Evidence of a good start in life

The search for evidence of Grandad's early life continues, but recently I made a couple of discoveries which I will write about in two separate blog posts. This post is about a medal I found, and the following one will be about a previously-forgotten photograph.

The story begins with my daughter Tammy coming out from England in September and asking to look for the ring my mother left her. Putting aside an afternoon at the end of her visit, we took out all the boxes I had stored containing my parents' special items. Tammy found the ring and a couple of gold wristwatches, well-worn but still very pretty, which I put aside to have checked by our jeweller. Then we proceeded to look through the other trinkets in the box to see what else was there. The last time we had gone through the trinkets was when we had been sorting my mother's possessions after she died, and that was eleven years ago.

Tammy came across what looked like a very old metal shield. It was difficult to read the inscription on it but she eventually succeeded. It said: "King's Medal, Awarded by the London County Council for punctual attendance, 1910-1911". The name "David Scott Ritchie" was also inscribed on the reverse of the medal, although it was extremely faint.

This was an Amazing find, since we have no other artefacts relating to Grandad's schooldays. In 1910 he would have been eight years old! The medal had been presented to him in his second or third year of school, and the fact that he attended regularly said a lot about his stable life at the time.

Tammy looked up the provenance of school attendance medals and learnt that they had been manufactured in several versions. Originally, they bore the name and face of Queen Victoria, then King Edward VII, then King George V. Grandad's King's Medal showed King George V on its face. It was presented by the London County Council to all children who attended school regularly, but only children with a 100% attendance record for the school year and whose behaviour was considered commendable by the headmaster qualified to receive it.

Apparently, the medal came with an orange ribbon but Grandad's medal had lost that, no doubt due to rough handling over the 110 years since it was awarded! I like to think of Grandad being proud of his achievement and of him holding onto the trinket as a reminder of his early years at school.

I took the medal, along with Mom's two gold wristwatches, to our jeweller for cleaning. Imagining that the King's Medal would come up shiny and new-looking, I was disappointed when I was told it couldn't be polished. Apparently, the metal they used was ordinary tin, or something like it, so any attempt to polish it would probably damage it. Later, when Tammy visited again, she  looked at the object I had taken to the jeweller and pronounced my mistake; I had taken an ordinary belt buckle, so it was no wonder the jeweller was confused about my claim that it was a family heirloom. Fortunately, there was no need for us to search in the boxes for the actual King's Medal because Tammy had images of it on her phone from when we had shared the discovery with my aunt and cousins. Maybe I could still get it polished, but the images are fine for now!

While the discovery of a school attendance medal cannot replace a birth certificate as proof that Grandad was born in England, it certainly adds something to the story. We know from the 1911 census that Grandad was at the home of his aunt and uncle, Emily and William Smith, on the night the census was taken. From what I have found out about his parents [see other posts about his father, David Scott Ritchie Sr and his mother, Maude], I feel certain that he was living with the Smiths permanently. From what I have learned about the Smith children and grandchildren, it appears that Emily and William placed a high value on education. So then, while the medal awarded to the nine-year-old David doesn't tell us how he became an engineer, it does satisfy my curiosity about how he avoided the long-term effects of having a mentally-ill father and a mother who worked as a cook in residence for aristocratic families. Thanks to the Smiths of St Johns Wood, my grandmother Sandy, mother Wendy, aunt Gillian and all their descendants benefitted from a stable home life, optimism about the future, and a sense of responsibility that translated itself into a sound work ethic and professional success.

Photo: Grandad's medal for good attendance at school..

  

Looking for relatives in Saskatchewan, Canada

When I first started researching my roots, I fully expected to discover that my maternal grandfather wasn't the biological child of David Scott Ritchie Sr, the footman from Mayfair. I had grown up with the family myth that Grandad's strong resemblance to Henry Duke of Gloucester suggested some sort of misattributed paternity. Perhaps his mother Maude had been seduced by her employer or had a liaison with another man. Yet a solid DNA link to a cousin in Canada confirm the documentary records, eliminating all doubt on that score.

