Catherine Sievwright from Brechin to Paris to New Orleans

Link to Catherine in my tree

Catherine Sievwright, the third child of John Sievwright, writer in Brechin, and Helen Low to be mentioned in Helen's will, (see previous post)  was hard to track. Helen died in 1838. In the hand-written will it looks like Catherine married "Lewis Pollorou Mouhaut". Fortunately both her birth and the marriage are recorded in Scottish Old Parish records. The "Mouhaut" is Merchant!

Catherine was born in 1798 in Brechin, Angus, Scotland and married a French merchant Louis Appollinaire Pellerin of Paris in Brechin in 1823 *. I wonder how they met. The Sievwrights and Lows had interests in London, but Paris?  In the will Catherine and Louis are said to be living in Paris although by the time of the death of Helen Low they were in America.

They had 2 children born in Paris: Helene Pellerin baptised 1825**  and Henri Pellerin about 1830.  Helen Lowe widow Sievwright was godmother at Helene's baptism. Father Louis was a cashier (caissier).

I suspected they moved to Louisiana from a naturalisation record for a Louis Appolinaire Pellerin in 1849 and a court case in 1845. But Pellerin is quite a common French name.

I am indebted to Lucretia Ramsey Bishko*** for filling in the gap.
In 1833 Louis (Lewis A Pellerin) and his wife and two young children set sail for Florida with a letter of recommendation from General Lafayette. Louis had suffered financial losses in the July Revolution of 1830****. Louis hoped to buy land in the Lafayette township in Florida. After 6 unsuccessful attempts to buy land,  during which time they "lived in a cabin like savages" Louis gave up and they moved to New Orleans about 1837 where he owned a cotton press yard (1850 census and 1845 court case). I hope Catherine got her share of her mother's estate in 1838!

Catherine died between the 1840 and 1850 censuses. Louis died in 1859. Son Henri died age 36 in 1866. Helene married Benjamin S Harrisson, a builder, in 1851 and they had 3 children. She died aged only 33 in 1859 and is buried in Lafayette Cemetery in New Orleans. Louis's funeral notice mentions Benjamin S Harrison, proving the link between the two families. Helene died in the January and her father Louis in the August of 1859.

* "Scotland, Marriages, 1561-1910," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XTRF-Z93 : accessed 16 May 2013), Louis Appollinaire Pellerin and Catherine Sievwright, 09 Sep 1823.
** (France, Protestant Church Records, 1612-1906 004340993 Image 192)
*** from a research piece entitled A French Would-Be Settler on Lafayette's Township published by the Florida Historical Society, accessed 6 Aug 2012.  It was gleaned from a series of documents and letters in the Dean Collection of Lafayette.
**** He was awarded the Croix de Juillet in 1831  Bulletin des lois de la République Française Issues 86-134 Page 16

Bennies from Ayrshire to New Zealand

I have been tracing the family of David Bennie and Margaret Sym
tree here  who were married in Stevenston in Ayrshire in 1814.

I've found 9 children of whom 2 died in childhood. There may have been others who never made it into the record books.

Boyd Miller Bennie (child no 6) married Janet McDonald in 1850 in Dreghorn. He was a coal miner. They had 16 children. Boyd died in 1879 of chronic bronchitis.  Their youngest child David was only 3 at the time.  However there were older children bringing in money by then so it was maybe not too desperate a situation. In the 1881 census Janet 50 is at Overton a mining hamlet north of Dreghorn with 10 children ranging from 23 to 5 with  3  boys working as coal miners. Two of Janet's brothers, William and Andrew, were in New Zealand according to some Poor Relief applications on behalf of their mother Elizabeth McDonald ms Murchland in 1886.

