Stray George Henry WARE - Jeweller anyone?

With all the Devon families getting a bit of a look in at the moment, one that got more attention was that of Nicholas WARE and Margaret King CREBER (those darn rabbit farmers). I'd "parked" a mysterious May WARE, grddtr with Margaret in 1881.
With the arrival on ancestry of a heap of London records I went searching, and found a marriage for her (to Alfred Edward GRIMES), which told me that her father was George Henry WARE, jeweller. Not a known (to me) son for Nicholas to either wife.
However, he can well fit in between Richard and Margaret Annie. But I can't as yet find him anywhere to confirm this.
The relevant Devon descendant charts have been updated: BARTER, KING, DAWE, CREBER

26th: What a way to go

You've got to feel sorry for this chap and his family.

A Canadian death cert. I've just read (Samuel METHERELL 1894, Lindsay, Victoria Co, Ontario) gives cause of death as "diarohia with melancholia".
Haven't yet placed him in the HELSON/METHERELL families I'm currently filling in gaps on but he has to connect somewhere, given two of the dtrs of Thomas HELSON and Elizabeth PEEK both married METHERELLs, and many of them ended up in Victoria, Ontario, mostly around Mariposa.

24th: Census enumerator defeated

Having uploaded some updates to OneGreatFamily , I reviewed the families concerned (those of the last few posts) to see if anyone else was researching them.
Lots of "conflicting information" symbols showed up, along with several greyed out boxes on the descendant charts which showed that someone else had more people in the tree than I did (or insufficient information on our respective records for OGF to have merged them automatically).
One family I strayed into checking was that of Ann HELSON, dtr of John and Elizabeth (HORTOP) HELSON, whose son Aaron I thought had married an Emma, but the investigation of same hadn't ever made it to the top of the growing pile of Round TUITs.
The first record I checked was the 1881 census, at Wimsdon, North Petherwin, Cornwall, and two of the dtrs were listed merely as M.E. and H W F. MEHTERAL.
Birth records eventually unearthed showed M E as Mahala Elizabeth, and H W F highly likely to be Hephzibah Florence.
I concluded that the names were just too much for the enumerator to spell!

(OneGreatFamily are having a cut price sub offer for a few more days if you're interested)

Charles Henry CHARLES again

But this time, the father.
Finally found the family of Nicholas/Henry COMBELLACK/CHARLES and Honor/Flora in 1891.
After being in Cardiff in 1881 (as Henry and Flora COMBELLACK), Henry has returned to England and is living in Plymouth as Charles H CHARLES, widower, with Annie, Mary and Ada with him, and a Sarah who may or may not be Fanny from 1881. Next household schedule, same address, is for Henry and Fanny CHARLES (the son, subject of the previous posting, Fanny looks like she remarries in 1897 to a Joseph George JURY, Henry having died in 1893).
Still can't find either Honor's death, nor marriage or death of Flora (if she exists and isn't Honor), and would very much like to find the births for Ada and Fanny/Sarah, supposedly in Bath to figure out if their Mum was Honor, or possibly Flora.
Anyone out there with a mysterious Ada or Fanny or Sarah CHARLES or COMBELLACK?
DAWE descendant chart updated.

Charles Henry Charles

What a mouthful.
With the hint that the COMBELLACKs may have become CHARLES, and the now knowledge, that the Military records on ancestry labelled as 1914-1922 actually also include earlier service records, I searched them for CHARLES instead of COMBELLACK.
Up popped one Henry CHARLES, of Devonport, born abt 1866, so I read his record.
He enlisted on the same day as Edmund John CHIVERS, for the same Corps.
Next of kin given as father Nicholas of Plymouth, crossed out and "wife Fanny with him" written in.
Fanny later identiifed as the Fanny Grace JEWELL, whom he married in 1890 at Mutley Wesleyan Chapel, Plymouth.
I believe this is Charles Henry COMBELLACK, and the C H CHARLES witness to the marriage of Edmund John CHIVERS and Annie CHARLES.
Just as well he only alternated between surnames beginning with C as he had a tattoo H C on his arm.

