Dorothy Lilian May nee Butcher 1915 – 2010

Dear Aunt,

The final link with the generation of either our parents or grandparents has passed away and along with the sadness there is joy. Joy of how lucky we were to have experienced the love and friendship from you. All of us, friends and family will have memories of you, for many of us there will be far too many to mention. I will share with you all one of mine.

I was about three years old and with my Grandfather. We had selected a bunch of flowers, all pretty colours, pinks and yellows. Later we were walking to your house, up Bright Hill which to a three year old that hill seemed like a mountain. At the door I was presented with the flowers and told that I was to given them to you. The door opened and I thrust the flowers at you, in true 3 year old style! That was the first bunch of Freesia’s I gave to you and for the next 38 years I never visited you unless I had the customary bunch of Freesia’s, because to arrive empty handed was not the “correct way” and you loved the flowers.
Yesterday we arrived into Surrey and I headed off to the florist, to collect the very final bunch of Freesia’s. Having collected them I went to the Chapel of Rest where I laid that final bunch with you. As I stood with you yesterday I was overcome with such emotion, not just the sadness that you were gone, but many of those memories came flooding into my mind, the afternoons we spent together, the walks we took if the weather was nice, even down to you telling me to write clearer and sending my letter’s back, so I could do just that. I was incredibly lucky to have experienced all those moments and memories with you, my Great Aunt.
I will truly miss you, and although you are gone, I know you still walk with me.
Love, as always
Julie xx
Posted in Archive - Imported from Blogger | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Sunday Obituary – Dorothy Lilian May nee Butcher 1915 – 2011

It somehow seems appropriate that I participate in this week’s Sunday Obituary for Geneabloggers with the obituary of my Great Aunt.

From the Surrey Advertiser (Guildford Surrey Edition) 7th January 2011. This is the Announcement placed in the paper by my Cousin and her family.
“MAY, Dorothy formerly of Longore, Farncombe sadly passed away on 29th December 2010. Will be sadly missed by June, Ian, Kim, Lea, Dean, Nicky and family. Funeral service at Guildford Crematorium on 11th January at 11.00am.”
To read more about My Great Aunt see an earlier posting & a further posting.
Posted in Archive - Imported from Blogger | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Blogger in Draft – Mobile Monday & Tech Tuesday

I read somewhere, perhaps someone’s blog or the official Blog that it is possible to have access to a mobile version of your blog, when hosted by Blogger.

Visit http://draft.blogger.com/home and log in as usual. There,under settings and then Email & Mobile you can turn on the facility for your blog to be viewed in a different format via smart phone.
I have an iPhone and turned on the facility and it does in deed look different to that you view via a laptop or PC. From your smart phone it is still possible to access the web version, but why would you want to?…..
Posted in Archive - Imported from Blogger | Tagged | Leave a comment

Bowring Family at Torquay

Through various bits of research I established the Bellasis family connected to a fairly well know Devonian family called Bowring. As I live in the County it was relatively easy to access the archives and cemeteries. I don’t want to write more of the Bellasis & Bowring families at the moment as they are going to be the subject of a couple of “Ancestor of the week” posts over the next few months, but I wanted to load the photos up the Grave Encounters site and I couldn’t do that without a small write up.

Having established that Lewin Bentham Bowring was buried in Torquay I telephoned to see if I could arrange for the grave to be marked so that I could find it it easier. When I met up with the groundsman he said that there were two graves and asked if I had known that. I said no. He then arranged for me to see the burial books, which indicated that in addition to the grave of Lewin Bentham Bowring and his wife Katherine there was also the grave of Lewin’s son Captain Vincent Bowring, but the plot also contained the son Edward Lewis who had died in 1885 aged 15 years.
It is a purely a guess that the grave had been initially been marked with a headstone for Edward by his father, but by the time Captain Vincent Bowring had passed away in 1951 both Lewin and Katherine themselves were deceased and as the family already owned the plot someone made the decision that Captain Vincent could be interned there and placed the headstone accordingly, which means that the burial of Edward is no longer recorded at the site, and only in the burial register.

