rose would most likely have understood the hidden agendas of the men of standing in Southampton.

No wonder he often found himself at odds with the establishment.

In fact, John Rose was fined time and time again and was imprisoned at least twice – in 1834 and in 1841.  The first time was in a passing reference in an article about his wife Isabella Rose, giving his reaction to her being fined for selling unstamped newspapers[iii]:

“This decision was immediately conveyed to her husband, who in turn broke the windows of his prison-house.”

John Rose seemed to have been hot-headed indeed – was he manic?  He was fined on a number of occasions for assault or was involved in altercations, and even a knifing, which ended up before the Southampton Magistrates.  Other matters included libel (1839) and, like his wife Isabella, selling unstamped newspapers.

---

[i] Hampshire Advertiser, Saturday 7^th May 1836:  Temperance Meeting at Southampton.

[ii] Kelly’s Directory, 1836

[iii] Hampshire Advertiser, Saturday 14^th June 1834: Before the Mayor and Magistrates.

Yearbook: Week 21 - 52 Ancestors

My yearbook for 2019

 When I was at high school in the 1960s in New South Wales, Australia, there was no tradition of publishing a Year Book featuring remarks about individual students.  I doubt there is even today.

In 1963, my school - Macarthur Girls High School in Parramatta - began producing an annual magazine called Newlands, named after the original land grant on which the school had been built.  However, it was merely a collection of students' best stories and poems, school sporting teams, and the annual musical produced by teachers and students.

No way did I feature in any of the stories or activities.  Whilst mildly scholarly, I did not excel at poetry, story writing, sport, or singing.  I was not a member of the school leadership either.

So my contribution to this theme is merely my social media record for some years.  Facebook permits one to use photos to produce a printed record of a year or even specific dates within a year.  Using this feature, I commissioned a hard copy "yearbook" of my activities and shared articles in 2019.  That year, we did not undertake any major travel - we had that planned (and aborted) for 2020.  Nevertheless, I had enough shared photos and comments to fill quite a substantial book recording our activities and local and world events which occupied my attention at the time.

I don't always plan a year book, but one year - 2014 - I captured all the shared photos, posts and comments from our amazing five-month adventure in England and the USA.  That was the year we took a Cunard voyage to Southampton via Panama, hired a car for four weeks in England after spending a week in London, crossed the Atlantic to New York on the Queen Mary 11, crossed America from Boston to Seattle, took an Alaskan Cruise on Celebrity Solstice and flew back to Sydney from Vancouver.

Treasured social media memories in hard copy.

Textiles: Week 20 - 52 Ancestors

Sheep grazing

Simon Rose, a wool comber

My 4x great grandfather Simon Rose was a wool comber in Southampton in 1795.  We only know this because he took on an apprentice that year, his 8-year-old step-daughter Unity Hunt.

Wool combers were an indispensable trade within the woollen textile industry.  They were skilled labourers and undertook a seven-year apprenticeship before becoming a journeyman, taking up contracts wherever they could.  After gaining experience they could become a master wool comber. 

The wool combers' job was to disentangle the wool in preparation for weaving. It was a comparatively well-paid industry in the 18th and early nineteen centuries before being mechanised in the nineteenth century. It was a cottage industry in those days and was hot and dirty work. The hand combers first had to prepare the wool by washing, oiling and separating it into workable amounts, then heating the wool over coal or a woodstove prior to combing it. It was not until the 1840s that mechanisation was introduced and hand combing became redundant.

Simon was born in 1747 in Misterton, Somerset, a village very near the town of Crewkerne.  The area was known for sheep farming and cottage-based textile industries - wool combing and weaving.  Simon still lived there into adulthood because it was in Misterton that he married twice, the first to Susannah Burt and the second to Ann Hunt who outlived him.

It is unknown when he moved to Southampton or why.  Maybe there were more opportunities to extend his trade there. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, wool combers began to demand better working conditions and pay and it was probably at his father's feet that his son John Rose (1804-1884) became politically aware.

Food & Drink - Week 19: 52 Ancestors

Margaret's Jubilee breakfast in Southampton 2012

Whilst most of our travelling is undertaken jointly, in 2012 I travelled alone to the USA and England, leaving John to the mercies of personal care workers for those many tasks he could do himself.  This meant that I did not have to take wheelchair accessibility into account and therefore was able to stay with friends and relatives in many places.

My fourth cousin Ange whom we'd first met in 2008 on our three-month road trip with a wheelchair-accessible motorhome invited me to use her place as my base.  Ange and Paul (another wheelchair user) live in Southampton where my father was born in 1914.  He had migrated with his mother to Australia in 1925, joining his Dr Barnardo sponsored older sisters.

Ange kindly showed me many places around Southampton where my ancestors had lived for over two hundred years.

During my time spent at their place, the Queen's Diamond Jubilee was celebrated.  One of the major initiatives was to encourage the British population to hold Jubilee breakfasts - almost like a Christmas or American Thanksgiving Day.  The idea was to invite neighbours or family to celebrate this special event, commemorating Queen Elizabeth II's sixty years on the throne whilst watching the pageant on TV.  Quite apt in 2022 when we have already started to celebrate the Queen's Platinum (70th) anniversary, don't you think? 

