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Post by waldrons2000 on Aug 13, 2012 4:15:07 GMT -5
I'm new to genealogy, and am trying to piece together some details. I have an ancestor, Phillipa Rogers Morgan Blight, who married John Morgan of St. Erth on 29 Aug 1822. I'm trying to figure out his parents, and "think" I might have some info, but I'm trying to confirm it.
I know he died between 1825 when his son (also John Morgan) was baptised and 1830 when his widow re-marries (to John Blight).
I can only find one adult John Morgan in the OPC and other records who dies during that time: John Morgan, baptised 13 Nov 1796, died 1 Dec 1827. (His baptism record shows father John, mother Mary, but no occupation for his father.)
I believe his father may have been John Morgan, innkeeper of the Star Inn, St. Erth. I have a reference from a newspaper of 8 Dec 1827 listing the death of John Morgan on 1 Dec 1827, "son of Mr. Morgan, innkeeper". There are other references to John Morgan running the Star Inn in St. Erth (he dies in 1843).
I believe his mother may have been Mary Goodman Morgan (daughter of John Goodman and Joan Wearn). There are later court cases disputing the leasehold or ownership of the Star Inn, involving the Goodman and Rogers families, so it makes sense that this is all tied together.
But, I'm not sure. Does anyone have any documentation that the John Morgan who owned the Star Inn was the John Morgan married to Mary Goodman? And that this John Morgan is the father of "my" John Morgan?
And I'm curious if there is any way to find out how "my" John Morgan died. He was a miner... is there a way to see if he was killed in a mine accident?
Finally, is there anywhere I could look to confirm any of this? I've looked in online UK newspaper archives, Ancestry.com, findmypast.com, etc. and can't come up with any more details. Help! (and thanks!)
Susan
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Post by sue on Aug 13, 2012 5:27:31 GMT -5
Hi Susan and welcome. I think you could get a lot of useful pointers here – but it sounds like you've already done pretty well! Good to see that you're not making leaps of faith but want documents ideally. A good idea might be to go sideways – look for/at brothers and sisters. For example, a James Morgan married in St Erth 22 Jan 1820, one of the witnesses was Jno Morgan Jnr. Could well be a brother... If you then look at the actual original marriage image on FamilySearch/United Kingdom/Cornwall Parish Registers/St Erth/1813-1837, you will be able to compare the John Morgan signatures at his own marriage 1822 (image 20) & that of the Jno Morgan witness 1820 (image 15). You may conclude these are the same signatures..... And with there only seeming to be the one other adult John Morgan in St Erth in the nearby decades per burial records, the innkeeper you refer to would seem likely to be John Morgan “Snr” as opposed to “Jnr”, don't you think? If you look at baptisms of children to the above mentioned James & Mary on OPC, I think you'll find son James 1826 has a clincher of a name.... which leads you back to James Morgan 1794 baptism in Penzance.... Then with John Morgan Snr residing with Rogers in 1841, James Morgan & wife Mary in 1841 having oldest son John, you get more and more pieces of the jigsaw fitting together. You might then want to try looking at John Morgan Snr's link to Penzance.... he should have been born mid 1760s per death age 79 in 1843..... could he be the 1765 baptism, with a sister Eleanor? ... hmm, he had a daughter Eleanor baptized 1805 St Erth, married 1818 - useful siblings again perhaps...... And Cornwall Records Office online documents crocat.cornwall.gov.uk/DServe/searchpage.htmgives you some finds for John Morgan - but you probably already have these, given you know about property disputes.... Sue ..........................................................
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Post by waldrons2000 on Aug 13, 2012 12:20:55 GMT -5
First of all, Sue, thanks! Second, WOW! You found a lot of info in a short time for me! I didn't realize there were original OPC documents available online where I could look at signatures, so thank you for that!! (In fact, my first post was going to be asking about getting copies of the registers... I've ordered copies of post-1838(?) documents from the National Archives, but thought only transcripts of the parish documents were available, not the original images!)
