Setting the Scene- Ellen Freed Benn

    This is Ellen Freed Benn, the matriarch of our particularly large branch of the Tapply family tree. There is no date on the picture, but it's bound to be early. She had12 children in all, 11 living. Her ancestry is a knot still to be totally unraveled. I've been working on that for a while now.

     Sometimes it's worth sending off for vital records, even if they cost a bit. This was once of those times. The family Bible said that Ellen Benn was born in Sutton Valence, but her records didn't turn up there. Oh, I found a christening entry, but no birth record. When London turned up on the hints in Ancestry, I had to know more.
    From this record we have an exact birth date, a place, her father's occupation and some information about her mother. By March, when this certificate and the christening entry were filed, her mother  Mary Ann Frid (Freed) was recorded as "deceased".  Perhaps this was in childbirth, birth complications, or illness. Life was tough back then in the poor neighborhoods of London. A little research into Somers Town has told me that.
     Crawley Mews doesn't exist anymore. At some point when roads were straightened and reorganized, the road and the mews disappeared.

    This is the corner of Eversholt Road where Crawley used to be. The mews would have been behind the houses on the left. If you look at the cross street of Lidlington, behind these houses, you can see a wide garden space that must have been the mews at one time.

    This all looks very leafy now, but the descriptions online of Somers Town at the time are of real poverty. Charles Dickens' childhood home is only a block away.

This is from a book about the mews of London. Imagine now that John Benn kept his "rig" and his horse in the stable and mews below. He and his wife and child lived above. 

    The neighborhood of SomersTown is near Old St. Pancras Hospital, St. Pancras Station and King's Cross Station (of Harry Potter fame). Today it's a very mixed bag of working people and immigrants. Even then, the police blotter that  cousin Holly found describes some blocks as very affluent and some as quite poor. To give you some context, I found an antique map where you can just read "Crawley" inside the red circle. I suspect the three horizontal buildings there are the mews. The modern map below shows how changed it all is.

    For Americans unfamiliar with London, I'm including a wider map too.

     After her mother's death, Ellen went to live with her Freed relatives in Kent. First she lived with her aunt, then an uncle. I believe this aunt is the "mother" who presented her with the family Bible. My research leads me to think that her father may not have survived long after her mother.  I don't find anything that's certain, but he seems to disappear. The police notes Holly found come from the London School of Economics and they chronicle an officer walking his "beat" in 1898. He makes note of a "cab master who is a considerable proprietor" living on Crawley Mews. So Crawley Mews continued to be home to London cabbies for a time.

     The police blotter also records that "the gardens of Oakley Square remain private". I was trolling around the internet trying to find some very early pictures of Somers Town. I found a few pictures of Old St. Pancras church and the railway stations, but the picture that made me smile was this one.

This picture from that very time is of the hippo in Regents Park Zoo. Somers Town is right on the edge of Regents Park. With the local green space closed to them, I like to think that maybe John and Mary Ann Benn took a stroll through Regents Park and perhaps enjoyed a look at the animals in the zoo. It's a nice thought, since their happiness was so brief.

Taking Care of Business in Litchfield, Maine

courtesy of the Litchfield Historical Society, Litchfield, Maine

     This is the old "town house" for Litchfield where town meetings were held after 1840. Before that time, the meetings were held in the home of a Mr. Nickerson. I know this because I've been trolling the old minutes of town meetings again looking for ancestors. Of course, I found them.

     I expected to find my Smith relatives first as the place was once "Smith Plantation", but to my surprise I found a Richardson ancestor. Abijah Richardson started out as the town constable, but rose rapidly in the town to become the moderator of the town meetings and town treasurer. Here is a sample of the minutes from 1797. Of course Maine was still part of the state of Massachusetts at that point. You will see Abijah's name, but I think you'll also recognize the name of the candidate for governor.

     I kept trolling the records because the custom in those days was to incidentally record town minutes and birth, marriage and death records all together. Pretty soon all the Smith relatives showed up as well in a variety of town offices including a number of years as selectmen. It was the names of some of the town jobs that got me looking further.

Courtesy of Litchfield Historical Society

     Ok, so the surveyors of highways and collector of highway taxes is pretty straightforward. My ancestor Elkanah Baker was elected to that post among others. After that, I had to look around on the internet for some information.

