Family history update
Right, this is going to be a long post, so grab yourself a cold one.
Those of you who persevere with this blog may have read a post back in November about the search for my ancestors. You may recall that I was having a spot of bother with my great-great-great-great-grandfather.
A couple of weeks ago I was in London for the weekend - one of the main reasons being to visit the National Archives at Kew and browse the mariner records for the mid 19th century. The plan was to go in there, find one William Miller of South Shields in the master mariner lists and that would be job done. Well, obviously it wasn't that easy. The list of masters wasn't yielding anything useful, so I had to trawl through the standard seamen indexes and found 16 William Millers from South Shields.
After some further work I managed to get this list down to 5, any of which could have been the man I was after. I was stuck. Anyway, that was the Saturday and I was in London until the train left on Monday afternoon. So, on Monday morning I went to the Family Records Centre in Islington, conveniently just round the corner from the hotel. There, I spoke to a very helpful lady who, after much face pulling and shaking of head as I explained my predicament, suggested I did some cross-checking with the census records of the time: if one of these William Millers was at home on census night, I would know it wasn't mine. Brilliant. That got me down to 2.
Time was ticking and I could achieve no more. However, I knew from previous census browsing that he had died sometime between 1851 and 1861. So out of desperation I spent the last hour or so going through the death indexes by hand, looking for all the William Millers who died in South Shields between those dates. These indexes don't give age at death, or occupation or anything so it's hard to be sure, and if he died at sea he wouldn't be in these indexes anyway, so it was another long shot. I found 2.
I ordered copies of the certificates hoping one would be a master mariner and the address he died at would tie up somewhere. They arrived on Tuesday. Unfortunately, both were listed as seamen though one was a master. The master mariner died at 12 Thames Street which was agonisingly close to the 1851 census return for his family of 23 Thames Street, but not enough to be sure. I had hoped his wife Ann might be the one notified of his death, but it was an Elizabeth Miller of 13 Thames Street on the certificate. Now, he had a daughter Elizabeth, but she would only have been 9 when this guy died, so that was unlikely. The only possibilities left would have been a sister or daughter-in-law.
With me so far? Ok, this brings me to tonight's research.
William Miller's second son (his first was my great-great-great-grandfather, William) was a chap called James Hedley Miller, born around 1829. Now that unusual middle name had helped me locate the correct census entries for the family a year or so ago, because William's wife was Ann Hedley (married 1822) and it was very much James to the rescue again.
I had a look for his marriage entry and that, because of the way they were indexed in 1851, gave me 4 possible spouses - one of which was Elizabeth Bulmer. It was looking good, but nowhere near proved. Right, so now I looked for James in the 1861 census - he was carpenter and mate on a bloody ship at sea, wife nowhere to be seen. It looked like another dead end.
Having got the bit between the teeth however, I looked for an entry for Elizabeth Miller in the 1861 census - guessing her age but having a good idea where where she lived. There she was, at 12 Thames Street - husband not there of course, but her 4 year old son gave the game away: James Hedley Miller. Bingo. However, why was she at 12 Thames Street? Well, I looked at the entry for 13 Thames Street and who should be there but James' younger brother, George and his wife, believe it or not, Elizabeth.
So I think I am sure now that my great-great-great-great-grandfather, William Miller died on the 21st December 1852, aged 58 at 12 Thames Street, Westoe. His daughter-in-law Elizabeth who lived next door was there when he died.
His age of 58 gave me an approximate year of birth of 1794. Checking back at the mariner's records that I'd written down on my trip to Kew, I had one that I had not discounted by other means, who started his career at sea as a carpenter (same as James) with date of birth given as 16 December 1795. This could be him but further work is needed. Just as well I'm back in London next month.
Apologies for the length of this post - I hope you've found it at least slightly interesting. I felt I had to write it all out (actually not all, but near enough) to get it straight in my head and make sure I haven't missed any gaps in the logic.
This has been a long slog - over a year to find this much information about one man who was born 211 years ago.
William Miller, my great-great-great-great-grandfather, master mariner, probably born 16th December 1795, married to Ann Hedley at St Paul's Parish Church, Jarrow on the 6th of January 1822, died 21st December 1852. Father of 8.
