Were James and William Beales brothers?

Here's the next family history "mystery" that I've yet to solve.

Robert Beales, born about 1785, was the great grandfather of my great grandfather, William James Beales. Robert and his wife Hannah (surname uncertain, but possibly May) had a number of children baptised in the church of St Peter and St Paul at St Osyth in Essex, or in nearby St Andrews, Weeley, between 1810 and 1827. Their names can be found in the baptism records on the freereg.org.uk search site*. Their eldest son, James, who is my direct ancestor, was born about 1816.

In the 1841 UK census the only Robert Beales of the right age living in the St Osyth area was married to Mary Ann, and they had an adult son, William, living with them. The same is true in 1851. What I'm still trying to discover is whether this Robert Beales is James Beales' father, or part of another family. And was William a brother to James, a cousin or half-brother, or unrelated?

It's quite possible that by 1841 Robert had remarried. Hannah's last two children were twins, Elizabeth and Benjamin, who lived only a few weeks after their birth in 1827. Perhaps she died in childbirth or soon after, though I can't find any record of her death.

The freereg.org.uk site has a marriage between a Robert Beales, widower, and "Merab" Farthing in St Osyth in July 1833. Could the strange first name be a poorly written "Mary Ann"? The date would be consistent with Hannah dying sometime soon after 1827.

According to the 1851 census William was born in St Osyth about 1819, which would fit in the gap between the birth of James and his next sibling Eliza, born about August 1820. The difficulty with adding William Beales to the list of Hannah's children is that his name doesn't appear among the baptisms recorded in the St Osyth area.

Was he perhaps born somewhere well beyond St Osyth? I can't find a baptism for any William Beales with a father named Robert anywhere in Essex, or the next county, Suffolk, between 1815 and 1825, even allowing for the various misspellings of Beales. Perhaps he was simply left unbaptised for some reason - some crisis in the family, or a period of dire poverty, for instance.

Nothing in William's own story gives any clues as to who his parents were. He enlisted in the 21st foot regiment in 1839, but was discharged a few months later after he lost the sight in  both eyes due to complications from smallpox, which is probably why he was still living with his father and mother (or step mother) as an adult. In 1852 he married Mary Ann Dale. (Sorry about the confusing repetition of first names!) He found employment as a broom maker. His army records don't name his parents, and his marriage certificate would only name his father, which doesn't help.

One detail that makes me think that William's father Robert may not be the same man as James' father is that William's father is described as a carpenter on the census records of 1841 and 1851. On most of the baptism records for Robert and Hannah's children Robert's occupation is given as labourer. Carpentry was a skilled trade that most people followed for a lifetime after being an apprentice. It would be unusual (though obviously not impossible) for a labourer to become a carpenter late in life.

For now, that's as far as I can go with solving this one. It doesn't affect my direct family line, but it would be nice to know where poor blind William fits in.



*For the record, the children of Robert and Hannah that I've been able to find are:
Hannah Beales 1810–
James Beales 1814–1887
Eliza Beales 1820–
Rebecca Beales 1825–
Elizabeth Beales 1827–1827
Benjamin Beales 1827–1827

Images: 1. Church of St Peter and St Paul, St Osyth, by Peter Stack
2. The chancel of St Peter and St Paul by John Salmon

How did Harriet find her family?

One of the things I most enjoy about having a family history blog is the contact it provides with people from far and wide. It's always a thrill to find an email in my inbox from someone who has read my blog and found a connection with their own family. Often this is followed by both of us exchanging information and photos that we would never have come across through the normal methods of research.

But there's also a rapport that comes, if not from a shared ancestry, at least from a shared interest in family history. I have friends all over the world who I've never met, but still have something special in common with.

Last week I had the pleasure of actually meeting one of these people. He was in Australia for work and family reasons, and we spent a couple of hours sitting in a seaside cafe, drinking coffee and talking about a whole range of topics, including his great great grandmother, Harriet Whybrew. Harriet was sister to Eliza, my own great grandmother and was the original reason for us making contact.