Bowring Graves

005

Headstone of Lewin Bentham & Katherine Bowring nee Bellasis

Buried in section C, Un-consecrated ground

Pray for the souls of

LEWIN BENTHAM BOWRING CSI

Chief Commissioner of Mysore and Goore

J P for Devon

Who died Jan 14th 1910 aged 85

And KATHERINE his wife

Née BELLASIS

Who died March 18th 1915 aged 74

Requiescant in Page


Iain Vincent Lewin Bowring

Pray for the soul of

Captain VINCENT LEWIN BOWRING

Royal Navy

Died Feb 23rd 1951

RIP

Section C line 18 Grave


From the Cemetery records we can establish that also buried in this grave is

EDWARD LEWIS LLANISLAS BOWRING

Who died 3rd July 1885 aged 15.

The plot was purchased by Lewin B BOWRING.


Katherine purchased the grave of Lewin Bentham BOWRING at the time of his death. She purchased a double plot and they lay side by side.


At the time of her death Katherine was residing at 90 Hagley Road, Edgebaston Birmingham.


Graves Transcribed March 2000, Photographed June 2002

Posted in Archive - Imported from Blogger | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Graveyard Rabbits

When I first saw this I had a wonderful vision of a cute bunny foraging through the grasses in a cemetery! It is though a great site prompt for getting all those photos of gravestones up and on line.

Earlier this week we created Grave Encounters and have loaded up various photos that are on our Flickr album.

Devon
Surrey

Cambridgeshire
Herefordshire
Scotland
Posted in Archive - Imported from Blogger | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Ancestor of the week – Henry Rhodes Hindle

The following posting started life as a posting and article made back in 2007 to the now defunct Yahoo group “Preserving our Heritage” (POH). There were also four post scripts to the article through the course of 2007 – 2008. Therefore I have tweaked the structure of the initial post and the additional research for the point of this blog posting. I don’t exactly know when the POH group folded, but it did and that was a huge shame. The group was friendly and very often the discussions were very thought provoking and informative.

About 15 years ago, my father in law, Derek Goucher gave me a pencil. There was nothing particularly special except that it lead to a part of my husband’s ancestry that I find intriguing, because it is harboured by geography.

“My grandmother divorced her husband, moved to America and remarried”, said my father in law and this pencil is the advertising his business.

Well, not quite, but let me explain.

Annie RHODES was born in Bradford Yorkshire in 1869 she married Charles WORSHIP in Bradford in August of 1899 and they had three daughters:

– Emily born Bradford 1890
– married June Q 1915 to Sydney NEWBOULD in Bradford
– Lillian born Bradford 1893 (my husband’s paternal grandmother)
– Florence, born Bradford 1901.

The 1901 UK Census shows the three children living with both their parents in Bradford.

The 1911 UK Census was not available for general searching at the point of the initial start of the research.

The story of Annie WORSHIP (nee RHODES) going to America was confirmed when I was greeted with a photograph, bearing on the back an address in PA in 1943.
I can not be specific on the address and my father in law was not happy to let me copy the photo, so I let the matter drop, at least for now!

Meanwhile, Ancestry had put online lots of Passenger lists, so a search was done to be able to see if I could establish a date when Annie went to America.

Passenger Lists

1905 Passenger List
Mrs Annie WARSHIP, aged 36 years arrived in Philadelphia on 13th December 1905, having travelled under her own carriage on board The Noordland from Liverpool. Annie declares that she has more than the requisite $50. With her is Master Harry, aged 10 months. The address given is in Philadelphia is 113 Lambert Street, and last abode in England is Bradford. It also indicates that Annie had been to Philadelphia before, again in 1905.

