The census suggests

Miss W. #52ancestors, Bryant , , , , ,

In Australia we rarely have any census records so Electoral Rolls are the best way to find out where a person lived at a certain time in their lives. Before finding out my grandfather was English, I didn’t get back to any census until about the 1850’s in England. And one of these records made me wonder…..

 

Here was my great great grandmother Caroline Bryant in the 1851 census age 12, living with her mother and three other siblings. A couple of unusual things I noticed about this record:

  • Her mother Charlotte is unmarried but has four children
  • Each child is born about five years apart
  • Her mother is a dressmaker

I know this is the correct family as I have DNA matches from descendants of Henry and Charles. Julia married but had no children so no descendants there.

So a few questions relating to this census:

  • Who is the father of the children?
  • Where is he in the census?
  • Why a child born every five years? Was the father a sailor or a crew member that returned every five years?
  • Why is Charlotte a dressmaker on the census but a cook when she arrives in Tasmania in 1856?

On the 1841 census, there is a Henry Weight -surgeon- at the bottom of the page before Charlotte and her children are on top of the next page. Could he be the father? The children on their marriage certificates say their father is Henry Bryant a surgeon.

Questions and more questions – will I ever know the answers?

 

Another favourite photo

Miss W. #52ancestors ,

This is one post I have written each time I have taken part in the #52ancestors challenge. I had to check out what was my favourite photo from previous years so I don’t choose one of those again this year.

My parents had a great friend called Jon Grey and he enjoyed photography. He took a couple of fantastic photos of my parents when they didn’t realise they were in his camera frame.  These photos are very reminiscent of how my parents were – thoughtful, loving the outdoors and together always.

Jon caught them at just the right moment to get these photos and then he sent them to dad and also to me.

 

Theory in progress

Miss W. General info, Smith, Somers ,
PIRO4D / Pixabay

 

This theory is a big DNA puzzle.

If you have followed my blog for a while, you will realise I had my dad do a DNA test to check if we had Samoan heritage. Unfortunately we don’t but among his DNA matches there were quite a few names I didn’t recognize. I have since sorted them out into his paternal side – all came from England and his maternal side – all names unknown but having links in Tasmania.

So looking at his mother’s links, I again grouped into paternal – sorted them out, but the maternal side is half cousins (generally come from the Smith side of the family who do have Samoan heritage) or unknown.

A common name among the trees in this unknown group which originate with his maternal grandmother is Thorp. When searching his matches there are 40 that come up with that surname in their trees. They are third cousins or further back. Now to confuse matters even more, we are unsure of the parentage of dad’s grandmother. Her father is supposed to be Thomas Somers and her mother Alice O’Keefe but this has not been proven yet.

So does the Thorp name connect somehow to the Somers/Summers/O’Keefe names?

There was a Thorp family arrive in the north west coast of Van Diemen’s Land (as Tasmania was first known back in the early 1800’s). I have built their tree out and added as an mirror tree on my tree – not linked yet.

It begins with a Thomas Thorpe born in Yorkshire in 1783, marrying and having 13 children born in Yorkshire, before he dies in Wisconsin after moving there to be with his eldest son and his family in the early 1830’s.

Thomas’ s fifth son Henry is the one who moved to Van Diemen’s Land (VDL) after marrying in 1840 in Yorkshire. Their first child was born in 1842 in VDL. The couple had nine children – seven sons and two daughters. My dad has DNA matches through 4 of those children.

I still need to develop this tree further into those families in Tasmania and hopefully find a link to Somers/Summers/O’Keefe – my great grandmother’s parents.