Thursday, October 29, 2009

Where in the World is Uckfield?

According to the 1899 Kelly's Directory of Sussex available at http://www.historicaldirectories.org/

UCKFIELD is a union town and parish, and the head of a petty sessional division with a station on the London, Brighton and South Coast Company's line from Brighton to Lewes and Tunbridge Wells, 43 miles from London, 16 north-east from Brighton, 8 north-west from Lewes and 14 south-west from Tunbridge Wells, in the Northern division of the county, Loxfield Dorset hundred, Pevensey rape, Lewes county court district, rural deanery of Pevensey (third division), archdeaconry of Lewes and diocese of Chichester.
As can be seen from the map, Uckfield is situated inland from the coast midway between Brighton and Eastbourne. It is the seat of the DAWES family that I am tracing.

In greater detail at left, the village of Framfield is visible to the lower right. This is where my great grandfather, Thomas DAWES (1840-1925) was born at Lantern Cottege, Bird-in-Eye hill which is also visible on the Framfield Road.
The area where the Framfield Road label is located is known as New Town where several members of the family lived.

DAWES Family Mystery No 2

This is DAWES Family mystery No. 2 because No. 1 is the photo at the beginning of this blog which has yet to be identified. See it here.

The following is a letter that was written from Reg BARNES (1905-1983) to his cousin Win (DAWES) RHODEN (1906-1994) and I would date probably in the 1970's although this is a guess. I have a photocopy of it, provided to me by a descendant of Win DAWES.

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Our grandfather's father was named Thomas Dawes. He was born in Hadlow, near Maidstone, Kent in the year 1812! At the time of the Census Returns 1851 he was 39 and married to Ann, who was a native of Uckfield, and aged 35. They had a son Joseph, age 15, Labourer, born in Uckfield, a daughter Lucy, age 13, born in Uckfield, a son Thomas, age 11, Scholar, born in Framfield, a daughter Ann, age 8, Scholar, born in Uckfield and a daughter Margaret, age 5, born in Uckfield.

This would mean that Thomas, our grandfather (name underlined, above) was born in 1840, and he used to say it was at Lantern Cottage, Bird-in-Eye Hill, which, although on the outskirts of Uckfield, is actually in the parish of Framfield. The place is still standing, though it has been added to since Grandpa's day, and is now called Lantern House. It stands by itself, now surrounded by trees, and I often pass it on my walks. The family must only have had a short period of residence there. Now comes a most peculiar circumstance: In a list of christenings in Uckfield Parish by John Underwood, Curate (which I found in the Archives at Lewes), it gives Aug. 29th, 1842, Thomas, son of Thomas & Ann Dawes, Uckfield (Bricklayer). And then again on Oct. 22nd, 1843, Thomas, son of Thomas & Ann Dawes, Uckfield (Bricklayer), and on the same date Ann, daughter of Thomas & Ann Dawes, Uckfield (Bricklayer).

Was Grandfather really christened twice? And the second time a double christening with his younger sister! One of these days I am going to draw our present Rector's attention to this, and see if he has an explanation. As far as education was concerned, Grandpa used to say he got as far as M.U.D., and there he stuck! At the age of 14 he walked to Brighton in a pair of his father's old boots to seek employment, and by sheer grit and perserverance became in course of time one of Brighton's leading builders.

He married about 1862, when he was 21 years old, Sarah Boxall, whose mother was said to be the daughter of Dr. Jenner, the originator of vaccination. Grandpa had a family of nine, four boys and five girls, our Uncle Walter being the eldest. You know who the others were, of course. Aunt Ada died, I believe, before you & I were born, and there was one (I think a girl) who died in infancy. Aunt Bertha was born April 22nd, 1871, my mother (Minnie) Sep. 18th, 1874. Connie's father (Tom) Dec. 16th, 1880.Can you give me the date of birth of your father (my Uncle Bert)? The other birth dates I do not know. Grandpa lost his first wife, as you know, and married Sarah Roust, from Battle, by whom he had one child (our half-Uncle George).