1921 Passenger List
Annie Hindle aged 51 years sailed from Liverpool on board the SS Haverford on 7th January 1921 and arrived at Philadelphia Port, United States on 23rd January 1921, under State Dept PP 180721, Naturalised date 1917, living at the address of 3625 Fairmont Ave, Philadelphia. Travelling with Annie was Henry Rhodes Hindle, aged 16 years, son.

1931 Passenger List
Annie Hindle along with husband Harry Hindle were due to sail from Liverpool on board the SS Laconia on 31st October 1931, which docked 10th November 1931 at New York. According to the list of passengers, neither, Annie or Harry embarked on the journey.

Instead, they waited and are to be found on the passenger lists for a month later. The SS Laconia left Liverpool on 28th November 1931 and arrived in New York on 9th December 1931. Their address is recorded as 3725 Haverford Ave, Philadelphia.

Passenger List 1932
There is a Harry Hindle aged 28 years who is a discharged deck hand, having signed on in New York on 10th Sep. Nationality is recorded as British.

Passenger List 1933
There is a Henry Hindle aged 27 years who is a deck hand. He sailed on board SS President Pierce arriving at the post of New York 26 Oct 1933 from the port of San Fransisco. Ship consigned SS Lines Inc Ltd

1933 Passenger List.
Annie Hindle, aged 64 years once again making the journey from Liverpool on board SS Laconia on 11th November 1933 and arriving back in the US at New York on 21st November 1933, under passport number 272342, and the address recorded as 4117, Hallaran Street, Maffair, Philadelphia.

1935 New York Passenger List
Annie Hindle aged 66 years, sailed from Liverpool on board SS Laconia on 28th September 1935 and arrived in New York on 8th October 1935. She is travelling alone, under passport number 191565. Her address is recorded as 4117, Hallaran Street, Philadelphia

1938 New York passenger list
Annie Hindle aged 69 years sailed from Liverpool on board SS Franconia on 16th September 1938 & arrived in New York on 26th September 1938 with her husband Harry Hindle aged 68 years. The passport number is listed as 191565 and under Harry in the details that he was naturalised in the Supreme Court in PA in September 1917. Their address is recorded as 3004, Fanshawe Street Philadelphia.

1944 – 1945 Passenger List (Aliens employed on vessel as crew members)
Harry Hindle, aged 40 years, sailed on board the vessel British Courage on 19th Dec 1944 from Greenock Scotland to New York, where it docked on 5th Jan 1945.According the passenger list he had 1 year as a length of service at sea and was a deck hand

1945 Passenger List (Aliens employed on vessel as crew members)
Harry Hindle, aged 41 years, sailed on board the vessel British Courage on 1st Feb 1945 from Portsmouth to New York, where it docked on 20th Feb 1945. According the passenger list he had 1.25 years as a length of service at sea and was a deck hand

1946 Passenger List
Annie Hindle, now aged 77 years sailed from Southampton on board SS Queen Elizabeth on 22nd November 1946, docking in New York on 27th November 1946, under passport number 54184 and her address reported as 14, North Belfield Av, Havertown, Pennsylvania.

1948 Passenger List
Annie Hindle departs Southampton 30 July 1948 on board The Washington, arriving New York 6th August 1948. Annie is recorded as a British Subject with passport number V71666. Her luggage is recorded as 3 bags and her address is 593 La Foret Ave Windsor, She is aged 64 years and recorded as married. She is travelling alone.

1950 Passenger List
Henry Hindle travelled on board air craft N 6012 C from London to New York, arriving in New York on 26th October 1950 under passport number 293797, and his address recorded as 3004, Fanshawe Street, Philadelphia. (I believe this to be Henry Junior, as Henry would have been 80 years old)

1953 Passenger List
Harry Hindle arrives on 2nd Oct 1953 at Halifax Nova Scotia Canada on board Britannia, The port of departure was Liverpool, on 5th September. Passport number is recorded as V-386612 which is the same as the passenger list for 1956. The address recorded is 18, East 41st Street, New York, 17 NY

1954 Passenger List
British Overseas Airways Corporation – Aircraft – G-ALSD – BA607/256 Departed London and arrived at Montreal, Quebec, Canada 1st Oct 1954. Passengers in Transit to the US. The Offical Use column indicates – B-1 T 2987687

1956 Passenger List
Harry Hindle travelled with Belgian World Air Lines 18th June 1956. Harry flew 1st Class flight number SH545. In remarks column – V-386612 (passport no?) From Manchester UK to New York USA

From those details I now have confirmed addresses plus a year of birth for Henry Rhodes Hindle.