Who brought up Harriet?

Despite the fact that we know quite a lot about Harriet, there are still some mysteries about her life yet to be solved.* The first is, who looked after her during her childhood. She was born in Adelaide in 1868, before her parents Susan Mason and David Whybrew were married. When the British army moved David back to England, Susan and their second daughter, Eliza, went with him, but two year old Harriet remained in Australia.

One story is that she was brought up by the Lindrum family. Frederick and Clara Lindrum were German migrants who ran a billiard hall in Adelaide. Their son Frederick married Harriet's cousin, Harriet Atkin. Walter Lindrum, the famous billiards player, is said to have visited Harriet at her home in England, causing quite a stir. So there were definitely connections between Harriet and the Lindrum family.

The difficulty I see with the idea that the Lindrums brought up Harriet is that Clara Lindrum was heavily pregnant with her own daughter when Harriet was born. The two girls were born only a month apart. It seems an odd time to be taking in another baby, unless Clara was able to feed two infants. Harriet may not have been handed over to the Lindrums at birth, of course. But there is also no official record of Harriet being fostered by the Lindrums, though it could have been a private arrangement.

If she wasn't brought up by the Lindrums, who did look after her? Records suggest that in her teens, her aunt and uncle, Mary Ann and Henry Atkin, were her guardians. This was after the death of Frederick Lindrum senior, and the disappearance of Clara (another unsolved mystery!) so it doesn't necessarily indicate that the Atkins had always been her carers.

When did Harriet leave Adelaide?

The next question about Harriet is how and when she travelled to England. She is mentioned several times in the newspapers in Adelaide during the 1880's, due to her regular appearances in court for "loitering" and other anti-social behaviour. The last mention I've found of her in Adelaide is in August 1885.

After this her name disappears from the records, and doesn't appear again until she was mentioned in an English newspaper in August 1888. By then she was back with her family in Colchester.

Harriet must have sailed to England, but when? Did she travel alone, or with someone else? Over the years that I've been researching her story, I've come up with all sorts of hypotheses about this, some wilder than others. So far I have found very little evidence for any of them.

Perhaps she was encouraged to rejoin her family by the Salvation Army, who were active in rescuing "girls at risk" in Adelaide at this time. They might have persuaded her to go back to her family. They might even have organised the travel arrangements for her. It would be interesting to know if the Salvation Army in Adelaide kept any records of who they helped. So far I haven't come across any, but I haven't contacted the SA directly.

Perhaps she was escorted by someone already known to her. Her father David left the army rather suddenly in 1885. Could he have travelled to Australia to bring his wayward daughter back to England? Given the cost of travelling even one way, and the financial situation of the Whybrew family, that seems unlikely. His name is not on any passenger lists in the UK or Australia.

Another of my wilder theories is that she might have been accompanied by Clara Lindrum. That would neatly explain Clara's disappearance from Australian records around the same time. Unfortunately neither Harriet's nor Clara's names appear on any official ships' list. Few of the UK incoming passenger lists from before 1890 have survived.

I found one tantalising possibility for Harriet's departure from Adelaide in this newspaper list of passengers departing aboard the Garonne in November 1886. The passengers included  a "Miss S Wybrow".

Harriet's name was often mis-spelled in the newspapers, so it's tempting to think this could be a typo.

However, it's much more likely that Harriet travelled the cheapest way, in steerage. If so, it's unlikely that her name would be mentioned in newspaper reports, since they usually only listed cabin and saloon passengers by name.

Unless I can think of some less obvious way of tracing her journey, I may never know when and how Harriet got to England. Does anyone have any suggestions?

*I'm currently working through some of the unsolved "mysteries and puzzles" in my family history, which is why I'm repeating information from previous posts.

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You can find out more about Susan and David Whybrew and their family, in my book Susan: convict's daughter, soldier's wife, nobody's fool.
It's available on Amazon and other online books stores