Bray Family – Twigged

Methusaleh, buried in woollen

Oct 042009

When I showed my father a copy of my recent research, he loved the fact that he was related a Methusaleh (Methusalem) Pethick (1801-1881). The name probably tickled my father’s funny bone due to his almost non-existent religious inclinations and the name’s hard-to-ignore religious implications.

As it turns out, Methusaleh was quite a luck name for me. It is an unusual name, and it helped me to establish that Methusaleh’s mother Mary Thomas (1773-?) was the daughter of, you got it, Methusaleh Thomas (1752-1833). This would have been a rather straight-forward connection had it not been for some strange wording on Mary Thomas’ marriage record to William Pethick. The record claimed that Mary was a sojourner in Hartland, Devon, at the time of her marriage. For a long time, I took this to mean that Mary was from Devon. In fact, the record is quite right: she was just visiting. She was actually from St. Teath, Cornwall — you know, that parish where all of my other Bray relatives are from.

Mary’s father Methusaleh (or Methusalem — the variations seem to be interchangeable) was the son of another Methusaleh Thomas (1715-1759). You see, my friends, it pays to name your children something unusual — your ancestors will love you for the unmistakable trail you leave behind. As it turns out, my Methusalehs are a lovely genealogical case study. And for more than teaching me to actually read (and believe) the wording of marriage records!

According to the Cornish Online Parish Clerks (COPC) web site (a must if you are doing research in Cornwall), Methuselah Thomas the Second (my name for him, not official) was either baptized in Feb 1751 or Feb 1752. There are two records. One record is from the parish register and states that Methuselah was baptized in 1752, the other from the Bishop’s Transcripts (a list of records which was regularly created for all of the parishes in a Bishop’s jurisdiction) which states that Methuselah was baptized in 1751. I just ignored this difference, and chalked it up to bad transcription. However, I recently started to pay more attention to the calendar changes that took place in England in 1751. Two important changes happened that year: First, January 1 was declared the beginning of a calendar year (as opposed to March 25). These changes began after December 1751, i.e., 1751 ran from 25 March to the 31 December and 1752 started on 1 January. Secondly, England moved to the Gregorian calendar in order to rectify the errors caused by the Julian calendar. To eliminate the extra days, the days from 3 September to 13 September were skipped. (You can read more about the calendar changes here, if you are interested).

Now, what does this have to do with our Methusaleh? Well, if you look closely, notice that poor Methusaleh could not have been baptized in February 1751, because 1751 did not have any February! Methusaleh must have been baptized in Feb 1752. The Bishop’s Transcripts are wrong and the parish records are right.

A buried in woollen certificate. From www.devonheritage.org.

Now Methusaleh’s father, Methusaleh, also has something interesting to say for himself. When I was looking through burial records on the COPC, I noticed a strange annotation beside Methusaleh Sr’s possible burial record from 1759. It was noted that Methuselah had been buried in woollen. Now to our age, the thought of being buried in a shroud of woollen seems awfully cold, and I thought that this must indicate that he was poor or ill. However, as I learned, in the 1700s burial in woollen was actually mandated by law. The Burial in Woollen Acts from 1666 to 1680 required that corpses were buried in woollen “for the Encouragement of the Woollen Manufactures of this Kingdome and prevention of the Exportation of the Moneyes thereof for the buying and importing of Linnen.” Affadavits were required to prove that the dead were buried in woollen (see the image for an example). Failure to provide proof would result in a 5 pound fine (approximately 425 pounds by today’s standards according to the National Archives currency converter). Now that would be a fairly strong incentive!

Sometimes you get lucky

Johnson Family No Responses »

Jun 032009

Birth record for “Illegitimate” Johnson

The tale of the two Emmas in the Bray family left me with a vague impression about the lives of illegitimate children in the 19th century. I had this sense that they just disappeared into the world with shifting last names and a secret to hide. This week, I finally got around to looking at the third illegitimate child on my family tree, a child auspiciously named “Illegitimate Johnson” on her birth certificate. “Illegitimate” was born in May 1873 and she was the daughter of Mary Ann Johnson. Did she vanish like Emma #1 or did she die young like Emma #2? Was she permanently disadvantaged by the circumstances of her birth?