A quick search in April 2007 FreeBMD for an update on the entries for the surname of WORSHIP. I was totally surprised to see the following:

Dec Q 1904 Henry Rhodes WORSHIP Birth Bradford 9b,43

So, it would appear that whilst still married to Charles Worship, Annie gave birth to son Henry Rhodes who was given the surname of WORSHIP. Certainly by the time the family are in the US both Annie and Henry Rhodes are using the surname of HINDLE and this is confirmed by the 1905 passenger list.

A further search recently revealed two further references to the Hindle’s, named on a Passenger record in 1922 for a Herbert George PITCHFORD & his wife Ida Mary Pitchford. According to the shipping manifest for SS Pittsburgh which sailed from Liverpool on 28th October 1922, and arrived in Philadelphia Port 4th November 1922 Ida Mary’s nearest relative in England is her brother William Rhodes. With this data, this now set me on the trail in Yorkshire for the surname Rhodes, and to trace the ancestry of Annie herself.

A quick search of the 1881 Census for the UK revealed the birth of Annie Rhodes the daughter of Joseph and Sarah Rhodes. The family were living in 1, Oakroyd Terrace in Manningham, which is a small village outside of Bradford. Also listed, born in 1879 is William Rhodes brother.

Another curious thing, was that Annie did make regular trips back home to see her three daughters, they were all left here in England. Out of interest I did a quick search for the surname of WORSHIP, and was surprised to see that Emily Worship, Annie’s Eldest daughter had, in April 1914 gone to Philadelphia on board SS Haverford, which sailed from Liverpool on 16th April 1914, to visit Annie Worship. Recorded on the shipping manifest, Emily’s relative in England was a Chas A Worship residing at 212 Philip Street Newcastle upon Tyne, and address that my father in law recognises for correspondence that he has inherited from his parent’s courtship.

In October 2007 I turned once again to the birth of Henry Rhodes Hindle or was it Worship and ordered the copy of Henry Rhodes Worship’s birth certificate from Bradford It confirms what I’d believed, that Henry was registered with the surname Worship as that was his mother’s husband, making the assumption that Charles Worship was the father. The address given is Eastbrook House, Chapel Street, in Bradford. Occupation Curate. Having just checked the 1901 census to confirm what Charles and Annie were doing there, it appears that Charles was the “Chapel Keeper”.

Henry Rhodes Worship (Hindle) Oct 1904 Bradford

Turning to the US, A search of the website http://www.germangenealogygroup.com/otherdb.stm, on the off chance to see if a marriage could be located. I struck lucky, as there in New York City was the marriage of Annie WORSHIP & Harry HINDLE on 6th September 1922. Certificate number 31122, in the county of Manhattan. I had already located a second marriage for Charles Worship, Annie’s first husband in Edinburgh Scotland in 1922, so it looks as though the divorce became final in 1921-1922. The divorce records have been tracked down and is in the National Archives and was finalised in 1922.

I ordered the marriage certificate only for it to be due to arrive here in the UK as were about to head into a load of postal strikes, needless to say I was irritating and grumpy until the certificate arrived!

Marriage Cert Annie Worship & Harry Hindle 1922 New York USA

I next looked for a Naturalisation record. On every passenger list and the census Henry is recorded as being Naturalised (except 1910 US Census) with the year as 1917. There are variations to the month and court it was done in. I located a copy of the Naturalisation record for September 1917 in the Eastern Court of PA, which ties in with various other documents and a further check of the passenger records confirms September 1917 as the date for naturalisation, so bingo!