Tything men collected alms for the church, but they also had a variety of other duties as described in the New Hampshire History Blog:
"It was the tithing man's duty to detain and arrest Sabbath travelers, unless they were going to or from church or to visit the sick or do charitable deeds. His job was also to keep the boys from playing in the meeting-house, and to wake up any who might fall asleep during meeting."
They carried something called a church stick with a large knob on one end and feathers on the other. Sleepers would either get a sharp rap with the knob or a tickle, depending on gender.
Surveyors of Lumber made sure that the townspeople were getting their money's worth at the sawmill. They had to be experts in the measurement of lumber and assure that it was good grade.
Fence Viewers inspected new fences and settled disputes over older ones. They also settled disputes where livestock had escaped their enclosure. Since so many of the boundary fences in New England are hand-made fieldstone walls, this was a very important job. Many of those walls stand to this day. Robert Frost was right.
Culler of Staves inspected lumber which was often used for payment of taxes in lieu of cash.
"Great quantities of staves were taken by the town in payment of taxes assessed upon the inhabitants; and these must all pass through the hands of the culler. Persons might, of course, at any time make staves from timber taken from their own land; but timber for this purpose might also be taken from the common, under certain regulations."
Hog Reeves In the very rural South, it was not uncommon to turn loose hogs to forage in the woods and be recollected in the fall. Not so in New England.
"Owners of hogs were responsible for yoking and placing rings in their noses, and if they got loose and became a nuisance in the community, one or more of the men assigned as hog reeve would be responsible for performing the necessary chore for the owner; who could be legally charged a small fee for the service. There were punishments and fines established for not having hogs yoked and failing to control animals."
Field Drivers This was another job involving roaming livestock. A quotation from Massachusetts law describes it best.
"Every field drive shall take up horse, mules, neat cattle, sheep, goats or swine going at large in the public ways, or on common or unimproved land within his town and not under the care of a keeper; and any other inhabitants of the town may take up such cattle or beasts going at large on Sunday, and for taking up such beasts on said day the field driver or such other inhabitants of the town may in tort recover for each beast the same fees which the field driver is entitled to receive for taking up like beasts."
On the page above I can see several of my Smith relatives filling these jobs.
There was also a full page of descriptions of ear notching to identify livestock. It got very creative, but I'll save that for another post.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that this blog passed the three year mark on June 2. Happy Blogiversary
to me!

Memorial Day and the Spanish American War

For my Memorial Day post this year, I'm looking at one of my relatives who fought in the Spanish-American war.  My great grandmother's younger brother William Frederick Smith served in old Sixth Massachusetts infantry, Company D.  This company's campaign was in Puerto Rico, as you can see from the map I found.

The red line shows the area marched as my great uncle mentions in a letter home. I went back to my old standby, The Fitchburg Sentinel, and sure enough they published a portion of his letter home to my great grandfather George. I feel so lucky to have this resource!

His complaints don't sound too different from many soldiers: poor food, hard marching, mud, bad weather and disease...oh, and equipment that doesn't work properly. Puerto Rico in August must have been a shock to a New England boy. I love the line "It rains about every five minutes."

     In one of the online archives, I found a whole book just on the Sixth Massachusetts. There in the roll for Company D was my great uncle. He served well, returned home safely and lived out his life in Fitchburg and Leominster working for a shipping company. So this Memorial Day I salute Frederick Smith, 1876-1931. Thank you for your service.

Momento Mori- Lee Ellen

Lee Ellen Fitzgerald...about 1985

 This post is in remembrance of Lee Ellen Fitzgerald who would have been 60 years old today.

You are not forgotten, my sister.  I hope somewhere you are smiling.

Mother's Day

No download or reproduction without express permission

In honor of Mother's Day, I give you my mom. This is Primrose Rogers (Fitzgerald) in about

1928.  What a sweet picture!

Another Memory Monday

Courtesy Boston Public Library Photo Archives-Charlestown Boys Club- library

Today is a salute to the Boys Clubs of America. My dad spoke often and fondly of his experience at the Charlestown Boys Club. This photo is of  the "library" or reading room. My dad spent a lot of time at the pool. No doubt this place was an anchor in his life.

Common and Uncommon Surnames

                          TAPPLY                                                                                                      TAPLEY

As I've mentioned before, I get a lot of inspiration for my searching from listening to podcasts about genealogy. Two of the best are from Lisa Louise Cooke. Her Genealogy Gems podcast has lots of good ideas. She also has a podcast through Family Tree magazine. In the February podcast she talked with several experts about how having an unusual surname can be an asset in genealogical research. I wouldn't strictly call the Tapply surname unusual, but the spelling with two P's seems to have been a variant that developed in a particular area of Kent. In early census and birth records, all my Tapply relatives were actually Tapley. So if you are a two-P Tapply we are most certainly related somehow. What's even more exciting is that there are all sorts of resources online to explore the popularity of your surname. The map on the left is the incidence of the Tapply surname in modern England. The right is the Tapley surname. You can see that southeastern England and Kent are hotbeds for Tapply and Tapleys. My cousin Sue tells me that her brother (living in Kent) runs into other Tapplys and Tapleys all the time wanting to know his village of origin or which family line he belongs to.

