Start of summer

It's the official start of summer here, and for once the weather knows it. We've been having wonderfully hot, sunny, windless days - no doubt we'll pay the price later with water shortages but for now, enjoyment is all.

So what am I doing sitting inside? Checking (it's too hot out there).
Fool that I am I decided to run an extra check against the data I upload to Rootsweb WorldConnect (ie BDM data on all my relations and their connected people of interest).
Checking for strays, ie those who had become disconnected to their families.
Some are easily fixed by marking their partner for output, others are meaning ongoing research, eg how was Charles Frederick William ANDREWS a grandson to Ambrose Willcock ANDREWS?
This time round I've cracked it by finally finding the family in the 1861 census where they had been hiding in Bristol, under initials instead of forenames, and along the way also identified the "visitor" Charles aged 2 with John and Maria ANDREWS in Tavistock in 1851. He was actually nephew to John.

This activity does mean that I get to re-visit parts of the database that haven't had much attention for quite some time, but also means the WorldConnect db update will be delayed until I've sorted more than the first one on the list of some 115 people!

Heard from Tim in France. Between us we've now solved each other's mysterious Alexander Ewing RUNCIMAN.
I didn't know where the family had disappeared to for the 1871 census, he didn't know who the 17 yr old chap documented as arriving in Sth Africa was.
Haven't yet rechecked to see if I can now find the rest of the family in 1871, but Alexander is now known to have already left Scotland, and obviously not straight for Argentina where he ended up.

Honor becomes Hannah, and Fanny was/is Sarah

Oh I wish our relations made things slightly easier for us by having one name throughout life!
Sarah COMBELLACK's 1879 Bristol birth cert has turned up, and yes, she has to be the Fanny with Henry and Flora COMBELLACK in Llandaff, Cardiff in 1881 and the Sarah with Charles H CHARLES, widower, in Plymouth in 1891.
It shows her as the dtr of Charles Henry COMBELLACK, miller, and Hannah (sic) formerly DAWE.
So, unless Henry married a Flora between 1879 when Sarah was born, and 1881 when he shows up in Wales with wife Flora, I currently think Flora is just another name for Honor/Hannah, after all she has to keep up her side of the name-changing equation, given how many names we've found her husband had.
So, I've removed Flora, and shifted Ada and Sarah/Fanny to being daughters of Honour, and republished Honor's web page (or should that now be Hannah's web page?

Fanny/Sarah - Honor/Flora revisited

Liz has provided a certificate that has both a COMBELLACK and a CHARLES mentioned, even more evidence for the prosecution that her Annie CHARLES was Annie COMBELLACK.
This led me to get a bit more determined to identify Ada and Fanny/Sarah, and see if Sarah was indeed Fanny or yet another mystery in the family.
There's a Sarah COMBELLACK birth registered in Bristol 1879 which would sort of fit with Sarah's age in 1891, and make it highly likely she is the Fanny of the 1881 census.
So I turned my attention to the Honor/Flora mystery again.
Still being investigated but I've found a promising looking lead in a marriage of a Flora DAWE in Bristol in 1878, which fits by time and place. The FreeBMD index shows that the page has a mismatching number of bridges and grooms, and of all the marriages in Bristol that quarter, none are obviously Nicholas/Henry COMBELLACK or Charles Henry CHARLES, so the images will be searched.

DNA work of late has been on assorted FAIRBAIRN families to add a couple of lineages to the Patriarchs page - not yet published, but they will be that of John FAIRBAIRN and Margaret DEANS, in the hope we can prove John is indeed the son of Alexander FAIRBAIRN and Isabella ATCHESON.
Also that of the engineer Robert FAIRBAIRN of Eckford, who married Elizabeth YOUNG and moved to Liverpool then vanishes
DNA candidates being sought.

Confusing COMBELLACKs

This family is proving MOST intriguing to research. There are so many alternatives online, with different parents, different names, and they are particularly elusive in census records beyond 1871.
Found one note that said Nicholas and Honor(DAWE) COMBELLACK had moved to Wales where they became Henry and Flora. Certainly Henry's age and occupation fit, as do the oldest two children enumerated with them in Cardiff. But why suddenly say they were all born Bristol? Talk about re-inventing yourself.
Given the age gap between the two oldest children and the two younger ones, I'd guess that Flora might be a second wife, but if so, I've been unsuccessful to date in finding the marriage to Flora, or death of Honor.
I've posted some of the contradictions on the COMBELLACK message board in the hope that someone can chime in with evidence from BDM certificates and will keep digging.

As recent changes will show up on the DAWE descendant chart, it has been reloaded.