I found her rather quickly enough in the 1881 census living with her widowed grandfather Richard Norton Johnson in Sydenham, Grey County. Maud — rescued from the label “illegitimate” — had taken on the last name of her step-father George Yates. Maud had three half-sisters: Charlotte, Emma, and Frances Melissa. Tragically, Maud’s mother Mary Ann had died a week after giving birth to Frances Melissa in February 1881. The Yates family was split up after this tragedy. By the time of the census taking in 1881, Maud was living with the Johnsons and Frances Melissa was adopted by another family in the township. (I discovered this fact, by the way, simply by Googling her somewhat unusual name. I found her on the family tree of the adoptive parents). Maud’s step-father disappears from the records for several years and then reappears when he married again. Maud’s half-sister Charlotte married and remained in Grey County. I’m not sure what happened to her half-sister Emma.

Unfortunately, Maud also disappears from the records after the 1881 census. Vanishes. I could find no trace of her in the 1891 census, no trace of a marriage in Ontario, no trace of her death in Ontario. Nada. Sometimes, someone’s disappearance from the records is only an effect of digital blindness. Sadly, not everything can be found on the internet… After bashing my head against the brick wall of Maud’s life for a few hours, I gave up and moved onto filling out the trees of Mary Ann Johnson’s siblings.

The Johnson family seems to have had a predilection for marrying siblings. I am connected to Johnson family twice on my tree. My 2x great grandfather Thomas Glenfield Bray married Mary Ann’s sister Martha. Martha’s brother Thomas Wilson married Thomas Bray’s sister Adelaide. The two younger Johnson siblings followed suit. William Johnson married a Sarah Jane Cleave. William’s younger sister Charlotte married Sarah’s brother William Cleave at the ripe age of 16. These two couples were married on the same day in Owen Sound in 1886.

Alice Maud Johnson Yates Cleave Obituary

Obituary for Alice Maud

Sadly, Charlotte Johnson also died young, leaving two children motherless. However, I was able to trace William Cleave and his family as they headed west from Manitoba to Alberta where they settled near Medicine Hat.

Now, Cleave is one of those names that you like as a genealogist. Simple enough that most people spell it right, but uncommon enough that you aren’t inundated with possible matches. As I traced William’s travels, I noticed another Cleave living in Manitoba – a Thomas Cleave whose wife Maud was born in 1873 in Ontario. Could it be? My spidey sense was a-tingling!

Manitoba, it turns out, has a clever little database with birth, marriages, and deaths of genealogical interest. One quick check later and I had “Dora the Explorer” singing “We did it” in my head. [Confession: my three-year old watches way too much Dora!] Yes, indeed, Maud Johnson Yates married Thomas Cleave, brother of William and Sarah Jane, in 1898 in Manitoba. There she was: Maud Cleave, mother of two boys, wife of the postmaster. Her boys both served in the army and led successful lives in Winnipeg. Maud lived a seemingly normal life – the tragedy of her circumstances overcome.

I am relieved.

Not from Redruth

Bray Family 2 Responses »

May 202009

I was always destined to be the family genealogist. When I was younger, I had a “Family History” notebook where I had diligently filled out what was known of my family tree in my child’s handwriting. In Grade 10, I wrote a family history for the Bray family which encompassed several generations and told the story of their emigration from Cornwall to Ontario.

