Bastian of Breage

[zibetha]

I am revisiting an old problem I set aside for awhile. Two men named John Bastian from Breage. I have one baptized in 1774 to John Bastian and Ann Tonkin and another 1773 to Francis Bastian and Thomasine Jewell. I think the first may have been the man who married Mary Lobb at St Keverne in 1794, but I am not sure at all. One John died in the Helston RD in 1844.

Help/opinions appreciated!


Zib

[Cornish Terrier]

Well now Zib .... after 10 minutes or so looking at this little problem I have come to the conclusion that you may be incorrect on BOTH counts!

John Bastian of Breage married Mary Lobb at Helston 2nd November 1794 yet all their children appear to have been baptised at Helston. This suggests that John Bastian may have originally been from Helston and relocated to Breage temporarily. Of course having all the children baptised at Helston may also have been connected to his wife's family but ....

Nevertheless, all the children during the years 1768-1780 the only children in the OPC database baptised to any John Bastian were at Helston to John and Anne with the exception of two children at Redruth to a John Bastian and wife Catherine. The children to John and Anne were:-

10th/15th November 1769 Mary
24th December 1769 Mary (possibly a private and then public baptism)
22nd September 1771 Anne
6th March 1773 John <===
27th April 1774 John <===
22nd May 1777 Mary

The burials at Helston are even more interesting:-
16th March 1773 John son of John Bastian was buried
12th March 1777 John son of John Bastian was buried

That, I believe, would rule out the son of John and Anne as being the man who married Mary Lobb in 1794.

Uh-Oh!!! - my initial comment about you possibly being incorrect on both counts may need some rethinking!!!

The John Bastian who died in the March Qtr of 1844 was age 77 thus projecting his birth to 1776 (with allowances then to be made for the usual reasons). Until I checked the burials I had found a third and, potentially, more likely candidate:-

John son of George and Tryphena Bastian baptised 24th November 1776 at St Keverne

The burials now rule that out:-

10th July 1777 John son of George Bastian was buried at St Keverne

We now need to look at your other candidate - John son of Francis and Thomasine Bastian:-

Francis Bastian of Breage married Thomasine Jewell of Gunwalloe 6th July 1762 at Gunwalloe

John appears to have been the last child baptised to Francis and Thomasine and it appears that Francis may have died in either 1774 or 1776 in each of which years there is a burial at Breage for a Francis Bastian. And in 1779 at Breage there is a burial for a Thomasine Bastian who may have been the wife of Francis.

If the above burials do indeed account for his parents then John would only have been about age 6 when he was orphaned which might explain the fact that he appears to have not named any children Francis or Thomasine. From what I can find it would appear his first child was named Henry which could possibly come from the Lobb family. Alternatively it might reflect on the household he was brought up in following the death of his parents.

Anyway, it does appear most likely that it is the son of Francis and Thomasine you might be looking for. (I would not be using indelible ink just yet but it does look the most likely scenario just now. )

CT

CT

[spikeharwood]

John Bastian of Breage married Mary Lobb at Helston 2nd November 1794 yet all their children appear to have been baptised at Helston. This suggests that John Bastian may have originally been from Helston and relocated to Breage temporarily. Of course having all the children baptised at Helston may also have been connected to his wife's family but ...

CT, the above is incorrect. John Bastian and Mary Lobb were married on that date but at St Keverne. None of their children were baptised at Helston.

Too many John Bastians, you were probably thinking ahead to your next comment about John and Anne.

[spikeharwood]

John Bastian and Mary Lobb were my 4xgreat grandparents. Their daughter Alice bpt 1816 married Hannibal Julian and came out to South Australia. John and Mary’s children were a productive lot. I have their descendants in Australia, USA and New Zealand. I have found 50 plus descendants who share a DNA match with at least one other descendant.

When I started researching my Cornish ancestry the popular view was that John’s parents were Francis Bastian and Thomasine Jewell. I’ve never been 100% comfortable with this. The possible parents that Zib has queried, John Bastian and Anne Tonkin, I had previously ruled out because of the two John Bastian burials that CT wrote up.
I have the above mentioned Francis and John as brothers, being sons of Henry Bastian and Mary Treweek, giving a possible link to John naming his first born as Henry. This is where the comfort level reduces though because why does John name a child after his grandfather but none after his parents?

I’d like to add two possible fathers of John to the mix – just so they can be ruled out.

In the past month I’ve been copied into an email conversation with a Bastian descendant who has come up with a father from left field. He seems fairly driven.
Introducing Henry Bastian bpt 25 Jun 1738 St Keverne, m 25 Nov 1762 St Keverne Ann Wills. Their John was bpt 26 Dec 1769. Henry was the son of John Bastian and Agnes Richards. John’s parents were Walter and Philippa. I’ve long known of this branch but it floats in my tree without me being able to link it to any of my other Bastians.

This is part of the email that was received:

I have seen family trees have John Bastian who married Mary Lobb as the one baptised in Breage in 1773 to Francis. However John's age on the census and age at death and also the naming of his children including sons Henry & Richard clearly point to him being the John baptised in 1769 in St Keverne. I am working on the theory that Henry Bastion (son of John) born St Kevern 1738 died Mylor 1807 married twice. Firstly to Ann Wills by whom he had your John Bastian in 1769 ad secondly to Margery Cornish by whom he had my ancestor William Bastian in 1786. I would love you to have a look at this and see what you think with a second pair of eyes please. These relationships would then explain our DNA match.


