Does it MATTER?

A recent smartmatch on MyHeritage led me on a wonderful, overdue, voyage of exploration on what on earth did happen to the children of my 3x great grandmother Betsy MATTERS' brother Joseph (married Mary CUDLIP).
Betty's tree showed that their daughter Elizabeth married a John NORTHMORE and had emigrated to the States.
That led me to re-check data from many years ago that had her brother Richard possibly in Michigan but not proven at the time.
One thing led to another and I also realised I'd never investigated what happened to Joseph and Betsy's sister Honour either.
Sure enough, yet another immigrant, but with a bit of a mystery involved in the records.
When did she and her husband die?

Honor BORLEY nee METTERS or MATTERS:
Of the 18 tree matches ancestry throws up as a hint, 2 are actually her sister, 2 don't venture a death date, the rest consistently show her as dying in Ulster, New York in Jun 1880.
I found a source document for her death - the mortality schedule (edited here to bring the relevant entries up to the headings from the bottom of the page)

which purports to show deaths to the year ending 31st May 1880.
Both Francis and Honor show on the schedule, Francis as dying in March, Honor in June.
Both show as married (the heading options are single, married, widowed), which itself causes a few logistical problems as one had to have died prior to the other.
At this point I concluded that Honor had died in Jun 1879 and Francis in Mar 1880.
So far so good.

Then I looked in the 1880 census for their children.
There, in Kingston, Ulster, NY is son Thomas and family.
Date of the census is 17 Jun 1880.
In the household is his widowed father Francis, aged 83.

Anyone found a headstone? A family bible?
I'm happy enough that Honor probably died in Jun 1879 but what about Francis?

Curate with a hearing problem?

There seems to be a bit of a trend about oral traditions/hearing issues here at the moment.

My WorldConnect database LornaHenderson has been republished to include the last few months worth of updates.
Many updates are the result of checking off research from the early days when so few sources were readily available - in particular some of the dates for the family of Anna Maria ANDREWS  and John Lidderdale PURDIE (having been prompted by a DNA match with a descendant), but also some of the BAINs.
The most recent set however were for the family of Richard MATTERS/METTERS and Elizabeth NORRISH thanks to a smartmatch from MyHeritage alerting me to a tree posted by a descendant.
From Devon to London to Argentina to Devon to New Zealand.
I've found a 5th cousin lives over the hill from me!
This exercise reminded me that I'd never satisfactorily resolved/tidied up the family of Ann daughter of Richard and Elizabeth, nor found the baptisms for the family.
The latter turned out to be because back when that research was first done, Non Conformist baptisms weren't as readily available. Now they are indexed on FamilySearch and Ancestry (at least), with the images available on TheGenealogist.co.uk
That solved I turned my attention back to Ann's marriage to John BORROWMAN.
Still no joy.
Has anyone found it?
The best I could come up with was John's marriage in 1848 to a Mary Ann MEADOWS.
Right father and father's occupation, date fits known info, ie Ann shown in the 1851 census where she was living at home with her parents, shown as Ann BORROWMAN, married, and Richard/Elizabeth's granddaughter Fanny Barford MATTERS aged 3 born Devonport in the household.
The first  child for Ann and John I know about is son John born 1853.
Fanny later shows up with John and Ann as daughter, Fanny BORROWMAN, but her marriage certificate to George BURDICK shows her father as _____ and herself as Fanny BORROWMAN nee MATTERS, spinster

So, can anyone claim a Mary Ann MEADOWS of full age, X her mark, father Richard MEADOWS, farmer, who married John BORROWMAN, carpenter Royal Navy residence at marriage HMS Wellesley?
Is this Ann MATTERS as recorded by a Curate unused to the local accent? But if so, why Mary Ann?

How many Williams?