Why would this matter? Well, let's say you're having trouble pinning down where your relatives with the unusual surname emigrated from or immigrated to; this map might give you a start deciding where to look. It also tells you whether the name has remained "active" or is dying out.

This map tells me where in the world I am most likely to find Tapply with my particular spelling. You can see that the highest incidences are in the United States, England, Australia and Canada. Change the spelling to Tapley and you can add in New Zealand.

Going one step further you can see that most of the Tapplys in the United States are people I know are directly related to me. Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Colorado would be where they are. Since Charles Tapply Senior had only 3 sons and mostly daughters this map reflects the children and grandchildren of Bob and Charlie Tapply. The only outliers are Tennessee and New Jersey. That might be interesting to explore. (There are some Tapplys in the U. S. descended from Charles's brother Thomas J. Tapply. ) Since the highest incidence of the Tapply surname on the first map was in the United States and on the second map it appears to be direct relatives, I think we can say that the name is declining. 

You can see where this would be useful in tracking down relatives and determining where they fit in the tree. Be sure to click on the two links I've included and see if you can track down an unusual name in your family tree.  I think this is lots of fun.

The Fitzgeralds

     You may remember in a previous post about my great-grandfather Andrew Fitzgerald, I puzzled over this chart. I made this to puzzle out why the ages seemed so diverse and inconsistent. My cousin Jon pointed out, and rightly so, that Andrew may not have been literate and may well not have know his age. The real outlier was the immigration passenger list. I decided that if I threw THAT out, I might make some real progress. So I have added a column on the right based on some new information I just found. (I still think he was deliberately shaving his age in some cases) And remembering that birthdays were NOT a big to-do over a hundred years ago, I think I may have been able to add some family in Ireland to the tree.
    I was looking at the marriage application document from the last post.

The names of HIS parents and hers are real leads in the Irish records. I looked at the Charlestown marriage record and the same two names appear again: Andrew Fitzgerald and Margaret Callahan. So based on that I was off and running. Ancestry posted a link to some updated records they just added from the Irish National Library. This is baptims and marriages in Roman Catholic parishes. And plugging in the three names..........

Here it is in Latin at the very bottom of the page "Andreas Fitzgerald filius Andrea et Margarit

Callahan sp. Eugenia McCarthy et Margrite  ?." (not sure of that last name) So could this be true? 1820?

     I decided to go to the records and start combing. How common was the name in Cork? How common would a combination of both names be? I went page by page and found siblings. And every time the parent names were consistent. And 1820 would not be so very far off from 1814. Before long I had a tree that looked like this:

      What I see in the records seems to fit what I know. I can't be absolutely certain, but I think this is it!  Where I had a spindly little chopped off tree, I now have some ancestors.

        I was curious about the locale. The front of the register said Diocese of Cloyne, parish of Macroom. There again, I ran into all the Irish geopolitical divisions. So I went directly to the Library of Ireland page and there was a handy dandy map next to the image from the records I had been using.

      I checked out the information on the parish and it turns out that the church name also matches the name I found in the front of the birth register: St. Colman's. Macroom, according to Wikipedia, is a market town fourteen miles west of Cork. It was a bustling town until the great potato famine when, according to this source, it was "decimated by death and emigration". Now by the time Andrew decided to emigrate in 1850, the famine was past, but perhaps he saw no future for himself in this place. Or perhaps he was still young enough to dream of adventure.  I still wonder if Catharine, his wife,  was some cousin, however distant. She emigrated at about the same time. I think I'll have to give the passenger lists another close look. Those birth records were full of Fitzgeralds. Only one other Andrew. Too far off in date to be mine and different parent names. But I also saw some Desmonds. And that was Catharine's mother's name.   The next task was to go into my favorite Google street view and see what this place looks like. This is the site of the various baptisms: St. Colman's Roman Catholic church. It has quite an extensive bit of land. Perhaps a school or convent as well as the church.          

     And, of course, I had to get a good look at the town. I plunked the little man in Streetview in various spots. It seems to be a quiet little Irish town. 

Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, I've made some real progress on the Fitzgerald side of my tree!

Hope you have the luck of the Irish in your search for ancestors.

Love and Marriage

St. Vedast Church- London

     On this day of romance, a post about how marriage records have come to my rescue in my research or have helped me understand more about my family. This is St. Vedast Church in London. The image on the left is a rendering of the church in the early 19th century, a little before the marriage of my great, great grandparents. The right picture is a more modern one. This church made it through a major fire and the Blitz. Part were damaged, but it stands to this day.