In spite of this, I did not pay much attention to the Canadian link. Since my grandparents left England and came directly to South Africa, it seemed more useful to focus on connections in England itself. Months have gone by with little progress however, and so, in an effort to get things moving again, I am revisiting the story. My hope is that someone in Saskatchewan or thereabouts may come across this post, recognise some of the names and places in it, and get in touch.

The story begins with my great-grandfather's brother, William Ritchie. He was born in Stratford, Essex, England on 6 September 1871, the eldest son of William  and Emma Eliza Ritchie. His father died of ptomaine poisoning when he was 11, leaving his mother to raise her four children, including an infant, on her own.

William, it appears, left home as soon as he finished school. He became a furniture dealer and married Ada Sarah Ann Burfoot in Blackfriars, London. The couple settled in Brixton and had three sons; William, born in 1902, David Scott,,, born in 1903, and Thomas Scott, born in 1904. Then, In 1913, they emigrated to Saskatchewan, Canada and became Canadian citizens.

I should say at this point that David Scott of Brixton is not the same David Scott who was my grandfather, even though they have the same name and were born just one year apart. David Scott of Brixton was Grandad's first cousin — not that Grandad ever spoke about him, or any other cousins for that matter. The two boys could have grown up as close friends had the Brixton Ritchies not left England. It isn't clear why they moved, unless William and Ada simply felt like a fresh start. Perhaps they wanted to escape having to look after William's sister-in-law, given that his brother — my great-grandfather — had been sent away to an asylum. Whatever the case, William must have been relieved to have gotten his wife and sons out of Europe by the time war broke out a year later.

I haven't researched all three of William's sons but I do know that David Scott of Brixton married Lula Belle Samuels in Winnipeg, Canada in 1927. Lula Belle was the daughter of Edgar F Samuels and Sarah Jane Warren. She was born on 23 March 1902 in the United States, emigrated to Manitoba in 1912, and moved to Saskatchewan in 1916. David and Lula Belle lived in Melville all their lives. David died on 9 December 1972 and Lula Belle died in 1982.

David and Lula Belle had one daughter named Dorothy Elizabeth Ritchie. Dorothy Elizabeth was born on 9 July 1928 in Melville, Saskatchewan and married Charles Edward Stewart in  Melville in about 1950. The couple had several children, many of whom are still living in Canada today. Dorothy Elizabeth Stewart died on 19 July 2005 in Toronto.

As I said, it's my hope that this blog post will  attract the attention of readers with shared connections to William and Ada Ritchie. If that happens, we will be able to exchange information on the parents of William Sr and my great-grandfather. I am especially interested in hearing about how my distant cousins in Canada feel about the so-called "old country", since I too am descended from immigrants. Please contact me if this post rings any bells, or share it with others whom you think may benefit from it. Thank you.

Photo credit: "White-tailed Deer, provincial animal of Saskatchewan" by Daryl Mitchell.

 Daryl Mitchell

The thrill of tracking down Auntie Elsie and Uncle Ted from East Ham

We don't know much about Grandma's early life, where she went to school and how she liked to spend her time. We don't even know how she met Grandad, only that they married in 1929 and moved to South Africa to raise a family. What we do know, though, was that she had a cousin named Elsie with whom she corresponded for years and of whom she was very fond.

Until yesterday, my attempts to track down Elsie had been wholly unsuccessful. Without the benefit of a maiden name or married surname, I had been forced to try other approaches: Research the siblings of my ancestors and look among their descendants for girls named Elsie, Ellen or Elizabeth. Assume that Elsie was a Wilson because Grandma's mother was a Wilson and the relationship  might not be that of first cousin. Perform a search for marriages of people named Elsie and Ted plus variations on those names. Alas, all my efforts proved fruitless. It was a brick wall in my genealogy quest and yet I felt convinced the solution was very close.

