A Unexpected Discovery - Week 15 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

“The Unexpected” is the theme of week 15 in  the website “52 Ancestors  in 52 Weeks” and here is the story of how I  made the unepected discovery  that I had American relations. 

 My great great aunt Alice Rawcliffe (1853-1930), sister of my great grandmother Maria   of Hambleton, Lancashire, came from a family of    of eight daughters - 5 surviving infancy - born to Robert Rawcliffe and Jane Carr.   In 1873 she married John Mason and over the next eight years had five  children, their names reflecting those of close family members - Robert William, Jane Elizabeth, John Thomas, James Richard,  and Margaret Alice. 

All the research into my mother’s Danson and Rawcliffe families showed them to be very firmly based in The Fylde area of north west Lancashire around the settlements of Poulton-le-Fylde, Fleetwood and Blackpool. 

 

But  I had been unable to trace the family in the Englis1891 and 1901 census returns.  

 For a very long time, I puzzled over  "Who is this striking family group?"   The photograph mounted on heavy dark card,  came to me from  my great aunt Jennie Danson,  of Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire.    Unlike many of Jennie's photographs, she had not written anything on the back - perhaps because of the dark mount, and there was no photographer's name and address  to indicate where it had been taken   But it  must surely be of one of of my great grandmother's sisters - Anne, Jane, Alice, or Jennet?  The composition of the family and ages of the children ruled out Anne, Jane or Jennet. So was  this Alice and John  Mason and family?   This was a mystery.

 

It  came as a complete surprise when  a casual browsing of Rawcliffes on Family Search resulted in an  entry for Alice Mason née Rawcliffe (1853-1930) with the statement that she had died  in  Jamesburg, Middlesex County, New Jersey - the first time I was aware of any potential American connection.  All the information fitted with "my Alice" - dates, names, places etc. 

 

American Research 
I boosted my Ancestry UK subscription for a short term, so I could access American records. The results:

• The  New York Passenger Lists  revealed  that John  Mason had emigrated from Liverpool in 1886, joined a year later by Alice, aged 34  and now with six  children aged from  13 to 10 months (plus two pieces of baggage).   How on earth did she cope on the eight day voyage?  This was the first revelation too  of another son George Rawcliffe Mason, born in 1885 in Fleetwood.  
  

• Between 1888 and 1898, Alice had a further five children, born in the USA - Arthur Valentine (born appropriately 14th February 1888 - (a reunion baby?) ), Harold Arthur Victor, Lillian Eveline, Bessie Irene and the youngest Florence Adelaide - their names in sharp contrast to the family names of their siblings, born in England.  Arthur, Bessie and Lillian sadly all died in infancy. Were  the crowded living conditions in Brooklyn, New York  a factor here? 

• The family took out US citizenship in 1895.  

• The 1900 census for the City of New York, Brooklyn showed a large Mason household of ten living at 72 Hall Street in what was probably an apartment building with four other families at the same address.  John was described as an insurance agent

• The 1910 census for New York still found the family on  Hall Street,  Brooklyn, with John working as a labourer at the Customs House. 

• ·At some point the family moved  across the river to Jamesburg, New Jersey. The 1920 census saw a depleted household with John and Alice, now both 66, with their eldest and youngest daughters (Jane  and Florence), and widowed son Robert with  his baby son, also Robert.  

The  Search for my America Long-Lost Cousins
 
I put enquiries on a range of message boards but with no response.

Then I set up my blog i and posted about my mystery photograph.   A year  later came SUCCESS!!  The granddaughter of Florence Mason (the young girl in the top photograph) was pointed to my blog by another relative.  She got in touch and she had the very same photograph  as mine,  but mounted with the name of a photographer in Brooklyn, New York.

 

We  exchanged e-mails, photographs and information of our ancestors down the generations and remained in touch until her death. Other descendants and I are Facebook friends.

John Mason (Alice's husband)  with hitheir  youngest daughter, Florence

It was special to receive a later photograph of the Mason family (below)  with all eight surviving children. 