I'll trace those connections you mentioned (it does get confusing with names, as I've now got 3 generations of John Morgans -- the presumed innkeeper, his son who was married to Phillipa, and their son!).
I understand what you mean about documentation... when I look at some folks' family trees on Ancestry, they show people having children before they themselves are born, or have them in the census records multiple times in the same year, and other things that just don't make sense.
I can't get documentation for everything, but I apply good old logic and common sense to anything I can't prove!
Thank you again for your complete (and speedy) help!
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Post by sue on Aug 13, 2012 13:48:10 GMT -5
My pleasure. "We" don't believe in paying for documents unless essential! Familysearch is free, and although it's a right pain in some ways & with transcription errors of the genuine PRs (specially annoying I find when it totally floors me by getting the name of the parish wrong), but a good old trawl through its Cornwall digital images for sight of the signatures can be rather helpful.......... Looking forward to more questions from you once you've plotted the siblings of John Morgan who married Philippa in 1822 St Erth which will "prove" his parents - & then you can plot the possible Penzance chaps & chapesses..... I haven't done elimination on other Morgans yet...... Now just don't get us going on the subject of online family trees.....! ;D Sue
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Post by Cornish Terrier on Aug 13, 2012 18:58:18 GMT -5
And Welcome from me too Susan. Sue has done an excellent job getting you started here so I don't have a lot to add. I can tell you that John Morgan was age 31 when buried in 1827 so there is one more pointer that he was the son of John Morgan and Mary (nee Goodman). I had some of this family in my database as far back as 2000 but that was largely because I had transcripts of the St Erth registers and decided to try and piece all the families together! At the moment I only have two siblings recorded for young John:- Eleanor bp. 7th July 1805 at St Erth James - no baptism found yet but he did name a son James Goodman Morgan which I think is a fair hint of where he might belong. If I get time after I have had a good sleep then I might have a look to see if I can find a baptism for James as well as a few more siblings. But apart from that I will leave you to pursue some of the ideas Sue has given. And to repeat one point Sue made ..... don't get us onto the subject of Online Family Trees! Although I note that you have already formed similar opinions to those we hold. Have fun and ask all the questions you like. CT
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Post by Cornish Terrier on Aug 14, 2012 9:28:29 GMT -5
Susan - if I were you I would take particular interest in the name Moses Morgan. Also - John Morgan snr (father of your John) appears to have been a shipwright before he opted for the life of a publican. His father, also John, was a 'cooper' which was probably quite convenient for a son going into the pub business! Look at Penzance and Bodmin for Moses Morgan. CT
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Post by waldrons2000 on Aug 15, 2012 3:51:47 GMT -5
CT, thanks for the above tips. (And thanks for correcting the Ancestry.com 1841 census transcripts for John Morgan and the Samuel Rogers family! I couldn't figure out why I couldn't find them, and ended up using findmypast.co.uk and paying for the darn records.)
I already had Samuel Rogers in my family tree, so this all ties together. And since Samuel ran the Star Inn until his death a few years after John Morgan's, I'm now pretty sure that "my" John Morgan's father is the innkeeper John Morgan.
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Post by sue on Aug 15, 2012 4:27:08 GMT -5
Hi The quality of some transcriptions - on all sites - beggars belief sometimes! Myself I found John Morgan with Samuel Rogers in 1841 easily, because I mainly use the free census website www.freecen.org.uk/- their transcriber didn't mess up this entry apparently! I think it's always worth checking Freecen because a) it costs you nothing & b) although its coverage isn't complete for all of the U.K., it is for Cornwall 1841 -1891. I think you have an interesting/diverse family here going back to 1700s; you should be glued! Sue
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Post by waldrons2000 on Aug 15, 2012 11:00:39 GMT -5
Thanks for a link to another searchable resource. I 'thought' I only needed to search one place, but it appears not! If I can't find someone in Ancestry (which I prefer for the ease of attaching the data and images to my tree), I'll try www.freecen.org.uk/. I've only started all this recently (and was blessed to be able to begin with the bones of the family tree as researched by my late uncle -- the hard way, BC [before computers]). But it's so much fun to fit all the pieces together. My 93-year-old aunt (who was born in St. Ives before the family emigrated to the US after WWI) didn't know a lot of this, so she's been enjoying my discoveries as well.
