The
theme for week 3 is longevity and can be about the longest lived
person in my ancestry or even someone who has taken an "age" to find
out about. Despite Ann Baker, my
maternal GGGG Grandmother, believed to have lived to the age of 102, I am
choosing to write about my maternal Great
Grandfather and the efforts into finding out about who he was &
where he came from and the many issues about finding out this information. Not
to mention highlighting some queries that still exist about him!
My
mother was Edna Trattles, her father was John James Trattles.
We knew
very little about John James' (my
grandad) early years other than the person my mam knew as 'his dad', her
grandad, was not Johns real dad….he had been known as "Mr Parker".
Mam did not even know her grans name, only that she was her dad's mam.
We also
knew that John James had a brother who was believed to have owned/ran a shop in
Redcar, but all contact had been lost and we knew nothing else about Johns
childhood. (We had also assumed, incorrectly, that they were all from
Middlesbrough)
I
started family research in the very late 1980s, at this time only the 1881
census was available to review (census are only made publically available 100
years after the event) and also my knowledge into "how to" and
"where to go" was extremely limited. You also must appreciate that at
that time many records were not yet available on-line, instead research had to
be done in the records offices, searching through microfiche in order to find
the information needed. Sites that make
it easy to locate civil registration dates were not yet available or just not
sophisticated/populated enough to be able to provide adequate info.
To find
my Great Grandfather I would need to use information available about his son
John James and this would take 3 steps :
1 -
find the fathers name/parents name on John James birth certificate (having to
find his birth first - of course!)
2 -
locate the marriage certificate of the parents to identify their ages & mothers
maiden name.
3 -
look at the censuses to try and find
more about them.
John James - My Grandad - Birth
Using the parish registers in the archives office at
Middlesbrough, I eventually located John James birth in Stockton, this enabled
me to order his birth certificate (Ordered 1993)
John James was born 20/10/1890 at 15 Kirby St Stockton, Father was John
James Trattles (my great grandad),
Mother was Frederica Sophia (formerly Bradley).
😸Hoorah
- we now know the name of my Great Grandad - John James Trattles and his
"wife"
**At this point in the story we
will refer to my Great grandad as JJT(1) and his son (my grandad) as JJT (2)**
Parents Marriage: John James Trattles &
Frederica Sophia Bradley
More
than 10 years were spent looking for this marriage (which would have given us
JJT (1)'s age and ultimately be able to deduce his birth year). For reasons
that will become clear…. It was, to this day, never to be found!
We now
know that JJT(2) was born in 1890 and therefore not on the 1881 census - but he
would have been on the 1891 census, which
(by 1993) was now publically available.
I
cannot recall If I was now using digitised records to search for people on the
census, I believe I was. I eventually found the family! Though that fact that
they were named "Tratles" instead of "Trattles" was
probably one reason for further delay in finding them, search engines were not
as clever!
Quite
clearly I could see that My Great Grandad JJT(1), aged 45, a Mill Wright
Labourer, was living in Stockton on
Tees, with Frederica, his wife and Alfred and John J, his sons.
*Lesson learnt after the
event! Do not make assumptions about
what you see/ read!!*
JJ(1) Birth? Given that in the 1891 census
JJT(1) was aged 45, he would have been born about 1846 in
"Steers"….stuck again! Where on earth was Steers in Yorkshire! Mam was never able to offer much help with my
research, but the one thing she was able to tell me was that this was
"Steers" was the local name for "Staithes".
(see
Wikipedia Staithes)
It was
during the next few years ( I say a few ...it felt like a lifetime) that I started to "collect"
Trattles (mostly from Staithes). I
contacted so many people who were researching Trattles just to see if they had
found my John James, to no avail. We had about 4 "Johns" that were
candidates and eventually (again over many years) we were able to discount most
of them.
My one
name Study for Trattles continues to this day, though has had many stops and
starts. It is now officially registered with the Guild of One Name Studies. I have over 4500 individuals in my database (Trattles, their spouses and descendants from all over the world)
It took a while to locate the
family in the 1881 census (using digital searches), mostly through my lack of
knowledge on how to search properly for those potentially difficult to find
people!. The family surname had been transcribed "Traffles".
