Journals of a Time Traveller

This is an AI restoration of a photograph of my great-great-grandmother, Sarah Ann Thacker (née Daynes), sitting with my great-great-grandfather, George Thacker. Sarah was born in 1849 at Besthorpe, Norfolk, close to where her ancestors had long resided in Carleton Rode and Bunwell.

The grandeur of this studio portrait is somewhat misleading. Since the time of her own great-great-grandmother in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the carriers of our H6a1a8 mtDNA matrilineage had suffered a marked decline in economic and social status. This decline was mirrored across my entire family tree between the 1770s and the 1870s. Parliamentary enclosure, the New Poor Laws, and the exploitation of the North American plains and Russian steppes squeezed these descendants of the medieval period. They were transformed from free tenants, yeomanry, and copyholders into the impoverished ranks of 19th-century agricultural labourers. In the process, they lost their ancient ties to the land and were forced to avoid the workhouse by selling their labour to the few who retained ownership.

These were harsh times, and they were not always accepted passively. Some of my non-mtDNA ancestors were involved in the 1830 Swing Riots. Others ended up in Union workhouses or prisons, while many emigrated to northern cities (frequently Hull), moved to London, or headed abroad. The story of my East Anglian ancestry, including my mtDNA matrilineage, is one of resilience and fortitude. We are descended from the small minority who stayed put.

This is an AI restoration of a photograph of my great-great-grandmother in her later years. I imagine the cottage behind her was at Green Lane Farm, Rackheath, Norfolk.

Impoverishment had stimulated movement. Sarah married George Thacker, who lived in Rackheath—a rural Norfolk parish on the opposite side of Norwich—and moved there to join him. For many years, they lived at Green Lane, where they raised no fewer than ten children between 1871 and 1893.

A somewhat cruel story is attached to Sarah’s memory. Family folklore suggests she was a strict disciplinarian. It is said that when she had to leave the children unattended, she would tie them to chairs with strands of cotton. Upon her return, if the threads were broken, she would physically punish them. "Granny Thacker by name, thacker [to hit] by nature," goes the family saying.

She passed her mtDNA down to my great-grandmother, born in 1878 and named Drusilla Caroline Thacker.

This is another AI restoration; from my own memory, I remember that face well. This is Caroline (who preferred it to Drusilla)—Caroline Tammas-Tovell by nature. I have had Gemini place her in front of Southwood Hall Farm, Southwood, Norfolk, because once again the matrilineage moves across the county—this time to the loamy soils of East Norfolk. There, she married into a rural, working-class family whose roots had been established on the edge of the Halvergate Marshes and along the River Yare for several centuries.

As I mentioned, I knew my great-grandmother before she passed away in 1971. I would meet her at my grandmother’s house; as a child, I was in awe of the fact that she had grown up in the age of Queen Victoria. It felt like an early taste of time travel. She would pay me a pre-decimal sixpence to kiss her. Strangely, I can still recall her voice.

My own mother grew up in the Southwood and Hassingham area of East Norfolk, where, in time, she met my father, who hailed from East Dereham in Mid Norfolk. This brings me to the end of my "Ovum tales" of mitochondrial ancestry: from Helena in the Levant, 25,000 years ago, to Norwich, Norfolk, sixty years ago—and onward through the younger generations. The "Selfish Gene" continues its long story.

It is now 26 December 1661, the date of the baptism of my eight-times great-grandmother, Anne Carter, at All Saints, Carleton Rode, Norfolk. Although the images in this post are AI-generated, the records themselves are authentic. With this entry, our mitochondrial DNA H6a1a8 trail officially enters my recorded genealogy.

As can be deciphered in the Carleton Rode baptism register shown above, her father was named Richard Carter. In keeping with the social conventions of the time, the family was not regarded as prominent enough for the cleric to record the name of her mother.

Anne (or Ann) Carter married Robert Smith of Carleton Rode, Norfolk, on 26 May 1683. The ceremony did not take place at their local parish church; instead, they obtained a licence and travelled 15 miles to be married at St Stephen’s in the city of Norwich.

The use of a marriage licence and the journey to a prestigious city church suggest a "middling sort" status. Her family likely possessed the financial means and social literacy required to navigate legal systems beyond the village level. Despite the rise of religious Dissent in the area, Anne's consistent presence in the parish registers suggests Conformist Anglicanism. She probably valued the legal and social security provided by Church of England registration. Consequently, it is highly likely that Robert and Anne Smith (née Carter) belonged to the 17th-century yeomanry, consisting of freeholders or prosperous tenant farmers.

The couple raised five daughters in Carleton Rode: Climence (1684), Anne (1686), Dorothy (1690), Thomazin (1692), and Elizabeth (1695). As there are no surviving records of sons, it appears the Smith household was predominantly female.

Anne lived in the shadow of England’s second-greatest city. While she remained in a rural setting, her economic life was tethered to the global success of Norwich’s worsted weaving industry. She witnessed the transition of these villages from isolated hamlets into productive spokes of an early industrial wheel.

