STEVENSONs of Hokitika

Not sure how I ended up in the ADDISON/STEVENSON part of my database, but having done so, it looked time for an update.
Several births, deaths, and marriages have now been confirmed, spouses correctly named, one or two descendants names, and the wonderful cemetery database resource of the Westland District Council has been found.
My WorldConnect database LornaHenderson has already started an update process so this version wont contain any data from the newly found Hokitika headstone photos on the above site, but does contain many updates to the family.
They descend from Margaret FAIRBAIRN and Joseph BROOMFIELD via their daughter Agnes whose photo in an inherited album opened up a whole new line of research, so many years ago.  She looked far too well dressed to be one of my relatives, but no, she was indeed, as labelled in the album, my great grandfather Adam DAVIDSON's cousin. 

Life lines

Finally did something I've been meaning to do for ages - uploaded a gedcom to AncestralAtlas.
Love one of the features that's arrived since I last explored - Life Maps Mode.
You have to be subscribed to see this feature, but with it you can pick someone in your tree and see either where they moved to over time, or where their ancestors were, or their descendants. I've only uploaded basic bdm data (for all those in my WorldConnect database LornaHenderson), but this would be even more valuable if I'd included census data - next time perhaps.
Check out where the descendants of John RUNCIMAN & Bessie FAMILTON ended up (this being a jpg snapshot, not an interactive display sorry):

Wish they had the historic map layers for Scotland, particularly as the Scottish Gazetteer site seems to still be having problems with that, but following the Vision of Britain links on the map does bring up several other options as does visiting the National Library of Scotland's wonderful maps.

Wybunbury

Have had several interesting email conversations recently with Peter who was brought up in the Vicarage at Wybunbury, ie where the Rev. Robert TURNBULL was the Vicar for 18 years until his death in 1877. Amongst other things the conversation has resulted in a photo of the headstone I couldn't find back in 2006, plus a couple of pictures of the Vicarage, 1847 and 1966. All of which can now be seen in the places section of my main website under, yes, Wybunbury, Cheshire (CHS). Click on the little info icon next to Wybunbury. Still don't know who the first wife was though. Perhaps in another 6 years? Many thanks Peter.

LornaHen.com

Thought it was time to update a few of my webpages. The main family tree website, "big brother", has been fully reloaded. A lot of the entries in the Recent Changes index are merely tidy-ups to do with links to/from the FAIRBAIRN and RUNCIMAN One Name Study and DNA projects, with some exceptions. Many updates will only be visible in updated descendant charts, eg RUNCIMAN, DAVIDSON and RICHARDSON for the more recent finds. The heads of the Michigan RUNCIMAN families now have pages of their own, along with their father William. A feedback form has been added - see footer of each page - one day I really must put a captcha challenge on it to stop the spam! The menu items have been slightly rearranged and rationalised. Also updated is the main gateway page. "Lorna's life". It now includes links to assorted other pages explaining the differences between them, plus the latest entries for three of the main genealogy blogs I use to update progress. Lorna's links has had a few tweaks as well, consolidating the backup research logs into yearly files (and catching them up to this more regularly updated blog), adding a few more links to sites I currently use. Even my original family tree site, "little sis" has been reloaded, prompted by the main change to the RUNCIMAN tree. Yet to come, an update to WorldConnect database LornaHenderson (where all the basic BDM data for all the dead rellies and inter-connected people is available) - that's been delayed while I do a check of the "orphans" I was about to upload as I do more research to try and attach them to their family.

Agnes not Isabella & a twofer

While checking off yet more data before publishing yet another update, I strayed back onto my shortest family tree, the DAVIDSONs (that of my great grandfather Adam) and decided to check whether or not I would have more luck pinning a few more twigs down.

Just as I picked a correct death cert. from the options available on ScotlandsPeople, in came an email.

This is a line I've not looked at for at least 3 years, probably more, and many years ago the entire tree consisted of some 30 people until the Australian contingent popped out of the woodwork.
The email was from one of the Australian contingent, a descendant of the sister of the chap whose death I had just found!

Only managed to add about 3 descendants and 2 wives into the tree on two of the lines remaining in Scotland but several more fates have been found, including that of Isabella, daughter of John DAVIDSON and Isabella FORD.  The family story was that Margaret Greig DAVIDSON had emigrated to meet up with her sister, and the sister had been very tentatively identified as Isabella. Now however, with the increasing availability of records, the sister is more likely to be Agnes given there's one of the right age and birthplace emigrating to Queensland towards the end of 1891, especially as Isabella's death was found in Chirnside in 1909 - immediately preceding her aunt Mary JEFFREY nee DAVIDSON's on the same page - so two for the price of one!

A burning issue

Further to Robert BISHOP in the last post (Resurrecting Robert) - we can now guess how come he was in jail in 1900.
Found a newspaper report (27 Oct 1899 San Diego Union) of an arson of his heavily insured and heavily mortgaged property, in which he, "Robert Bishop an old man", and his son "H L Bishop", lived keeping "a saloon in the front part".
Both were accused of the arson and arrested.
Haven't found a report of any trial, but Robert is known to be in jail in 1900 and Harold was living with his sister and her husband at the same census.

Resurrecting Robert

Just found that I've prematurely killed off Robert BISHOP, husband of Elizabeth ANDREWS.
Given he was in the Alameda County jail in 1900 and not found (when I last looked) in the 1910 census, I jumped to the conclusion that he had died between 1900 and 1910.

Happenstance involving discussion about Queenie, aka Caroline PERRETT, the 8 year old kidnapped from Lepperton by Maoris in 1874 led me to revisit some of my Taranaki data.
Two of Queenie's siblings married into my extended ANDREWS tree: a sister Sarah became the second wife of Thomas LANGMAN, the first being Sarah, the above Elizabeth's sister; a brother married the daughter of the above Thomas and Sarah (ANDREWS) LANGMAN. A third married a BISHOP, which led to my yet again trying to figure out which, if any, of the Taranaki BISHOP families Robert belonged too - I failed, yet again.

However a general search on ancestry uncovered a Robert BISHOP of the right age in the 1920 Oakland, Alameda Co., California census. With a new, younger, wife Emilia, and a son (Ashton BISHOP) and a married daughter (Eva BROWN) born in New Zealand, previously unknown to me. Also with a convenient John E SAUNDERS in the household as brother-in-law of Robert.

The "BISHOP" son and daughter turned out to be step children of Robert's, being born to George LEECH and Amelia Hamblyn Cudlipp Scone SANDERS in New Zealand, probably in New Plymouth.
Also noted in passing was an Elizabeth Hamblyn Cudlipp Scone SAUNDUS marriage in New Zealand in the same timeframe to a Thomas Green LEECH. Sure enough Elizabeth and Amelia were siblings, emigrating from Devon to Nelson around 1860.

Thomas and Elizabeth LEECHs children seem to be well linked to the WOOD family, and there's also a connection in this lot to Alfred Bayley KIVELL.
All in all, a well tangled set of Taranaki families.