First Bennie in New Zealand*
Their son Boyd Bennie must have left sometime after his father's death on 1 March 1879 which he registered, signing his name. On 15 Oct 1880 he was elected an office bearer (SW senior warden) in St Thomas Kilwinning Lodge in Kaitangata. (Kilwinning in Ayrshire is the Mother Lodge  of Scotland). Boyd married Janet Holden in New Zealand in October 1881. That seemed like pretty quick work and I wondered if she too stemmed from Ayrshire and, lo and behold, she is also in Overton Rows, Dreghorn a few doors away from the Bennies in the March 1881 census. Janet was a steerage passenger on the SS Jessie Readman which left Greenock 15 Jul 1881 and arrived 14 September in Port Chalmers. No other Holdens aboard. Janet's uncle David Holden was married to Grace Bennie, daughter of Mathew Bennie and Cummings Littlejohn, but I have yet to connect them to Boyd's line although it does seem a bit of a coincidence. Some of this family also went to New Zealand.

Shipwrecked
On the 12th January 1883 son John Bennie, his wife Janet and their baby Janet along with 9 of his siblings set off from the Tail of the Bank (Greenock) for Otago on the Wild Deer. It was a disastrous trip as the Wild Deer ran aground on a rock just off the coast of County Down, Ireland.  Fortunately there were no fatalities and all were taken ashore to Cloughey and returned home. Undaunted, they set sail again on 19th February on the Caroline. This time mother Janet and sons William and David 7 joined the original group. It seems that young David had the flu which is why they weren't with the others the first time around.  They landed in Port Chalmers on the 23rd May 1883.


4 of the 16 children had died before they left for New Zealand. A memorial stone to them stands in Dreghorn cemetery near the church.

Alexander, James and William Bennie were miners in Kaitangata, Otago. Alexander was killed in the mine in a rock fall in 1906.
Boyd Bennie was also a miner then a government inspector of mines.
Daniel Bennie b 1874 was at gardener in the Botanical Gardens in Dunedin. His son Ronald founded Bennie's Honey.
David b 1876 was a trucker. 
Agnes married William Taylor from Dreghorn in New Zealand, had a few children then they returned to Ayrshire by 1901 only to move on to Michigan, USA in 1923!
I'm still working on the other daughters.

Many descendants were named Boyd, and there are Boyds still living.

A Bennie from New Zealand reconnects with his past in Dreghorn Cemetery in 2013!

References
Newspaper report of the loss of the Wild Deer
Papers Past
Janet Holden's arrival in New Zealand
Boyd's Installation at the Lodge
Bennie's Honey
Poor Relief record (no 816) for  Elizabeth Murchland.
1850 map of Overton and Warwickdale in Dreghorn Parish
1850 map of Springside, Kirkland and WestThornton in Dreghorn Parish


 * Boyd's cousin Margaret McDonald d/o Ann Bennie & William McDonald was in New Zealand by 1873 when she married James George Hay, a native of Inverness. 


Story of Boyd's brother David Bennie (child no 9) and Helen Gillies in a future post.

Joseph Alexander Sievwright

Joseph Alexander Sievwright  1795 - 1856 is my ggg grand uncle. His half brother Solomon Sievwright is my ggg grandfather.

Joseph Alexander was born in Brechin, Angus, Scotland on 15 April 1795 to John Sievwright, a lawyer in Brechin and Helen Lowe.

He was mentioned in his mother's will as residing in "the island of Demerary" ca 1830. This I suspected was British Guiana, now Guyana in South America, well known for sugar plantations. Was my ancestor a slave owner?

Today a new data base was published online of people who claimed compensation from the British government after the abolition of slavery in 1833 and there he is, guilty as charged. He made 3 claims and  received over £700 in compensation, a small fortune in those days. British Guiana claim no. 697 suggests that Jos. Alexander Sievwright was a resident attorney.

At the age of 46 he married Catherine Howe the daughter of the late John Howe, Deputy Postmaster General of Canada on 23 November 1841 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He was a bachelor and she a spinster (although gravestone information suggests she was previously married to Samuel Hoyt)

In 1851 census he was a farmer living at King's Norton with wife and 3 daughters, 4 Irish lodgers, servants, and his unmarried sister Marjory. One of the Irish servants was 12 year old Bridget Blaney whom Joseph took on from the Saint John Almhouse in New Brunswick on the 17th May 1848, her father and mother were in hospital. They had arrived in 1847 on the Portland. This information is from Peter D Murphy in Poor Ignorant Children click here will download a pdf file

1851 census

He died on 7 July 1854 and is buried at St Paul's Anglican Church Cemetery, Lakeside, Hampton, New Brunswick.

