Author: Ian Elsom

Boomer Bust

Monday’s Frank and Eliza GRICE had nine siblings and the GRO Births Index shares them out to three mothers called Hannah. In chronological order between 1858 and 1881 the digitized sequence of family names runs as follows:-

Bowmer, Boomer, Boomer, Boomer, Bowman, Bowman, Boomer, Bowmer, Bowman, Bowman, Bowman

It isn’t surprising to see confusion on the FamilySearch Shared Tree. First, a minimalist George BOWMAN, future father of Hannah.

There is a more extensive family with this same ID and an “Unknown Wife” as mother to Hannah Bowman.

And now father George with namesake third son. I have included the helpful Blue Hint.

At the 1861 Census, Father George was enumerated at home as “Bowmer” and also at his place of work, Church Cliff Farm, as “Bowman”, a shepherd. Young George Bowman was only listed at the farm as a servant, aged 23 and unmarried. He was a “Boomer” in 1866 when he took Elizabeth TRUMAND for a wife but their three known children were all registered as “Bowman”.

Bowman will be favoured if I’m first to tackle the Shared Tree merges.

Found Object 59 · Old Rope

Grave Mistakes

John Charles is the eldest son of Richard Jesse STEVENSON and Mary Darnton nee HULLOCK, who featured in three short posts earlier this month.

His death was registered in the December Quarter of 1950.

STEVENSON, John Charles, Age at Death (in years): 82. GRO Reference: 1950 D Quarter in BUCKROSE Volume 02A Page 24.

A probate entry gives the date of his passing.

“Margery” (on the birth registration) was the last of twelve children born to John Charles and Eliza nee GRICE. I will connect her to the family HUNTER on the Shared Tree in the next few days.

Eliza is a younger sister to Frank, who made a mistake more terrible than any misguided cut by a monumental mason. (See Two Graces.)

Insect 41 · Common Darter ♀

Wooden bench, Crescent Hill

A Missing Child

When Richard Jesse senior filled out the 1911 Census form, he declared that his wife had borne thirteen children, of whom just one had died. I have added three to those already represented on the Shared Tree, including the accidentally killed George, but the thirteenth is proving elusive.

Photographs of the two stones remembering George, his sister Mary Darnton and their parents can be found here.

Mary was the only girl who didn’t marry. Four brothers and four sisters provided her parents with at least 38 grandchildren. Most appear to be strangers to the Shared Tree so there is much work to be done. I finished putting the twelve children of firstborn John Charles and his wife Eliza on the Tree this afternoon.

Insect 40 · Garden spider

Araneus diadematus

Out of the Workhouse

On Saturday I wrote about the accidental death of young George STEVENSON in 1904. His childhood home was the first house on Foreshore Road, Filey, also referred to as No. 1 The Beach or 1 Beach House.

5 September 2021

This photograph shows the house about ten years after the seawall was built. George’s father, Richard Jesse, was described in the 1901 census as an assistant surveyor and inspector of nuisances, and ten years later as an assistant surveyor and inspector of businesses. In 1851, aged 7, he was enumerated as a pauper inmate in the Boston Workhouse, with younger sister Fanny, 5.

The two children may not have been in the institution for long. They were the youngest of at least nine children born to Willam Stevenson, a Lincolnshire farmer, and Rebecca. William was about thirty-five years old when he married but Rebecca, eleven years younger, died before him in 1847, aged 46. William died in 1850. Their firstborn, also William, had married Eliza ALLEN in 1848 but the couple was clearly unable to give shelter to Richard and Fanny. The other siblings may have found homes with other members of the extended family.

I have not been able to find Fanny in 1861. (She is Frances Charlotte in the GRO Births Index and Charlotte Frances in the Fosdyke Parish Register.) Richard, however, an agricultural labourer now aged eighteen, is enumerated with William and Eliza and their five children. Richard’s birthplace is given as Kirton but he would subsequently offer “Fosdyke”, a parish in the sub-district of Kirton, and both within the Boston Registration District.

At some point in the next seven years, Richard Jesse crossed the Humber and found Mary Darnton HULLOCK. The couple married at Filey St Owald’s on 12 July 1868 and they brought twelve children into the world.

Two generations of Stevensons are scattered around the Shared Tree at the moment. I will attempt to bring them together over the next few days.

Abstract 77 · Seawall