The reason for my confidence was that I knew about Auntie Elsie from my lived experience. As a child, I often heard Grandma say, "I got another letter from Auntie Elsie this week" or "I must write and tell Auntie Elsie about that." Of course, I took no notice. Being young and preoccupied with what I could grasp first-hand, I simply failed to pay attention.

More recently, I tried quizzing my aunt Gillian for anything she could tell me. She remembered that Elsie was married to Ted but had no idea whether there were any children. Her memories are so scant because she only met them once. It was on a family holiday to England, one of the five-yearly trips that happened when her father visited the London office of Hollerith. Gillian recalls that, when they visited Auntie Elsie and Uncle Ted in East Ham, they were building a bomb shelter in the front yard. She also recalls seeing barrage balloons hanging over London and the need to close all the curtains at dusk for the blackout. Coming from a context where life involved carefree expeditions up the mountain to boil potatoes in a billy-can and watching her father learn to sail, she was naturally struck by the strangeness of it all.

Such was the extent of my knowledge about Elsie and Ted. I had reached the point where my notes on the elusive couple languished in a file awaiting inspiration. Then, this past week, Ancestry made an offer I could not refuse. I had a free account, created when they were offering free access to military records a little while ago, and they saw fit to reach out to me , offering a three-month subscription for just one dollar. Unfortunately, Ancestry is hard to use with accessibility software for blind users so I won't be using it long term. However, the effort it took to build a basic family tree was well worth it because I made a startling breakthrough!

My first Ancestry hint led me to a profile for Grandma. This was unexpected because she had been an only child and I hadn't found her included on any other online family trees. Checking the details for her parents and grandparents, I satisfied myself that there was no mistake. Then I set about tracing the relationship between myself and the owner of the tree.

I hadn't been thinking about Elsie and Ted when, suddenly, I found an Elsie Ada Bristow from West Ham. The name caught my attention, as did her birth date of 1907, just two years later than Grandma's. She was married to an Edward Collins, which ticked the box for Uncle Ted. To top it all, the couple lived in East Ham in 1939, the year in which Grandma, my aunt Gillian and my mother had seen them.

What a find this is! The online family tree makes it possible for me to contact the owner and exchange information. She obviously knows more about Grandma's extended family than I do, while I know more about her children and grandchildren. This opens up a whole new line of investigation. Not only do I have a slew of new names, dates and locations to research, but I have DNA results to compare, photos to share and new ancestors to care about. So many possibilities for exploration!

Photo credit: "A man sits on a park bench in London 1940" by Christine

 

Charles Sanderson and the streets of York

In researching my maternal great-grandfather I made a surprising discovery. The family of Charles Sanderson grew up in what is now an extremely popular tourist area of York. They lived in the historic part of the city known as Micklegate, close to the River Ouse.

Charles Sanderson spent his infant years in the street known as Stonegate. The term "gate" in the name comes from the Viking word meaning "street" and the "stone" part refers to the stone laid on it by the Romans. The street itself is long and narrow, running from Petergate in the north to St Helen's Square in the south. The house in which Charles and his family lived was at the St Helen's Square end, and was likely Georgian in design, judging from the other buildings in the street. Stonegate is said to be one of the most attractive streets in York.

At age 13, Charles was living at High Jubbergate, Holy Trinity King's Court. This street's name dates back to the fourteenth century when Jewish people settled there but it was built much earlier. Although the church known as Holy Trinity King's Court no longer exists, having been demolished in 1937 to create King's Square, it was still standing on the corner of Colliergate and Shambles when Charles was a boy. Drawings done at the time clearly show the church's tower  above the chimneys and rooftops of Jubbergate.