Eventually finding them, I had my 2nd and most important breakthrough! This led
to me learn an interesting English law that existed at the turn of the 1900s
Fredericka
was not JJT(1)'s wife , she was his
sister-in-law! Using this information I looked for Frederica Bradley's sisters
and their marriages.
(Incidentally
I will mention at this point that Frederica went onto marry Mr Samuel Carter in
1899, describing herself as a spinster, and later marrying Mr Mark Parker in
Oct 1926, the gentleman my mam knew as her grandad)
John
James Trattles (1) married Harriet Clara Bradley
in 1876. Harriet died in 1879 (only 8 days after giving birth to son
Alfred). The assumption can be made that
her younger sister Frederica moved into the household to look after the baby
(as we see in the 1881 census). It is
worth mentioning that John & Harriet had also had a son, William born in
1887, however he died in infancy)
10
years later (1891) we know that JJT(1) and Frederica are claiming to be man and
wife and they have a son JJT(2). So now to the question...why could I not find
their marriage?, did they marry?, why lie on the 1891 census?
The answer was that I found
that it was illegal, before 1907, to marry your deceased wife's sister: Deceased
Wifes Sisters Marriage Act 1907
I now
knew I had the right JJT(1), however it is worth noting that on the 1881 census
John gave his age as 34 and place of birth as "Comdale, Yorkshire"!
Here we go again…. Where on earth is Comdale!
Over
the years, with some limited evidence to back this up, I have deduced that
Comdale is actually "Commondale",
located on the North Yorkshire Moors.
I now
had another document I could order, that should contain information about
JJT(1), his marriage certificate to Harriet Clara, which hopefully would
identify JJT(1)'s father. The marriage
took place on 29th February 1874 (leap year!) in Stockton. JJT(1) was aged 29,
he was a coachman and his father was Thomas Trattles, a labourer.
This
would give JJT(1)'s year of birth approx 1844
So I
needed to find a son born to Thomas Trattles between 1844 and 1847, in
Yorkshire (either Staithes or Comdale). By this time in my research journey, I
had learnt a few tricks of the trade and knew I had to search for everything
and anything, with all sorts of wildcards and name resemblances and not only
just stick to place names / people names I knew!
Having
searched all Thomas Trattles from Yorkshire area and identifying if they had a
son called John (within a 20 year time frame of the years I was interested in)
the following were potentials:
- John T Trattles son of Thomas & Maria in 1856 in Northumberland (located via 1871 census)
- John Trattles son of Thomas & Jane in 1842 in Staithes (located via 1851 census - living near Scarborough)
It is
worth noting I did look for other Johns born in the same time period with any
other fathers name (not just Thomas) and again, by following their individual lives, I was able to discount many
of them.
I had
ordered JJT(1)'s Death certificate in 2005, but this provided no new
information, other than giving us doubt as to his real year of birth:
"John James Trattles of 392 Cannon St, died aged 44, 15th June 1896.
Informant was son A Trattles". He
would have been born in 1951/2 if he was 44 at his death!
We have
now progressed in time to 2013! (during the years that passed I concentrated on
gathering Trattles as well as researching my other family ancestry lines...I
was not just doing nothing !). No one had come to light as
having the same Trattles ancestors as me. Well, that is except for the contact
made with Julie Brough (nee Jones).
Julie
is my cousin, being the daughter of my Auntie Joan (mams sister). The
sisters lost touch in the 1960s and Julie I grew up knowing nothing much about
each others families. Family History research brought us together in the early 2000s. Whilst Julie also knew nothing of the ancestry of JJT(1) we have worked
together to try and break down some of those brick walls.
In
March 2012 Julie had that ultimate Eureka moment! Searching local newspaper articles she had found
something that would take our research along a different path, confuse us even
more, but also enable us to pull together some of the jigsaw, though there is
no doubt there are still many assumptions made along the way.
The
Email was "Look at this!.....
"15th
June 1899 Trattles : In Memory of John James Trattles better known as James
Harrison late of 392 Cannon St who died June 15 1896. In life respected in
death lamented.""
