My great great granny and the 'shocking' Italian

My granddad Archie never spoke to me about his family - although I did hear that he used to think his grandmother was French.

Only after years of research did I discover that Archie shared a home with his grandmother - Helen - until she died in 1939 when he was 19 years old. She went by the name of Helen Miller and was a nurse; however, she had once been married to and had a child by a man called Arnoldo Scossa.

He wasn't French - we believe he was Swiss, probably Italian Swiss.

If you've read previous posts you'll know that this chap deserted his wife and new baby in the mid 1880s for a new life in New South Wales, where he died alone some twenty years later. Helen described herself as a widow in census returns: either because she genuinely thought she was a widow, or to try and appear 'respectable'. She never remarried but did have my great grandmother, Jeanie, by a John McCaul.

Having coffee with an Italian pal today, our conversation turned to family trees and I mentioned the surname of that errant Italian (father of my great grandmother's brother Archimedes, after whom Archie was named....) and she laughed.

Apparently, Scossa means 'shock'. As in the sort of static electricity shock you get from someone who is wearing too much polyester! So, Helen Miller - you really were married to a shocking Italian!

Always keep your eyes open!

I first visited Weston Longville in Norfolk in 1987. I was there again last weekend (for what must be 50th time!) to see the parish so familiar to generations of my ancestors - and enjoy a delicious Sunday lunch at the recently renovated Parson Woodforde pub.

Pootling about the churchyard in the late September sunshine, I spotted a grave bearing the name Mary Dunning (left). Yes, my great x 7 grandmother. She'd been there all the time, obviously, as she died in 1773 . . but despite countless hours looking at each stone over the years, I'd never managed to decipher the name.

She lies right opposite the porch door: her husband, Henry Duning, and son David (along with his young wife, Mary) all died in 1738 and are commemorated on a wall tablet right by the doorway of the porch (right) .The tablet says that Henry lies near that spot - perhaps in the same plot as Mary, his wife who outlived him by 35 years.

Moral of the story? Always keep your eyes open and don't be afraid to search, search and search again even when you think you'll found out everything there is to know!

Finally cracked it?

When I started looking into my family tree in 1986, I didn't even know where my grandfather Bates was born. Today I may have nailed it and found a link on my paternal side right back to the 1550s.

I've yet to check evidence such as Wills, Terriers etc but the Registers of Felthorpe, Swannington and Elsing in Norfolk (at FREEReg and FamilySearch websites) suggest that I can now trace my direct male line back to Thomas Betts and Katherine Candell who married in 1572 (at Elsing).

The line would be:
Thomas Betts & Katherine Candell; Thomas Betts & Cecilie; Thomas Betts & Ann; Joseph Bates & Mary Parker; Joseph Bates & Hannah Miller; John Bates & Mary Dunnell; Thomas Bates & Mary Buck; William Bates & Mary Gray; William Bates & Ann Sayer; John Bates & Mabel Hill - then my grandfather, father and me!

Time to visit Norfolk Records Office methinks!

Seventy years ago Archie was at Sea

As the media whips itself into a (I believe, distasteful) frenzy about all-things Titanic related, I spare a thought for my granddad Archie Miller who endured the violent attack and forced abandonment of his own ship, Willesden, in the middle of the South Atlantic on 1 April 1942.

Aged only 21 at the time, Archie grew up in the slums of Glasgow and had been a baker and a boxer before signing up and becoming a Gunner in the Army, eventually deployed on Merchant Navy vessel Willesden.

Sailors get to see the world, and in the course of his military service Archie spent time in South America. Once aboard Willesden he saw New York and sailed to St Thomas in the Caribbean before heading across the Atlantic to Cape Town en route to north Africa.

His brother in England received a telegram to say that Archie was dead. His Post Office savings were transferred to his brother. Later, word came from Japan that he was alive.