Born shortly after the Restoration of the Monarchy (1660) and dying just before the Union of Great Britain (1707), her life spanned the period known as the "Great Stabilisation". Following the upheaval of the Civil War—which her father survived—her era was defined by the rebuilding of traditional structures, such as the Church of England and the local parish vestry.

Anne’s physical world was significantly colder than our own. She lived through the Maunder Minimum, a period of exceptionally harsh winters and erratic harvests. This environmental stress made the "heavy lands"—the dense clay soils of South Norfolk—particularly difficult to farm and navigate. Such conditions likely contributed to the health challenges that led to her death at the age of 44.

Her daughter, Anne Smith, was baptized on 10 March 1687 at All Saints, Carleton Rode, Norfolk. As my 7th great-grandmother, she carried the mtDNA haplogroup H6a1a8, marking a vital link in the maternal line from antiquity to the written record. At age 19, she married John Brighting (also recorded as Briting) on 12 December 1705 at Carleton Rode.

​Yet, before she was laid to rest, the ancestral chain remained unbroken. She passed our mtDNA H6a1a8 to her daughter, Susanna Briting (baptized at Carleton Rode in 1722), ensuring the 'Helena' lineage survived the hardships of 18th-century Norfolk to reach the present day.

John Brooker of Long Wittenham, born circa 1720 in Berkshire area? My 6 x great granddaddy. Gemini AI visualised this image based on my own features and on his recorded life.

Why so much hyper-focus on my Y chromosome just recently?  I guess because I have made a few breakthroughs on other lines of the family tree. I had a long conversation with AI about my paternal line and we came to agreement that I had made an error. That had to be put right. After removing those errors, this is where I got back to on my direct paternal line (aka surname line):

1. My 6x great grandfather was named John Brooker.
2. My 6x great grandmother was named Mary Gardiner. She was born in 1717 at Hagbourne, Berkshire.
3. This couple married 1st November 1746 at Oxford College, Oxfordshire. They were both described as residing at Long Wittenham, Berkshire. I have discovered that the reason that they were married at Oxford College was that their parish had been allocated to a vicar living in Oxford College. It was cheaper for them to be married at Oxford, than to call the vicar back to their parish.
4. Following marriage, John and Mary Brooker proceeded to have at least six children born at Long Wittenham - Mary, Anne, John, Edward, Martha, and a Sarah Brooker. John was a copyhold tenant of St John's College, Oxford, who were one of the two main land holders at Long Wittenham. As a copyholder, John would have cultivated a number of strips in the open-field systems still being used at Long Wittenham. He wasn't a pauper, but neither was he likely to be particularly wealthy.
5. Before 1746, I have baptism and ancestry for his wife Mary nee Gardiner, but for John, it's the Great Genealogical Dead End.

What were these errors that I deleted for 6 x great grandad John?  I had found numerous John Brookers baptised circa 1720 in the local area. After much deliberation, I settled for the closest village to Long Wittenham, the parish from which his bride had also moved from, I chose a John Brooker baptised at East Hagbourne. But in my heart I knew that there were issues with this choice. For one thing, a lack of correlation in the names of children. Then I became convinced that the John Brooker of Hagbourne, had lived a separate existence from the John Brooker of Long Wittenham. Genealogical crisis!

I immediately recovered from the shock, and started anew with fresh 2026 research. After all, I started out on this quest in 1989, and things have moved on a tad since then. Not only with digitalised, indexed, and online genealogy, but also with genetic genealogy. This is where I shall take this discussion next.

Around 12 years ago, I tested my y-DNA - the DNA that is contained in my Y Chromosome. This can only be passed from biological father to son. Trace it back, and it follows the direct paternal line, all the way back to Y-DNA Adam in Africa. You can use its variants (aka mutations) to tell a story of that one narrow line of descent, way back into prehistory. It does not ALWAYS follow the surname line perfectly, because of illegitimacy as it was previously known, adoption, affairs, and more. People sometimes change name to escape from their past. In the long term, the y-DNA surpasses the origination and adoption of surnames as they occurred during the Medieval.

I've discussed to death the route this genetic evidence tells me that my paternal ancestors must have taken in the past, and will continue to do so:

1. 28,000 years ago Ice Age hunters of ibex and mouflon in the Zagros mountains of South-West Asia.
2. 11,000  years ago, hunter-foragers still in the Zagros, or in the Caucasus mountains, who were selectively hunting wild herds, and milling gathered wild seeds in ways that would eventually evolve into the earliest agriculture.
3. 8,000 years ago my paternal ancestors were aceramic neolithic farmers, herding goats, and sheep. Keeping pigs. Growing emmer and einkorn wheat, barley and more. They may have remained in the area of the Zagros, on its foothills where they founded the ancestry of the Hurrians and Kassites. Or perhaps they had moved immediately southwest, onto the floodplains of early Sumer (Iraq) where they would give birth to a great civilisation?
4. 4,000 years ago. They would have been in contact with great cities in Mesopotamia, Assyria, Babylonia, the Indus Valley, the Levant.
5. 3,000 years ago. Perhaps swept westwards to the Levant by the fall of the Mitanni, and the dispersals of the Hurrians.
6. 600 years ago. Maybe a Genoese or Venetian galley docked at Beirut, Acre, Jaffa or Tripoli and took on my paternal ancestor as crew. My yDNA finally leaves Asia, and heads for Europe.
7. 600 years ago. A galley docks at Southampton in England, where Genoese and Venetian merchants have a permanent presence, interested in English wool. My last Asian ancestor leaves a son in England.
8. 400 years ago. Our line has taken the surname Brooker, or is it Chandler? Perhaps a child is born outside of wedlock. He takes his mother's surname. The yDNA is consequently divided among two families in the area of Basingstoke, Kingsclere, Sherfield Upon Loddon, and Newbury across the Hampshire/Berkshire border. Chandlers and Brookers.
9. 280 years ago. My 6x great grandfather, John Brooker lives in Long Wittenham, Berkshire.