Here he is on my tree

Too many McLeods

This investigation revealed a lot of McLeods in Scotland who turned out to have another name entirely.

The cousin who married a Greek/Turkish/Canadian

As you know, I am a sucker for an interesting name, so when looking at marriages of my mother-in-law's cousins on scotlandspeople, one jumped out at me.

Margaret McFedries McInnes married Earnest (sic) Raicos in Crosshill, Ayrshire in 1919.

I googled the name Raicos and results suggested he would be Greek. What on earth was he doing in rural Ayrshire in 1919?

I found his army enlistments dated 11 Nov 1917 (he wasn't to know the war was almost over) - he was with the Canadian Expeditionary Force.
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/
and it gives his birth on the 15th May 1890 in Constantinople, Turkey.
It also gives his occupation: cook and his address of the Central Hotel, New Westminster, British Columbia.

His next of kin was his brother Nick Raicos of the Paris Cafe, Edmonton, Alberta.

Is this the same Ernest Raicos?   I shelled out for Scottish marriage certificate - not a lot of money, just over £1.

His address was Kilkerran Camp and he was a cook. His age tallied as well. Margaret was a housekeeper at Kilkerran Cottages. Both his parents were deceased. The names look like Tomos Raicos storekeeper and Marca (Maria?) Paepis. The date of the marriage was March 1919.

Canadians were based in Kilkerran as foresters http://www.maybole.org/

I looked on the ancestry site for any evidence of him. I found him on the Saturnia in September 1919 returning to Canada with the troops. Did he leave his wife behind? I looked for her separately and she was on the same ship, just under a separate list from the troops. She was heading to Edmonton, Alberta.

I can't find much evidence of them in Canada except their deaths in the 1940s in Edmonton. The brother Nick appears in the 1911 census in New Westminster and in the electoral rolls in Edmonton with a wife, variously described as a storekeeper, restaurateur, candy maker, confectioner. Their naturalisation records from 1925 are here (click will download). The brothers are from Turkey (Greece). Nick's wife is Marie.

There are still Raicos in Edmonton.

Lavinia Allen

Following on from the Chynoweths in Mexico this is the story of their  cousin Lavinia Allen.

She was born in Helston in Cornwall in July1841. Her parents ran the New Inn in Church Street in Helston. Her father Henry died before the 1851 census leaving mother Mary (Harris) Allan as the licensee. Lavinia married George Lory a draper of St Keverne in 1861 and had 4 sons. In the 1871 census George Lory is the innkeeper and his mother in law is living with them.  However by the 1881 census he is missing. In 1891 I pick up 2 of the Lory sons in London and with them their mother Lavinia Arthur.
I am indebted to a wonderful story which appeared in Australian newspapers in 1882 to fill in what happened.
George left and went to Tasmania after some "unpleasantness", around 1876, I think.  Meanwhile Lavina found comfort with a neighbour in Church Street, James Colenso Arthur, whose family were shoe makers.  It seems Lavinia fell pregnant and she and James married in Plymouth in the third quarter of 1881. Their son Allan was born on 1st January 1882. On the same day a letter arrived from her real husband in Tasmania! Oops! It seems that he was being sought so that the licence of the pub could be transferred to Lavinia.  I can't find what happened re the bigamous marriage but they were living apart in 1891.  Poor Lavinia. Allan was with his father in the shoemaker's and Lavinia was in London with 2 of her sons George and  Ernest Lory.  I expect the gossip was too much for her to stay in Helston. In 1901 Allan Arthur was in London with his mother and half brother Ernest Lory.  James Colenso Arthur died in 1906 in Helston.  George Lory senior died in New South Wales in 1907  and Lavinia died in London in 1911.