I recently found this report by A Joyce that details what happened to my granddad's ship and his shipmates. They were attached from the air, sunk, captured by the Germans and then transported to Japan to be transferred into Japanese prisoner of war camps. He was liberated at Kawasaki Camp on 29 August 1945 and returned to Great Britain on the Empress of Australia, apparently via Singapore.

A Joyce's article is on the website of the charity called Children of Far East Prisoners of War: www.cofepow.org.uk/pages/armedforces_ms_willesden.htm

This story by David Wilson gives a little more detail about what happened to the prisoners after their arrival in Japan. My granddad never spoke to me about the War; on the very, very rare occasions when he spoke with my father about it (maybe just once) he declared no bitterness towards the Japanese people. Read about conditions at Kawasaki Camp 1 here - includes photo of the site as well as of Willesden:  www.war-experience.org/collections/sea/alliedbrit/wilson/default.asp

Ninety years on

Family history is about so much more than long-dead ancestors. It is about our immediate family, our loved ones.

My grandma Rosie celebrated her 90th birthday yesterday. In fine form, she had a merry time and made us all laugh with her gleeful antics. "I'm ninety years old, I can do what I like!" she announced - and promptly knocked back a fourth schooner of sherry.

The world she was born into in 1922 is so different to our own. Born at home, just four years after the end of the Great War; a decade after the Titanic disaster; with George V reigning over a global Empire; and Lloyd George as Prime Minster. Home was a back-to-back terrace in the very centre of heavily-industrialised Bolton, a town packed with cotton mills and iron foundaries that belched out smoke and provided employment for thousands.

She was her mother's first child - her father had a teenage son by his first wife who was living with his own maternal grandparents - and was followed by a sister, Nora 22 months later. There were plenty of local aunts and uncles on both sides and numerous cousins but no grandparents. Sadly, with the death of her mother in 1925, my grandma lost all contact with her maternal family and when a new stepmother came along in 1926 most of her paternal family were distanced.

Yesterday was all about celebrating her ninety years. With her daughter, grandson, son-in-law, former son-in-law and brother-in-law, she enjoyed drinks, food, a cake, flowers, presents and laughter. Friends (mostly in their late 60s and early 70s) joined in, as did her neighbours from the sheltered housing she lives in.

There were, of course, plenty of people whose absence was felt, not least my granddad Archie to whom grandma was devoted and who died in 1986. Grandma's two surviving sisters weren't able to come (due to distance or ill health) and her late brothers were missed. My gift to her was a Memory Book created online and published to a satisfyingly high standard, filled with carefully selected, cherished photographs from her lifetime: all those absent featured in the book -  and were with us in spirit.

Yesterday is a memory I will cherish for my lifetime - and family history in the making.

And here is grandma Rosie at 90 with her Memory Book.

Genealogy - what a load of pants!

What a load of pants! Well, trousers actually. And probably quite nice ones, for work. Once again, the British Newspaper Archives reveals more than you'd ever find from church or other records. Literally, that my ancestor William Bates (great x2 grandfather) had problems with getting his pants.

On August 18 1866 the Norfolk News carried a headline that read 'Delays are Dangerous'. The story concerned William Bates, a groom at Morton Hall, who in February 1866 placed an order worth £2 2s with local tailor Robert Spooner of neighbouring Great Witchingham. Spooner apparently promised to get Bates his pants made pronto but failed to deliver them until 11 May. Understandably, by then Bates had made other arrangements, and refused to pay Spooner a penny. Not happy, Spooner took the matter to Court in Aylsham but Bates prevailed with support from two witnesses (William Rushbrooke, a fellow servant from Morton Hall) and Frederick Hubbard.

So, Bates got his pants and won the case. Bravo Bates!

The Walkers - and there's more!

Yesterday, I went to Who Do You Think You Are? Live at London Olympia, described as the world's largest family history fair. While the fee-charging websites boast enormous stands peppered with grinning salespeople, I prefer the slightly less slick (and much more interested/interesting) volunteers from all the Family History Societies. From Glamorgan to Norfolk, Yorkshire to East Sussex there is hardly a part of the country that isn't represented at the event (apart from Northamptonshire...).