 

 Alice and John  in the middle, surrounded by their 8 children. 

 

Alice died in 1930 and John 7 years later, both buried in Fernwood Cemetery, Jamesburg, New Jersey. 

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So it is all thanks to the power of the Internet and of blogging, that my mystery photograph was eventually identified and I discovered the unexpected story of my first  emigrant ancestors. It pays to be patient in family history research!  

If only I could discover why the Mason family  took this step of adventure from the small Lancashire coastal community of Fleetwood to the streets of New York,  and I am now researching  the story of my American cousins.    The challenge remains! 

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Memories of my Grandfather's Home - Sepia Saturday

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt image shows a house .   Here I take a nostalgic look back at my grandfather's house  in Poulton le Fylde, Lancashire in north west England.  

My grandfather's home c.1950 - The Danson family home 1926-2001

 

Grandfather was William Danson (1875-1962), 5th son of James Danson and Maria Rawcliffe. In 1907 he married Alice English and they had five children - Edith, Kathleen (my mother), Harry, Billy, with baby of the family Peggy, born after the First World War. Alice died in 1945 and I never knew her.

 

Grandad was a taciturn country man  who,  when he was conscripted in 1916,  was working as a cattle man at the local auction mart.   In the First World War he was awareded the Military  Medal for "Conspicious gallantary and determined devotion to duty in action."  But  I was warned by my aunt that he would never talk abiut his experiences then. I have memories of him taking my brother and I to the auction marst and out on country walks,  of spotting rabbits in the field,s and gathering  wild flowers, berries and leaves for the nature table at school.  

         

 

Grandad in army uniform 1916,  and relaxing in between his brother Robert on the left and a friend. 

 

The Danson family moved into the semi-detached house in 1926.   I still have the receipt for the deposit of £67. It looks quite a big house in the photograph, but, with only three small bedrooms, it must have still been a squash for William,  Alice,  three daughters and two sons.

 

The front door had a round stained glass window which I thought was very posh - until it had to be replaced with clear glass.  Half way up the side wall  of the house  was a small hatch door which revealed the coal shute where the coal men emptied  their sacks down into a small cellar under the stairs. My uncle Harry (a joiner)  much later took on the hard task to clear it all out to create a much needed "glory hole" and utility room.   He also modernised the kitchen and installed French windows in the living  room at the back of the house. 

 

In the living room a  copper kettle stood in the hearth (open fire) and I was told that had belonged to my great grandmother Maria Danson, nee Rawcliffe (1859-1919).  

 

 

 

 

To the left of the fireplace was a cupboard where a shoebox was kept,   holding family photographs and memorabilia.  It was a big treat if I was allowed to look thorough this box and it was the photograph of my great grandmother Maria (below)  which was the  inspiration  to draw up my first  Danson family tree and set me on the ancestral trail.  I was  about 12 years old then  

 

 

 

My great grandmother Maria Danson, nee Rawcliffe. with her eldest granddaughter,  Annie Maria Danson, my mother's cousin.  

 

Pride of place in the front small room (kept for best) was the piano, complete with candlestick holders,  which I learnt to play on.  The  bookcase held the   family bible recording the marriage of my great grandparents Maria Rawcliffe and James Danson in 1877 and the birth of their first four  (out of ten) children - entries petered out after that.  Another favourite book which had belonged to my grandmother and was treasured by my mother  was an 1899 edition of "Pride and Prejudice" with delicate pencil drawings protected by flimsy paper. 

 

But there was one surprising feature about the house, though - it did not have electricity until the late 1950s, because my grandfather refused to have it installed. I remember my aunt standing on a chair to light the ceiling gas lights, and ironing with a  flat iron, heaed in the fire, whilst the flames from the gas cooker frightened me. 

Outside the side trellis gate was later taken down and a driveway created to take my uncle's motor bike and side car, and later a car.  Grandad's hen house at the back then became the garage.  

The large gardens were my grandfather's and later my uncle's pride and joy - with floral displays in the  front and  productive vegetables and fruit  grown at the back. The front garden was a regular setting for family photographs.

