Joseph W Burton & Eliza Jane (Jefferies) Peacock

I'm always interested to find out how my various ancestors managed to be in the right place at the right time to meet. As I researched Eliza Jane Peacock, I noticed that in 1871 she was working as a servant to the Williams family in Bathwick, Somerset. Then I looked up Joesph Burton and found that he was living in Monkton Farleigh, Wiltshire. Here's the map (compliments of MapQuest) that shows where they were each living. (Note, you can click on the map to see it bigger. Use your back button to return to this page).

As you can see, the two were living on either side of the town of Bathampton, just over five miles apart. Maybe they met in one of the local pubs or dance halls in Bathampton. Certainly they could have met on a local train or at the seashore. But Joseph Burton was a mason. He made things out of brick and stone. So, what if the family who employed Eliza Jane as a domestic also hired Joseph to do construction on their property in Bathwick. If so, was it love at first sight?

The Electronic Age

Even though I've made my living off the electronic age for most of my career in Nevada State goverenment, I have still continued to cling to many of the tried and true ways of doing things. This includes, at least until last night, the monthly paying of bills. Last night, for the first time ever, I paid most of my bills via my bank's electronic bill-paying site. Wow, what a revelation!

This is, of course, important because I plan to spend more of my life traveling once I retire. Not being at home to receive and pay bills the old fashioned way could prove a problem. Ergo, pay via the web. Yup, I suspect that things will never be the same.

More on Eliza Jane Jefferies

Since my great grandmother on my father's mother's side, Eliza Jane Jefferies, was adopted by the John Peacock family, I wondered how children came to be adopted in the 1840s. I found the following on the web:

Victorian Definition of “Orphan”
When we hear the word “orphan” we imagine a child whose parents have both died tragic deaths. Indeed, there were plenty of these pitiable creatures in Victorian society – the living and working conditions of the poor were so unsanitary and crowded that diseases such as typhus and tuberculosis often spread unchecked, sending many of their victims to the grave (Czarnik, “Living Conditions”). However, children were often considered “orphans” if they had one surviving parent, had been abandoned by their family, or were forced out into the world because of overcrowding at home (Cunningham, “Orphan Texts”). In 1861, it is estimated that 11% of children had lost a father by the age of 10, 11% a mother, and 1% had lost both parents (Czarnik).

Adoption
A very common fate of orphans was adoption. They were often taken in by relatives or neighbors, and even, on occasion, strangers wishing to raise them as their own children. In England, there were no laws concerning adoption until the 1920s, so most adoption was informal. Children who were adopted by their own social class were usually treated fairly and equally… however, if they were adopted by a family whose status was above and beyond their original class, they were frequently mistreated and neglected. Children of different social classes were not encouraged to fraternize, so if an orphan was taken into a household where higher class children lived, they could be forbidden to even speak to them (Czarnik).

see http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/agunn/teaching/enl3251_spring2005/omf/GREIG.htm for more information on Victorian-era adoption.

Great Grandmother, Eliza Jane Jeffries

My dad's mother's mother, Eliza Jane Jeffries (or Jefferis) was adopted in England by the Peacock family. She was only a Jeffries until she was less than four years old. The 1851 census finds Eliza living with John and Hannah Peacock in Kelston, Somerset, England. I haven't been able to find anything on Eliza's original family, however here's a little history on the name Jeffries:

Ancestry.com says that Jeffries is English, from a Norman personal name that appears in Middle English as Geffrey and in Old French as Je(u)froi. Some authorities regard this as no more than a palatalized form of Godfrey, but early forms such as Galfridus and Gaufridus point to a first element from Germanic gala ‘to sing’ or gawi ‘region’, ‘territory’. It is possible that several originally distinct names have fallen together in the same form.

Searchforancestors.com says that Jeffries is corrupted from Geoffrey or Godfrey, which is German for "from God" and fried for "God's peace", or from Gau and fried, "joyful peace." This name was borne by the chief of the royal house of Plantagenet.