On my last foray, I found a great publication from Lincolnshire Family History Society: Minutes from the Holbeach Union Workhouse. This is the institution that my great x 3 grandfather John Walker (see previous posts) spent some of his childhood.

This year, I bought two more Minute book summaries. Each covers a period of about ten years and includes every reference to 'paupers' that the Society researchers have found in the Minute Books.

Last week, I was surprised to locate my widowed great x 4 grandmother living in Gedney with one of her daughters in 1851 - while her other five children languished in the Holbeach Union Workhouse at nearby Fleet.

On 20 October 1851, the Minutes reveal: "Ordered that the mother of the children named Walker now in the workhouse and chargeable to the parish of Gedney be apprehended for not maintaining her children unless she choose to come to the workhosue with them."

So Mrs Walker (she who may or may not have been born in Ireland and was formerly a lace maker) was being called to account. Poor, widowed and with many mouths to feed, she seems to have done what many families in those days did: put her children in the workhouse and remain outside, to work. Giving her the benefit of the doubt (I don't accept a role as judge and jury to be part of my family tree research remit), perhaps she fell on even harder times? Lost her employment? Was ill?

No further mention is made in the Minutes of Mrs Walker and her children. I think I will need to check the Admissions register to establish whether she did join her family at Fleet.

Of course, what it does prove is that the Mary Walker I located in Gedney in 1851 IS my ancestor - so now I have to find what happened to her. More questions!

And as for Mary's daughter Matilda...let's summarise the Minutes somewhat and merely mention: assault; bastardy; child abandonment; destitution; imprisonment on two occasions. Yes, she was what the Guardians of the Union Workhouse refer to as a "refractory pauper" -  refractory meaning 'impossible to manage', 'stubbornly disobedient', 'resisitent to authority'. Her case was reported in the Lincolnshire Chronicle (thanks to British Newspaper Archives for that one) wherein she is referred to as an "old offender". Quite a different woman to the benevolent old 'aunt Matilda' I had imagined living next door to my gran as a small girl in Whaplode!

Quite the clan - the Walker family of Whaplode

My dad always thought he had no family. If the past 25 years of research have achieved anything, it's that I have proved him wrong! We may have no close relations alive today (apart from each other), but oh-my-goodness do we have plenty of 'family'!


My ancestors, the Walker family of Whaplode in Lincolnshire, have proved to be an elusive bunch. When my gran (a Walker born in Whaplode in 1911) died in 1986, we knew very little about her family other than the names of her mother and an aunt, and vague recollections of an invalid uncle and a grandfather with a housekeeper called Miss Annie.

Over the years I’ve pieced together the Walker family, bit by bit. Some of the first discoveries confirmed family rumours and fleshed out my gran's generation and the one above. We found out that Miss Annie came to work with my great, great grandfather Frank Thomas Walker when his wife died aged 32 leaving him with 7 children under 12 years of age (my gran’s mother Grace being one of them). And I unearthed details of how the invalid Uncle Royal had signed up to fight in WW1 in 1915 – but was discharged in 1916 for ‘made a misstatement as of age at enlistment’: he was still only 16, and weighed just 111 pounds at 5ft 4 inches tall.

In 2005 the excitement of discovery was tinged with sadness when I found that my great x 3 grandfather John Walker (1841-1937; father of Frank T Walker) spent part of his childhood in the Holbeach Union House (the workhouse) in Fleet. This led to a visit to the site with my dad to find that the imposed red brick building still stands and is now executive homes.

Now, I have discovered evidence that John Walker's siblings, previously untraceable, may have remained around the Holbeach area after their workhouse years and kept in strong contact with one another.

The first link was made when I found that John’s sister Matilda lived next door to the cottage in which my gran was born - a link across four generations. And now, in one day's research online, I have sketched out a much fuller family tree that suggests despite the horrors of the Union House, the Walker family stuck together over the decades, well into my own gran’s lifetime.

