I did listen to all the talks at the BIFHSGO Conference Saturday and Sunday and had two questions which I asked at the Breakout Rooms. The first was concerning the imprisonment of women who had illegitimate children; apparently that was not just in general but I did not pick that up at the time of the talk. I always found it fascinating that Elizabeth Rawlins is on the 1881 census far from home whilst her illegitimate child was living with her parents who had moved from Ludgershall to just outside of the village of Collingbourne Dulcis (although I think part of the village). There I had found my paternal grandmother as a five year old on the 1881 census. Finding her was incredibly difficult, a bit expensive although not compared to the work done by the last speaker on Sunday - my 100 pounds seems paltry by comparison. I had family letters to my paternal grandfather and grandmother during and before the war from Rawlins family members. At some point it was spelled Rawlings perhaps the parish priest changed the spelling at some point to Rawlings. I was on one of the Rootsweb groups trying to sort it all out not long after I began my foray into genealogy in 2003 when I got an email from my Rawlins cousin in Australia asking me who Ada Rawlins was on the 1881 census. And I could reply that she was my grandmother, thereupon William Rawlins, MBE, sent me all his research. He had quite a dossier and I have not heard from him for a very long time now. William Rawlings and Elizabeth (Lywood) Rawlings had had a large family and no one had been able to sort out who Ada was as she is listed as a grand daughter on the 1881 census living with them. I thought maybe they were hiding her but I just think they were the perfect parents who took in their daughter's illegitimate child (and their grandchild). Elizabeth (my great grandmother) married William Taylor 11 Feb 1882. He was not the father of my grandmother although on the 1891 census he listed her as Bessie Taylor and she was always known as Bessie Taylor until she married my grandfather Samuel George Blake. So that clarified the point about being arrested because she was not. William and Elizabeth (Rawlings) Taylor would go on to have four children (three survived to adulthood). I had thought they had protected their grandchild by moving to Collingbourne Dulcis after she was born. She was very fond of her father William Taylor my grandfather said (although he neglected to say William Taylor was actually her step-father). A well hidden story for sure.
Then my second question dealt with Marston Green Cottage Homes as I was left with the feeling from the talk on Workhouses that they were terrible places but indeed what I had heard from my grandmother (which was not very much in actual fact; mostly items sort of slipped out in a conversation) and my great Aunt Sarah was that their life had been good at Marston Green Cottage Homes and that the Birmingham Union had sent them to Canada (five children) over a period from 1904 to 1908 and that they visited them every year until they were adults. Their father had been a medic in the First Boer War; injured and sent home in 1882 (Birmingham was home). His wife passed away in 1897 and he died in 1899 leaving the five children on their own. One of the items my grandmother mentioned was that very quickly they were gathered and taken to a new home. She didn't say it was a Cottage Home probably because I would have no idea what she meant. But she did not talk very much about her family in England. The speaker replied that they were very strict likely at the Cottage Homes (which my grandmother was like anyway - she liked organization) but that they had a good life, an education and the children were safe there. I appreciated knowing that. My grandmother Ellen Rosina (Buller) Pincombe was Head Girl (that was in some of the notes I read on this family that are available at the Archives in Ottawa) and he suggested that that referred to her being a matron's helper with the children (perhaps 20 or so in the house). My grandmother was asked if she would like to live with her father's widowed sisters (they offered to take just her) but they would not take all the children so she declined as she did not want to be away from her siblings especially if they were going to be at a home (she promised her mother she would take care of her siblings when she was just eleven years of age). After she was too old to remain and was working she visited them when ever they permitted that. That much I know. But not a lot about that period of her life. I did not really think I would learn very much but in a way I got to see life in England in a far different way than I ever did before. I listened to all the lectures which were excellent.
Great Conference and I am glad that I remembered to go. I also worked on Chromosome 12 today and managed to get through perhaps a dozen of the matches. It is time consuming as I am checking Ancestry, My Heritage trees and I could also do Find My Past but will save that for a bit when I do my final run through. Once the cross over points are verified using the Living DNA data then I will re-phase my grandparents' DNA for the five siblings. Since I paint all of these matches in DNA Painter it is easy for me to pull up any of the matches and easily have another look at them as I am re-phasing. I am working towards phasing my great-grandparents and that is the main reason for looking at all the trees since it is possible to separate Pincombe from Gray, Buller from Taylor, Blake from Knight and Rawlings from Cotterill. I am still not committed to the idea that a member of the only Cotterill family in the village is actually the father of my paternal grandmother simply because the ancestor of this Cotterill family descends from a William Cotterel who had at least two sons William and Stephen. Stephen Cotterel married Mary Rawlins (daughter of my 4x great grandparents William Rawlins and Mary Ford) with their grand daughter May Cotterell marrying her second cousin William Rawlins (son of John Rawlins and Elizabeth Green) thus intensifying the percentage of Cotterell/Rawlings in descendants of this couple making the cousins look much closer than they are. I can not be sure that the matches I do have with the Cotterill family in the village are not a result of this earlier set of brothers (although these latest results from Living DNA do have Sherwood so will investigate that as I move along (William Cotterill married Jane Sherwood, the Cotterill family at Kimpton)). So an interesting conundrum; isn't genetic genealogy fun!
Cleaning day today and I want to watch my Church Service which I missed yesterday. I considered running them at the same time but I like to have all my attention at Church when I am there. I suppose I do miss going to Church but at 80 I do not want to inflict myself on the system any more than necessary so going to Church online works very well.
Time to make my tea and a busy day ahead cleaning. I must get more work done on the Photo Books I do want to get them done by Christmas.
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