Devon again

Sally's posting in my Guestbook (28th May) has led to another tangled web of inter-relationships between the Devon families starting with a John BICKLE. His line leads back via MOSES and CREBER to  Elizabeth, daughter of James BARTER.
What the posting didn't state is that Sally's grandfather John A BICKLE married Amy Caroline BOWDEN, which name also seemed a bit familiar.
They were 5th cousins twice removed, as well as 6th cousins once removed, with Amy working back via ANDREWS and WILLCOCKS, to Ann BARTER, daughter of James BARTER (assuming of course the early BARTER research is solid).
My descent from James is from Elizabeth and Ann's brother James of Lower Dittisham.

Contact made

Hope my research is solid. I think I've finally made contact with a descendant, in Arizona, of my 2greats grandad's mysterious brother John.
HENDERSON chart has been updated with a few BINNIE twigs as a result, hopefully more to follow.

The other change in the recent changes index, Margaret King CREBER, is because a descendant has confirmed that the London death I'd found was indeed her, as daughter Sarah Creber LONGLEY nee WARE was living there around that time.

As I'd only just done an update to my database LornaHenderson on RootsWeb's WorldConnect, these changes will appear next time.

CREBER vs CREBER

I shouldn't be getting sidetracked from assorted annual accounts, but this is so much more interesting.

Ancestry told me that someone had saved a record I'd used to someone in their tree.
That started me off on quite an update binge (still incomplete) of two lines of my very extended and extensive Devon families.
As both husband and wife were CREBERs, chances are they were related, but it was soon apparent that this brought together descendants of both my BARTER/KING and PIKE families.
I'd not got round to tracing either beyond the 1861 census, so hadn't worked out they'd married, thank you to bonsaitree's Green aka Creber tree on ancestry and his/her work there.

Husband Thomas CREBER and wife Mary CREBER were 1st cousins once removed, 3rd cousins and 4th cousins once removed.
And as I then documented their children, noticed that a daughter, Annie Elizabeth, had married a George PEARSE, so further lights started flashing.
Sure enough, he was already in my database, with a CREBER mother, so they were 1st cousins, 1st cousins once removed, and 4th cousins.

Delayed by bad weather!

Anyone waiting expectantly for a new post (well I do assume at least some people read this) may have a while to wait.
I'm in consolidation mode - both in rationalising my computing to eventually, I hope, simplify how I do assorted things. However that has meant a complete change to how I work with my emails and assorted email addresses and hosts, and buying a new laptop (a Mac, yet to arrive, but that's probably going to be an interesting new experience for this previously completely pc based computnik).
So that's all time away from research.

I'm also slowly working thru checking back over assorted things, primarily my updates to OneGreatFamily both to see that they've been connected up correctly, and to see if anyone else is working on the same families.

And I've committed myself to giving a course for the local WEA on comparisons of assorted genie packages in Sept, so that needs research....
The list goes on.

All that aside, a recent new contact will mean updates to a branch of the CREBER/WARE family as Hugh has provided a husband for Jane dtr of Richard CREBER and Elizabeth WARE, which involves connecting up assorted links, including a few stray STUTTAFORD/CREBERs that I had in my database suspecting there was a connection, and now seeing what it is.  Despite a move to London and back to Somerset (parents from Devon), she married a CREBER rellie.

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

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.

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.

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.

Our ancestors didn't move around much !!!

Received a surprising email last night, from Lyall in Westport whose grandfather had land next to land called "Crebers" locally.
He was wondering what I could tell him about Harry son of John A CREBER and Adelaide DOIDGE, original owner of said land.
Given that I had him born in Victoria (1863), and his father dying in Victoria (1886) I'd simply assumed they'd stayed put in Australia. Which turns out to be far from the case.
An immigration record on the "Claud Hamilton" showed the family moving from Melbourne to Hokitika in 1866, yet his two known siblings were born in the 1870s, back in Victoria.
Mum Adelaide shows up in the 1893 electoral rolls as a Matron at Larrikins, Westland and a death of the right age is recorded in 1914.
Harry married a Mary Elizabeth KING at Westport in his mother's house in 1901.
Papers Past has turned up some delightful little snippets, including that H Creber, assumed to be Harry, was coming third in an egg laying contest (!) with his silver wyandottes in 1905 (15 eggs that week 109 year to date).
Mary Elizabeth looks like she died 1937; Harry's brother John Ambrose looks like the 1899 death of the right age; but as yet, Harry eludes us, not being obvious in either NZ or Victorian death indexes.
Also in the area, gold mining at Kanieri, is an Ambrose CREBER, who may, or may not, be Harry's uncle. This family had both a John Ambrose, and an Ambrose, in the same family, both baptised Whitchurch, Devon.

So, never believe anyone saying our ancestors never moved around very much.

Also made time to review the earliest WIGHTs. Bye bye Janet SWORD, hello Margaret HOUD.