20th: Combellacks or Charles!

The power of pooling information was very evident today.
The name Charles obviously had some significance to the COMBELLACK family of Nicholas and Honor (DAWE) COMBELLACK.
Two of their sons had led me a merry dance as I tried to convince myself that Isaac Daw COMBELLACK was one and the same person as Isaac Charles COMBELLACK, and ditto for Richard Thomas or Richard Charles COMBELLACK.
Not to mention as to whether or not Henry in Wales in 1881 was actually Nicholas.
Yes to all of the above.
I still don't know the significance of Charles as a name to the family, BUT today I was contacted via the Ancestry message service by a Liz investigating her ancestor, an Annie CHARLES who had married an Edmund John CHIVERS in 1891, giving her father as one Henry CHARLES, and a witness being a C H CHARLES.
Her research had led her to Henry and Flora COMBELLACK in Wales in 1881 (family story about runaways, millers, gardeners and name changes from COMBELLACK to CHARLES).

With these hints, I have now found what looks like Nicholas aka Henry COMBELLACK aka CHARLES in Roath, Cardiff in 1901 as a widowed gardener, Henry CHARLES of the right age, birth place Gwendron, Cornwall, which I guess could pass as Welsh for Wendron .

Still can't find them in 1891 though.

Had a great deal of trouble finding Annie and Edmund anywhere beyond the marriage entry on FreeBMD, but eventually confirmed that it did rather look like she was the Anna, dtr of Nicholas and Honor as the 1911 census shows her as born Helston, Cornwall abt 1872 (Anna was Dec 1871 Sithney, Helston).
Edmund's military service record was very interesting reading (joined up in 1884, served until 1907, seeing service in Egypt and Sth Africa, and ended up being discharged from Ireland, getting a whole 5 pounds for his long service and good conduct over 23 years and 75 days service.
The only injury noted on his record was a head injury from being thrown from his cart when his mule shied at passing soldiers - in Aldershot.
So far this was all only circumstantial evidence of the right Annie, but the service record neatly lists all 5 of his children and adds considerably more circumstantial evidence in that one son was named Phillip Isaac Nicholas CHIVERS.
Phillip being Edmund's father, Isaac being a good DAWE name, and Nicholas being Annie's father.
I'm convinced. Now to see if C H CHARLES can be found and confirmed as Charles Henry COMBELLACK.

Update time

Thought it time to publish some of the updates from the last few weeks.

WorldConnect Database LornaHenderson has been updated.
Main changes are in the Devon families mentioned over the last few postings:

• Honor DAW and Nicholas COMBELLACK
• Joseph King ROWE's dtr Gladys
who married Norbert WILMERING - who now has her own web page so that I can publish the clippings sent to me by Bart.
• the CREBER/HELSON/PEARCE families mentioned a while ago
and
• the ALGARs
  

In addition I've incorporated all recent changes into OneGreatFamily , as usual. I was interested to note the results of an informal survey that Dick Eastman carried out recently that question 12 about usage of on-line genealogy programs showed that of those answering this question (admittedly not a large number of responses), most used OneGreatFamily, so it can't just be me that finds it useful.

17th: Honor confirmed

While adding Gladys ROWE into the copy of the tree I keep on Ancestry I deviated into attaching some available census data to Isaac Smith DAWE.
One thing always leads to another, and as Isaac and Betsey had grddtr Honor GALE born Marystow living with them in 1851, I also included her in the ancestry tree (where I can link to sources found there) and realised I'd never confirmed my suspicions from 2006 that she had married a John CREES.
Back then FreeBMD could only provide a John CREES(E) who married in 1863, but no matching Honor. Which is now explained as they actually married in 1870.
There are a couple of trees researching this family from the CREES side, so I am reasonably happy that the id is correct.