From Jeffrey.com we learn that Rhodri Mawr, or Rodrick the Great was the first recorded monarch of all Wales, he died in 893. On his death, he gave Wales to his three sons, Anarawd became king of North Wales, Cadalh became king of South Wales and Mervyn became King of Powys, or mid-Wales. The history of the name Jeffrey also emerges from these same welsh chronicles. It was first found in Herefordshire where they were seated from very ancient times, some say well before the Norman Conquest and the arrival of Duke William at Hastings in 1066 AD.

From some of the many early records researchers examined, manuscripts such as the Doomsday Book, the Pipe Rolls, the Black Book of the Exchequer, the Curia Regis Rolls, the family name, Jeffrey was traced in many different forms. Although our name was mentioned in the different records, it was spelled Jeffreys, Jeffereys, Jeffries, Jeffers, Jefferis, Jefferyes, Jefferys, Jeffry, jeffs, Jefries, Jefery.

Well, that's what I know so far. Unfortunately, what I don't know is just what family little Eliza Jane came from. Oddly enough, on the 1841 census the Peacocks were living right next door to the "Jeffry" family, Joseph and Ann, who had a little daughter named "Mary." Did the Jeffry family have another daughter in 1847 (Eliza's birthdate) and then all but Eliza die in some terrible tragedy before 1851? I know the family doesn't show up in the 1851 census. Did the neighboring Peacock family feel sorry for the lone newborn survivor and adopt her?

Or is there another explanation? For instance, my research has turned up a family of "Jefferies" living in the workhouse in Siston in the county of Somerset, only 6 miles from the Peacocks home in Kelston in 1851. Even more interesting, John Peacock claims to have been born in Siston. Could the family in the workhouse have been acquainted with the Peacocks? Might they even have been one-time neighbors? Perhaps the Peacocks offered to help the family out by adopting the new baby whom the Jefferies could ill afford to maintain in the workhouse. Only three adult women, one a grandmother, and six other children are listed in the workhouse. No adult male shows up. Intriguing!

Calling Card

Today I designed and ordered a set of calling cards for our upcoming trip. It will have all of our pertinent information, including the address for this blog and our various telephone numbers. Here's the photo I put on it:

The Burtons of Tisbury, Wiltshire County, England

My father's mother's people were Burtons and lived in and around the village of Tisbury, near Salisbury, in the County of Wiltshire in England. Tisbury is in the Dunworth Hundred. Here's a piece I clipped from the web on Dunworth:

Chalke and Dunworth hundreds are in south-west Wiltshire on the Dorset border. The parishes of Chalke hundred were united by being part of Wilton abbey's estate before the Norman Conquest, but most of the hundred is homogeneous. Long and narrow parishes lie north and south across the river Ebble and are characterized by extensive chalk downs. Until farmsteads were built on the downs in the 19th century, nearly all settlement was in small riverside villages. From the Reformation to the
19th century the earls of Pembroke owned most of the eastern parishes. Sheep and corn husbandry and more recently arable and dairy farming was the pattern of agriculture in all the parishes except Semley where there is a remarkable survival of common pastures. Dunworth hundred is largely in the Vale of Wardour, and land in most of its parishes belonged to the Barons Arundell of Wardour as successors to Shaftesbury abbey. It is an area of broken landscape and mixed farming in which only Tisbury has grown larger than an ordinary village. Except at Tisbury, there has been little manufacturing in the area, but Portland stone has been extensively quarried at Chilmark, Teffont Evias, and Tisbury, and greensand stone has been quarried at the Donheads. Partly because of its stone, Dunworth hundred is notable for its secular buildings. The castle at Wardour is the only one to survive in Wiltshire; Fonthill Abbey in Fonthill Gifford was the most remarkable house of its day in England. Among the many farm houses of local stone which survive from the Middle Ages is Place Farm at Tisbury, which was frequently visited by the abbess of Shaftesbury and has the largest medieval barn in England. Except for Sedgehill parish and part of Donhead St. Mary parish both hundreds are in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty: the exceptions are in a Special Landscape Area.