When Charles married Emma Elsey in 1879, he stated his address as 22 Trinity Lane, St Martin's cum St Gregory, Micklegate. Trinity Lane is a small road that connects to Micklegate, the main road on the west side of the river. The house no longer exists but it has an interesting history. From the time of the 1841 to the 1871 census, it was occupied by a coach proprietor named George Walker from York. For twenty years he lived with his wife Mary and a couple of servants, and then, after Mary passed away, was assisted by his young niece, Mary Elizabeth Wilson. Interestingly, George Walker stated that he employed 5 men in his coach business. We know that Charles' occupation in 1881 was "coachman", so perhaps he started out his career working for George Walker. This would explain how his widowed mother Mary Ann Sanderson and three of his siblings came to be living at 22 Trinity Lane in 1881 after George Walker moved away or died.

Charles must have enjoyed the opportunities for travel and adventure that coaching afforded him. However, the market was shrinking. Since the arrival of the railway in York in 1840, the amount of goods being transported by coach declined sharply and many  people chose the speedier option of travelling by train. Still, coaches were familiar, convenient and possibly cheaper than rail transport. A coach journey between London and York typically took four days, stopping overnight at inns which offered accommodation to travellers and stabling for the horses. The coachman and groom would eat and drink in the local tavern and, since they brought news and stories from far afield, drew locals there as well.

Photo credit: "Stonegate, York, England, View from Great/Central Tower of York Minster." By Billy Wilson.

 

My question regarding Mary Ann Howell of Bilston

This blog post continues the account of my research into the ancestors of Florence Mary Sanderson. Florence Sanderson was my maternal grandmother and was very much a product of London's East End. However, her ancestors came from Yorkshire and Staffordshire, and it is with the Staffordshire branch that I am currently busy.

My grandmother's mother was Florence Mary Wilson, who was in turn the daughter of Mary Ann Howell. The Howells were from Bilston, Staffordshire, and it isn't clear how Mary Ann ended up in London. According to census records, she moved south between 1851 and 1861, or sometime between her fourth and fourteenth birthdays, so it is likely she accompanied her parents or relatives when they travelled south. Yet, from what I can tell, her parents never left Bilston. Joseph and Mary Howell remained at the same address for their entire married life. So, why exactly did Mary Ann leave Bilston, and did I even have the right parents for her in my family tree?

Genealogical websites often advise amateur family historians to start with their most recent ancestors and work backwards from there. When I tried to trace Mary Ann Howell in both London and Staffordshire, however, I only got confused. The name Howell is extremely common in both locations. Moreover, the name Mary Ann turns up frequently, and there is more than one person named Mary Ann Howell born in 1847 in the Bilston area. The Howells of Bilston appear to be a long-established family with deep roots, and there are multiple Samuels, Williams, Sarahs and Phoebes in each generation. Faced with so many options, I didn't know how to distinguish one family from another.

Finally, I had an idea. Focusing on just one collection, the 1841 census for England and Wales, I typed in the surname, birth year and birth location of the man I had identified as Mary Ann's father; namely, Joseph Howell. Deliberately omitting his first name, I sought all  men born in Bilston who were capable of fathering a daughter in 1847. Thus, I came up with a list of over 20 individuals, enabling me to sort out the different families according to street address. Then I did the same exercise using the 1851 census. This helped in two ways: First, it let me add other, younger children to the families. Second, it clarified who was who in each family because the later census included the category "Relationship to head" alongside each name. If an individual appeared as "nephew", for example, it established a possible link between that Howell household and another with children roughly the same age.

It took me days to go through all the family groups and I struggled to trace connections between them. While there were several Howell households in Bilston's Oxford Street in 1841, they weren't obviously related. Doubtless, they shared common ancestors and knew each other as cousins of some sort, but tracing them all back into the mid-1700's and beyond posed too great an obstacle for my flagging energy! I opted instead to check my references for all the people I had already included in Mary Ann's tree to see if they stood up to scrutiny and, happily, they did. I found convincing documentary evidence for her birth to Joseph Howell and Mary Vaughan of Oxford Street, as well as for Mary Vaughan's birth to Edward Timothy Vaughan and Ann Prosser of Bridge Street.