Definitely time for Devon families

Must be something in the air at the moment, with all this activity on the Devon branches of my tree.
Next WorldConnect update will include several more of the COMBELLACK family of Honor DAWE as several certificates have arrived to confirm my suspicions as to who married whom apart from Emily Jane where I drew a blank. The Emily Jane who married Hugh NICHOLLS was the dtr of Richard Toll COMBELLACK instead of Nicholas as I was hoping she would be. So her fate remains unknown beyond 1881 when she was in Bristol with brother Richard.
And while all this activity was going on, yet another wonderful email arrived asking if I had any interest in a box of WILMERING memorabilia that included several photos letters and newspaper clippings relating to the family of Gladys ROWE and Norbert WILMERING. Thank you so much Bart, for sharing this little treasure trove.
Norbert is a relation of Bart's wife, and they had contacted a relation who had saved these boxes of memorabilia from an elderly WILMERING relation. The newspaper cuttings are in a grocery store's ledger book which begins in 1868, but was later used by Norbert's grandmother for the family clippings.
I feel yet more updates coming on!

13th: Let me count the ways

How many variants can there be for finding the surname CREBER in the indexes?
A couple of marriage certs for Richard CREBERs turned up today, ordered after I got confused about the identification in 1841 of who Eliza was with.
(Eliza is the one from the other day's entry, who married Robert PEARCE, and sister of Henry CREBER, all of whom ended up in Ontario).
The best 1841 candidate was of a 21 yr old Eliza with a Richard (34) and Mary (35) at Yealamade, Sheepstor.
However, that Richard doesn't exactly look like her brother Richard, as he is more likely to be with wife Mary (GILES) at Welltown, Walkhampton.
The next most likely candidate, a cousin Richard, son of James CREBER and Agnes SPRY was married to 1st wife Margaret at the time (2nd wife Mary BALL didn't come along until 1844) and they appear at Huckworthy Bridge, Sampford Spiney as expected.
Looking at the other Richards in the timeframe led me to the 1801 Richard son of Richard CREBER and Elizabeth SPRY and I noticed that some ancestry trees provide him with a wife and family in London.
Took me a while to verify this, beyond the easily found, but inconclusive, marriage record to Elizabeth WARE.
Census data indexed them as CREBO (1851), ALBER (1861), COLBER (1871), and yes, one states he was born Walkhampton.
Yet another musical CREBER family, as Richard, and son Samuel are both enumerated as pianoforte makers.
Son Samuel added to the count, by being enumerated as CREVER (1861) but indexed as BREVER.
However, that didn't solve my mystery of the Sheepstor 1841 census Richard and Mary.

Creber, Barter and King descendant charts has been updated to include a few more twigs, as has the DAWE descendant chart, and a page for Honor DAWE (marr. to Nicholas/Henry COMBELLACK) has been added.

9th: Still no matches

Given Family Tree DNA have just announced some greatly reduced mtDNA testing prices (yes, I've ordered the new Mega, full sequence mtDNA for myself), I also thought it was time I checked whether or not anything had popped up lately re the HENDERSON dna.
No, Bill and Russell, still show as the only matches each has in the entire FT DNA database. Some day, someone else will test that will match and give me some leads as to where Archibald may have come from.

4th: Happenstances galore

Do so love it when assorted threads all come together.

