Welburn

The Three Wives of William Welburn

William is the father of Alfred and therefore grandfather to Elizabeth of Picturesque Terrace (last Wednesday’s post).

Elizabeth Strangway, you may recall, was close in both age and geography to Elizabeth Strangeway – about six months younger and at one time a ten-minute walk away from her almost namesake. But which of them was the daughter in law of William Welburn?

FamilySearch screenshots tell stories.

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This is rather sketchy but I believe Alfred’s mother was indeed Harriett. I’m still not sure that his mother in law was Sarah MATTHEWS because not only were the Two Elizabeths close in age at birth, they seem to have died within a year of each other. Geography again has a part to play. The Elizabeth pictured above, (let’s call her Elizabeth I), registered the births of six of her nine children in Hull but died in Selby in 1912 aged 71. Elizabeth II died the previous year in Hull, aged 72. Had she been the daughter of Frances Gibson her age should have been given as 70.

On second thoughts, because Alfred’s birth had been registered in Selby, and his father was born in a village only five miles away from there, the screenshot above may indeed be true in every respect, as far as it goes. A doubt lingers though because Elizabeth I was enumerated in Francis Street, Hull in 1911.

Here is another screenshot story.

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This is Alfred’s father. He really did marry Ann Thickett, just not when he was eleven years old. (This William would have been only a year old when he made Harriett pregnant for the first time.) Spare a thought for Ann having four children in her fifties. Mary J had fourteen children. Would Ann have lived long enough to dandle any of them on her knee?

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Ann married as the widow Laycock in 1852, bringing along Vincent and Eliza for William to step-parent.

Fourteen months earlier, William had married his second wife in Selby.

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She too had been married before but appears to have been childless. She was a stepmother to Ann/Hannah (13), Alfred (8) and Alice (1) for less than six months before dying aged 34.

The children’s mother, William’s first wife Harriett CUNDELL, had died in the September Quarter of the previous year, aged 37.

William, a millwright by trade, was clearly a man of action – if what I have told you about him is true.

My narrative of the Three Wives cannot be followed on the Shared Tree. There are some vital pieces of the puzzle to chase down and when I have them, I’ll make the necessary changes on FamilySearch. I think the travesty of the William and Ann Thickett screenshot was largely the result of “the system” going haywire, rather than a human contributor losing their mind. None of these people is a blood relative, and they only connect tangentially to Phyllis, my first cousin once removed, but I feel I should make an effort to set things straight.

Clouds 40 · Filey Bay

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Strangeways

If Mr Swain, my teacher in the top class at Stoneferry J & I, had asked me what the name “Strangeways” conjured up I would have shuddered and mumbled, “the jail, sir”. The lock-up’s reputation was contagious enough to infect little children. (Google it.)

Now, in my dotage, I find I have Strangeways (or variants thereof) in my family tree – and genealogical criminal acts have been perpetrated upon some of them. That’s perhaps a bit strong. I’ll reduce the charge to “microaggressions”.

I have no interest in sending anyone down for the offences. Some mistakes are easily made on the FamilySearch Tree. I expect to be found guilty any day now.

I call William STRANGEWAY.

His birth was registered in the December Quarter of 1842 in York, the son of James, a brickmaker, and Sarah née MATTHEWS. He didn’t stay long enough to celebrate his first birthday but here he is on the Shared Tree.

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William is without sources here but checking the GRO for his asserted death in Leeds in 1894 gives this –

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A calculated arrival three years out of whack rings a warning bell.

Let’s first look for a York birth registration in 1842.

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Year and mother fit the Shared Tree screenshot.

There is nothing for us in York three years later but in the first quarter of 1846 –

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In 1851 the census puts William the Younger with parents Robert, a brick and tile maker, and Frances née GIBSON at 5 Aldwark, which is a ten-minute walk from James and Sarah’s home in Redeness Street. William the Elder is beyond the ken of the enumerator of course but his two sisters, Elizabeth and Ann, are recorded with brother Thomas and grandmother Ann née MEPHAM.

