In 1879 Robert Tomlinson was tasked by the Church Missionary Society to establish a new mission in British Columbia’s northwest. From their mission at Kincolith they left, crossing rivers and mountains, they finally found a place that the First Nations had named Ankihtlast (Robert’s spelling). The WaySide Log is a diary kept by Alice Tomlinson (nee Woods), with parts written by her brother Ned, detailing their trek in 1879. This video provides a brief glimpse of the trip.
Degerness
Word Clouds
Having some fun with word clouds of the family tree today.
But, I think I actually like the heart even better.
The adventures of Dottie – Dublin
This is the first in what may (or may not) become an ongoing saga. Dottie is fictional.
Dottie smiled as she spotted the Kevin Street Garda Station up ahead. That meant that she was almost at the National Archives of Ireland. She was enjoying the brief sunshine today after the downpour that happened in Dublin yesterday. Thank goodness she had been to Ireland before and knew to carry rain gear with her at all times. She loved being able to walk from “Gerry’s Place” the Air BnB she had rented for the week, but especially enjoyed it when the sun was out.
With only three more days of her vacation trip in Dublin, she needed to focus today. It was so difficult, there were so many wonderful documents in archive it was tempting to look at everything. Her focus this morning would be on the Berry family. While she had been given information in a family tree, she needed to prove the genealogical information. With the popularity of genealogy today, there was as much mis-information out there as there was good solid data.
Crossing the intersection at Bishop Street she ran lightly up the steps to the doors. Showing her reader ticket to the gentleman at reception, she quickly signed in and headed to the locker room to store her outdoor clothes and gear. She locked her gear in her favourite locker, two over on the right and three down from the top, and locked the clear glass door. Knowing she could use the pencils they provided in the reading room, she only kept her iPad and note paper with her and headed for the elevator.
Once through the door, Dottie picked up a pencil from the reception desk and headed to the right toward the testamentary records catalogues. Today she looked through the Wills cards. The small cards were stored in file drawers like the ones she used to see in the library when she was a child. “Imagine not having this information digitally yet, so many people are not aware it is here”. She didn’t expect to find much. Knowing about the Four Courts Fire in 1922 she knew that the chances of finding records that survived were pretty slim. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
She went directly to the “B”s and searched through cards. As they appeared to be in alphabetic order she jumped ahead to the “Ber” looking for Berry.
“Good golly, Miss Molly” she thought as she spotted a card with the right name and a year of 1816. She glanced over at the reception desk and saw that it was Fintan on duty. Fintan was in his twenties and eager to be helpful. She quickly pulled the card from the file, tipping the card behind it to mark its place and headed for the desk, glancing around on the way to select an open table for her request. Grabbing a yellow order docket slip she double checked with Fintan that she was requesting the right document. Confirmed all the details, she left the request with Fintan and hurried back to replace the card in the appropriate spot before she got into trouble for removing it.
Dottie placed her note paper on her selected desk to reserve her spot and then walked back over to the card files. She went back through the cards and looked at all the cards in the “B” drawer individually in case there were any that were misfiled. While she did find a few misfiled cards, which she put into their proper order, there were no other cards with the Berry name. She glanced over at her desk and noticed that the documents had arrived.
Opening the folder Dottie saw that there were multiple pages and it was a certified copy of the will and grant of Thomas Berry. It might be just the document she needed to confirm some of the ancestors in the Berry family. She took her time reading the pages, thinking to herself “what an absolute goldmine”. Not only had Thomas mentioned each of his living children in the twelve-page document, he mentioned his son that passed before he did, and a brother, as well as his sons-in-law.
After reading the will, Dottie set about taking pictures of the document. She used the provided weights to hold the document as flat as possible while taking pictures with her iPad. Tonight, she would upload those pictures to her Evernote account to ensure that she had a second copy on the cloud. She was looking forward to putting all the information on her computer once she was back in Canada in a couple of weeks. This trip was definitely proving to be well worth it as far as gathering genealogical proof was concerned.
She then returned the document to the returns desk in the small room next to the card catalogue. Then, Dottie spent the rest of the morning looking through the card catalogue for other families that she was researching without luck. However, she was happy with a morning well spent. Dottie smiled a satisfied smile headed down in the elevator thinking about where she would have lunch after picking up her gear from the locker.
The inheritance for Ann Bourns
Sorting out the Woods of King’s County worked out the numerous Richard Woods in the family in Parsonstown, King’s County (now Birr, Offaly).
While completing that project a deed relating to articles of marriage for Richard Woods and Ann Bourns was found. This 1812 deed was the deed tells us that Ann is the daughter of Charles Bourns and mentions several other parties of interest in referring to other deeds. This sparked curiosity as Ann appeared to be related to the deceased John Medlicott, but the specifics of that relationship were not clear. The working hypothesis was that perhaps John was Ann’s grandfather on her mother’s side. That hypothesis turned out to be incorrect.
Ann was actually the niece of John Medlicott, not a granddaughter as suspected. She did not receive an inheritance directly from John Medlicott, but it is possible the inheritance ultimately came from him through his sister, Ann’s mother Dorcas.
See more about Ann’s inheritance and the many additional family members found here.
Good Character or Social Standing
You have to wonder about the difference between two sentences in the 1840s in England. Both started out with drinking (too much) in pubs. One ended with transportation to Australia and 15 years hard labour, the other ended with a fine and a month in jail.
The first story I have told recently in a previous post. In 1844, Elijah Brown had definitely had too much to drink. He and his brother an friend refused to leave the pub. The constable was called and when he threatened them with the cage they they beat the constable severely. The constable was very lucky and did recover. The judge was not lenient and all three men were sentenced to transportation. There was definitely an ugly element here and Elijah was considered to be of bad character and had been in prison before. Elijah was a poor working man who lived in Isleham.
The second story is about the death of William Burman in 1842. William was also from a poor, hard-working family who lived in the rows in Great Yarmouth.
The story starts out the same. William is out with two friends and likely had too much to drink. Though at the trial his friend says he was not drunk, we could probably dispute that. A quarrel ensued over the price of gin and the pub owner and William argued. According to the testimony of his friend, the pub owner threw William down and beat his head on the floor. William never recovered and died from his injuries four days later. The pub owner was charged with manslaughter and allowed bail of £200 plus two sureties of £100. The pub owner stated that it was an accident; and witnesses confirmed that the pub owner did offer to pay for a doctor for Burman. At the trial, as well as the friend, there were two witnesses for the defense who, although they did not see what happened, did hear the argument between William and the pub owner. They both stated that William banged his head on the bar on the way down to the floor. It should be noted that at trial there were also many witnesses for the pub owner’s character, stating that he was a good man. The judge in the trial told the jury to pay more attention to the last two witnesses than the friend of William Burman. The jury came back with a guilty verdict and the judge ordered one month hard labour.
On the same page of the prison registers as the pub owner’s one month of prison for manslaughter is a man who received transportation for 10 years for house stealing; and another who received seven years transportation for two counts of biagmy.
In a quirky twist, Elijah Brown from the first story later became a pub owner in Australia.
So, is the difference in these sentences because of the pub owner’s good character, or maybe influenced by his social standing? Your guess is as good as mine, but the differences remain interesting.