The Walker family story starts (I can't trace back further, yet!) with the 1831 marriage in Gedney, Lincolnshire of Joseph Walker and Mary Ann Wingell. They had nine children together to add to Mary's illegitimate son William Wingell, who was born about 1825. A very poor family, they received outdoor relief from Holbeach Union several times in the 1840s: when my own great x 3 grandfather John was born in 1841 the Union gave the family money as father Joseph had pleurisy (and was unable to work) and mother Mary was 'confined' after childbirth (and 'going on favourably'). On other occasions in 1841 Joseph was unable to work because one of his children had worms, another had a fractured arm and one had a remittent fever: on each occasion the Union stepped in.

The children were Sarah Ann (bp 1831 bur 1832); Mary Ann (bp 1833); Joseph (bp1835); Francis (bp1837); Lusher (bp & died 1839); Matilda (bp 1840); John (1841-1937); Thomas Wingell (bp1843); and Elizabeth Ann (bp1848).

Quite a brood for an agricultural labourer to clothe and feed, let alone educate and discipline. The loss of Sarah and Lusher must have been upsetting, but who knows how 19th century parents coped with the high child mortality rates: at least they had eight healthy (ish) children at home...

The 1841 census shows Joseph and Mary living in Gedney with William Wingell and their own Walker brood. My dad and visited Gedney on a blue-sky day and found a picturesque churchyard around a landmark tower. The picture was very different in 1851 and it has taken me years to trace them all.

Joseph Walker died from bronchitis on 21 December 1849 aged 46 years leaving his wife Mary with eight children.

In 1851 I find John Walker in Holbeach Union House with his 'imbecile' half-brother William; Matilda, Thomas and Elizabeth. Older brothers Joseph and Francis are still in Gedney, lodging with the Crowden family (perhaps their rent paid for by the Union?). Until today I had assumed that their mother had also died, leaving them all orphans and that is why they were in the Union House. But now I find a Mary A Walker, aged 50, widow and former lace maker, living in Gedney with an 18-year old of the same name, birthplace Gedney. No Mary Ann Walker was baptised in Gedney around 1833 other than the daughter of Joseph and Mary - my ancestors. So, it appears that poor Mary Walker was living out in the parish with her oldest daughter while her two elder sons were lodging elsewhere in the same village; and her four youngest children (the little one being just 3 years old) were with their adult, imbecile brother in the Union House.

John married Eliza Saunt in 1868 and I now we know that the witnesses - Richard Garner and Elizabeth Ann Walker - were his brother in law and sister in law. Richard Garner married Mary Ann Walker in October 1866, while Francis Walker married Elizabeth Ann Westmoreland two months later, both at All Saints in Holbeach. So, contact endured between John, Matilda, Mary Ann and Francis.

What of the others?

Poor William died in the Union House in 1881 and was buried at Gedney. Once we went in, he never came out.

The youngest, Elizabeth Ann, died in 1858 in her tenth year.


Mary Ann in later years lived with her brother Thomas in Holbeach and then in Whaplode. In 1891 Thomas and John had both given the address Roman Bank, Holbeach in the census - so they were neighbours. And of course, John's son was named after two of his brother: Francis and Thomas gave their names to Frank Thomas Walker (1869-1951).

In 1901 Matilda, Thomas and Mary Ann were all in Whaplode. John was in Pinchbeck and Frank in Holbeach; but Frank's brother Fred was in Whaplode...

That leaves Francis - who in 1866 was noted as a soldier when he married Elizabeth Ann Westmoreland. Nothing of either of them after 1868, as yet. And Joseph (bp1835)? He pops up in Loughborough, Leicestershire in 1870 when he married an Irish-born widow called Maria Barker and established a household with at least four of her Barker children (who were noted as Walker in the census). He was a gardener, but died in 1878. His widow was still in Loughborough in 1881 and two of her sons were noted in the census as Walker.