A message arrived from ancestry accepting a correction I'd lodged some time ago so I checked to see who it was.
As previously advised, I have loaded the basic ancestral tree onto ancestry (suspect the link will only work if you have a sub, or are accessing it via a library), and am adding connected people as I research them and find source data.
So, given the correction was for a connected person, I added them to the tree, added the source I'd previously viewed, and connected them up to the previously loaded common ancestor.
This led me to review where I'd got to with the family of Richard PEARCE and Mary HELSON.
Putting the hints ancestry provided together with checking now more readily available sources, I've finally solved a long standing mystery (to me anyway, others may well have solved it long ago), AND connected up two previously separate branches of my Devon families.
As I checked off the family of their son Robert, and couldn't find Robert and Elizabeth's son Richard anywhere in Canada after 1871, it dawned on me that I may have solved the mystery about the Mary PEARCE who married John OXENHAM and moved to Michigan.
I now believe I've found the final proof (or sufficient additional circumstantial evidence) that she was indeed the dtr of Richard PEARCE and Mary HELSON.
John and Mary's dtr Betsy OXENHAM married a Richard H PEARCE/PEARSE/PIERCE, and shortly before their marriage, both had appeared in a Michigan Census as niece/nephew of John & Grace KEAGLE (that's still a mystery for another day).
Richard looked like he might be the son of a Robert & Eliza PEARCE in Belleville by 1851
I didn't have enough additional information at the time I last investigated this.
Coming to the family from a completely different angle this time, I landed on Eliza or Elizabeth CREBER, dtr of John and Ann (WORTH) CREBER as one of the hints ancestry provided and found that at least one tree thought she had married Robert PEARSE and emigrated to Ontario - yes Belleville.
Guess I'll have to re-check the family of John and Ann (WORTH) CREBER however, as I had assumed she had died young, given there was a later baptism in Walkhampton of an Eliza to John and Ann.
Either it's a different John and Ann, OR someone was telling porkies, and the 1829 Eliza is actually a dtr of a dtr? I do admit I was a bit sceptical about adding her to the family, as Ann would be abt 51 by then.
It looks fairly clear that the 1821 Eliza or Elizabeth is indeed the one in Belleville, but I'm basing that mainly on two facts.
A son named Worth in one census (and William in the next), and that they were living next door to a Henry CREBER of an age and birthplace to be her brother Henry CREBER, whom I'd lost in England after a possibly 1841 sighting at Sampford Spiney with what looked like his cousin Richard.
So two found families for the price of one census entry, and the descendants of the HELSON/PEEK/ALGAR families matching up with those of the BARTER/KINGs.

I've updated the CREBER and PEEK/ALGAR descendant charts to include these new twigs, as well as adding assorted source data to them on the ancestry tree which may help others find more, given the variations in the indexing for these surnames:
PIERCE, PEARSE, PEARCE, CREBER, CHEEBER, CHUBER, CREBAR just to name a few I can remember from today.

Next WorldConnect database update will include shifting some of the above people into my main database from LornaPotential, which holds those I've researched in some way and suspect they'll connect, but lack sufficient proof.

Back to the COMBELLACKs next, as Alan has kindly provided a copy of his data for me to work thru.

3rd: Nicholas vs Henry

Fully convinced that Nicholas COMBELLACK is the Henry with Flora in Cardiff in the 1881 census.
Alan sent me a copy of Isaac's marriage cert to Annie PUGH, which shows his father as Henry (by now a gardener, not a miller, even though it was probably as a miller he shifted to Wales).
He had been provided it by a previous researcher of this family also hitting the same puzzles.
I still need convincing that Flora is Honor though, given the gap in the children's ages, and the fact I cannot find the birth registrations of the youngest two as yet.
Mind you, looking at a badly written Flora in that census, I did wonder if it was someone's mistranscription onto an enumerator's sheet of another poorly written misspelt Honor.

1st: Combellacks combined

Finally found a couple of links I was missing in the family of Nicholas and Honor (DAWE) COMBELLACK to convince me who all these variously named people were:
Richard Thomas aka Richard Charles aka Richard marr. to Annie WOOD living Penzance
and
Isaac Daw aka Isaac aka Isaac Charles marr. to Annie PUGH and living Cardiff (buried Thanet)
have all been combined into the family of Nicholas and Honor, who may, or may not, be Henry and Flora in Cardiff in 1881.

For the curious, the links that finally convinced me were a couple of War Graves, and War memorials.
Isaac's burial in Thanet records him as Isaac Charles, son of Nicholas and Honor and husband of Annie Pugh COMBELLACK of Roath, Cardiff
and Richard James, died Mesopotamia 1919 is shown as son of Mr and Mrs R T COMBELLACK of the same address as the Richard Charles COMBELLACK who married Annie WOOD.

My Rootsweb WorldConnect database LornaHenderson has been updated to reflect all the latest findings.