Peter Curnow

[steven]

Peter Curnow and Ann Richards are my 3x great grandparents.  They married in St. Ives in 1847 and by 1848 are in St. Helier, Isle of Jersey.  I have no idea why they might've gone there.  Their two oldest children are born at St. Helier: Anne in 1848, and Margaret Jane in 1850.  Then they're back in St. Ives although I have not found the family anywhere on the 1851 census.

Once back in St. Ives, they had four sons that I know of, Richard (1852-1852), Peter (abt 1852-?), John Richards (1854-1854), and Samuel (1856-1897).  The two girls both died young of TB...Annie in 1870 and Margaret Jane in 1873 (after a brief marriage to William Phillips and birth of a son, my great grandfather, William John Phillips).

According to the Curnow family story, Peter was bitten on the thumb by a spider, which gave him "hardening of the arteries" and he killed himself.  Don't know if that's true but he did die from suicide by hanging in 1858 at the age of 41.  Ann Richards Curnow didn't remarry.  

Of of the four boys, two died as infants, and Samuel went to the U.S. where he married, had a daughter, and was killed in a mine explosion in Montana in 1897.  The one I'm curious about is Peter.  I find no baptism for him.  The only trace of him is on the 1861 census.  I find no death or burial either.  He either died by 1871 or he too went abroad and I just haven't tracked him down yet.  Has anyone out there found anything about this Peter Curnow?

thanks for any help!

[sue]

Hi Steven

My notes for Peter Curnow say "probably to Queesland age 22 on Alexandrina arrived 7 Dec 1873". I don't believe I have another Peter Curnow candidate of this age.....
www.archives.qld.gov.au/Researchers/CollectionsDownloads/Documents/Assisted-Immigrants-1848-1912-A-C.txt

Whilst I haven't found him as such in 1871, I see that FMP has a Peter C??? born Cornwall 1852 in Guisborough Brotton Yorkshire 1871. I have found other Curnows up there (not closely related); a sizeable mining community I understand.

Samuel 1856 who married Bessie Bishop in Idaho Colorado 1879 I believe had another child in addition to daughter Elizabeth 1881; I have "child of Sam'l died 1894 Idaho Colorado,
www.columbinegenealogy.com/hub/coindx/Crandall.htm"

I believe Samuel's widow Bessie is in 1900 next door to her daughter Bessie Willoughby, having re-married to Sydney Davey 16 April 1898 Montana - & she is declared as having had 4 children, 1 living.

Peter Curnow 1814 who took his family off to Jersey and was at one time a grocer there, I was given to understand by another researcher of the Samuel Curnow 1761 descendants, to have also been a minister. I believe Wes-Meth ministers were often part-time i.e. had another occupation to bring in the money, but I wonder if perhaps it was the ministry that took him to Jersey.... just a thought.

I never found the family in 1851 either; perhaps they had nipped across to France at the crucial time!

Sue

[steven]

Sue
Thank you for the reply. Whenever I lose track of someone, I always assume that they went to Australia. I guess it could be true in Peter's case. I do agree that the Peter in 1871 in Yorkshire is probably my Peter Curnow also. He wasn't mentioned in the 1895 letter that Ann Curnow wrote to William John Phillips, although Samuel was. Could be that he just didn't keep in touch or that he died fairly young there. I wish that there were more Australia resources out there!

I had only found one child of Samuel Curnow and Elizabeth Mary Bishop. Elizabeth did marry Sidney Davey in 1898 in Montana and died in 1955 in Denver, Colorado. Elizabeth Curnow Willoughby died in 1963 in Butte, Montana. If there were other children of Samuel and Elizabeth, which apparently there were...they must've all died young. Thanks for the tip on the child which died in 1894.

Poor Samuel was killed by a charge which had been set long before and never went off. He finally bent over to look at it and it exploded, killing him instantly. I found an article on it. He died just 6 days before his own mother died in Cornwall.

Thanks again!
Steve

[Cornish Terrier]

Peter Curnow 1814 who took his family off to Jersey and was at one time a grocer there, I was given to understand by another researcher of the Samuel Curnow 1761 descendants, to have also been a minister. I believe Wes-Meth ministers were often part-time i.e. had another occupation to bring in the money, but I wonder if perhaps it was the ministry that took him to Jersey.... just a thought.

Peter is certainly recorded as being a Minister and he is not the only Cornishman I have found being resident in the Channel Islands and also being a Minister.

Peter Curnow's death - according to reports which I think were based on a Coroner's Inquest Peter Curnow committed suicide when he "became insane from a spider bite".