RB
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Reg is right about most of his facts and you can find the missing pieces elsewhere in earlier blogs including the birth and death of Florence Ellen in 1870.

The mystery is the double christening of Thomas. There could be a number of explanations for this:
1) The first Thomas died in infancy and the next son was also named Thomas.
2) Thomas b. 1840 was sickly and was christened quickly at home in 1842 and then properly in the church with his sister in 1843.
3) He was born in Framfield and his parents didn't want him christened there and waited until they moved to Uckfield proper.

Since his older siblings Joseph and Lucy, were both christened within weeks of their births it is strange that Thomas wasn't. His birth registration gives his birth date as 14 Jan 1840. The family are found in the 1841 census at the North Entrance of Uckfield with Joseph (5), Lucy (4) and Thomas (1) which supports his birth is 1840. The 1851 census shows Thomas as eleven which is correct for the Thomas born in 1840. There are no recorded deaths or burials for a Thomas between 1840 and 1842 or additional births for that matter.

Why he was christened so long after his birth and then again a year later will remain as much of a mystery for me as it was for Reg Barnes many years ago?

Monday, October 26, 2009

Charles William DAWES (extended)

As promised in my previous post, here are the wedding photos of the children of Charles William DAWES (1868-1928) and Janet Mary STREETER (1872-1949). Of their six children the oldest, Jeanette Sophia (1900-1987) never married and her next sibling Charles William (1904-1918) died young. The following four (shown in the chart) all married however only the last three had families:




Emmie Georgina DAWES (1906-1984) & Kenneth George BRADING (1905-1972)

Reginald DAWES (1910-1978) and Doris Evelyn HARVEY (1911-2009)


Bessie DAWES (1912-1996) and Frederick Carlisle COOPER (1910-1987)

Dorothy Violet DAWES (1914-1978) and Herbert William MUGRIDGE (1912-2005)







Sunday, October 25, 2009

The George (1) DAWES Line (Expanded)

George DAWES (1821-1869) married twice, first to Esther COTTINGTON (1831-1863) and second to Sophia SANTER (1831-1914). The original post on George (1) is available here.


Sophia's lineage is cloudy but her parents are believed to be Stephen SANTER and Judith BUSBRIDGE who were married 30 Nov 1812 in Benenden, Kent.

Sophia was the widow of George's nephew, Henry DAWES, so there are many more children in this extended family than shown here.

The chart shows the two children that Sophia had with George, Eliza Emily (1865-1944) for whom more information is available in a previous blog, and Charles William (1868-1927). Charles and his wife, Janet Mary STREETER (1872-1949) AKA Jeanette had six children of which I will look at over the next few blogs which will include their wedding photos.

Friday, October 23, 2009

The DAWES/DAWS of Ardingly

(FAMILY CHART UPDATED 30 OCT 2009)
I am going to deviate from my normal DAWES Family blog to add some information about another extensive DAWES/DAWS family I have discovered in Ardingly. Ardingly, sometimes spelled Ardingley, is about 9.5 miles northwest of Uckfield which is the seat of my DAWES family.
I was contacted by another DAWES who found an old query of mine from 2005 on the Rootsweb DAWES Mailing List. This just goes to reinforce why you should use every means possible to contact your potential relatives. In helping this person identify his DAWES connections, I had a look at the DAWES' in Ardingly and was surprised at how large the family was.


At left is a quick chart (click on the chart to open in a larger window) that I have thrown together to show the family from 1761 up to the early twentieth century and I'm not finished yet. Over the years I have gathered many DAWES family facts into various spreadsheets to make my research easier and I was able to fill in a lot of details from these. However, I also used the IGI data from Familysearch.org (Ardingly Batch C070051 & M070051) plus the census from Ancestry.co.uk. Fortunately, Ardingly has an established church that has been added to the IGI whereas Uckfield does not.