Sources:
censuses via ancestry.co.uk

online parish clerks for Helston 

trove digitised newspapers Australia trove.nla.gov.au

Australia death index : via ancestry.co.uk

Name:	George Lory
Death Date:	1907
Death Place:	New South Wales
Father's Name:	Richard
Mother's Name:	Elizabeth
Registration Year:	1907
Registration Place:	Granville, New South Wales
Registration number:	13811

freebmd.org

Marriages Sep 1881   (>99%)
ARTHUR	James Colenso		Plymouth	5b	472
LORY	Lavinia		Plymouth	5b	472

Deaths Jun 1906   (>99%)
Arthur	James Colenso	60	Helston	5c	113

Deaths Sep 1911
Arthur	Lavinia	70	Islington	1b	282

Marriage in the not too distant past (UK)

The choice of spouse was limited in the days before mass transport and communication. Prospective partners were your neighbours in the community you lived in or relations. I have lots of examples of cousins marrying and pairs of brothers marrying sisters. This was and still is perfectly legal.

Matthew Rolinson married his cousin Mary Ann Price in Cumnock in 1871.

George Stewart Anderson married his cousin Garden Walker in 1902 in Aberdeen.

Muncie sisters married McMurdo brothers in Muirkirk, Ayrshire

Christina Muncie married James McMurdo in November 1846

Margaret Muncie married George McMurdo in 31 Dec 1849

Hugh Blue married Elizabeth Wilson in West Kilbride, Ayrshire in 1835. His younger brother Daniel Blue married her younger sister Janet Wilson in 1839.

More recently Penrose brothers John and David married Herbertson sisters Lettie and Georgina respectively in Ayrshire in the 1920s.

Second marriages in the past were very common. 

Many women died young from childbirth or diseases like tuberculosis, typhus and smallpox. I have seen comments on family history forums along the lines of "his wife died in July and he married again in October with indecent haste." We should not be too quick to judge.   Put yourself in the place of the bereaved. You are a man with a job and 5 children including a baby and a toddler. Your family can help out but they probably have a houseful as well. The long term solution is clearly to get another wife. But where to find one? Often the second wife is much younger or else a widow maybe with some children of her own. In a few cases I've seen a man marrying his late wife's sister and one of  a widow marrying her brother-in-law.  In many ways it seems an ideal situation. The children know their aunt or uncle and vice versa.  However marriage to a wife's sister was illegal until 1907 (The Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907)! ( As far as I can make out, it was legal for a woman to marry her deceased husband's brother.) To marry they may have gone temporarily to another parish where their history wasn't known.

Elizabeth Hunn Lander married Chynoweth brothers in Cornwall/Devon

First she married Joseph Chynoweth in Cornwall in 1822. Joseph died in 1838 leaving her with 5 children. She married his younger brother William Chynoweth who was 7 years her junior across the county border in Devon in 1840. 

Joseph Lockhart Wilson married sisters Margaret McCrae in about 1844 in Ayrshire and Jane McCrae 1855 in Glasgow although they continued to live in Ayrshire. He had five children with each of them.

In Kirkcudbrightshire Grace Gibson married Samuel Coltart in 1874: her mother had married his father in 1866 so he was her stepbrother.  Marriage to your stepbrother was and still is illegal!

I am not condemning or criticising any of these unions, just saying they happened! If anyone knows more about the legal situation please leave a comment.

Where groups of people moved from one part of the country to another in seek of work, they tended to marry within their community for the first generation at least. I have followed my miner ancestors who moved from the Midlands (Wolverhampton area) to Ayrshire and Cornish miners who also moved to Ayrshire.  The first few marriages were to other English or Cornish compatriots.  Gradually they married the locals. And within a couple of generations they thought of themselves as Scottish, as indeed they were.

Update on Hamilton as a given name.

This post follows on Fun with the McFunns where I tried to work out where the given name for a girl Hamilton came from.

I had a message from a lady in Canada descended from Hamilton Lesley mother of Hamilton McFunn. She said it was her understanding that Hamiltonia Lesley b Cambuslang in 1757 was named after a Covenanters' victory at the "tiny village" of Hamilton.

I asked my husband about a famous Covenanters' victory and he immediately said the Battle of Drumclog in 1679.  Wikipedia confirmed this.  Drumclog is a tiny village but not terribly near Hamilton so that didn't make sense. However Wikipedia says the commander of the Covenanters forces at Drumclog was Robert Hamilton.  Could he be the source of all these girls called Hamilton? Why not call the sons Hamilton? There did seem to be a tradition of calling girls by surnames.