Whilst I haven't found him as such in 1871, I see that FMP has a Peter C??? born Cornwall 1852 in Guisborough Brotton Yorkshire 1871. I have found other Curnows up there (not closely related); a sizeable mining community I understand.

Ancestry shows the surname as CUNNIUS but after looking at the original it is clearly CUNOW. I would think this is certainly your missing Peter Curnow as the only other Peter born around 1851/2 died in 1855. That would then suggest that he is the same Peter Curnow Sue has arriving in Queensland in late 1873.

Whenever I lose track of someone, I always assume that they went to Australia.

Never good to 'assume' - In actual fact Australia is just one of quite a number of places Cornishmen may have gone including USA, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Columbia, Cuba, South Africa, New Zealand and even Russia. We also have a Richard Noall who ended up in the Pacific Islands. And then of course there is India!

Oh yes, and perhaps you should not forget a couple of places a little closer to 'home' ..... Wales and Scotland! And you could also throw Ireland into the mix as there was at least one area, the Beara Peninsula, which became home to a lot of Cornish miners in the first half of the 19th Century.

I wish that there were more Australia resources out there!

There are ...... you just have to hunt for them.

CT

[Cornish Terrier]

Steve - could you give me a little information on the William Phillips who married Margaret Jane Curnow please. Date and place of baptism and names of his parents should suffice for now.

CT

[steven]

Hey CT, not sure of the baptismal date but he was born at Towednack on Feb 15, 1848 to Francis Phillips and Jane Michell( who you've helped me with before). He died on July 4, 1933 in Vulcan, Dickinson, Michigan. He had a very large family with his second wife.

[Cornish Terrier]

Thanks Steve ................. but I am in a bit of a quandary. I like to check all information for myself yet I can find no record of any of this information for William Phillips.

1. nothing in any of the Michigan Death/Burial collections on Ancestry
2. nothing in Findagrave
3. nothing in Billiongraves


Could you let me know your sources for both the Birth and Death details please so that I can follow up and make sure everything will be accurate in my database.

I suspect the birth information may be from a death record which would explain why I think it may be slightly inaccurate. The Census records indicate William was born in either 1846 or 1847.

There is a further problem with this family in that I can find no record of a Birth Registration for any of the children of Francis and Jane except perhaps for Sarah but even that one cannot be certain.

HMMMM - I just checked some Ancestry Public Trees and see that there are several containing the above information. They also show a reference to Findagrave which I did not find on my search. Don't worry about answering the above questions as what I have now found should give me enough to be able to search down the sources and verify them.

CT

[Cornish Terrier]

Steve - I have now had a little time to review the information found in the Sources provide in the Ancestry Family Trees. Fortunately some of the sources are Newspapers and there was enough information for me to find the 1880 marriage record to Mollie Fredericks.

Information concerning the birthdates of both Mollie and William is, in my opinion, wrong.

Mollie M Fredericks stated she was age 21 when she married in February 1880 yet when she died in November 1907 her age is 49 and her birthdate recorded as 21st December 1859. If she was born in December 1859 Mollie would have been age 19 when she married (amost 20) and she would have been only 47 when she died so if her age was correctly stated when she married and was correct at the time of death she had to have been born in 1858.

William Phillips was age 4 in the 1851 Census, 15 in 1861 and 25 in 1871 so would have been born in 1846. BUT when he married Mollie in 1880 he said he was only 28 which would mean he should have been born about 1852!

To many this is a minor point and there are those that will swear on a stack of Bibles that the information on a Headstone cannot be wrong. But information on Headstones most certainly can be, and often is, wrong and the information provided for Death Certificates and obituaries relies on the knowledge of the people supplying the information. Errors unavoidable.

If we could find a birth/baptism record for William Phillips it would certainly help but I would suggest that it was actually 1846 he was born and Mollie most likely 1858.

AHA!!! - after looking at another of the Ancestry Trees I found that one has attached a Death Certificate for Mollie on which her birthdate is clearly recorded as 21st December 1858 in Germany. That information probably came from William Phillips so is more likely to be accurate.

CT

[steven]

Hey CT, if you're on Ancestry, my tree is probably the most complete on showing the children of Francis Phillips and Jane Michell. My tree is called ""Belanger Phillips". The birthdate I have came from his obituary, which could be wrong, but based on the birth dates of the other children in the family, seemed to fit.

William had come to the U.S. just after the birth of his son, William John. He was here when he received word that his wife had died in Cornwall. I was told that he went back to see that his son was cared for, although I have no idea if he actually did. William John was raised by his two grandmothers until he came to the U.S. in 1891. When he arrived in Michigan he found and met his father and siblings.