The above is a hypothesis based on those variants on my Y DNA, along with the fact that it survives only in Europe, among two small families who were living only 32 miles apart during the 18th century. Thomas Chandler of Basingstoke, and John Brooker of Long Wittenham. Comparing the DNA, there is a 78% probability that the two families shared the same great grandfather line until circa 1600. Our type of DNA (L-FGC51036) is not found anywhere else in Europe. Our closest Y-DNA cousins are from Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Further back in the variants we have Y-Cousins from Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, India, in the Druze ethnicity, in the Parsi ethnicity.

Getting back to the documented record. Our John Brooker. Where did he come from? The DNA does keep pointing south in Berkshire, and to the Hampshire border. A meeting with the Chandlers of Basingstoke. I investigate all of the 'John Brookers' baptised circa 1720 to the south. There can't be many can there? Wrong. I found at least 9 candidates in that part of Berkshire. I have eliminated several from the search, but Berkshire genealogical records are not the best online! I'm usually limited to indexes of transcripts. Transcripts are often wrong. More dead ends.

So I turned to trying to trace back from the Chandlers of Basingstoke hoping that might put me on to the right track for the early Brooker family. I keep hitting more dead ends.

However, here is the thing. Parishes like Chieveley, Newbury, Kingcslere, Sherbourne St John, Sherfield Upon Loddon. I often see entries for baptisms, marriages, and burials for both 'Chandler' and 'Brooker' families. In same villages, registers, sometimes even same pages!

I can smell consilience. Documented trail, and Genetic trail. So close.

Postwick All Saints.

I had to recently confess to another researcher, that I had made an association, between two generations, based only on circumstancial evidence.  I had the below image, a marriage between two of my 4th great grandparents at Postwick All Saints in 1825:

William Rose, singleman, groom, of Bradeston, with Elizabeth Wilkinson singlewoman, of Postwick.  Bradeston was a parish nearby, between Brundall, Blofield, and Lingwood.  Today, it only consists as a hall farm, and as a church, the church of St Michael's and All Angels:

But as for Elizabeth Wilkinson's origins, I couldn't find her baptism online.  However, between Ancestry.co.uk, Findmypast.co.uk and FreeReg.org.uk, I did discover that there was a Sarah Wilkinson living in Postwick, that had four daughters baptised there (illegitimate) between 1806 and 1816.  Census records suggested that Elizabeth would have been born at Postwick, around 1803.  I hadn't seen a lot of Wilkinsons in the area, so I dared to make the assumption, that she was an earlier daughter of Sarah Wilkinson.  Naughty I know, but I just felt it so likely.

But then when challenged for the source, I felt that embarrasment of taking a short cut.  The problem with Online Genealogy is that it's easy to assume that all records are there.  They are not, not even for Norfolk, that has a good online presence in parish records and transcripts.  So it was time to get off the computer, and take a look.  I did this yesterday.

First two stops were at Postwick and Bradeston churches, to take the photographs for this post, and to get the feeling for them.  I was pleased that the marriage recorded that William Rose was of Bradeston, because my William Rose was of Brundall.  It's only a half of a mile from Bradeston, indeed, it has been absorbed as a deserted parish, into Brundall.  It supported that I had the correct William & Elizabeth Rose, the recorded parents of my 3rd great grandfather Robert Rose, who was baptised at Lingwood in 1829.

Then I drove a few miles to the Norfolk County Archive at County Hall.  I soon located the correct microfilm.  It covered baptisms leading up to 1813.  Perfect.  Within five minutes, I located the baptism of my 4th great grandmother at Postwick: " Elizabeth, daughter of Sarah Wilkinson, was born & bapt' February 19th 1803 ":

There she was, and I was correct, she was an earlier daughter of Sarah Wilkinson.  Not only that, but further along the roll revealed another two daughters of Sarah.  In all, she had six daughters born at Postwick, between 1803 and 1816, all illegitimately.  I've seen a single parent family like this before, but on my father's side in Swanton Morley, Mid Norfolk.  The full story we will probably never know, and it would be wrong to judge.  Very often poor young women suffered from terrible brutality.  Sometimes, this may have matured into a level of independence.  She may have even had partners, or a long term lover.  We don't know.  Illegitimacy was far from rare in 19th Century Norfolk amongst the rural poor.  But when you see a family like this, you do wonder, at the hardship that the family most likely went through.