At the same time, I messaged several of my DNA matches and came up with a strong link between me and a descendant of George Frederick Wilson. George was, like my great-grandmother Florence Mary Wilson, a child of Mary Ann Howell and Thomas Wilson. The DNA match proves that the documentary evidence I have for Mary Ann Howell and her Bilston-based family is indeed correct, and it also proves that there weren't any cases of misattributed paternity in that line.

But my original question still exists; what brought Mary Ann Howell to London in her teens, and how did she meet Thomas Wilson of Bethnal Green? Such mysteries are what good stories are made of. I'm hoping that, by putting my question out there, someone will be able to solve the puzzle. For that matter, any information that can shed more light on the Howells of Bilston and the Wilsons of Bethnal Green would be much appreciated.

Photo credit:  "Bilston Town Hall: Church Street and Litchfield Street" by Elliott Brown

 

Surprising new family member in the Sanderson branch of our tree

In my last blog post, I mentioned the large gap in the ages of my maternal great-grandparents, Charles and Florence Sanderson of Shoreditch. Charles was 46 when they married in 1903 and Florence was just 28. It made me wonder, was Charles Sanderson married before?

Formulating this question made it easy to progress with my genealogical research. Working on FindMyPast, I ran a search for an early marriage record for Charles Sanderson. I estimated that the marriage would have taken place around 1880 when Charles was 23, and restricted the search location to Yorkshire, the county in which he was born.

Sure enough, my search produced a result. Charles Sanderson married Emma Elsey in 1879 in York. The record I found confirmed that Charles' father was Thomas Sanderson and gave Emma's father's name as George Elsey. The Elsey family came from Surrey and George was an agricultural labourer.

Excitedly, I set about trying to find out more. A census record for 1881 revealed that Charles and Emma were living in Roundhay, a rural district of Leeds, Yorkshire and that Charles was working as a coachman in domestic service. This detail was encouraging because his occupation later in life when he was married to Florence was horse keeper. When I researched Roundhay, I learnt that it is an ancient green space outside the city of Leeds, originally enclosed as a deer park, subsequently opened to the public as a recreational area, and more recently developed in part with houses for the working class. Presumably, when my great-grandfather Charles lived in Roundhay, he was serving a rich landowner and driving a carriage pulled by two tall, strong horses like the Yorkshire Coach Horse shown in the picture.

The 1881 census also showed that Charles and Emma were starting a family. Emma had recently given birth to a daughter named Caroline. Caroline Sanderson was just 10 months old at the time of the 1881 census.

This was an extraordinary find. It meant that Grandma, born an only child, actually had a half-sister who was 24 years older than she. Nothing had been suggested about this before, causing me to have serious doubts about the veracity of my evidence.

Then I made an even more astonishing discovery.

Returning to the Sanderson family Bible, I scanned through the names. One name jumped out at me. In a slightly smudged hand, someone had written, "Carre Sanderson born 5th April 1880 at Roundhay, Leeds". I searched for a birth record online and found Caroline Emma Sanderson born in April 1880 with her mother's maiden name given as Elsey. The name, date and location of this record all confirm that Caroline Sanderson, daughter of Charles and Emma, was indeed one of my ancestors.

I then turned to MyHeritage to see if I could find out more. Another census record popped up, this time from 1901 in the suburb of Bethnal Green. Clearly, the person who took down the family's details had terrible handwriting because Caroline's birthplace of Roundhay is transcribed as "Roimdhay" and the county of her birth is shown as Leicestershire, suggesting a faulty transcription of Leeds. In addition, Charles is transcribed as "Marles". Even so, there was enough to convince me that they were the right people. I knew that Charles had married Florence in London in 1903, so this record for the 1901 census helped establish his move. It also confirmed he  was a widower. He stated his occupation as "foreman/house keeper" which is probably another error in transcription, intended to read "foreman/horse keeper" as in the 1911 census. Caroline, at 20 years old,  stated her occupation as "household duties".