This process also caused me to re-visit my own DAWES research to see where this new person fit in. The only Thomas DAWS that matched my data was one born in Linton, Kent in 1769 but I had no proof. In 1809, a Poor Law Removal Order issued in Hadlow, Kent instructed the family to return to Uckfield so they must have come from there originally. In reviewing my 1841 census copies, I noted that my 3rd great-grandfather had a "Y" in the Born in County column meaning that he was probably born in Uckfield and not Linton. To make it even more dramatic, there was a column of "N's" with his "Y" sticking out. I never picked up on this before and have now headed off in a different direction on my own research.

My point is that no matter what you are researching about your family you usually discover something new or correct something you missed. I hope I am able to link up these two DAWES families in the future.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The GARDNER Line "Going Back"

Tom DAWES (1880-1933) Married Caroline Wakeford GARDNER (1880-1966) in Montreal, Canada the day after she arrived from Brighton in 1907.


Tom's line is covered by my original post on the DAWES family accessible here.


The GARDNER line goes back to Thomas GARDNER b. 1773 Sutton, Surrey and Elizabeth BRIDGEMAN b. 1781 Sutton, Surrey. Since there are many children in each generation, the chart was too big to display here so I have only included the parents of Caroline GARDNER who were Thomas GARDNER (1846-1922) and Eliza Caroline WAKEFORD (1846-1912)

The image below is Caroline Wakeford GARDNER.



The WYATT Line "Going Back"

Jesse Elizabeth Ann WYATT (1879-1942) married Albert Henry DAWES (1882-1944) in Brighton, Sussex. Her line back to Joseph WYATT b. about 1782 in Plymstock, Devon is detailed in the chart at left.

Photos of Jesse and Albert are included under my original blog on Albert Dawes accessible here.

An interesting side story about this family involves Jesse's parents Robert WYATT (1855-1905) and Fanny Louisa HOYLE (1855-1885). Jessie's birth in 1879 was followed by a brother, George, in 1884 and a sister, Lily, in 1885. Jessie's mother, Fanny, died a few weeks after Lily's birth leaving Robert WYATT with three small children. His brother and sister-in-law, William and Anna, took over the raising of Lily and since their last name was WYATT , no one was any the wiser. In fact, I believe that even Jessie didn't know that Lily was her sister and thought of her as a cousin. I am in touch with the grandchildren of Jessie and Albert and none of them knew that their grandmother had a sister.

This new relationship came to light through a contact I made on GenesReunited and resulted in the following photo of Lily's daughter's wedding. Lily married Alfred Ernest STOFFELL in 1910 and they had one child, a daughter Phyllis Ellen, born in 1912. Phyllis married Donald Edward BURLEY shown below. There might be some WYATT cousins in the wedding party.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

The TAMKIN Line "Going Back"

This is the TAMKIN family going back from Charles (1870-1957) who married Bertha DAWES.

The earliest TAMKIN I have found is John TAMKIN b. about 1815 Uckfield, Sussex who married Elizabeth TAMKIN (yes - TAMKIN) b. about 1815 Lewes. The IGI shows her surname as TAMKIN so she must have been a cousin, this happens a lot in my family too! Although it is never quite as obvious.

The BARNES Line "Going Back"


I am going to try something new for my cousins who don't have the DAWES surname.


I will include charts of their ancestors as far back as I've been able to trace them.


Here is the BARNES line going back to Robert BARNES born probably about 1769 in Cambridgeshire, England. He married Charlotte SPENCER on 25 December 1789 in Cheveley, Cambridge.






The Minnie (DAWES) BARNES Line Updated



Minnie DAWES (1874-1945) married William Henry BARNES (1880-1962) and had two children Reginald Thomas Fromant (1905-1983) and Alfred Stanley (1908-2000).



Thanks to cousin Rosina we now have a photo of Minnie and her children



(L-R) Reg, Minnie, Stanley.

See original post dated 13 Aug 2009