This is my space to share my quest to collect as many broken branches as I can in my fractured family tree which resembles a bramble bush more then a proper tree. As I go forward in this blogging journey I hope to share how I have searched far & wide for family - with no regard for where they come from or if I should really want them.
You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family you know!

Showing posts with label wedding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wedding. Show all posts

Friday, June 5, 2020

June Wedding ~ Jonathan & Martha (nee Mills) Wolfenden

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2020 Week 23 (WEDDING)

June is a very common month for weddings. My husband and I were married in June. Jonathan & Martha (nee Mills) Wolfenden were as well. 
Conveniently they belong to this week's planned Bramble Bush Branch. 

I found the perfect couple to focus on with my husband's 4th great grandparents:

Jonathan Wolfenden
BIRTH ABT 1792 • Spotland, Rochdale, Lancashire, England
DEATH 27 DEC 1853 • Rochdale, Lancashire, England
and 
Martha Mills
BIRTH ABT 1799 • Rochdale; Spotland, Lancashire, England
DEATH 9 JUL 1853 • Spotland, Further Side, Rochdale, Lancashire, England


They were married on June 10th 1816 at the church below.
Martha was 17 and Jonathan was 24.


File:St Chad's church, Rochdale.JPG
Church of St Chad, in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England   1 


I include this clip noting that neither Jonathan or Martha was literate on their wedding day. The registry is signed with their mark. There is much to learn by looking at the actual record instead of only the transcribed records. 



Marriage Banns Registry, Clipped from Ancestry


I have found records for the birth of 7 children who were all baptized in the same church their parents were married in. 





Family members who stayed put making them easy to track!







This is why I search - 



Cause ... 





You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family you know!
















***Any errors are my own. Please send me any updates or corrections via the comments at the bottom of this blog post***









Footnotes:

1 Church of St Chad, in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. Attribution: Kram4 (Mark Henderson) / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0), Retrieved June 3rd 2020 from
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Chad%27s_church,_Rochdale.JPG







Links:

Amy Johnson Crow, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge
https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/



If you reference or use my blog posts in any way please
include a link to the specific blog and
credit http://somehowrelated.blogspot.com/
My blogs are ©Deborah Buchner, 2014 forward.
All rights reserved.
Please & Thank you!


___________________________________________________________

Saturday, January 26, 2019

This lady in waiting --- too late to meet my famous cousin

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 4 (I'd Like to Meet)

Growing up I had a very small family circle. I didn't have very many extended family members. Anytime I wondered why I was told that my ancestors didn't stay connected to their families or they came from a small family. It wasn't until I started searching that I realized the lack of family connections was because I descend from at least 3 black-sheep lines.

My grandmother was born Bayes. This family line is not a black-sheep line. As far back as I knew it was a proper English line. For this reason I didn't bother searching. I thought I already knew the line was boring. 

The only exciting part of that line that I knew was that I was related to the actress Nora Bayes. This famous relative was paraded out at all family gatherings. When I first started researching I discovered Nora Bayes' birth name was Rachel Eleanora Goldberg. My Bayes family line is not related to Nora Bayes. I have told my grandmother we aren't related to Nora Bayes many times. The last time she mentioned it again, I smiled & said how exciting that was. I realized that I wan't responsible for altering my senior grandmother's reality.

Family lore is interesting. 

What would have been way more exciting to parade out at all our family gatherings is that THIS particular Bayes line includes Princess Diana. Princess Diana is my 11th cousin.  Her 10th great grandparents are also my 10th great grandparents.
The grandparents we have in common are:

Thomas Ford

BIRTH 1587 • Bridport, Dorset, England
DEATH 9 NOV 1676 • Northampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America
and
Elizabeth Charde
BIRTH 1589 • Thorncombe, Bridgeport, Dorsetshire, England
DEATH 18 APR 1643 • Windsor, Hartford, Colony of Connecticut, British Colonial America

I am the 10th great granddaughter of Thomas & Elizabeth through their daugher Hepzibah, and Diana is their 10th great granddaughter through their daughter Abigail.  I was delighted when I opened the library book with Princess Diana's genealogy to find my ancestors. If I was being honest I would have to admit that I really was searching for famous folks in my family tree. Through this line I found the genealogy jackpot.

To find a royal relative was beyond anything I had imagined. Until I took a moment to realize I am related to Diana through HER black-sheep line (her mom's branch of the family tree). One more black-sheep line found.

I would love to have met Diana. Not only because she was a princess, but because she was an amazing person who accomplished amazing things.

My mother passed away about a year before I discovered the family connection to Diana. Mom would have loved knowing she was related to a princess.

Have to admit I was shocked when my invitation to Harry & Megan's wedding never arrived. I guess they didn't want to invite the Canadian cousins.

This lady in waiting is watching the mailbox for the invite to the baby shower!



Diana circa 1992
Can you see the family resemblance?


Me circa 1984



















This is why I search - 

Cause ... 

You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family you know!


***Any errors are my own. Please send me any updates or corrections via the comments at the bottom of to the blog post***


If you reference or use my blog posts in any way please
include a link to the specific blog and
credit http://somehowrelated.blogspot.com/
My blogs are ©Deborah Buchner, 2014 forward.
All rights reserved.
Please & Thank you!