The Aldwark house also shelters an Elizabeth. If the births of the two girls were registered on time, less than six months separate their appearance on the planet. There’s a greater chance of some latter-day family historian mixing these two up!

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Robert Strangways died aged 44 in 1853. In 1861, William is 15, working as a cloth dresser and living with his mother in Ratcliffe Yard, Leeds. He marries Ellen ARCHER in that city about eight years later.

Sarah Strangway, six years a widow, marries George GREEN in York in late 1862. Her second marriage does not last. In 1871, a widow again, she is living in Marygate with offspring Charlotte and James Strangway. James chooses not to marry and is with his mother in 1891, working as a labourer. Sarah, 73, is a nurse. Ten years later she is in the York workhouse. James is still alive, whereabouts unknown to me in 1901. His mother dies aged 85 in 1903 and James follows her into eternity less than a year later, aged 50.

I wonder if James’ sister Elizabeth attended either of the funerals. She died in Hull in 1911 after burying four of the nine children she had with Alfred WELBURN, one of them being “my Strangway”, first wife of William Henry Phillip SMAWFIELD who then married my grandaunt Elizabeth Ann LOCKETT.

This is a confusing number of Elizabeths to deal with and I am in some doubt now. Have I chosen the right Elizabeth from the two girls born in York in the early 1840s? Although confident I have sorted out the Williams, I don’t have cast iron sources for their sisters. A church marriage source naming a father would give me comfort but I haven’t found one yet. I’ll go over my evidence and report another day.

Mark of Man 45 · Bell Buoy

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This gives a better sense of the size of Bell Buoy than Thursday’s sunrise photo.

Foraging Unmasked

I did my weekly shop at the supermarket this morning. I wore nitrile gloves and a scarf in case I needed to protect people from my droplets. I saw only one other person wearing a scarf. So far, in the town, I have seen just one person in a mask.

In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, it is mandatory to wear a mask out of doors. The governments didn’t supply masks so nationwide cottage industries sprang up to meet demand. Chris Martenson put this onscreen in his post yesterday.

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This afternoon I heard a UK doctor on national radio explain how ineffective masks are in protecting against catching Covid-19 disease. He was particularly scathing about homemade masks. He concluded by appealing to the great unwashed not to wear masks at all. “Leave them for our health workers on the frontline.” But…but… I thought you said…

CzechData

Go figure.

The Two Husbands of Hannah Welburn

The Hoylands of Hoyland Common confirmed my fondness for geographical rather than trade family-names. (You can keep your bakers, turners and, especially, smiths.)

Hannah is a WELBOURNE in some sources, but I will favour WELBURN. Hannah was born in 1839 in Pickering, which is just fourteen miles from the village of Welburn. There is a Welbourn in Lincolnshire and one online fount of knowledge claims this is the original home of all Welbourns. The variant spellings, including Welburn, may all mean the same thing – a well by a stream or spring – so the first English Welburns could be from anywhere.

Hannah’s father James was a cooper and after her birth, the family moved a few miles to Driffield. There are sources on FamilySearch for Hannah and three siblings, but they don’t yet form a coherent unit on the Shared Tree.

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In 1861, at the age of 21, Hannah is enumerated at the family home in Westgate, Driffield, her occupation given as “Publisher’s Labourer”. Six years later she marries Samuel Sanderson HARRISON. In 1871 Samuel is described as a “Shopman (Draper’s Assistant)”. He clearly did well at the job because in 1881 he is a “Draper Master”. The couple remains childless though, and in the autumn of 1888, Samuel dies aged 46.

Hannah is named in the probate documents, but a young man called Alfred Herbert WELBURN (sometimes WELBOURNE) has insinuated himself into the family. He was a 14-year-old visitor at the 1881 Census and supposedly a nephew of Samuel, but in 1891he is head of the Harrison home in Middle Street South, Driffield, occupation Draper. Hannah is the next named, a widow “living on her own means”. Alfred was the son of Hannah’s brother, Richard.

In the summer of 1893, Alfred marries Mary Anne ROSS, Hannah’s stepdaughter. Her marriage to Primitive Methodist Minister Castle Ross had been registered three months earlier.