In my 20s, I travelled to England and Scotland for the first time. I was going through my new age stage and I decided to travel by “intuition.” (Basically, I had a train pass and no itinerary). My intuition/inclination led me to Cornwall – Penzance, to be exact. There, I signed up for a tour with “Harry Safari.” Harry is a local who makes a living showing tourists the wonders of Cornwall. He was quick to point out that I must be a “Cornish girl” with a name like Bray. I had never identified myself as Cornish before, but I had noticed the surprising prevalence of people who had the same watery blue eyes as many of my family members. These eyes, the mysterious Cornish coastline, and Cornish pasties made me think: hmmm, maybe I am a Cornish girl.

Harry Safari must get his fill of New World visitors looking for their Old World pasts. He must have seen that that was what my “intuition” was looking for – a taste of connection to the mystical rocks and ancient places (new age phase remember!). After his tour, Harry asked me if I wanted to have a look at Billy Bray’s chapel. Billy Bray was a powerful figure in 19th century Cornwall. He was a preacher who led the Bible Christian movement – a movement which advocated strict temperance, exuberant worship and careful reading of the Bible.

Billy Bray

Harry Safari and his wife very, very graciously offered me dinner and drove me out to Billy Bray’s chapel. Part of our tour included a stop at a graveyard where I was convinced that my “intuition” had led me to discover the graves of my Bray ancestors. As for Billy, I was sure that I must be related to him too because I could remember vague stories about my ancestors’ tee totalling ways.

I was deluded of course. Utterly and embarrassingly mad. But I do want to point out that, until recently, almost all of my family’s ideas about the origins of our Bray ancestors were, uh, totally wrong. To say the least. It was long-standing lore in my family that the William Bray (the Bray who made the “crossing”) was from a family of tin miners in Redruth, Cornwall. I am told that this fact is inscribed in a family Bible. My brilliant aunt, also predestined to succumb to the genealogy virus, set about to find our Bray ancestors in Redruth. She travelled to Cornwall more than once, not only because she loves it there but also because she hoped to learn more about our elusive Brays.

View Cornish Relatives in a larger map

The internet changed everything. Within weeks of discovering Google’s ability to cough up (ir)relevant information about my ancestors, I had located John, a not-so-distant cousin who is the Chief Wizard of Bray-lore. He quickly straightened out my side of the family. Redruth? Not a chance! Not even close! No, our Brays are from Northern Cornwall. Our Brays are from St. Teath and Lanteglos-by-Camelford. A few odd strays in places like Morwenstow and Tintagel, but look at the Camelford area closely and it is hard to find the Brays who aren’t related to us. (Figuring out the exact nature of these relationships is another story all together, but I’ll save that for a future post!)

The irony of our genealogical follies is made more delicious by the fact that my side of the family is, how shall I put it, a touch over-educated. Fortunately, I think that we have been blessed with a compensating dose of self-deprecation, and I can appreciate the “eggheads gone wrong — really wrong” humour here. I do wonder, however, how this wonderfully misleading Redruth rumour started. Was there some connection to this city? Was it a stop along the way to Canada? OK, OK, I know. I have to let this one go.

Surprisingly (at least to me), this ass-whooping has turned out to be a somewhat common experience in my journey through my family’s history. The story told by the bureaucrats and their records is never quite the same story as the one that has trickled down through the generations. My research often feels like a cat-and-mouse game with history; and it is me, I am afraid, who is batted around and tossed into the air by the wily and always invincible past.

The tale of two Emmas

Bray Family 3 Responses »

May 122009

The internet is ruthless with the secrets of the past. I discovered the extent of the power of the internet to reveal our secrets as I turned my attention to the Bray family. I noticed, as had other Bray researchers, two mysterious Emma Brays who were, according to census returns, living with my great-great-great grandparents William Bray and Betsey Bath.

William and Betsey were married in Michaelstow, Cornwall in Mar 1850. Shortly after their marriage (the journey to Canada most often began in the spring), they emigrated to Canada and settled in Hope Township in Durham County, Ontario.

In the 1851 and 1861 Ontario censuses, an Emma is listed as a daughter of William and Betsey. However, she is quite a bit older than their next eldest daughter Anna Maria. Emma disappears from the 1871 census and it is uncertain what happened to her, although William purchased a grave at Welcome Church in 1868. This is, perhaps, Emma’s grave. It is also possible that Emma married and simply disappeared into life with a new last name.