On my Ancestry tree, the family now look like this:

Yes, it appears that the mother, Sarah Wilkinson herself was born nearby at Great Plumstead, illegitimate.

While I was looking through the roll of microfilm for Postwick Parish Registers, I spotted more names from my tree.  Children being baptised of a William Key and his wife Sarah (née Wymer).  William and Sarah Key were again, 4th great grandparents of mine.  Actually, I descend from both the earlier mentioned Rose's, and the Wymers twice over - but further back on their lines.  A lot of people in early 19th Century Norfolk were distant or even close cousins.  I'm afraid that it was true, at least for the rural poor.  I'm descended on my mother's side from a Henry & Mary Rose (née Gorll), and a Jacob & Elizabeth Wymer (née Moll), both couples at least twice over.  Pedigree folding appears on that side of my tree, in the record.

Looking through the microfilm in the Archive Centre, I recorded three previously unknown children of William and Sarah Key (née Wymer) baptised at Postwick All Saints.  I hadn't encountered them online.  They were all later births than those that I had previously found online.  This lead me to a sad thought.  You see, William Key, my 4th great grandfather, took his own life when some of those children were still quite young:

I mentioned his story in an earlier post.  His body was fished out of the River Wensum in 1803.  The inquest gave a verdict of insanity and suicide.  On the way home, I wondered about what happened to those younger children.  My 3rd great grandfather, William Key (II) was in his mid twenties, and on his second marriage, after his first wife passed away.  But what about his younger siblings, such as Abraham Key - born in 1779, he would have been only six years old when his father drowned.

When I got home, I took a look.  This is where Online Genealogy does work - because not only had Abraham survived, but he had moved away from Norfolk, as so many of the rural poor did during the 19th century.  He married Ann Goldsmith from Hassingham, and they moved south, to 19th century Southwark, London:

He survived and went on to have sons in London.

But briefly back to Postwick (pronounced locally as Pozzick) for a moment:

I love baptism fonts.  You can touch them, and now that your ancestors passed by them, centuries ago.  Perfect touchstones for time travellers.    My 4th great grandfather, William Key, was baptised here on 27th Aug 1778.  My 4th great grandmother, Elizabeth Wilkinson, was baptised here on 19th February 1803.  I photographed it, and touched the stone in thought of them, on 15th February 2019.

Above, Samuel William "Fiddler" Curtis, born in 1852 at Hassingham, Norfolk, the grandson of William Curtis (senior).

My 5th great grandparents, John Curtis, and Ann Annison, were married at Hassingham, Norfolk in 1801.  I have so far been unable to trace where either of this couple originated, or their parents, but there were already Curtis and Annison families in that part of Norfolk prior, and I currently have no reason to think that they had moved into the area from elsewhere.  I just lack their baptism records.  Maybe one day I'll find them.

Hassingham in it's landscape in 1797.

Over the following eleven years, Ann Curtis (née Annison) had five children baptised at the Hassingham parish church of St Mary's, including a John, Richard, Theodosia, William, and finally in 1812, a Priscilla Curtis.

St Mary's of Hassingham.

William Curtis (I)

Their third son, William Curtis, was born at Hassingham during the winter of 1807/1808, and baptised in February at St Mary's.   His father, John may have rented a tract of land, to farm himself, or he may have relied on selling his labour to other farmers.  He may have done both.  The rural poor had lost all of their ancient rights, with the enclosures, but they were free to sell their labour and skills to whoever.  However, as the Agricultural Revolution gained pace - so the market for their labour was reducing, with the gradual introduction of new machinery and agricultural processes.

In 1827, William Curtis married my 4th great grandmother, Mary Ann Rose, at nearby Strumpshaw.  They were both marked down as of being of that parish, both were single, both were illiterate.  An interesting twist for myself looking at that marriage register, is that their witnesses were Mary Ann's sister, Rebecca Rose, and her fiancé, John Shorten.  I only posted about their life a week ago "From Norfolk Labourer to Yankee Gunner".  That couple were to marry in the next entry of that Strumpshaw Marriage Register, in November.  They ended up as farmers in Illinois, USA, with five of their sons serving in the Unionist Army in the American Civil War.  I keep seeing this theme in my Family History.  My direct ancestors were the ones that usually stayed - often never moving far from their village of birth.  But many of their siblings didn't stay.  I'll come back to this theme later in this post.

Between 1828, and 1850, the couple were to have a total of at least eight children, all baptised at nearby Buckenham church: Anne Amelia Curtis (1828), my 3rd great grandfather, William Curtis (the junior, 1830), Henry Curtis (1833), Alfred Curtis (1836), George Curtis (1838), Priscilla Curtis (1841), Sarah Curtis (1848), and Henry Curtis (1849).  A lot of mouths to feed.  How was William supporting these children?  If I look at the 1841 census, I find the family, as it was then, located at Buckenham (Ferry), Norfolk.  William was a 34 year old agricultural labourer.  These had been hard times for agricultural labourers in Norfolk.  Machinery and new agricultural techniques continued to replace much of the traditional labour.  Workhouses had been constructed - and Poor Laws were halting any provision of parish relief for the poor, outside of the workhouse - where inmates would be segrated from their families, and punished for being poor.  The small farmers, once the brothers of the free labourers, were increasingly associating more with other figures of the rural establishment - the squires, the land owners, and the parsons.  They often sat on the poor law union boards, determined to punish the poor.  The Established Church just watched on - and the rural poor were turning to Methodism, and other Non-conformist chapels.

