Brief update and some sincere thanks

These days there’s not much that’s easy to find any more but I still poke around the family tree from time to time just in case. This week I was looking at a couple of the more problematic gaps, specifically Roelof Anderson from Harrismith whose birth I haven’t been able to find, and my similarly named Swedish ancestor Roelof Andriesz/Andriesen who fetched up at the Cape in the mid eighteenth century, probably via the Dutch East India Company. Anyway, I found a couple of references to his (Andriesz’s) second wife Rosina Arends but didn’t know how to find the actual documents online. Step forward the South African Genealogy Facebook group who are quite remarkable – post any reference and, if it’s available, someone will post a link to it in the comments, usually within minutes and I’m inordinately thankful for that.

On a more negative note, I’m still getting very frustrated by my very occasional forays into the murky world of others’ online trees. Many assert relationships with no source information, especially annoying if it’s someone I’m looking for! If I’m not sure of a link I very rarely add it and if I do I include loud caveats; I just wish others would do the same. There’s also a huge amount of frankly wrong information still circulating about my ancestry in trees that has been shown to be false years ago, most of which seem to be on those more collaborative sites like My Heritage and Geni but also on Ancestry (who are now promoting Geneanet, another such site). It’s too easy for people to accept other’s work as gospel without checking, I know I did it in the past but now I’ve turned off Member Trees in Hints even if sometimes I’m tempted to see if someone else has found something new.

Sarah Cahill addendum

Suddenly I have found Sarah’s (or Susara as written on baptismal record) ancestry back to 16th century Amsterdam and Jacques Verkuijl born in 1706, which is actually pretty satisfying.

It now makes it quite annoying that the Anderson family is so sparsely represented.

And no-one can find a record of PJ Robinson’s death.

Sarah Cahill

If you’ve read this, then you’ll know that the name Sarah Cahill was one of the scant fragments of information we had when we started out. I’m happy to say that this particular chapter is now, finally, closed. Sarah Cahill was born Sara Frederika Vercuil in 1860, she married my ancestor Andrew Joseph Robinson in 1877 and bore him two children; my great grandfather, the elusive Philip Joseph, and in 1880 a sister for PJ called Magdalena Catherina. Six years after marrying, Andrew died aged 27 and Sarah married Johan Conradie who died in 1906 after 20 years of marriage.

Knowing at some point she had to have been married to a Cahill, I have finally established who and when that was. James Henry Cahill married the widow Conradie in 1907 but she was wearing black again four years later when he himself died in 1911. Sarah lived until 1945 without marrying again.

The story of Sarah Cahill is now closed as far as I’m concerned. I have no further interest in Mr Cahill or Mr Conradie and Sarah’s own ancestry (probably Dutch) is of only passing interest insofar as actively researching it is concerned. It’s very satisfying to tick that particular box in the initial research file (albeit metaphorically) though, as it neatly rounds off everything Dad started with.

.

Tree addition

There is still no news on my great grandfather’s death but trawling through the several new documents available on Family Search I found that he’d had another child who died in infancy – Norman Cyril Robinson, born 1914, died 21 Nov 1916 of dysentery and peritonitis.

There was a moment when I thought I’d found PJ’s death notice but it didn’t pan out, although I am more convinced he had a second wife in Jacoba van der Heever who died divorced from him in 1945. Family legend has it that he died at an old age in Pretoria, but still no confirmation can be found.

Edit: Have now found the marriage record for Jacoba and Philip and it puts the groom’s birth date at 1890, some 12 years later than PJR was born, so the likelihood this is right has severely diminished. In other news, I’ve also found the death notice for his wife Louisa which this time gives cause of death as “carcinoma” finally ruling out the notion that she was a late victim of Spanish Flu.

Leith shenanigans

First Post in a while, it’s been a funny ol time.

Anyway, Don got back in touch and then Marilyn and so the last few days have been spent trying to square the various circles in the Leith tree, and with some success. It’s certainly a lot tidier but the ultimate aim of definitely tying my 3xgreat grandfather, Archibald (1829-1878), to his putative siblings Andrew, Samuel and John has not been fully realised. Civil records for that time just don’t exist.

An interesting aside concerns Achibald’s children, specifically the two daughters he appears to have had called Mary. Both survived to adulthood, both got married, both seem to be his daughter. Interesting conundrum.

Who is this man?

In amongst some photos a new contact sent me of the Currie family was this; a man holding his hat looking down at what appears to be a flower-decked grave. He doesn’t look like John Tolmie Currie who is in several of the other photos, and he could just be a random mourner, but (and I have no solid reason to believe it) what if this is Philip Joseph Robinson? Wouldn’t that be exciting?

New photo

Thanks to Kathy in Australia for passing this on:

There’s a hand written inscription on the back of what is clearly a professionally taken photo. It reads: Aunt Louie and Uncle Alf Ellacott, Babbacombe. Father’s sister.

It’s a lovely photo and nice addition to the archive.

 

New source

The day after my father died, a book I’d ordered a few weeks ago arrived. The biography of my 4xgreat uncle Sir Joseph Benjamin Robinson. Dad would have enjoyed reading it.

A quick reading of the first few chapters reveals some interesting information about the first years of the Robinsons in the Cape, particularly about the character of his father Robert Robinson whose entry looks like it needs some updating.

Colin Robinson

Sadly my father, Colin Robinson, died today after a long illness. I’ve written up his life story for this site and posted it here.

The problem

By way of setting out what is known and not known about Philip Robinson, my 5th great grandfather.

Philip died on 16th January 1820 aged 73 giving a likely birth year of 1746 (unless he was born in the first two weeks of 1747). He was married to Charlotte Erith on 18th October 1774 and they had 10 children between 1775 and 1794. He worked, I believe, in Chatham Dockyard until October 1883 when he was dismissed along with John Brooks for attempting to embezzle goods from HMS Success. Several entries in the pay books show that he was often in debt as his pay would be paid to a third party to relieve money owed.

So far so good. But still no sign of his birth or his parents.

Looking for birth entries in the parish registers for Chatham and surrounding areas shows a curious anomaly: There are a steady number of Robinsons born in the area, sometimes two or three a year, until 1742 when there are none born for seven years until 1749 when the rate picks up again. Of the few Robinson children born during the 1740s*, those to John and Rebecca include two before 1742 and one in 1749, suggesting that that family may have upped sticks to who knows where for seven years but eventually returned to the Medway area. Rebecca died in 1754 in Gillingham.
(*The other 1740s Robinson children include one in 1749 to John and Elizabeth – the first of several following in the 1750s, one to John and Ann in 1741, and one to the unmarried Rebecca Robinson in 1742).

Just as I haven’t been able to find Philip’s birth anywhere in the parish records, neither could I find a marriage for John and Rebecca until I stumbled across an entry in the London and Surrey Bonds and Allegations (1597-1921) – essentially a database of applications for marriage licenses – for the marriage of a John Robinson and Rebecca Bowen on 28th February 1741. The problem is that this marriage licence was for Dorking, Surrey the home of this John Robinson with Rebecca being from Ewell not far away. The second caveat is that the first child of John and Rebecca in Chatham was born only two months later. It is possible that they married quickly before moving to Kent to take up the opportunity of work in the royal dockyard but when initially searching the Surrey parish records for Robinsons, a stark warning bell is sounded: the first result that comes up is for the marriage of Stephen Robinson and Ann Greentree, once wrongly believed to be ancestors through a similar set of assumptions.

I need to find out what was happening during those missing seven years.