Because Emma was born in 1844, six years before William and Betsey’s marriage, it seemed unlikely that she was their biological daughter. I assumed for a long time that she was simply the child of a sibling who, for some reason, could not look after her. Eventually it occurred to me (OK, I know: duh!) to search English baptismal records for a Emma Bath (Betsey’s maiden name). Sure enough, Emma Bath was the “bastard” child of Betsey Bath, baptized in Trevalga, Cornwall in 1844. (This is most certainly our Emma as Betsey was from Trevalga and can be found living there with her family in the 1841 census.)

Family of William Bray and Betsey Bath circa 1870. Back row, left to right: Thomas, Sarah, William. Middle row: Anna Maria, William, Betsy, Adelaide. Front row: Annabelle, Harry, Eliza.

The existence of Emma came as a complete surprise to us. Her life seemed somehow obscured and possibly even hidden. She was not present in any family photos or on an elaborate family tree that had been completed in the 1950s. I find myself wanting to make some assumptions about the plight of an illegitimate child, but I am wary of jumping to conclusions. But I am fascinated to say the least. What did this mean for Emma? What did it mean for Betsey? Was William Betsey’s saviour? Were they motivated to emigrate so that this “sin” could be erased from the memory of the community where they lived? Or was this a commonplace event, understood to be something that happened and that should be survived in some way or another?

This story does not end with our Emma born in 1844. Interestingly enough, another mysterious Emma Bray is living with William and Betsey according to the 1881 census. In this case, it was rather easy to discover that Emma #2, born in 1873, was the illegitimate daughter of Sarah Jane Bray, William and Betsey’s daughter. Emma #2’s birth was duly recorded by an (undoubtedly sour and judgmental) Ontario bureaucrat. We do know that Emma #2 was raised by William and Betsey as their daughter. She died at the age of 16 of a bowel obstruction. Again, this Emma does appear in a photo nor is she is listed on a family tree. But I am inclined to believe that this Emma was much loved as she is buried beside William and Betsey in Gardiner’s United Cemetery in Cavan, the headstone engraved with her nickname Bena. I find this to be a tender gesture.

Wait! There’s more. A couple of weeks after I discover the birth certificate of Emma #2, I looked more closely at it. I discovered that the illegitimate child born one month after Emma and listed beside Emma’s entry is also a member of my family! This child is the daughter of Mary Ann Johnson who was the sister of my g-g-grandmother Martha Johnson. Martha married William and Betsey’s son Thomas Glenfield. The Brays and the Johnsons lived next to each other on Concession 3 in Hope Township. To top it off, a third illegitimate child was born near this concession that summer and is also listed next to the Bray and Johnson children on the birth record. (This third child is not on my family tree, but two out of three isn’t bad!) What was happening that year on Concession 3 in Hope Township? Were three local girls seduced by a rural Ontario Lothario? Was there a serial rapist afoot? Or were the harvest festivals of 1872 simply out of control? Now this is a tantalizing mystery worthy of much more of my attention, I would say!

The discovery of the two Emmas has made me think about how we understand families and how we draw boundaries around the family unit based on cultural rather than biological ideas of relatedness. The Emmas fell off of my family tree because they were culturally unacceptable relations, products — most likely — of scandal and “untoward” behaviour. This deliberate forgetting was aided and abetted by time and distance, forces which could not be overcome by the communications technologies of the past. But these secrets are easily revealed again by the forces of mass digitization and indexing. My ancestors’ hidden lives (and hidden children) are laid bare thanks to the penetrating power of Google, and now that illegitimacy is no longer an embarrassment, these family members can be reclaimed and joyfully added to the family tree. As a parent, I would like to think that this brings some comfort to the souls of Betsey and Sarah Jane, the mothers of the two Emmas.

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