Petition for Naturalization (Naturalisation Record) Harry Hindle 20 Aug 1917

Harry Naturalization

I now wanted to see if I could find any records for the deaths of Annie and Harry Hindle. A search of the SSDI for Henry and Annie proved fruitless, but I did check again to see what the index said for Henry Rhodes. There was the death of a Henry in November 1962 with the SSDI number of 159-09-3752 and issued in Pennsylvania with the birth date as 4th October 1904, the same date as the birth certificate from Bradford. A later search of the FamilySearch revealed the following death certificate.

Harry Death Certificate

I went through the census and passenger lists and looked at the addresses the family were living in. The latest date I had at the time was 1946 for 14 North Belfield Havertown PA. Havertown is in Haverford township, 7 miles from the centre of Philadelphia & is in Delaware County with zip code 19083. I searched Google maps to get an idea of the area and to see if I could in a roundabout way locate the cemetery records for both Annie and Henry bearing in mind I had no dates of death for either of them.

There are three cemeteries in the area – Har Jehuda, Arlington (PA) & Montrose.

A search online for the cemetery records in Arlington revealed two likely suspects!

Harry Hindle 19th Feb 1871-19th Feb 1952 buried in Avon section and
Annie R Hindle 14th May 1869-14th May 1953 buried in Avon section.

The years of birth are right, and Annie appears to have a middle initial of R possibly for Rhodes? The actual dates for birth and death look a bit suspicious, but it does give me a starting point. The address for the cemetery is in Delaware County – 2900 State Road, Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026. Then by chance I made contact with someone who connected to Henry Rhodes Hindle and was sent the Cemetery details which confirmed those details.

Hindle USA 002

I do feel that I have, in someway completed a circle, but the story is full of more questions and I guess that is the appeal of genealogy. I have made contact with someone who connected to the family of Henry Rhodes Hindle. They very kindly sent me some bits electronically and some of those things have given more questions. One of the things I was sent was a lovely photo of Henry Rhodes Hindle and his parents, my husband’s Great Grandparents.

Family

Oh, the details on the pencil –

Henry R HINDLE
Fruit & Produce Commission Merchant
Market 2414
200 Dock Street
Phila
PA

Posted in Archive - Imported from Blogger | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History – Wk 2 – Winter

Week 2: Winter. What was winter like where and when you grew up? Describe not only the climate, but how the season influenced your activities, food choices, etc.

I grew up in the South East of England and the winters were very cold with some snow. When it would start to snow and there was a decent depth of snow we would wrap up warm and go out for a walk in the snow, while it was still fresh. It was lovely, no fear at all of falling. We lived in a town so the lovely thick snow soon became slushy and horrid. I love, even now to walk in the thick snow, wrapped all warm and snug. There is always a eerie silence when it snows, I have never understood why.

As a child at senior school I was a very keen hockey player, we would, even in the coldest of winters don our PE kits and head off to the pitch. Our PE kit consisted of a navy blue skirt and a red shirt. We also had to wear red knee high socks and hockey shoes. We would stand on the pitch with the warmth of our breath blowing onto the cold air, our hands and knees with a red tinge from the cold. Those were happy days, we would long to get playing so we could get warm.

Winter food were typically stews and soups. I do the same now. My Mum’s casserole is always a favourite, even now when Mum visits I ask her to make me a casserole. A mix of suede, carrots, onion, mushrooms with a lovely gravy with braising steak, complete with mash potato. We may have to have one tomorrow!

Other foods we had during the winter were stuffed hearts, liver in gravy and shepherds pie. We still have those foods of course, although I am not so restrictive to have them just in the depth of winter. Although we don’t tend to have them when it is warmer. As a child I remember a treat on a Saturday night was a really big baked potato cooked in the oven in tin foil. My Grandmother would stand and grate lots of mature cheddar cheese for us to have over the potato. It was a real treat and now we can of course buy baked potato’s for a few pounds ready done in the microwave, nothing can beat the smell of a oven baked one and I am always plunged back to my childhood and those happy memories.