In 1901 Hannah is with Castle and his daughter Jane, a 26-year-old Music Teacher, in Glastonbury, Somerset. In 1911 the Minister’s house in Bournville is somewhat more populous. In addition to Hannah, there are Castle’s daughters Margaret, still single at 31, and Emily. Emily’s husband Alfred Wilson is there too, with their children Dorothy and Emily.

Hannah dies in Bournville in the spring of 1914, aged 74.

Castle returns to Filey, the place of his birth, dying here in 1928 aged 88. The inscription on his stone in St Oswald’s churchyard doesn’t “remember” Hannah.

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In loving memory of CASTLE ROSS, Primitive Methodist Minister,

who entered the higher life May 23rd 1928, aged 87 years.

Also of JANE, wife of the above, who passed on Oct 25th 1882, aged 45 years;

interred in Brigg cemetery.

‘For me to live is Christ and to die is gain’

Phil. 1. 21

Today on the Shared Tree he has only one wife, but the Welbourne connection is clearly indicated.

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Castle’s youngest daughter, Margaret Maud, is named in the probate documents and it is perhaps she who decided what the inscription should be on her father’s headstone. I feared initially that Hannah had been “disappeared” without a sign anywhere of her existence, but was happy to discover that she is remembered on her first husband’s gravestone in Driffield.

From Appleby to Welburn

This isn’t a post about a journey from Westmorland to Yorkshire but the change of name when two young APPLEBY women married two men called William WELBURN. The marriages were registered in Scarborough in the last quarter of 1860 and the first three months of 1861. The births of a dozen children were registered to mothers with the maiden name Appleby in the following decade.

After hours of piecing the families together, I still have very little information about the first couple, Harriet and William Edward. I concentrated my effort on Elizabeth and plain William because their grave is to be found in St Oswald’s churchyard.

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In loving memory of ELIZABETH, the beloved wife of WILLIAM WELBURN of Gristhorpe, died Nov 19th 1884, aged 49 years.

‘Be ye also ready for in such an hour

As ye think not the Son of man cometh’

Also of the above WILLIAM WELBURN, died Jan 19th 1907, aged 83 years.

‘His end was peace’

Also of their daughter, CATHERINE, born June 22nd 1868, died July 17th 1947.

William may have ended his life as a Welburn but he began it as a WELLBOURN in Weaverthorpe. Elizabeth is a daughter of Robert APPLEBY and Rachel MAW. If you follow the FST links you’ll see that the couple hasn’t yet been brought together on the World Tree.

I am fairly sure of my ground now and will marry them soon and give their nine children (known for sure). For a while, I despaired of finding a piece of “solid evidence” that I was on their right track. It turned up in the 1861 Census. The Find My Past transcription offered William WELBORN, 34, a Farm Labourer born Weaverthorpe and his wife Elizabeth, 27, born Muston. They were described as “lodgers”, and the page image revealed they were under the roof of Rachel APPLEBY. She is married rather than a widow but there is no sign of husband Robert. She appears to have a four-year-old son called William (though she is 51 years old). The child may have been Elizabeth’s boy. Also in residence are two of Rachel’s grandsons, Thomas SHIELDS, 9, and James APPLEBY, 9 months. The GRO Births Index suggests both boys were illegitimate. Rachel’s birthplace is given as Hackness in several sources but in others a nonsense place, something like “Tholso”. An Internet search doesn’t help with this but an OS Landranger map shows a farm – “Thirlsey”- just outside the village. I’m going with that.

When Elizabeth died in 1884, her youngest child, George, was twelve and William quickly found another wife to help with his large and still not flown brood. I haven’t found the marriage yet but at the 1891 Census George has a half-brother, Harry, 5, and a step-mother, Hannah. William has made himself about five years younger, reducing the age difference with his second wife to ten years. He is less sensitive in 1901 when the gap is more realistic at 19 years. Aged 77 William is still farming, at Gristhorpe. I wonder if he had any rest from his labours before he found peace.