Amazing that it is more than a month now since I wrote to my Blog. It has been a busy time in that I thought I sprained my knee a couple of weeks ago. Went off to the Doctor last week and he felt it might be arthritis and I duly went and had my knee xrayed. Just waiting to hear back on that. It is steadily improving from my hardly being able to stand on it. That is novel for me since I do a lot of exercise including aerobic running. I have given up the running now and will use the elliptical machine that we have. I had been thinking of using it for a while anyway. I will miss the running though as I have run since I was a child.
In terms of genealogy it has been a slow time as I have been busy working on other items. My husband gave a talk so I helped him write the script and prepare the slides. Then I had some sewing that I wanted to do.
I have been faithfully waiting for my Family Finder results and they came in today. My reason for doing the test was my mtDNA line. I am basically stuck at my great grandmother Ellen Taylor although by family lore she appears to fit into the Thomas Taylor/Ellen Roberts family with Thomas and Ellen marrying 29 Jun 1857 at Saint Martin's Church in Birmingham, Warwick, UK. They had seven children with the first five born in Birmingham, the sixth born in Ashton under Lyne, Lancashire and then the seventh in Birmingham, Warwick. By the 1881 census they have moved to Ashton under Lyne, Lancashire. They are missing the oldest four children Thomas, Ellen, Eliza and Frank. Frank died in 1875 at Birmingham which gives a time period of 1875 to 1881 for their move to Ashton. Ellen had an illegitimate child at Birmingham in 1879 and was in the Workhouse at Acton in 1881. She later married and Edwin Denner Buller/Ellen Taylor were my great grandparents. I have not been able to trace down any of the siblings and was hoping that I might be lucky to find them on Family Finder as their descendants would be my third cousins. This Thomas Taylor was a shoemaker which fitted the family lore.
My results only had fifth cousins or greater and I wrote to one of the matches as they had the COBB surname which is one of mine. I may wait now and see if any of the matches writes to me that I had more in common with and shall do some research on what constitutes an interesting match at this level.
I can trace back in this Taylor family and this Thomas is the son of Samuel Taylor and Ann Lewis Harborne and they married 3 Aug 1829 at Saint Phillips Birmingham. They too had a large family Ellen, Thomas, Eliza, Ann, Samuel, Edwin, Jane, Emma, and Jane (two Janes is interesting but it holds out in the census). These families are all Shoemakers including Ann Lewis Harborne's father John Harborne married to Mary Lewis (wedding not yet found) and John was the son of William Harborne and Sarah Hale and Mary the daughter of John Lewis. Both of these men were shoemakers in Birmingham. William Harborne married Sarah Hale 3 Sep 1785 at Saint Phillips, Birmingham. William's father was Thomas Auburne and his mother Elisabeth Birch and they married 27 Jan 1750 at Saint Phillips Birmingham. I haven't pursued this interesting line yet as I am waiting for confirmation on this being the correct line.
The Roberts line is also interesting with Ellen's father being Thomas baptized 27 Nov 1814 at Sheldon Warwick and born at Bickenhill Warwick. His wife was Ellen Lawley and she was born c 1819 at Wellington Shropshire. They married 29 Nov 1840 at Saint Martin Birmingham. Ellen Roberts was only 15 years old when she married Thomas Taylor. Her mother Ellen Lawley had died in 1855 and her father remarried shortly after Ellen's marriage where one of the witnesses was her future mother in law. Thomas Roberts and Ellen Lawley had four children: Ellen, Thomas, James and Joseph. I have traced down Joseph and I believe that James was in the Navy. Thomas proved to be too common a name to accurately trace him down. Ellen Lawley's father was Joseph and I have not pursued this line any further yet. Thomas Roberts parents were Thomas Roberts and Maria Croxall and they married 2 Apr 1810 at Sheldon Warwick. They had four children: Mary, James, Thomas and Maria. I have only traced Thomas down. Thomas's parents were John Roberts and Hannah Asbury and they married 26 Dec 1774 at Bickenhill Warwick. This is as far back as I have traced this family. They had three children: Mary who died at 16 years of age, Sarah and Thomas.
I have also been working on our son in law's French Canadian ancestry and I am slowly working the lines back. I am pulling the marriages as I go back but I will need to then pull burials and baptisms. It is a long process but going ahead very nicely. I have a few lines that I need to do deeper research on in order to find them but for the most part I am able to go back generation after generation all the way to France. In a way it toughens you for your other research as you become more exacting on what you will accept for linking families back. A good training process for me and it will help with my own research.