Forty-five Days and Out!

Today marks the forty-five day point in my countdown to retirement. It's hard to believe that just six weeks from now I'll be joining the ranks of the unemployed, really for the first time in my life. My employment history started with my working summers for Sam Trubo at his concession stand in Brookside Park near the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. That would have been about 1963 when I was fourteen years old. I made snow cones and dispensed Coca Cola into waxy cups for the park's thousands of visitors.

About 1965 I started working in the grocery business, first as a meat department cleanup boy, then as as boxboy, and finally as a retail clerk. By the time I went in the Navy in 1969, I was a journeyman clerk for Alpha Beta working out of their Hill Street Pasadena store. In those years I was not only working twenty to thirty hours a week, but going to college taking a full load as well.

Once out of the Navy, I continued working and going to school for a time. In 1973 I got a job as a crewman on a yacht in the Mediterranean for a year. That adventure came to an end in 1974. Finally, starting in August of 1974, I began working a 40-hour week and have been doing so ever since.

On August 15, 2008, I will have worked 25 years with the State of Nevada, most recently in the Department of Public Safety. Since Nevada allows you to "buy" retirement time, I actually will be retiring with 30 years of service. It's sometimes hard to believe that I have, for the most part, got up and gone to work every day since 1965, over forty years.

Most of my co-workers believe I won't will be able to find enough to do to keep busy. On the contrary, I have a million interests. Everything from writing to photograhy, from traveling abroad to working on home projects, from genealogy to collecting, from attending college classes to driving antique cars are favorite things to do. I've never had enough time to persue any of my interests in the past. Hopefully, now I will.

UK Census returns of 1801 - 1831

England, Scotland and Wales actually did census work before 1841. I discovered the following discussion on the web:

The UK Census was taken every 10 years from 1801, except in the war year of 1941. Only those from 1841 to 1901 are generally available.

The 1801 census asked local officials to provide information on the number of inhabited and uninhabited houses in the parish and how many families occupied them; the number of people in the parish and their employment; and numbers of baptisms, burials and marriages in the previous 100 years. A similar format was followed for the censuses of 1811, 1821 and 1831, with the addition of further questions. In 1811, the enumerators were asked to give more information about the reasons houses were unoccupied, so that the prosperity of the district could be more accurately gauged. In 1821 a question relating to age was asked, in order to assess numbers of men able to bear arms, and to improve the tables on which life assurance was based. More detailed questions on occupations from 1831 provided the government with economic information.

Most of the early returns for 1801-1831 were destroyed, only statistical summeries being published. Those few returns that survive are now usually in the local County Record Office. The returns usually only name the householder and list the number of people in the house, although occasionally the whole population is listed.

These are the census dates for England & Wales including the later ones are:

1801 March 10th
1811 May 27th
1821 May 28th
1831 May 30th
1841 June 6th
1851 March 30th
1861 April 7th
1871 April 2nd
1881 April 3rd
1891 April 5th
1901 March 31st
1911 April 2nd
1921 June 19th

Great great Grandfather, William Brown

I finally figured out why I haven't been able to find the William Brown family in the 1861 Welsh census documents. It's because in 1861 William, his wife Hanna (Owens) Brown, and their son Thomas were living in Bridgend in the county of Glamorgan. And it just happens that portions of the 1861 census have been lost, including four neighborhoods in Bridgend. Yesterday, I was able to find the birth records for Thomas Brown, who was born in 1858 in Bridgend, and my Great Grandmother, Isabella Brown, who was born in 1862 in Bridgend. I'd say that the span of births of the two children are proof-positive that the Browns were living in Bridgend in 1861 and are, therefore, among those whose census records have been lost.