My dressmaker mother modellin  one of her outfits - late 1930s.   

 

A unique photograph as the only one I have of both sets of grandparents William & Alice Danson on the left  and Albert and Mary Weston, taken in the garden after my parent's wedding in 1938.  

  

Sisters Peggy, Edith and Kathleen Danson  with their mother, a rather frail looking Alice  c.1941

 

1941 and my father is setting out for war service in the RAF.  Here with Mum on the right and her sister, my aunt Edith on the left

                     My aunt Edith,  with a little podgy me c 1944.

 

My brother and I in my long dress for the local Gala Day, c.1951   

       Full circle  - my mother with my uncle  Harry, c.1990s.  

My  mother was the first of the family to marry in 1938, followed  by Billy, then her younger sister Peggy who emigrated to Australia in 1948.   Grandad, William Danson died in 1962.     Edith and Harry lived in the house  nearly all their lives (apart from short term marriages)  until their deaths in 1995 and 2001.  This  marked the end of the house that had been a family home for nearly 80 years.  

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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers  

to share their family history and memories through photographs

 

 

 

  

Click HERE to see  posts from other Sepia Saturday bloggers.

 

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All in a Row - Sepia Saturday

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt photograph features a  large group of men sitting in row.   I have shown in the past images of troops in rows, so this time I hunted my collection and that of my local heritage group Auld Earlston for something a bit different.  

Women in the Workplace - Sepia Saturday

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt photogrpah shows  the scene in a munitions  factory in the First World War where the workers were largely women.  I featured munition workers recently so here I take a look at other "women  in the workplace" ranging from agriculture, and textiles,  to hairdressing and dressmaking. - and not forgetting housewives.  

 

Mill Workers at Rhymer's Mill. Earlston in the Scottish Borders- early 1900's. As in other Border textile towns, women were a significant part of the ẃorkforce and key contributors to the local economy.   But to me, as someone who is non-technical,   that machinery in the first image looks frightening! 

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 Housewives at Work - here shopping in the Traveling

Co-op Van in Earlston.

Where home was the workplace:   

                                           
Both before and after her marriage, my mother offered dressmaking services from her home.  Mum had been apprenticed to a tailor at the age of 14, and was still sewing well into her 80's.  I only came across her early business card after her death. 

 

She continued her home dressmaking  throughout her life.  In the 1950's this meant working in the small spare bedroom which was icy cold in winter and hot and stuffy in summer.  I remember one time when my little brother - a typical boy into everything - got hold of her oiling can, filled it with water and proceeded to "oil" the sewing machine!.  He was not very popular!   

 

Mum  was a typical homemaker of the 1950's and 60's -- and beyond.  She was always making something - cushions changed their covers regularly, new patchwork quilts appeared on the beds and new curtains at the windows, worn sheets were turned, old bath towels were cut, and trimmed into hand towels, tray cloths and table cloths were embroidered.  

  I remember as a young child  my mother wearing her apron with a front pocket for carrying dusters etc.  and putting up her long hair in a scarf and turban  on wash day - always a Monday - we were very traditional in the north.   This was the days before washing machines, not even a twin tub,  never mind an automatic.   She did the washing by hand and then got out the mangle  to feed the soaking clothes etc. through it to wring out the water. If I was at home on holiday I helped feed the sheets through, before  everything was hung outside to dry. 

All of this made wash-day an arduous task, so Monday tea was left overs - cold meat from the Sunday roast, served with chips. 

Needless to say  no photograph exists of my mother  on her housewife tasks.  Family snapshot were strictly for recording leisure activities, not housework.  

 

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Workwear at the Egg Packaging Station at Georgefield Farm, Earlston 

 

 The distinctive work costume of the Bondagers.

Bondagers were female farm workers in south east Scotland and Northumberland. As part of their husband's contract (or bond) with the farmer, he would undertake to provide another worker (usually his wife) to help as and when required. The women wore a distinctive dress with bonnet, described as the "last remaining peasant costume" in Britain.  The custom of bondagers lasted well into the 20th century. 