So for someone who thought they had no family, my gran was born into quite a clan in 1911 in Whaplode. She was raised by her grandfather Frank and his housekeeper 'Miss Annie' with her aunt Ada (just 9 years older) and other aunts and uncles including the small but feisty Royal. Next door was her great, great aunt Matilda. Half a mile away was Matilda's sister and brother Mary Ann and Thomas who died in 1919 and 1920 respectively. My gran’s grandfather, John Walker died in1937 and she visited weekly to pay a visit.

I wonder if any the old Walkers bounced my gran on their knee when she was a little girl. If so, I am only one person's touch away from a generation raised in almost unfathomable hardship that nevertheless survived - and seemingly thrived well into old age in the gusty Fens of Lincolnshire.

My Aunt May - Lenin's neighbour?

Living in London, I don't know my neighbours' names. In fact, given that there are five sets of neighbours (not counting opposite and behind) I probably wouldn't even recognise most of them if I passed them on the way back from the Tube. However, I'd like to think that in days of yore even Londoners were a little more acquainted with those living nearest to them, hence the potential link between Aunt May and V I Lenin.


Aunt May was my great grandfather's sister. She was born Marion Eleanor Bates in 1870 in the Norfolk village of Felthorpe, and moved to London after marrying a man from Kent called Charles Holder. Their first son, Percy, was born in Norwich in 1899; second son Albert was born in London in 1902; and daughter Florrie arrived in 1905. A daughter Emily was born in 1894 but died aged 3 years.

In 1911 the family is listed as living at 20 Holford Square, London. Charles is described as a bill poster, a worker 'outside', while "Marion" is noted as 'House Wife'. The three children are all attending school. Two other families shared the address: Frank Webb, a shop assistant, and his wife and toddler; and Harriet Grieves, aged 54 and noted as 'At Home' with her son Harry, a bath attendant, and a 22-year female boarder [given these three shared just two rooms, it must have been cosy].

I recall my Great Aunt Freda saying that her Aunt May had lost her Norfolk accent and sounded like a Cockney. Apparently, she dressed in a very old fashioned way (old fashioned to a woman born in 1909!) and her voluminous skirts would rustle as she walked along. In 1931 Aunt May attended Freda's wedding in Spalding with son Percy and daughter Florrie. More recently I was in contact with a long lost cousin who was Marion's granddaughter who told me that during WW2 her grandparents' house was destroyed in an air raid.

So I set about trying to trace Holford Square via Google. Pretty swiftly it became apparent that the area around Holford Square - just to the south east of Kings Cross - had been very badly hit during WW2 bombing raids. Holford Square was almost completely flattened during a raid in May 1941 and my Aunt May made homeless aged 70. There is plenty of online documentation (thanks to a marvellous website called LocalLocalHistory.co.uk) that describes how the area was rebuilt after the War, including a War Damage Map that pinpoints exactly where 20 Holford Square once stood and that its state was described as in 'total destruction' after the raid.

So what about Lenin?

Well, isn't Google a marvellous thing? Type in Holford Square and it is revealed as the former home of one rather well known Russian called Vladimir Lenin and his wife between 1902-1903. Sources suggest that their behaviour raised a few eyebrows: according to Sarah Young, lecturer at UCL Mr and Mrs Lenin disturbed their landlady, a Mrs Yeo, by 'hanging curtains on a Sunday'. A small misdemeanour given the upsets to follow.

Lenin and his wife lived at 30 Holford Square, while Aunt May - the same age as the Russian revolutionary - lived at number 20. Whether Aunt May was at that address in 1902-1903 is yet to be confirmed (Albert Holder's birth certificate would prove it), but the Holder family lived in the square for several decades until it was bombed in 1941.

Aunt May died in 1966 over in Hounslow, west London. She would have known about the Lenin link as a memorial was unveiled to honour him in the bombed out Holford Square in 1942. Pathe News recorded the auspicious occasion - the severity of the bomb damage is very much visible - watch it here.

Maybe it always pays to know your neighbours!