Steve

[Cornish Terrier]

Steve - there is a practice, particularly in the US I think, to 'calculate' birthdates based on the age at date of death. The first problem with this is that often the 'informant' does not really know so any calculation is flawed from the start. And then there is the problem of 'transcription' to deal with.
But there are a few different date calculators available online and with some of them there is some interesting information about things that affect those calculations even if the age is given correctly. I don't recall the details right now but if you google for 'date calculator' you should be able to find them.

In the case of William Phillips we have other problems where can also be quite common. For example we know from the 1851, 1861 and 1871 Census that his age reflected 1846 as his birth year but when he married in 1880 he said he was age 28 which tells us he was born in 1852. And then in the 1900 Census I think he gave February 1852 or February 1853 as his birthdate. That certainly makes it difficult for everyone concerned!

The thing is that without birth or baptism records and only things such as the Census and 'word of mouth' to go by we need to be aware of possible inaccuracies and note them.

CT

[gandolf]

Steve,

It is also worth remembering that as well as “normal” error ranges of a year or so due to errors in record keeping, loosing track etc, a lot of people deliberately go out of their way to fudge the records. So “recorded” ages and dates of birth, marriage, etc are often wrong (marriage dates often get moved back a year or two from the actual date to accommodate a child born before the marriage date).

A common one that occurred at the time of a marriage (and was occasionally perpetuated) was for a woman (or man for that matter) under the age of twenty-one to put their age up as that was the age at which you could marry without the consent of a parent or guardian (with their consent it was permissible to marry much younger).

Even now it is possible to put down wrong information in census records and the like – any record that relies on your personal honesty and does not require supporting documentation. Of course prior to the mid 20th century this was even easier as there was usually little or no documentation required to prove age.

While off topic for Cornwall, my 3xgreat grandfather William Ridgway (born in Manchester UK, died New Jersey, USA) is a classic example of someone who not only deliberately fudged his age many times, but also has a number of transcription errors in various indexes such as the census that made finding his records even more challenging. Since William was well educated and had a good trade (the not particularly common trade of Brass Founderer), many of the errors must have been deliberate – perhaps due to vanity?

William Ridgway was 13 May 1821 in Manchester (as confirmed by his baptism) and remained there up until the 1861 English census, with his age in the census records being basically correct (other than the usual variation of a year on occasion). He married in 1845, but around the mid 1860’s William abandoned his first wife and two surviving daughters and formed what would become a troubled ongoing relationship with a younger widow (the records show clearly that they broke up at least three times over the next 30 years, getting back together each time). The errors (deliberate and otherwise) regarding William’s age begin around this time and caused great difficulty finding him after this time.

It took me a decade to find William Ridgway on the 1871 census, and it only occurred after we were able to confirm he had not yet left for America at the time. It required examining every possible record to find him as William was very badly indexed (notably in every single index regardless of source provider) and he also turned out to be in an unexpected location. When finally found William appeared on the census indexed very poorly as a 25 year old (the original, while low quality, seems to read 45 years old) - yet William was actually about 50 at the time - and he was in Shrewsbury rather than Manchester (his “second wife” remained in Manchester, and it seems this was the first of their break-ups, but they apparently reconciled as she followed him to America within a year).

Despite appearing on the 1880 US census under his correct age (in the US he operated a tavern/hotel), William’s five-year reduction in age seems to have become more or less “permanent” since almost every time William boarded a boat to cross the Atlantic Ocean he "lost" around 5 years off his age. However, there are several shipping records that (despite the age discrepancy) must be him:
31 Aug 1871 - William Ridgway aged 44 (i.e. born c.1827), born England, arrives in New York from Liverpool on board the "Hamilton Fish". His occupation is given as Brass Founderer.
28 Sep 1894 - William H. Ridgway, Age originally indexed in transcript as 25 but the records shows without doubt its is actually a 75 miss-indexed as 25 (i.e. born 1819 – for a change older than actual), occupation as Engineer. Arrived at Liverpool from New York via Boston on board the "Etruria". While the occupation of Engineer at first glance doesn't seem to fit at all, further research has discovered that many Brass Founders and Gasfitters often later referred to themselves as Engineers as the Union movement gained momentum.
23 Nov 1896 - William Ridgway Age given as 70 years, 6 months (i.e. born 1826), arrived at New York from Liverpool on board the "Etruria". His occupation is given as Gent. There is no question this is the right William since his intended destination in the US was his home in Paterson, NJ.

Despite all the seeming discrepancies in recorded ages and even greater ones in the indexes, all the records referred to above relate to the one person – albeit someone who seems to have gone out of his way to make finding him a challenge!