In 1830, the countryside erupted in violence - as labourers swarmed the countryside, attacking workhouses, farms, and in particular, the new threshing machines that were replacing much of their labour.  They often did this under the name of a mythical Captain Swing, and hence this period of machine breaking and rioting was known as the Swing Riots.  Another of my ancestors, on my father's side, was gaoled for leading a local Swing riot, at Attleborough.  It was a period in which many local establishment figures were seriously concerned - the fear of Revolution was still in the air from France - indeed, French spies were often conjured up as being at the root of the problem - rather than their treatment of the rural poor.

It passed.  But things did not improve for the East Anglian rural working class.

In the 1851 census, William, his wife Mary Ann, and their eldest children, were all recorded iin Buckenham as being agricultural labourers.  Only there was now a ninth child.  Richard Curtis.  But he wasn't born at Buckenham Ferry, nor even in the County of Norfolk.  He was born in 1850 at Firsby, Lincolnshire.  This may infer that the family (if not just Mary Ann), had between 1841, and 1851, moved for a a period, to the Skegness area of East Lincolnshire.  People were on the move.  The rural poor were being squeezed out of East Anglia by the unemployment, poverty, and the workhouse.  Perhaps William found more profitable labour in Lincolnshire for a while.  Perhaps his skills with horses, or perhaps - like others he was attracted by the Fen drainage schemes, working as a digger - maybe like other that I've seen - it was work laying the railways?  Firsby railway station opened for business in 1848.  The railways were a part of a phenomena of migration that occurred across Norfolk during the Mid to Late 19th Century - they brought work, often attracted labourers away - and eventually carried many Norfolk families away to the Industrial North, to London, or to sea ports for migration elsewhere.

But by the 1851 census - they were back in their ancestral lands - back in Buckenham, Norfolk, by the River Yare, as though nothing had happened - except for that place of birth for young Richard.

Move on another ten years - the family are not in Buckenham in 1861.  I cannot find William at all.  However, I do find his wife Mary Ann Curtis, with some of their children, living in the Rows at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.  Mary Ann records her occupation as charwoman - a woman that worked hard, washing clothes and linen for a living.  Their daughter Priscilla Curtis, is recorded as a silk weaver:

I wonder where was William?  He could be at sea, or working away, sending money home.  Too old for the military.  I can't find anything on him in Criminal Records.  What I do find, in the British Newspaper archives, are some references to a cork cutter by the name of William Curtis, living in Great Yarmouth, dating to 1858 and 1864:

Was this our William Curtis (senior)?  Above he was working on Charlotte Street (since renamed Howard Street), Great Yarmouth.  In 1864, he was addressed to the Church Plain, Great Yarmouth.  If it was our William, perhaps he was living with Mary Ann and the children - but was away on business, or perhaps some other work (fishing?), on the night of the census.

William and Mary Ann Curtis, age 61 and 62 years of age, appear to have settled in the Yarmouth and Gorleston area.  On the 1871, William and Mary Ann Curtis were addressed on "the footpath to Burgh".  William recorded his occupation as a marsh man.  Marshmen were responsible for the livestock kept on the marshes - horses, cattle, and sometimes sheep, fattening on the rich drained marsh grasses.  He would have tended to cattle and other livestock along the southern edge of Breydon Water - an enclosed sea estuary, with the ruins of an old Roman shore-fort called Burgh Castle, on the higher ground immediately above the marshes.  I posted an article of Burgh Castle here.

The view over the marshes from Burgh Castle.

Another ten years later, William Curtis (the senior), and his wife Mary, are now living in Litchfield Place, Southtown, Gorleston.  Age 72, he now lists his occupation, for the very last time, as a Steam Engine Driver.  Now that was a surprise.

William passed away in Gorleston, in March 1888.  He was eighty years old.

William Curtis (II)

I mentioned above, that my 3rd great grandfather, William Curtis (the junior), was born at Buckenham, and baptised at Strumpshaw, Norfolk, in 1830.

William Curtis married Georgianna Larke, at Hassingham Church (photo further above) on the 11th February 1852.  They appear to have lived in the village of Hassingham, Norfolk for several decades.  No evidence this time of flits to Lincolnshire, or down river to Yarmouth.  This generation stayed put.  Georgianna was descended from two parish clerks for nearby Cantley.

Georgianna gave birth to at least nine children at Hassingham: my 2nd great grandfather (pictured at the top of this post) Samuel William Curtis (1852), Theodosia Curtis (1854), Priscilla Curtis (1856), Alfred George Curtis (1858), Sarah Ann Curtis (1861), Mary Curtis (1863), Walter Curtis (1865), Eliza Curtis (1867), and finally, Henry Curtis (1870).

