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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