 

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And from my own family collection   photographs I have featured before, but are among my favourites and fit the theme so well. 

 

My great aunt Jennie Danson  (second on the left) with her work colleagues from the post office in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire.  Her daughter Pam recalled a story that during the First World War, a telegram was received at the Post  Office for Jennie's widowed mother Mrs Maria Danson.  Fearing the worst, Jenny was allowed to run home with it.  Fortunately it was good news to say that brother Frank was wounded  but recovering in hospital in Malta. . 

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Home was the workplace for my mother's second cousin,  Elsie Oldham, who as "Elise" (note the French version of her name!) offered "Bobbing, Shingling, Marcel Waving and Perming", from her home in Blackpool, Lancashire, and advertised (above) on this lovely evocative 1920's blotter. 

 

 

The Oldham home in Blackpool, Lancashire with the adverts in the window and  on the garden pole, promoting Elsie's business.  

 

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 A different source gave me a lovely  insight  on my Aunt Edith (Danson),  a teacher . Ex pupils at the school set up a Facebook page  ahead of the centenary of the school in 2014 and in a google search found my blog and got in touch. I was delighted to read comments from former pupils of "Miss Danson",  who was remembered with fondness: "I always thought she was a wonderful teacher with lots of patience and 8nderstanding".

 

 

 

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  As for my working life life 

 - that ranged from student work in a variety of Einburgh shops including a fishmongers (totally out of my comfort zone), a bookshop (my favourite) and a tartan trash souvenir shop - think garish tasteless  tartan products aimed a tourists. I spent a year in the USA on an exchange  programme as a trainee librarian (a  wonderful American experience);  as a young mother I did voluntary work setting up a library  at my daughter's school and at the local Citizen's Advice Bureau.  

 

I returned to the workplace in 1978 at my local tourist information centre - above.  It now looks so old fashioned - old telephone, no computer, let alone a typewriter, no uniform, just a name badge - they all came years later!   But I loved it   -  until I was made redundant!   Finally I returned to my roots in the Local Studies Library,   before    being the Family History Researcher in the Scottish Borders  Archive Centre. How many people can say their hobby became their job!!

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And finally - not to forget this week's prompt photograph ....../ 

 

 

Earlston Munition Workers in World War Two.  

 

With thanks to my local heritage group Auld Earlston for many of the images shown here.  

 

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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy to share their family history and memories through photographs

 

 

 

 

Click HERE  for more memories of work  from fellow bloggers.

 

 

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Week 13 - A Family Naming Pattern. - 52 Ancestors

 

Family Naming  Pattern is my theme for this week’s “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks”.  

How many of us have been tearing their   hair out at the confusion that comes from researching the same name occurring  down the generations?  As in my extended family: 

• My great grandmother, Matilda Such  born 1849  was the illegitimate daughter of Matilda Bloomer Such, born 1815, daughter of Matilda Bloomer, baptized 1787 and William Such.  

 
My great grandmother Matilda Such 

      My head spins just trying to write down these                       generations of Matildas!    

• In my husband's family of direct ancestors  - there were three Robert Donaldson's, followed by three John Robert Donaldson's, spanning over 200 years.  
   
• On my husband's mother's side, a  Matthew White married an Isabella Iley in 1821.   Three direct descendants were named Matthew Iley White, the last in 1915 - plus cousins to add to the confusion - the result of sons naming their eldest son after the baby's paternal grandfather. 
  
  
• My G.G.G. G. Grandfather's sister Jennet Danson,  married,   in 1786  at St Chad's Church (below), John Bryning of Carleton, Poulton-le-Fylde,  Lancashire. 
  
  
  
   

But when I came to research this branch of the family, I discovered there were eleven John Bryning/Brining descendants living in the Fylde area at the turn of the 18th to 19th centuries - all descendant of John Bryning (1703-1779) through his sons, John and Richard, with their sons, grandsons and great grandsons taking the name of the family patriach. 

