New Year and new thoughts

I joined the Birmingham listserv a few weeks ago but had not posted anything to the list. A posting sparked my interest in doing so and I sent in the last address that my Grandmother had stayed at in Birmingham on her trip there in 1939 with the message:

My grandmother made a visit to England in 1939 and stayed at 95 Hagley Road in
Birmingham. Would that have been a hotel/bed and breakfast at that time? I note
that 78-84 Hagley Road is a Bed and Breakfast - SACO Birmingham Edgbaston now.
She was born at Birmingham 5 Waterloo Terrace, Nelson Street South although her
parents lived at 17 Court 8 Barford Street Birmingham. The daughter of Edwin
Denner Buller and Ellen Taylor.

This is my Buller/Welch family of Birmingham and I can trace the Welch
family with Ann Welch marrying Henry Christopher Buller 23 August 1838 at
Edgbaston. Ann was the daughter of William Welch and Sarah Cheatle. William
Welch is listed on the 1851 Census as having the "Welch Eating Place" on Lower
Temple with Peck Lane and King Street also being on the same census page. The
1851 census shows the Buller family on Lower Temple (3,4) on the next page.
Welch Eating Place appears to be on the corner of Lower Temple.

If anyone is researching these families I have a fair amount of detail on them
in the 1800s. Henry Christopher Buller was born in Bermondsey, London, baptized
at St Mary Magdalen in Bermondsey. He was the son of Christopher Buller and Mary
Beard. Ann Welch was baptized at Ashby de la Zouch (born at Lichfield
Staffordshire). William Welch was born at Rugeley Staffordshire and Sarah
Cheatle was born at Ashby de la Zouch Leicestershire. William and Sarah married
24 Aug 1818 at Longdon by Lichfield Staffordshire with William Cheatle as a
witness.

I belonged to this list about four years ago but when we went to England the first time I had resigned from all the lists and just never signed up again. As I begin to think more about my grandmother and her families at Birmingham (and London) I decided to join the Birmingham list once again. I can find all the streets that her family lived on in the short 15 years of the married life of Edwin Denner Buller and his wife Ellen Taylor with their seven children (twin boys died in infancy). All of the children came to Canada and two went on to the United States (both married there and have descendants). One did not marry, one did not have any children with my grandmother having the only Canadian descendants. From her I acquired my mtDNA H11 with its interesting mutations. The larger set of my mutations (has not backmutated 16293G) is approximately 20 times as common as my resultant set. The mutations are fairly common (as common as H11 is!) in England itself and in every area with my mutations being found in Argyllshire Scotland and County Antrim Ireland. My suspicion is that the grouping with the 16293G came as a block through Eastern Europe and hence to southern England (mutations found there)whereas my grouping may have come through the Scandinavian Peninsula and thence to Ireland/Scotland at an earlier time period. I await more people testing to see if that hypothesis will hold up under more samples.

We spent very little time in the Midlands so do not have a feel for that area at all other than it is very busy and very populous. My grandmother always said that as well. The great openness of Wales sits beside this area of high speed roads and rows upon rows of housing. We passed by Birmingham on our way to Stoke on Trent which is the closest that I came to the city of my Grandmother's birth.

I would like to go back sometime and walk the streets where she was as a child - Barford Street, Charles Henry Street and Moseley Street. I would also like to go to Lower Temple Street and Bull Street where her father lived as a child and his mother before him lived at Lower Temple Street.