Tonight has been a very successful night.
Those of you who persevere with this blog may have read a post back in November about the search for my ancestors. You may recall that I was having a spot of bother with my great-great-great-great-grandfather.
A couple of weeks ago I was in London for the weekend - one of the main reasons being to visit the National Archives at Kew and browse the mariner records for the mid 19th century. The plan was to go in there, find one William Miller of South Shields in the master mariner lists and that would be job done. Well, obviously it wasn't that easy. The list of masters wasn't yielding anything useful, so I had to trawl through the standard seamen indexes and found 16 William Millers from South Shields.
After some further work I managed to get this list down to 5, any of which could have been the man I was after. I was stuck. Anyway, that was the Saturday and I was in London until the train left on Monday afternoon. So, on Monday morning I went to the Family Records Centre in Islington, conveniently just round the corner from the hotel. There, I spoke to a very helpful lady who, after much face pulling and shaking of head as I explained my predicament, suggested I did some cross-checking with the census records of the time: if one of these William Millers was at home on census night, I would know it wasn't mine. Brilliant. That got me down to 2.
Time was ticking and I could achieve no more. However, I knew from previous census browsing that he had died sometime between 1851 and 1861. So out of desperation I spent the last hour or so going through the death indexes by hand, looking for all the William Millers who died in South Shields between those dates. These indexes don't give age at death, or occupation or anything so it's hard to be sure, and if he died at sea he wouldn't be in these indexes anyway, so it was another long shot. I found 2.
I ordered copies of the certificates hoping one would be a master mariner and the address he died at would tie up somewhere. They arrived on Tuesday. Unfortunately, both were listed as seamen though one was a master. The master mariner died at 12 Thames Street which was agonisingly close to the 1851 census return for his family of 23 Thames Street, but not enough to be sure. I had hoped his wife Ann might be the one notified of his death, but it was an Elizabeth Miller of 13 Thames Street on the certificate. Now, he had a daughter Elizabeth, but she would only have been 9 when this guy died, so that was unlikely. The only possibilities left would have been a sister or daughter-in-law.
With me so far? Ok, this brings me to tonight's research.
William Miller's second son (his first was my great-great-great-grandfather, William) was a chap called James Hedley Miller, born around 1829. Now that unusual middle name had helped me locate the correct census entries for the family a year or so ago, because William's wife was Ann Hedley (married 1822) and it was very much James to the rescue again.
I had a look for his marriage entry and that, because of the way they were indexed in 1851, gave me 4 possible spouses - one of which was Elizabeth Bulmer. It was looking good, but nowhere near proved. Right, so now I looked for James in the 1861 census - he was carpenter and mate on a bloody ship at sea, wife nowhere to be seen. It looked like another dead end.
Having got the bit between the teeth however, I looked for an entry for Elizabeth Miller in the 1861 census - guessing her age but having a good idea where where she lived. There she was, at 12 Thames Street - husband not there of course, but her 4 year old son gave the game away: James Hedley Miller. Bingo. However, why was she at 12 Thames Street? Well, I looked at the entry for 13 Thames Street and who should be there but James' younger brother, George and his wife, believe it or not, Elizabeth.
So I think I am sure now that my great-great-great-great-grandfather, William Miller died on the 21st December 1852, aged 58 at 12 Thames Street, Westoe. His daughter-in-law Elizabeth who lived next door was there when he died.
His age of 58 gave me an approximate year of birth of 1794. Checking back at the mariner's records that I'd written down on my trip to Kew, I had one that I had not discounted by other means, who started his career at sea as a carpenter (same as James) with date of birth given as 16 December 1795. This could be him but further work is needed. Just as well I'm back in London next month.
Apologies for the length of this post - I hope you've found it at least slightly interesting. I felt I had to write it all out (actually not all, but near enough) to get it straight in my head and make sure I haven't missed any gaps in the logic.
This has been a long slog - over a year to find this much information about one man who was born 211 years ago.
William Miller, my great-great-great-great-grandfather, master mariner, probably born 16th December 1795, married to Ann Hedley at St Paul's Parish Church, Jarrow on the 6th of January 1822, died 21st December 1852. Father of 8.
Tonight has been a very successful night.
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