My investigation then turned to Emma's death. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any trace of it online. All I know is that it occurred sometime in the 20 years between the 1881 and 1901 census. I tried to find evidence of Caroline getting married or, failing that, appearing on the 1911 census or 1939 register but again, had no luck. I couldn't even find a death record for her, since all the death records for women named Caroline Sanderson corresponded with census records that showed them married to men named Sanderson.

This isn't the end of the world, though. I have lots to investigate for now. Up to this point, the city of Leeds and its surrounding countryside held no interest for me, but that has changed. If I get the chance to travel to Yorkshire, I will definitely make a pilgrimage to Roundhay to walk in the footsteps of Charles, Emma and Caroline.

Photo credit: Cigarette card: Yorkshire Coach Horse by CigCardPix.

 

Census record for Charles Sanderson sheds light on Grandma's early life

There is a story in Grandad's memoir about him and Grandma attending fox-hunting events while they were courting. Given that neither of them came from noble families, their presence at these events didn't make sense. Now some new information has emerged which throws light on this mystery.

Grandma was an only child who grew up in the East End of London. I knew very little about her early life when I began this blog except that her maiden name was Florence Mary Sanderson and that she was born in Shoreditch in 1905.

From research done on My Heritage and Find My Past, I've been able to discover a little more about her roots. Her father was Charles Sanderson, born in York, Yorkshire in 1857. Her mother was Florence Mary Wilson, born in Bethnal Green, London in 1875. What is remarkable here is the age difference between her parents. Charles was nearly 18 years older than Florence, which may explain why they only had one child.

I am fortunate to have become the keeper of the Sanderson family Bible. It came to me in a very fragile state and I had it professionally re-bound to preserve the precious notes recorded on its front pages. Charles' name is listed, along with his father Thomas Winskill Sanderson and his mother Mary Ann Bland. The record shows that there were eleven children in all, although only eight made it to adulthood.

According to census records, all Charles' surviving siblings lived out their lives in Yorkshire. He was the only one who left and move to London. Perhaps his being the eldest son placed certain expectations on him, or perhaps he was simply looking to seek his fortune in the city. At any rate, that was how he met and married Florence Wilson.  The marriage took place in 1903, the year before Grandma was born.

It was from the 1911 census taken in Mile End Old Town that I learnt Charles Sanderson's occupation was horse keeper. This little detail reminded me that Grandma had a small brooch with a riding whip and horseshoe which she gifted me when I entered my first gymkhana as a child. She also fostered my interest in horses by buying me a subscription to an expensive English horse magazine. Grandma never rode after she and Grandad moved to South Africa but she must have retained fond memories of the horses her dad cared for back in London. When I shared what I had found with my sister, she reminded me that she had a three-handled mug depicting a hunting scene which had belonged to our mother, and that this may have been passed down from Grandma who received it from her father. I have added a photo of the mug here, and if anyone can suggest its provenance, I would be most grateful.

Did Grandma and Grandad gain access to fox-hunting events through Charles' job, I wonder? After all, it was through my own friend's father, who was a keen better on the races, that she and I gained access to the race course! It seems conceivable that Charles, who was responsible for  someone else's horses and therefore familiar with horsy events, should wish to open doors for his daughter and her fiancé, especially as David was always so keen on visiting new places.

I like this explanation of the story in Grandad's memoir. It feels right. I can just see my very tall grandfather  holding the elbow of my very petite and stylishly-dressed grandmother as they politely acknowledged the master of the hunt in his black top hat and scarlet coat, while throngs of riders, grooms and horses milled about on a grey winter's day.

Photo credit: Illustration of fox hunting from Sporting Sketches (1817-1818) by Henry Alken (1784-1851). Original from The New York Public Library. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.