Nothing unusual in their 1861 census record - Will was a 30 year old agricultural labourer with his family living in the parish of Hassingham:

Ten years later in 1871 - living at Hospital Cottages in Hassingham, still all as would be expected:

Another ten years later, William, Georgianna, and their sons and daughters Walter, Eliza, and Henry Curtis, are living on Church Road.  No change, William is an agricultural labourer.  Nothing on record happens to this family.  They are the stereotype of the Norfolk rural working class family.  William's 72 year old father was by now a steam engine driver living at Gorleston.

Move on to 1891.  Not a lot of change.  Except that they are living on Hassingham Road (High) and only their daughter Mary remains with them in the household.  Mary is recorded as an assistant teacher.

1893.  I have a record from the British Newspaper Records that looks like our William Curtis (II).  A farmer named John Draper at Burlingham St Edmund, accuses him in court of cheating him of a toll fee.  He had accused William - described as a teamman (a person that has skills at working a team of horses), of fraud.  Draper suggested that he paid Curtis to take two wagons and several horses to Yarmouth via the new toll road - but that he in reality took them via the old roads and pocketed the toll fee that he had been given.  The only witness backed up Will's account - and the case was dismissed:

However, I suspect that William's reputation was tarnished by this case - and there were few employer farmers in the area.  He survived this.  Maybe his personality and reputation was strong enough for other farmers to trust him.  In 1901, he was living at Broad Farm, Hassingham.  Yes, he was now a 70 year old agricultural worker.

He still had labour to sell.  His beloved wife Georgianna died at Hassingham on the 1st April 1911 age 79.  A few months later, the 1911 census record's Williams status.  Age 80, he is still recorded as a working, employed, agricultural labourer.  Now a widower, he had two of his daughters living with him.  Mary who was single and age 45 (a teacher?), and Sarah, now under a married name - Sarah Stephenson.  She had moved many miles away - but as we will see in the next generation with her sister Theodosia, not everything had gone well.  In the wake of her mother's death, she was back home with her elderly father William.

William continued on.  The Curtis's keep doing this - they had longetivity for a number of generations.  He died at nearby Lingwood, age 96 in 1926.  A grandson, J.P. Curtis, registered his death.  Cause, senility and haematemesis. 

Theodosia and Sarah Ann Curtis - sisters.

As I noted above, two of William (II) and Georgianna's daughters, were named Theodosia Curtis (born 1854), and Sarah Ann Curtis (born 1861) at Hassingham, Norfolk.  They had an elder brother named Samuel William Curtis - pictured right at the beginning of this post.  He was my 2nd great grandfather.  This makes Theodosia and Sarah Ann - my 3rd great aunts.

Theodosia met a fisherman at Yarmouth.  Maybe she was visiting on a market day.  The boys working in the fishing fleet must have been exciting - they risked their life's out at sea, they didn't just work the land - they would sail out.  His name was John Mitchell.  In 1874, Theodosia married John.

They had a son:

He was baptised at Yarmouth in November 1877.  It appears that like many Yarmouth fisherman wifes, Theodosia lived in the Yarmouth Rows.  Her grandmother Mary Curtis, had lived there no more than ten years earlier - and with her grandfather, now lived nearby in Gorleston.

Something happened.  You get that sometimes in genealogy.  a family appears smashed up, removed from records.  I'm going to make a guess.  A lot of fishermen were relocating from East Coast harbours like Great Yarmouth, to Kingston Upon Hull, Yorkshire.  My guess is that they moved there as a family between Nov 1877 and 1889.  I don't know what happened to their child.  He disappears.  But so does his father, John Mitchell.  He dies.  I can't find them on either the 1871 or 1881 censuses.  In future, Theodosia, now living in Hull, Yorkshire, declares herself as a widow.  Pushed to guess, I'm going to say that John was lost at sea.  It was a hazardous living then.

On the 1st March 1890 at Hull, Yorkshire, the widow Theodosia Mitchell, married a James Petersen, son of a Christiansen Petersen, an officer.  I'm going to guess that these Scandinavian names may be Norwegian.  James Petersen, like her late husband, is recorded as a fisherman.  I have one record of him - that marriage to Theodosia - then he also disappears.

But .. before I continue on Theodosia, let me move back in time to Hassingham in Norfolk, and to her little sister Sarah Ann Curtis.  

In 1881, 20 year old Sarah, was working as a servant in a Yarmouth household.  Was she still in contact with Theodosia - I think so.  

Like her sister, she moved up to Kingston Upon Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

The Great Unwritten Migration from Norfolk to Sculcoates, Hull, Yorkshire.

Okay, maybe a slight exaggeration - but I keep seeing Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire - particularly it's district of Sculcoates, in my Family Tree - as a place that a number of siblings of my direct Norfolk ancestors, moved to.  Both on my mother's, and my father's side.  I feel that this is a history that someone needs to write.  It seems that the establishing of the railways, with stations both in Norfolk, and in Kingston Upon Hull in Yorkshire, facilitated a migration event that is unwritten.  The squeeze was being put onto the Norfolk poor.  Hull offered higher wages, expanding fishing and ship building industries, and a higher living standard.  The word spread through the Norfolk countryside.  It can't just be my family!