WHAT!.....
"James Harrison"….what on
earth !
There were 4 newspaper articles that had been located. The death notice in 1896 and
then for the following 3 years a memoriam notice. I assume it was Frederica who submitted these as they continued up to the year that she re-married.
We had
heard the name Harrison before, it was the maiden name of the person we had been thinking might possibly be JJT(1)'s mother, Jane (wife of Thomas).
In 2013
I ordered the birth certificate for John born to Thomas and Jane which told me
that John was born to Thomas Trattles ( a labourer) and Jane (nee Harrison) 4th
Dec 1841 at Staithes. Harrison! Surely this was no coincidence?
So
other that the year of birth, which was about 5 years too early and the name
being John instead of John James everything else seemed to fit, however there
were still a few questions to answer. Why did he say he was from Comdale? And
why was he also known as "John James / James Harrison / Trattles"?
At this
point it was time to concentrate on Jane Harrison and her family background in
more detail to see if we could uncover any new information. This led to
finding out that Jane was born in 1806 Staithes to William Harrison and Ann
(nee Thompson). She had 3 siblings Mark b.1803, Margaret b.1801 and Ann b.1799.
Jane
married Thomas Trattles in 1836 and in the 1841
census, age 30 she was living with her father, William Harrison &
her brother, Mark, with her 2 children, Leonard b. 1837 and Ann b.1840.
Husband Thomas is not at the residence. (again is it worth mentioning this took
a while to locate - due to Trattles being transcribed as "Grattles"
!)
In 1851 census Jane was living in Burniston with her husband
Thomas Trattles and her 4 children. ( Ann 11, John9, Elizabeth5, Harrison 2)
Jane
died in 1852, and Thomas went on to marry Rebecca Hostler in July 1855. The 1861 census shows us that there was a John
Trattles living with Thomas and Rebecca at Oxford St, Scarborough.
Having
exhausted anything relating to Jane, I turned to her siblings and found that
Mark, unmarried, after the death of his father was living with elder sister
Margaret, who had married Thomas Breckon, a farmer originally from Glaisdale. In 1851 they were living in Danby, and in
1861 they were living at Long Green, Commondale!...
…. Now
where had we heard that name before?
This
surely has to be a coincidence too far?
JJT(1)
stated he was from Commondale in the 1881 census. Could it be that sometime
between the years 1861 to 1876 when we
know he married Harriet Clara in Stockton, he had stayed with his maternal aunt
and uncle in Commondale? Had he fallen out with his Trattles father and wanted
to be known as Harrison? (his mothers maiden name) or could it be something
more sinister...had he committed a crime and needed to move away and change his
name so he would not be found?, though this seems unlikely as he was
later advertising his true name in the local Gazette, for instance when Harriet died:
We had
never located JJT(1) in the 1871 census. Using the new name information a
search for James Harrison returned the results of a James Harrison, age 28,
(married) living in Stockton ! His occupation was Labourer in Iron Works (the
same occupation that we know JJT(1) had in 1881). (Showing as married could be a red herring /
enumerator error?)
Further
newspaper searches have proved fruitless and it is more than likely we will
never know the real reason for the name change.
However for legal reasons, he obviously still had to use the name he was
originally registered with for his marriage and
death certificates.
25
years after starting to look for John James Trattles, I concluded that John
Trattles born to Thomas Trattles and Jane (nee Harrison) in 1841 was indeed my
Great Grandfather. He later also became known
as James Harrison, marrying Harriet Clara Bradley in 1876. She died shortly
after childbirth and Harriet's younger sister, Frederica, moved in with John
James to look after the child. Frederica
and John James became a couple in the following years and John James Trattles
(my grandfather) was born in 1890, out of wedlock. John James (aka James Harrison) died in 1899,
probably aged 58. I suspect along with
the name changes and the fact that he was not officially married to the woman
he called his wife, giving the wrong age throughout his life was something that
I find is a strong possibility!
There
will always be a nagging doubt about who John James Trattles really was…. And I
will always welcome any thoughts, information or ideas about his life &
family.