Saying goodbye to Dudley

With more research, I discovered why the Davis family decided to move back to Wales after just a few years in Dudley, Worcestershire County, England. I was fortunate to glean the following information from a FamilyTreeMaker.com site devoted to the ancestors of Clark Jay Holloway:

Mr. William Lee, a government investigator, made a survey of the town of Dudley, Worcestershire, in connection with the Public Health Act of 1848. When the Health Act was passed, Dudley was a center of English industrial activity. In the preceding ten years the population had increased from 30,000 to 40,000, but the health of the people was appalling, for scarcely a year passed without some fearful epidemic occurring. For instance, in 1832, six hundred people were killed by cholera alone and, in 1847 the town was swept by Typhus, to be followed in 1849 by another outbreak of cholera.

Throughout these epidemics there is no evidence that the local authority ever took any preventive action and the public Health Act of 1848 was completely ignored. The greatest defects of Dudley were the lack of proper drainage system and the inadequate supply of water. The disposal of refuse was very simple. The more respectable people had a cesspit, but the less respectable people kept a bucket in the house and this they emptied into the roadway during the night, hoping the wind, rain or roving pigs would have removed the contents by morning. The large mass of the people, however, made ‘privies’ of every unoccupied corner of the town.

The report also dealt with the inadequate water supply and compared the health statistics of Dudley with other industrial areas. The average age of death was a very rough indication of the health of a community. In 1853 (after the Davis family had left) the life expectancy for the village of Dudley was sixteen years.

Now I understand why they left! To have a life expectancy in Dudley that low, the majority of children must have been dying before their sixteen birthday.

The Mystery of Mary Davis

I've discovered another mystery with the Davis family. My great great great grandfather, John Davis, had a daughter named Mary. I always assumed that she was born in Wales with the rest of her brothers and sisters. But upon closer examination, I discovered that the census gatherers in 1851 recorded that Mary was born in the English town of Dudley, Worcestershire county, in 1846. Dudley is almost 100 miles north of the Welsh town of Blaenavon where the Davis family was living in 1841. When I looked at the 1861 census document, Mary is reported as being born in "Berbehard" in the county of Shropshire. Now, since the distance from Dudley to the Shropshire/Worcestershire border is quite short -- less than ten miles I believe -- they could have been living near the border. However, I've found no town named "Berbehard" anywhere in the vicinity.

From what I've read on the web, Dudley was not the nicest place to live during the 1840s. Back then, this area was referred to as the "Black Country" for the dense clouds of smoke belched continuously from thousands of coal-fired hearths and furnaces. These polluted the environment with vast amounts of soot. In addition to highly concentrated manufacturing enterprises, Dudley was associated with the invention of the steam engine (it was first operated near Dudley Castle in 1712) and in 1821 the first iron steamship was built in the Dudley area at the Horseley Ironworks.

By 1851, the Davis family had moved back to Wales and were living in the village of Trevethin, only six miles from where they were living in 1841. I'm sure it was no easy task in the 1840s to pick up and move 100 miles away to a new city. Certainly, work must have been plentiful in Wales in the 1840s. Wales was the industrial capital of the world back then. So why did they move and almost immediately move back? I would love to find out.

The mystery as to why the Davis family wasn't consitent in reporting Mary's birthplace may, in part, be due to the fact that there were numerous changes to county boundaries over the years. In some cases it was done to tidy up historic anomalies, such as tiny detached pieces of one county being entirely surrounded by another. Such changes have taken place piecemeal over many years, with some such detached areas surviving to as recently as 1974. One notable example is the northern piece of Worcestershire containing the town of Dudley, which was originally entirely surrounded by Staffordshire.

So, maybe the Davis family meant to say Staffordshire when they told the census worker "Shropshire" in 1851. If that were true, then the mystery of Mary's true birthplace could be easily solved.

59 Days and Counting.

That's right, my last day at the Nevada Department of Public Safety is just 59 days away. When I started this Blog I had six months left. The time has flown by so fast, I find it almost startling.

If you're just tuning into this blog, welcome. I created this space to chroncical my future trip to the United Kingdom once I retire from state government where I have spent the last twenty-five years. My intent in going to the UK is to search for the various towns and villages where my paternal ancestors lived for generations before immigrating to America, hence the focus here on family genealogy.

If you have any questions or observations, please make use of the comments section and I'll be happy hear from you.

Cheers!