As part of the attention being given to descendants of Richard MATTERS and Patience PIKE at the moment, I reviewed their son William supposedly born Aug 1796 Bere Ferrers.
I had, from data originally supplied to me, and not independently checked, that there were two Williams in the family, one 1783 and another 1796, so I'd assumed the first had died.
Today I checked the family off against the Bere Ferrers baptisms and came to the conclusion that there was only one William, the 1783 one, who hadn't obviously died young (no burial up to 1805). So, I've deleted my second William from the family.
Thought I'd found him in Tavistock with wife Ann in a couple of census records, but eventually discounted that identification as he thought he was born Bridestow.

Lumburn Mill

A posting on the GenForum FUGE board elicited a prompt response and contact with two researchers of the name in Australia. Like me, they hadn't solved the problem of what happened to Samuel, Thomasin Ann and John Edwin, children of William FUGE and Mary Elizabeth HAMLEY, but were able to add several details, including most of the later baptisms and some exact marriage dates.
But even more interestingly, this contact has finally lead to exact identification of the Lumburn Mill.
I was swapping Tavistock Library stories with one of the FUGE researchers, telling her about how I'd been trying to identify where assorted mills were that Isaac DAWE had been (Newton, Mill Hill, Lifton and Lumburn).
She had also been trying to identify the Lumburn mill as one of the FUGE wives' families had been there from between 1851 and 1861, presumably following on from my Isaac DAWE who had died in 1851 or his son Isaac who had emigrated to Australia by 1857.
When I was in Devon in Aug 2006 I had followed the river up from Lumburn to Middle Lumburn to Higher Lumburn taking pics of likely buildings for the Lumburn Mill, the first being on the A390 out of Tavistock just past the Lumburn bridge.
As my map didn't show any great water source near to this first set, well past the bridge, I assumed it wasn't the mill and had turned off onto the B road to the right, so didn't get to see the front of the first set of buildings I'd snapped from the bridge side.
However, Eleanor's 2003 photo from the other side is an exact match with the family photo that we have marked "Lumburn House and Mill" with assorted well dressed Victorians outside. Obviously the water is either hidden, or has been diverted over the centuries.

Marriage cert of William MATTERS arrived. I had picked the right bride - Mary GRIBBIN (of Newquay, Tavistock), dtr of Edward. Haven't yet found her/them in 1841 and 1851.

Feb 13, 2008: Further FAIRBAIRNs, more MATTERS

Continued updating the line of George and Janet (PURDIE) FAIRBAIRN.
Both that of their son Charles whose children ended up moving from Pennsylvania to Illinois, Washington State, California (and probably others).
And that of the New Zealand branch of their dtr Margaret who married John WILLIAMSON and 11 days later hopped on a boat to NZ (Three Bells, on the same voyage were the family of FAMILTONs who settled in Oamaru).
The other Archibald FAIRBAIRN chart updated - again.

Barb has provided details on how her friend Cathy connects back to Joseph MATTERS & Mary CUDLIP, and also provided a couple of useful web sites:
Washington State Digital Archives and a North Dakota Marriage License index

Feb 10, 2008: The EYRE affair?

Obviously a good year for FAIRBAIRNs. Having recently added George FAIRBAIRN and Janet PURDIE into the extended FAIRBAIRN family, I had found most of their children in assorted records, but not the dtr Margaret. All was explained. Here in NZ, about 3/4 hr drive away, is a descendant who has just contacted me, Margaret and her new husband emigrated to NZ shortly after their marriage in Melrose, Rox. The other Archibald FAIRBAIRN chart updated. Newly acquired surnames include: WILLIAMSON, EYRE, STENHOUSE, BRADBURY, THORNTON, in Dunedin, Auckland, and Wellington.

I've also been contacted by a MATTERS descendant in Washington State. Not yet exactly sure how she connects back to Joseph MATTERS and Mary CUDLIP, but that's her line apparently.

Aug 5th, 2007

5th: Brought the remainder of my website pages into the fold and changed the look/feel of the Paradise hosted pages. All of my pages are now generated using Second Site.
Contact from Brian S in Oz interested in the family of William & Eliza J MATTERS in North & South Dakota then Washington. His interest being William's wife, nee STEVENS/STEPHENS from Cornwall. William is one of the Devon MATTERS/METTERS descendants.