Back to Sarah.  In late 1890, Sarah Ann Curtis married Albert Edward Stephenson at Sculcoates, East Riding of Yorkshire.  Somehow she had also ended up in Hull - and my best guess is her closeness to her sister Theodosia.  Her groom was, again, a Hull fisherman.  Perhaps he knew Theodosia?

During the 1891 England & Wales national census, I find this:

The two sisters from Hassingham, Norfolk were living next door to each other in Hull.  That brings them together.  Things didn't go well though for Sarah.  Her husband had some severe financial problems.  Perhaps gambling?  He ends up in Wakefield Prison in Yorkshire, guilty of debt, no less than three times between 1896 and 1907:

No wonder perhaps, that Sarah was keen to be with her father in 1911.

Back to Theodosia.  Her second husband, the fisherman, James Petersen, also just vanishes from record.  Abandonment, lost at sea, I don't know, but for the second time, she starts declaring that she is a widow.

In 1896, the widow Theodosia Petersen (née Mitchell, née Curtis), married a George Theakston at Sculcoates, Yorkshire.  George wasn't a fisherman.  He was a carter and van driver.  Perhaps that saved his life - for he was Theodosia's third and final spouse.  In the 1901 Census, they were living at 60 frances Street, West Sculcoates, Hull, Yorkshire.  They had a daughter called Evelyn:

Theodosia Theakston survived long enough to be recorded onto the 1939 Register at the oset of WW II:

She finally passed away at Hull in 1942, age 87.

My great great grandfather, William Bennett Baxter.  Born 8th January 1846 at Gressenhall Union Workhouse, Norfolk.

I'm creating this post in order to try to make sense of a family history that has a confusing, sometimes conflicting series of evidences.  I'll start with the order of discovery.

I learned nearly 30 years ago, that my paternal grandfather's maternal grandfather was named William Bennett Baxter.  He was named as such on my great grandparent's marriage certificate.  I met aunts that remembered a few accounts of him.  My grandmother had the above photo of him.  My late grandfather, Reginald Brooker, had been raised by his grandparent's, the Baxters, in the wake of his parent's marital breakdown.

The next step in discovery, was when I bought copies of his marriage and birth certificates from the GRO in London.  They told me that he was the illegitimate son of an Eliza Baxter, born in 1846 in the workhouse at Gressenhall, Norfolk.  I've made many visits to Gressenhall Rural-Life Museum since then - set in the old buildings of that workhouse.  Eliza would have been punished for being a single mother in need of relief.  She would have been marked out, made to wear a yellow jacket of shame.  His marriage register record at Swanton Morley, Norfolk, also suggested that his father was a labourer, named William Bennett.  I know that on marriages, illegitimate born people often claimed an imagined or faked father, to avoid what was then, a shameful thing.  But his full name would support that his biological father was indeed, named William Bennett.  It might be a coincidence, but there was a young miller in the area at the time named William Bennett.  It's just difficult to prove - although perhaps one day, another DNA match?

I couldn't find any references to 3rd great grandmother Eliza Baxter - for many years.  I eventually lost interest in genealogy.  When I returned to it, three years ago, Internet Online Genealogy, and even Genetic Genealogy had emerged.  Indeed, I'm looking into this now, because I have a DNA Match in South Africa, that I suspect, relates to myself with shared ancestry somewhere around the Baxter Line.  I'm writing this partly for her.

Online Genealogy has allowed me to greatly extend my family tree, and often, to fill it with actual stories - which as some of my recent posts suggest - I love to do.

More Recent Discoveries - the Censuses 1861/1851

I found his mother, I believe that I found Eliza Baxter.  I thought maybe she died soon after 1846 - the poverty, or perhaps married someone, took a new name - left her son behind.  I was wrong.  At least I think that I was.  How did I miss her?  In 1861, she was still in Swanton Morley:

Eliza Baxter, an unmarried servant in a household headed by a Robert Hudson.  Wait a minute, below her are a William Baxter age 15 years of age (born circa 1846 - that HAS TO BE our William Bennett Baxter), and he has a little sister, a Faith Baxter age 12 years.  My great grandmother - William's daughter, was born later in 1885 as Faith Eliza Baxter.  She was named after her aunt here, and her grandmother.  Although Eliza is an unmarried servant, quite clearly, they are her children.  Surprised that Robert Hudson is okay with that.  wait a minute, William and Faith are recorded in the census as grandchildren of the householder, Robert Hudson.  Ah, so they are family.  Eliza isn't just a servant there.  William - as I explained above, might have had a biological father named William Bennett.  But here, William is recorded as a grandson of Robert Hudson.  Which son of Robert, is claiming to be the father of William and Faith Baxter?  The only contender in the household there in 1861 is Robert's son, John Hudson.  A 42  year old labourer.  Even if he wasn't the biological father of William - it looks as though he may have had a relationship with Eliza, he may even have been the biological father of Faith, but the record in the census keeps it all respectable.  It says Eliza is an unmarried servant.

But turn the page of that 1861 census - and there are more grandchildren of Robert Hudson in that household:

Two granddaughters born at Swanton Morley of John Hudson called Faith in the same house?  One Faith Baxter born circa 1849, the other Faith Hudson born circa 1855?  Confusion.