More updates in the FAIRBAIRN DNA Project - check out the Project Diary.

CREBER page

Further to the John CREBER/Margaret GILES as per 26th: Helen provided the 1827 burial info for a 75 yr old Margaret CREBER, of Dostabrook, wife of a John, buried Walkhampton. I believe this makes the John CREBER living with Henry and Joan TOOP in 1841 at Dotterbrook, Par. of Whitchurch, Joan's father, and therefore her mother is this Margaret, nee GILES.

Given so many of these Devon families are related, or connected, to the CREBER tribe(s), even though the earlier lot are not my forebears, I have included a CREBER web page with a couple of charts on how I think some of the families are connected. A lot of the data has been gleaned from census records, and a fair bit of it checked against BDM data, but not all. For these families, a great deal of economy of effort is to be found, find one census record, sometimes it covers several inter-related families.

Identifying John CREBERs

When working on Devon families around Walkhampton, Buckland Monachorum, Whitchurch etc, you just cannot avoid CREBERs. I've convinced myself that the Joan CREBER who married Henry TOOP is the one at Dotterbrook in Tavistock in 1841, with what looks like her father John. And that this John is the one who married Margaret GILES. John buried Walkhampton 1845, Henry and Joan (CREBER) TOOP buried Buckland Monachorum, 1844 and 1850 respectively.
Does anyone agree, or disagree, and if the latter, have you more evidence than I on where he belongs?

Family Tree DNA are offering good discounts for their tests until the end of August. Anyone interested in joining the FAIRBAIRN, SINTON, ROWE, RUNCIMAN, DAWE or FINLAYSON projects should get in quick.
If you do so, make sure you find the right surname project and use that to order the test or else the discounts wont be applied, eg a 37 marker test is $119 US, and a 67 marker includes the mt dna test for only slightly more than the usual 67 marker Y-DNA test, at $289 US.

Feb 23, 2008: a two part FUG(u)E

I do so love working on Devon families, so much economy of effort.
I was checking to see what might have happened to Elizabeth Hamley FUGE, so searched FreeBMD for a marriage. Up she popped in the Jun qtr of 1886 (Tavistock) along with a Walter Frederick CREBYK (as indexed) along with a Charles Henry HAMLEY and Hannah Laura HAMLYN.
I was reasonably sure that if I checked the image Walter Frederick CREBYK would be one of the many CREBERs in the area. The image was a little hard to read around his surname, but with the benefit of local research knowledge, I would have interpreted it as CREBER. But to make sure before I added a correction for the FreeBMD index, I looked for him in 1891. There he was, obligingly using his full name, and with wife Hannah Laura, QED. But before I went back to looking for Elizabeth Hamley FUGE and Charles Henry HAMLEY in 1891 (to prove they are the cousins they look like they are), I idly checked my database for Walter Frederick CREBER, not thinking any of the Bere Ferrers CREBERs were mine, and there he was, untraced beyond 1881 until now.
Definitely economy of effort.
ROWE and KING charts updated.

GenesReunited has again come up trumps too.
I'd found someone with an interest in Charles CORROCK and Sarah Rowe Hamley FUGE. He turned out to be a great grandson. His mother, still alive, remembers Sarah. Malcolm also remembers his granny (Emily Louise CORROCK) and her sister Flo (Florence Amy CROSSE nee FUGE) keeping a wine shop on the sth edge of Mutley Plain, Plymouth when they were both widowed.

Oct 30, 2007: More McGREGORs, and rabitting on..

More McGREGOR updates from the BRC clan from Noreen. It's getting close to time to do another WorldConnect Update as there have been rather a lot of updates over the last few weeks.
The search for living Michigan RUNCIMAN descendants for the DNA survey continues. Rang a likely looking candidate this morning (well he lived in the same State where I know Dr Ronald H had lived for a while), and had a lovely chat to a Sir Walter descendant who may be convinced to join in.
Contacted by a double descendant of the warreners (Nicholas WARE and Margaret King CREBER). Steve R's grandmother is a descendant from Nicholas' first marriage and his grandfather, William Monarch TURNER, from the 2nd marriage. WMT emigrated to Australia and joined the AIF only to be killed nr Gallipoli "of wounds at sea" according to an Anzacs web site.

July 30th, 2007

Processed several small updates to assorted Devon CREBERs, DAWs and HAMLYNS being prompted by a few post-its added to my WorldConnect db LornaHenderson by a fellow researcher. Main ones were to the CREBERs in Vale, Guernsay, although one of the DAW twigs finally got a name, Nancy Tremain DAW and several others were advanced 10 yrs in age as I finally got round to looking for them in assorted census records.
Thanks to Robert some of the SCOTTs that stayed in Scotland have also been followed thru a bit more with accurate death dates/places.
None of the above are yet online however.