Check my post in 2012 at Diamond Jubilee Celebrations at Totten. You can safely say I didn't enjoy black pudding.  Nor did I finish my plate - I am not used to such big breakfasts.

Social: Week 18 - 52 Ancestors

Peter, Linda and me in Weymouth 2014

 Until Covid 19 hit us worldwide in 2020, my husband and I were avid overseas travellers, despite the complexity of such travel, given that John has lived with quadriplegia since 1970 and was 78 when we last  travelled. After two trips around Australia in 1995 and 2003, we started exploring the Northern Hemisphere in 2008 after John retired.  We flew to London that year and after a few days in London, we travelled to Derby where we picked up one of only two wheelchair accessible motor homes.  We hired it for 11 weeks and toured England and Ireland.

I had retired from full time work in 2002 and by 2005 was well into exploring our family history.  My grandparents all hailed from the south of England - Hampshire and Kent whilst John’s grandparents were all born in Australia with ancestors - some of them convicts - arriving between 1832 and 1867.  However his heritage is 70% Irish with the rest hailing from Yorkshire and counties north of London.

Linda, me and Ange in Dover, 2016

By 2007, both of us had made connections with cousins we had never heard of, let alone met.  The Internet and family history and surname societies had opened a whole new world.  We wanted to meet some of these cousins.  John and I travelled to Britain and America together initially in 2008 but later by ship, plane, train and rental car in 2014, 2016 and 2018. I also travelled solo to England and the USA after receiving an offer too good to turn down in 2009.  I did a further solo trip in 2012.  Each of these trips was for 5 weeks - quite long enough for us to be apart.

The towns, cities and countryside we explored were amazing - so different from much of Australia.  

Elizabeth and her children in Orange County, Florida

However, meeting so many cousins, Moxon connections (not all related), Facebook friends and in my case an English friend I’d last shared a house with in 1972 in Sydney was even better. Some we met for a meal whilst others came to visit us at our campsite or hotel.  When travelling together, we could not stay with anyone because only one house was wheelchair accessible.  Why?  Because my newly discovered fourth cousin Ange had a husband who also had quadriplegia, injured in 1973, three years after John had done so.

So really, meeting these cousins and friends was always the highlight of our travel adventures.  Many we have seen time and time again. I wrote a blog post about this in 2012.  Check it out at  Travelling solo.  We are active members of The Moxon Society and English, American and Canadian members - mostly not related to John - have been extremely generous with their time, showing us around and often shouting our meals.

Documents: Week 17 52 Ancestors

Annie Ashby’s marriage record 1888

After researching one’s ancestors for a couple of years, one learns to treat official records such as birth,  marriage, and death with a pinch of salt.  My maternal birth grandmother’s ancestry is a case in point.  Kate Elizabeth Palmer gave birth to my mother in 1912 with her father’s name left blank and never told her daughter who he was. Seventeen years after my mother’s death, I now know it was the butler in Kent where my grandmother was the parlourmaid.  I only found this through a close DNA match.

Kate herself was born illegitimate with the father’s name left blank although she was known as a Palmer.  It took me a long time to realise that she was registered at birth in 1881 with her mother’s maiden name of Annie Ashby, a field worker in Ightham, Kent.  My mother later told me that her mother Kitty Palmer Pocock’s father was a John Palmer and this appears to be verified by DNA records.  She didn’t know that John Palmer was her mother’s half nephew roughly the same age as Annie.

And Annie herself?  Yes, she too was illegitimate although, like her older full siblings, she had been baptised with Cornelius Palmer listed as her father. Her mother was Elizabeth Ashby, widower Cornelius Palmer’s servant listed in the 1841 census.  They were never married.  He had about 11 children with his first wife Eleanor who died in 1839.  By the 1851 census, Cornelius was 75 and on poor relief, but Elizabeth, now known as Elizabeth Palmer had four children by him and was to have two more!  A labourer, I can imagine that Cornelius was too mobility-impaired to work.  By 1861, the year he died, he was listed as an inmate of the West Malling Union Workhouse.  This was the defacto "nursing home" of the day.

In the 1861 census, Elizabeth and all her children were listed as Ashby.  Then in 1869, she did marry - this time to Reuben Hartrup whom she'd known since childhood.  In 1841 and 1851 he'd been living with her parents, Henry and Elizabeth Ashby.  He may have been regarded as an adopted son since in one census he was noted as Reuben Ashby.  The spellings of his surname were many, as I noted in a previous post.

So with Annie's varied surname history - born illegitimate but with a known father - and having already borne a child known in the village as Kate Elizabeth Palmer but registered as Palmer, what surname did she decide to use when she got married in 1888? Well Palmer was the most convenient.  And she had indeed been baptised in her home village by that surname even if she was registered by the government as Ashby in 1855.  It made sense.

But why didn't she give her father's name as Cornelius Palmer, actually the truth?  Instead, she created a new name for her step-father and named him as Reuben Palmer.  He'd never been known as that.  His name was Hartrup/Hartrop/Aleroupe/Altroup/Holtrop - take your pick.

No wonder family history research is so hard, although fascinating.  One can definitely not trust the officially records to be corrent.