*My thanks to those individuals and organisations whose material is referenced here.

Edmund Bambridge - missing man

I recently subscribed to the fantastic online resource that is The British Newspaper Archive. It's very straightforward: search by name, event, date, locality or topic among old newspapers dating back centuries.

Firstly, I searched the Norfolk papers for mentions of my Bates and Dunnell ancestors. Not much there it seems, probably because they were law abiding folk!

Then I searched for Bambridge, one of the unusual names in my tree. And I found a very interesting article from 16 May 1795 edition of The Norfolk Chronicle.

"Absconded from his wife and family, Edmund Bambridge of the Parish of Stody, by trade a Bricklayer, about 45 years of age, five feet six or seven inches high, grey eyes, brown hair, bald upon the forehead, had on when he went away a blue coat and fustian jacket. Whoever will give information about the said E. Bambridge to the Overseers of the said Parish, shall be rewarded for their trouble. N.B. If he shall return he shall be received without punishment. Dated 13 May 1795, Stody"

A shiver went down my spine upon reading this for the first time. Edmund was my direct ancestor and when he went missing his wife would have had 5 or 6 small children at home, the others having already left home and got married.

I checked my family tree and confirmed that Edmund Bambridge was buried in Stody (see church below) in 1815 aged 65 years. So he must have returned at some point to his native village.

Thanks to the British Newspaper Archive I have an intriguing story about a direct ancestor. And I now know what he looked like, what he did for a living and that he suffered from male pattern baldness! It seems he was also loved, or at least that is what I summise from the comment about returning home without punishment.

A different world - Bolton in the 1950s

My mum grew up in Bolton in the 1950s. I find it strange to imagine those early post-war years with rationed food and very tight budgets.

My grandparents did well for themselves and left Bolton to move to Blackburn - seen as a move upwards then, I believe - to run a newspaper shop. Being shop managers was quite an achievement for two people born into poverty: Grandma in a back-to-back two-up, two-down in Bolton (demolished 1934 for being a slum) and Granddad from the toughest neighbourhood of Glasgow tenements.

These evocative black and white photographs  published today by the BBC of 1950s Bolton inspire a sense of wonder  in me: 60 years on we live in such a different world of technology and plenty, mechanisation and sanitation - would any of the people in the photos even recognise their home town?

An ancestor called Denzill?

My father's only paternal cousin is a lady called Denzyl, born in 1931. We have no idea how her parents came up with such an unusual name but she is universally known as Den.

Understandably, I thought Den would be the only Denzyl in the family tree! I was proved wrong (as so often happens in family tree hunting) when I discovered an ancestor in 17th century Lincolnshire noted in the registers of Horsington (near Woodhall Spa) as Denzill Turner. He is my great x9 grandfather.

Denzill appears to be part of a Turner family that has links with the village for several generations, including at least one more Denzill.

'My' Denzill's son James was baptised at Horsington in February 1688 - just months before The Glorious Revolution; see below for William of Orange landing at Brixham on 5 November 1688 - and it was his great, great granddaughter Mary Crowston (born Hall) who died in Whaplode in 1860, the village in which my father was baptised and his cousin Denzyl spent many of her childhood years.

Denzil apparently means 'fort' in Old English.

Long lost cousins - found at last

Further to my earlier post about finding my grandmother's maternal aunt Ada, I have now received images of Ada and her husband, Edward Holgarth. Ada (1886-1943) and Bertha were two of the five children of Squire Chadwick (1857-1915) and his common law wife Sophia Haywood, or Heywood (1852-1901). Their other children were Jane (born 1881); Squire, who died aged 9 in 1899; and Martha (1884-1926), whose will named Edward Holgarth as executor.

Ada(above) and her husband, Edward (below) - my great grandmother's older sister.

And here is my great grandmother Bertha Meehan (born Chadwick), 1893-1925, at work in the weaving shed with two pals (she is on the left).

Thanks again to Ancestry and GenesReunited for helping rejoin our family after 86 years!