A search of Old Parish Records on scotlandspeople revealed 848 females named Hamilton but all were from 1730 - 1854. Seems a bit too long after the event. However, few records exist before 1730. The jury is out.

The fallen

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
 In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
 In Flanders fields.

The author of this moving poem is  John McCrae  who is a very distant relative of my husband (a McCrae married into the Wilsons.)

I looked through my extended tree to find those who fell in WW1. A lot of our ancestors were miners and stayed at home to keep the home fires burning so there are maybe not as many as in others' trees.

Aaron Dickens of Kirkintilloch died 7 Nov 1918 in France & Flanders. He was a private in the Highland Light Infantry.  A particulary sad case - just before the Armistice and only 21.

Alexander Shaw of Aberdeenshire a private in the Gordon Highlanders died of wounds on 26 Dec 1915 in France or Flanders aged 26.

William Rollie of Ayrshire died 27 Feb 1916 in France or Flanders. Only 18.

Tom Holmes of Featherstone, Yorkshire died 12 Apr 1917 in France or Flanders age 41.
Left a wife and 6 children.

Murdoch Ferguson of Skye died 5 Aug 1917 in France or Flanders aged 50. He was a corporal in the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders and formerly in  the Lovat Scouts.

James Cook of Blackburn died 26 Sep 1917 in France or Flanders age 27.

William Mathieson of Ayrshire died 21 Mar 1918 in France or Flanders age 26.

Corporal Abraham Yates from Auchinleck, Royal Scots fell 19 Apr 1918 in France or Flanders aged 29.

Alfred Allan Walker of Aberdeen was killed in action on 14 Nov 1914 in France having served only 45 days. He was a corporal in the Gordon Highlanders and my great aunt Aggie's husband.  Their only son William Sievwright Walker died in the Second World War.

Richard Ewart Shearer my grandfather's younger brother was an engine fitter in the Royal Flying Corps and died of pneumonia in the military hospital in Ayr aged 19 on February 17th 1917.

Gone but not forgotten.

Chynoweths in Mexico

This week I've gone off on a tangent but it has taken me to Mexico and back so it has been interesting!

While hunting Chynoweths I spotted one Maria Chynoweth born in Mexico about 1830. This sparked my interest and I resolved to find out more.

In 1841 census she is living in Helston with William and Mary Allen and their children at the New Inn. I suspect they are relations.

In 1850 she marries Thomas Priske of the Railway Inn in Penzance and in 1851 census they are living in Penzance where he is an innkeeper.

By 1861 she is a widow with 2 children and is an innkeeper at the Red Lion back in Helston.

In 1871 she is the manageress of the Metropol Tavern in London which is owned by her older brother William Chynoweth.

In 1881  aged 50 she is described as a bargirl back in Helston at the New Inn owned by cousin Lavinia Lory. This is where she was in 1841 and Lavinia turns out to be daughter of William Allen and Mary Harris born 1841 after the 1841 census. More of Lavinia in a future post.

Now to work out who her parents are.  Her  mother must be either an Allen or a Harris. Being born in Mexico there is no birth record.
But her brother William was born in Cornwall about 1824.
Using Cornish Parish Records online I find  William Chenoweth born 1824 in Helston to John Chenoweth carpenter and Grace (no maiden surname) but with Helston it sounds good.
I look for other children of John and Grace and find several with the middle name Harris. I think she is Grace Harris! The oldest is Grace Harris Chenoweth born 1819. I look for a marriage prior to 1819 and find it in December 1818.  She is from Helston but he is from Breage. And two witnesses are named Mark Shephard and John Chynoweth. I file this info away in my head!

Now to explore the Mexico connection.  Some  judicious googling leads me to find out he worked at the Real del Monte silver mines in Mexico and died there is 1837. His wife and 5 children come back to Helston. Grace died in 1839 in Helston. You can see the family tree here

 Their daughter Grace (b 1819)  married and stayed in Mexico. Son William (b 1824) went back as a civil engineer before becoming a pub landlord in London.

I love that you can get Cornish pasties in  Real del Monte (now called Mineral del Monte  twinned with Redruth.)

The Cornish in Latin America project

BBC story from 2008

Maria's family tree