Posted in Archive - Imported from Blogger | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Memorial Log

I recently commented on someones blog that writing helps us to grieve for our departed loved ones. In that post I mentioned a Memorial Log and I promised that I would explain a bit more about the log and what it did for me.

My Grandmother passed away suddenly on 21st April 1995 and had recently spent six weeks with us, starting just before the Christmas period of 1994. During that time my husband spent some time videoing and recording conversations with my Grandmother, now, 15 years on I still can not watch those video’s, but I am deeply grateful that Stuart had the foresight to record those conversations. We still hold the original camcorder tapes and the VCR tape that the data was transferred to. Sometime this year Stuart will transfer the VCR tapes to DVD, a task he will do when I am out.

My Grandmother, and I were very close. I was overcome, not just with grief and the need to give her the send off she deserved, but I suddenly became aware of all the things and questions I had never asked and all the snippets of information that she had shared with me. Not just genealogical information, but the sayings she would suddenly come out with, things she would do, places and people that she held an association with.

The bottom line was that I missed her dreadfully, her passing had left a huge void in my world and even though the period of time between the death and funeral is fairly busy with the domestics of it all, I felt that I needed to keep my Grandmother with me. I did not want to forget a simple thing. Looking back now, many of the comments and notes I made were one liners, a simple remark that acts as a prompt for more thinking and adding to a journal at a future date, and occasionally I still add to the log. The 18th December 2012 would have been my Grandmother’s 100th birthday. I shall commemorate that in some way, perhaps linked to the Memorial Log.

The Memorial log was for me a simple Filofax that I had and was not using. I used whatever paper I had to hand and my log contains a mix of lined and plain paper. Each entry dated. In the early days I would write and jot down notes for hours, later as time progressed I wrote less, and as I adapted to a world without my Grandmother the entries became fewer in number and less in content. That said, it does not mean that I miss her less. When someone we love passes away we find a way of coping and adapting without them, but they always retain a place in our heart.

Posted in Genealogy, Stationery, Filofax, Journals & Notebooks | Leave a comment

History of Cardigan……..

Thanks to the BBCHistoryMag Twitter feed I became aware of the following post – a fascinating task of knitting with history.

“History of Cardigan told through a cardigan”
Posted in Archive - Imported from Blogger | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Reading and The Spectator…..

Yesterday I read a post on a friend’s blog over at wordpress – Laura was commenting on reading The Spectator online using her Kindle, and it jogged memories of her high school teacher.

My response was:
“I think that many of us are influenced by teachers when we are in our later teens. Likewise, I was influenced by a teacher, who was senior master called Mr Tanner. He loved reading all the Orwell texts and got me to really think about what the characters really represented. Between Mr T and the help of Miss Russell who taught me history and greatly influenced my love of history, I flew through my O level Eng Lit and History. Also I think now our reading is influenced by the people we each become, which is a result of the people who help us on the way to adulthood.
Incidentally, when we first moved here there was a huge rambling antique shop on the site of a former hotel. On a rummaging visit I found a lovely, but not undamaged edition of the Spectator for 1715. It is a beauty, and does have damage to the front cover.”
Having written the above post, I went to the display cabinet in our kitchen/breakfast room as that is where The Spectator lives, nestled into the bottom shelf. There is more damage that I recalled yesterday, and I got the dates slightly wrong. The book is actually a collection of The Spectator and this is the 5th Volume which dates from 1711 – 1713. The front cover is completely detached and when I purcashed the book there had been some water damage. Actually for a book that is effectively 300 years old it is not too bad.
Here are a few snaps shots of it…
Posted in Archive - Imported from Blogger | Tagged | Leave a comment