You'll see these people appear to keep changing surname, age, and place of birth.  In genealogy, that normally suggests that you are tracing more than one individual - making genealogical mistakes.  But you'll see, there is a common thread uniting these people, suggesting contradictory evidence.

In that 1861 census, Eliza is recorded as being born at Runhall around 1823.  However, who was talking to the census enumerator?  Our Eliza was born in 1820 at East Dereham.  Not an awful distance from Runhall - but the first contradiction.  As for William - he is perfect, and the name of his sister fits the family history perfectly.

Let's go back in the census.  I appear to find the family 10 years earlier, but with contradictions.  Let's go to the 1851 census.

This HAS to be them ten years earlier.  A John & Elizabeth Hudson, with children William and Faith Hudson.  The entry is actually outside of Norfolk, over in the Fens at Ramsey, Cambridgeshire.  John is recorded as working as an excavator, without much doubt - working on a Fen drainage system.  Hang on - here he claims Leicester as being his place of birth!  Is this the same John Hudson as in 1861 - because he recorded Swanton Morley as his place of birth, where he then lived with his father.  Elizabeth (Eliza?) claims Hardington, Norfolk as her place of birth, and that she was born circa 1822.  I don't believe that there is a Hardington in Norfolk.  You might think that this is the wrong family.  But, William "Hudson" was born around 1846 at Swanton Morley, Norfolk.  Perfect for our William Bennett Baxter - Faith fits perfect as well born circa 1849 for Faith Baxter rather than the six year old Faith Hudson in the 1861 census. I have no idea where her claimed birthplace of Grassland, Norfolk is.  How could there be another family with so many correlations in 1851 that matches in our family in 1861?

I at this point, should state a doppelganger couple.  There was a contemporary John & Eliza Hudson at Necton in Norfolk.  But the bride was named Eliza Ollett, and no children called William or certainly Faith.  I'm aware of their existence.

When I think it over, I'm reasonably happy that this 1851 family residing at Ramsey, are the same as the family residing with Robert Hudson at Swanton Morley, in 1861.  But I can't explain the contradictions.  If I accept them - then William Bennett Baxter, my 2nd great grandfather, was the same person as William Hudson, born Swanton Morley (neighbouring Gressenhall Workhouse), in 1846.  He had a younger sister born circa 1849, named Faith Baxter or Faith Hudson.  John Hudson was perhaps her biological father.

Do you see the contradicting evidences?  They continue.

Faith Hudson-Baxter

Faith was baptised as Faith Hudson at Swanton Morley church, in Norfolk, on Christmas Eve, 1848.  That suits Faith Baxter better than the six year old Faith Hudson in 1861.  Her parents are recorded as John & Eliza Hudson.

I can't find their marriage records.  John Hudson is stated as a labourer:

I don't find a baptism or a birth certificate for a brother in 1846 called William Hudson, but I have a copy of a birth certificate for William Bennett Baxter.  Let's face it - they are the same person, born 8th January 1846 at Gressenhall Union workhouse, near to Swanton Morley in Norfolk.  I don't believe that John and Faith were married.  Not an uncommon situation in the 19th century working classes - nor for this area of Norfolk I suspect.  I've seen local rectors complaining about the situation (what they referred to the sad state of concubinism in the district) of their lack of parental marriage, or didn't care.  He baptised Faith.

There's more - more contradictions.

I believe that my 3rd great aunt Faith Hudson-Baxter married a William Codling at Litcham, Norfolk in 1866.  If it was her, she recorded a John Baxter as her father.  But that could have been the normal cover up to explain the surname that she was now using.  After all, in 1861, she was called Faith Baxter, granddaughter of Robert Hudson.

I haven't yet found her in the 1871 Census.

But in the 1881 Census?  Would you believe it:

Is this really her?  In Sculcoates, Yorkshire (where I know a lot of Norfolk people moved to) not as Faith Codling, but as Faith BAXTER, widow, born circa 1849 in Swanton Morley?  Not many Faiths born in that village then.  She is a widow but she has reverted to the surname Baxter?

The Marriage - that never happened.

Months before that critical 1861 census that this puzzle began with, on the 29th December 1860, the marriage banns of John Hudson and Eliza Baxter were finally read out for the third and final time:

But they didn't appear to marry.

No ensuing marriage record at Swanton Morley church.

Instead, four months later, on the 7th April 1861, we get that record where Eliza Baxter is a servant in the household of Robert Hudson in Swanton Morley.  John is there as well.  The marriage doesn't appear to have taken place.

Instead...

John Hudson appears to die sometime between November 1861 and January 1862.  Eliza disappears from record.  William Bennett Baxter - he goes on to marry my 2nd great grandmother Harriet Barber who had also been born in Gressenhall workhouse - as were their first two daughters.  Their last child was my great grandmother, Faith Eliza Baxter, born at East Dereham in 1885:

She had an older brother named Robert Baxter, born at Swanton Morley in 1873:

He served in the Norfolk Regiment in the Boer War in South Africa, as well as later, British India.  He might have nothing to do with it - but he may be our link to that South African match?