James Henry Tapply and Elizabeth Payne

     So here is the entry in the marriage register. What could I learn from this? The ages and status of the  young couple tell us they were young and this is their first marriage. His occupation, bricklayer, and his residence, Cheapside, tell us he was living in London at the time and learning a trade. Most importantly we have the names of both fathers and their occupations. John Tapply, the shoemaker, is father of the groom. Why is this important? There were two John Tapplys at the time living in Wittersham. They were born in almost the same year and both married women named Sarah. This helps me untangle that knot. Lastly we have the witnesses. I can look back at census and other records to find out who these people are to the young couple.

Michael Cooke and Mary Feehily(Feely)

       Next was the discovery that excited me recently. Irish records were added that made it possible to see the actual marriage register for my great-grandparents on my father's side.  On the left we have the exact date, 12 May, and location, Cloonigan. Then we have the original Irish spellings of the names of the young couple. This will help in further searches: Michael Cooke with an e and Mary Feehily or Feely. Last we have the Patron or witnesses: Michael Feehily and Mary Ann Cooke. Obviously family members attended the wedding. A little further research may tell me who these folks were.

Andrew Fitzgerald and Catharine Fitzgerald

     Next we see a record I had never seen before. This is a little different than the register entry I also found for this couple. It looks like it could be a receipt for an application for a marriage license. This really excited me because it gives ages for the couple. You may remember that Andrew's birthdate is still a question mark in my research. If he was 50 on June 4, 1864, his birthdate would be around 1814 and he lived to be 84 years old. Not impossible, but I still wonder about this since so many other records give different ages.  Catharine's birth would be in 1834. The most exciting part of this record are the names of both great, great grandparents. This takes me "across the pond" and into Ireland! Andrew Fitzgerald and Margaret Callahan are on his side. Robert Fitzgerald and Ellen Desmond on hers. Of course this also takes me into Cork and the surrounding counties where Fitzgeralds were thick on the ground and records are patchy at best. My work is cut out for me.

Eliazer Rogers and Martha Young

      The last record is remarkably simple for its age and survival. This is my sixth great grandfather Eliazer Rogers who married Martha Young in Harwich, Massachusetts in 1712. Spellings varied in these old registers, so we see an alternative spelling for his name. Simply confirming this far away and pre-Revolutionary event is rewarding. This record was found in the unindexed portion of Family Search. Yes, you have to troll page-by-page, but the rewards are pure gold.

     Maybe a closer look at some marriage records will clear up some mysteries in your family tree.

Happy Valentines Day!

A Snowy Winter Day.....

Garfield Street, Fitchburg, Massachusetts

Not too much snow in my forecast today in Houston, Texas. It's supposed to be a balmy 70 today. I left winter snow far behind many years ago. Not too many pictures of snow in the family collections either. I guess people could barely stand to look at the stuff after a while, much less take family photos. This first picture is dated 1948 and is the Rogers family home on Garfield Street where my mother grew up. Plows hadn't made it there yet, I guess.

Garfield Street

This next one is the back yard with a path already cut to my great grandparents back porch next door. I think this was at the time my great-grandmother had died and my great-grandfather, Edward, was in the house alone.

These were the only snow pictures I could find from that generation or the previous one.

Amesbury, Massachusetts

This next picture is yours truly in 1956 standing in front of our house on Main Street in Amesbury. Why I'm in a raincoat and not a sensible snowsuit, I have no idea. I'm smiling so I guess I wasn't too cold, but this picture makes the grown-up me shiver.

Houston, Texas

And just to show the cousins that it DOES happen, this is 1410 Neptune Lane in 1973. We had a freak snowstorm over Christmas break. The snow actually stuck for a few days. We were all delighted.

Count the number of snow pictures in your family collection. I'll bet even if you live in Minnesota or far east Maine there aren't that many.

A Holiday Dinner Mishap

Fitchburg Sentinel, December 23, 1924

I love trolling the pages of old newspapers and especially the hometown newspaper of my Tapply and Rogers family members, The Fitchburg Sentinel. You never know when a curious article involving a family member will turn up. This is one from December 1924 starring Harry Tapply. Harry worked for the Fitchburg police force for many years and his name turned up frequently in the paper.

Apparently there was a bit of confusion over the groceries. I can understand why. When you look at a picture of a 1924 Ford Model T, you can see that one black car might look more or less like another parked on Fitchburg's main street.

a 1924 Model T

So this unfortunate gentleman went home without the holiday roast and I'm sure there was hell to pay....or was there? Could this be an early example of the the gold coin in the red kettle? We will never know. Officer Tapply to the rescue.