The traditional naming pattern (certainly  prevalent in Scotland & the north of England) of naming sons after their grandfather or  father can often be helpful in research,  but with the Brynings, you need a clear head to distinguish them all. 

Jennet Danson's  father-in-law John Bryning died in  1820 and in his will, he notes:  "My pew in the north gallery to my son John".  This boxed pew is still in place at St. Chad's Church, Poulton-le-Fylde. My photograph is not very good, but you can make out the name and the date 1778

St.Chad's Church with the Bryning pew at the front of the gallery on the left. My parents were married here and I was baptised in the same church, as were Dansons back to 1736.  

John Brynings (and also Dansons)  are named on the list of churchwardens displayed  in the church  - with the dates 1770, 1816, 1833, 1848, and 1864.

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One John Bryning stands out amongst the eleven - Rev. John Bryning (1770-1855), grandson of the first John Bryning.  

My first knowledge of him came many years ago through  a response to  a query on an Ancestry Message Board.    My contact, a descendant of the Rev. Bryning, was able to supply me with a fund of documentary evidence, plus several obituaries.  He certainly had led an eventful life. 

He was bound to an apprentice  to a mercantile firm in Liverpool, rising to the position of foreman  and in this capacity travelled widely.  He was in Brussels when the Battle of Waterloo was fought in 1815 and wrote about "the booming of the terrific engines of death."

Sometime in his 40's he left the merchant  life  behind for quite a different calling - that of the ministry.  In 1820 he travelled to Quebec and became a preacher at New Brunswick on the Long Point Settlement on Lake Eerie. He was ordained as a pastor of the  Presbyterian Church of Canada, and established a church at Mount Pleasant, Simcoe.   He became a colourful  and influential leader, a familiar sight in  in the  Long Point Settlement.  An obituary noted that

 "In pioneer times he for nightly travelled the considerable  distance  between churches by horse and buggy on dirt roads, which turned to mire in rain.....  He was esteemed throughout the area as a tireless man of the cloth."

Presbyterian church historian James Dey described the Rev. Bryning thus:

"Mr Bryning was, in more senses than one, a great man.  Physically he was great, well proportioned and muscular, he was of astonishing weight of 412 pounds.  He had three wives and fiftenn vigorous children..... He laboured incessantly to preach the glad tiding of the everlasting gospel to the few and scattered inhabitants, gifted with a vigorous constitution and as vigorous a mind, undaunted by difficulties, ready and ever working for the case of Christ against bigotry and superstition......He has left a memorable example for succeeding ministries."

The Reverend John Bryning died 15th September 1853 aged 83 - his eldest son his namesake.  

With thanks to Yvonne for her contribution to this family history profile.   

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Postscript 
I have come across four public trees on Ancestry that  have the Rev. John Bryning as the son of John Bryning and Jennet Danson (my ancestor) - wrong, wrong, wrong!  

I have from Lancashire Record Office  a copy  of the marriage bond of John and Jennet dated 1786, when the Reverend was already  16 years old.

Signatures on the Marriage Bond of 1786.  The document was a promise between two people, normally the groom and a friend or relative (in this case John's future   brother-in-law Henry Danson) that,  if the marriage proved invalid in the eye of the law,  they would pay a penalty to the church of a substantial sum of money - in this case £200.

Marriage licences could be obtained in this way, as an alternative to having the banns read.  They enabled marriages to take place at any time and were useful  if the marriage had to take place quickly or be kept quiet for some reason.   John's  marriage bond was dated the day before the actual wedding.  Why the hasty ceremony remains a mystery, as their first child was not born  until July 1787  - perhaps Jennet  had been pregnant but lost the earlier baby?

John and Jennet’s son named John was born 1801.    He  lived all his life in the Fylde region of Lancashire.  He remained unmarried, making his home with his two unmarried sisters Margaret and Betty. He died in 1874 aged 72; his life, verified by parish records, statutory BMD records, census returns and transcribed monumental inscriptions

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