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Post by Cornish Terrier on Aug 15, 2012 15:51:05 GMT -5
Susan - Ancestry has a lot of problems with the quality of transcriptions. Sometimes that is due to the rather ordinary handwriting on the original pages but mostly I find it is due to the inadequacies of the transcribers. There is a provision there to add corrections but after a while I get too frustrated to bother. Only yesterday I added 16 corrections to one page of 50 entries and another five corrections had already been made by someone else!! And that is quite a regular occurrence!!! However, as Sue has pointed out, there are other ways to find things such as FreeCEN. And as Sue also said this one is searchable although there are times you need to be a little creative with the spelling to find what you want. The other Census site is the Cornwall Online Census Project:- freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kayhin/cocp.htmlThat one is not searchable like the other but you can still use the CTRL+F to search within a page. You can also locate the area you want and just read through almost as if you were looking at one of the Ancestry pages. But there is a handy little trick involved here. Let's say that you simply cannot find what you are looking for in Ancestry but you still want something to link to your Tree. All you need do is go to one of these other sites and use them to locate what you want. Then note the details of Folio, Page etc. and use them to find what you want in Ancestry. It is always a good idea to note other names on the page as well. There is usually bound to be at least one that you can easily locate in Ancestry. By doing this you can still attach the record to your Tree. CT
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Post by waldrons2000 on Aug 16, 2012 0:19:24 GMT -5
CT, thanks for the link to another census site. I'm trying to find someone else (James Edwin Goodman) in 1881 and 1911 census and can't find him in Ancestry, FreeCEN or any other version of that year, so I'll try this one.
And that "little trick" is how I knew you'd found and corrected the Ancestry.com transcription for the Rogers/Morgan household for 1841!
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Post by sue on Aug 16, 2012 6:25:30 GMT -5
Well, as James E Goodman was "at sea" 1891 with young family at home in St Ives, and family at home again 1911, he could be anywhere 1881/1911.....! I had a quick look in US 1880 & 1910 but nothing obvious, to me. Sue
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Post by Cornish Terrier on Aug 16, 2012 8:31:49 GMT -5
Not necessarily! Actually it is not always as straightforward as using one of the other sites to find what you want. Many is the time I have had to go so far as to search on first name only in a given area and within a given time-span. And I have even had to use partial names with wildcards before I could find what I wanted. If you have to go down to that level it can mean scanning through sometimes up to 50 or a hundred pages before eventually finding what you are after. CT
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Post by Cornish Terrier on Aug 16, 2012 9:31:23 GMT -5
Susan - it seems you are working through the family of Richard and Margaret (nee Wearn) Goodman at the moment. I have been tidying up a few loose ends with that family in the lead up to trying to find James E Goodman for you. In doing that I have just found the marriage of his parents James Goodman and Elizabeth Hosking. I may be underestimating you but I suspect you might have some difficulty when you try to identify Elizabeth Hosking. If you have already worked out who you think she was then let me know as I am curious to what conclusions you might have arrived at. But if you have not been able to work it out then let me know so that I can at least give you some clues. It does get a little confusing! CT
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Post by Cornish Terrier on Aug 16, 2012 10:03:20 GMT -5
James Edwin Goodman - absent from Census.
I would suspect that in 1891 James was literally 'at sea' as specified by his wife. I have not looked at 1911 yet but the same might be the case.
In 1901 the children (Bessie, Edwin, Janie, Mary and Marion) are 'home alone' at Richmond Terrace, St Ives. I think this was also home in 1891. They are not really quite alone as there is a servant with them - Martha Firstbrook, unmarried, age 23 who had been born at St Erth.
If Jane is not at home then it may well be that she was also 'at sea' with her husband. Not an unusual occurrence but exactly where they were may be difficult to find. Unless they were in Port somewhere then they would probably not be enumerated.
CT
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