My response, in part.

First addressing the naming patterns of John's children:

.....It could be said with the number of children they had that Agnes and Walter on Henry’s side could have been used as could William and Joan, the parents of Ann Wills, but they weren’t. In itself the naming patterns don’t provide a compelling case.

Now the ages. First the age on the 1841 census is 70. As you know, in 1841 the ages were rounded down in five year increments. So 70 becomes a date of birth between 1766 to 1771. We have John baptised in 1773 so we might have expected age 65 on the census. Of course, the baptism date isn’t the same as date of birth. His sister Elizabeth, the next youngest was baptised in 1770. So John could have been born in 1770 or 1771. Also we need to ask if John was sure of his actual age. Furthermore, his age at death is shown as 77. We think Richard provided this information. How did he know his father’s exact age?
So these dates aren’t really helping the theory.

Let’s look at the DNA. You have a match with Ally P. You don’t match Jo’s father, or me, or my sister or another third cousin. Ally’s mother has Cornish DNA, you could be a match with Ally through her. Jo and I have 54 DNA matches with known descendants of John and Mary. And I know where they all fit into our Bastian tree. We also have 8 matches with descendants of John’s sister Thomasine and a further four to an uncle. And these aren’t one off matches, they all tend to match multiple other descendants.
I would have a lot of trouble explaining any of these DNA matches if we had a different set of parents. It just wouldn’t work and that’s where your theory collapses.

Jo is a Bastian third cousin, descending from my Alice's brother Richard. She has John's death certificate with Richard as the informant. I have a copy.

So that is another possible option for you to consider. I will post the next one dreckly

[zibetha]

Thanks for justifying my confusion, Spike!! I knew I had this wrong.

Z

[Cornish Terrier]

CT, the above is incorrect. John Bastian and Mary Lobb were married on that date but at St Keverne. None of their children were baptised at Helston.

Hmm .... one of those Ooops! moments! On reading my work again I do believe that I was talking about the marriage to Anne Tonkin. The comments following that statement are all to do with the Helston baptisms to John and Anne.

I now see I have made another error in that post:-

The John Bastian who died in the March Qtr of 1844 was age 77 thus projecting his birth to 1776

When I went to school (All those years ago!!! ) 77 minus 44 used to equal 33 and therefore the projected birth of John Bastian in this case would have been 1766!!! (I always knew that metric system we converted to in 1974 would cause trouble!!! )

Neverthless, at this point in time and for the reasons given I am more comfortable with Francis and Thomasine as the parents of the John Bastian who married Mary Lobb.

I have also now taken a brief look at the arguments surrounding Henry Bastian and agree that, on fact value, he must be a candidate. I do not agree with the hypothesis surrounding the second marriage and subsequent children of Henry Bastian at Mylor.
There was a gap of 17 years between the two marriages and the groom in each case was unable to sign his own name. However the marks made by the groom in each case are fairly distinctive and there is no similarity whatsoever which suggests they were made by a different man. And even if Henry were born/baptised at St Keverne I find it a little disconcerting that he would suddenly 'up sticks' and move to Mylor where he potentially died in 1807 and then have his son suddenly return in 1794 to the Breage area where he appears to have stayed.

And then there is the evidence of your DNA matches Spike.

I would like to work through this Bastian family more thoroughly but I simply do not have the time right now so I will keep an eye on the conversation and comment or try to help as necessary.

CT

[zibetha]

Sometimes I stop myself before I dig myself deeper into a mine shaft. I have a DNA "thing" going on, too, that caused me to revisit this relationship. Bartles and Bastians. Yikes.

Zib

[spikeharwood]

Zib, keep in mind that Bastard was a common surname in Cornwall. A lot of them changed their name to Bastian.
Some people have suggested that the names are interchangeable. My lot seem to have always been Bastians.
I'm well aware of John Bastard m Elizabeth Uren who you have in your tree. One of his sons, Sampson came out to South Australia and changed the family name to Bastian.
I have not yet had one DNA match with that particular line.
Once a Bastard, always a Bastard. Just sayin'

[spikeharwood]

Jul 14, 2020 4:54:12 GMT -5 Cornish Terrier said:

Neverthless, at this point in time and for the reasons given I am more comfortable with Francis and Thomasine as the parents of the John Bastian who married Mary Lobb.

I have also now taken a brief look at the arguments surrounding Henry Bastian and agree that, on fact value, he must be a candidate. I do not agree with the hypothesis surrounding the second marriage and subsequent children of Henry Bastian at Mylor.
There was a gap of 17 years between the two marriages and the groom in each case was unable to sign his own name. However the marks made by the groom in each case are fairly distinctive and there is no similarity whatsoever which suggests they were made by a different man. And even if Henry were born/baptised at St Keverne I find it a little disconcerting that he would suddenly 'up sticks' and move to Mylor where he potentially died in 1807 and then have his son suddenly return in 1794 to the Breage area where he appears to have stayed.

And then there is the evidence of your DNA matches Spike.

I would like to work through this Bastian family more thoroughly but I simply do not have the time right now so I will keep an eye on the conversation and comment or try to help as necessary.

CT

Thanks for your input on this CT.
I'm also comfortable that Francis and Thomasine are the parents of my John, particularly given the DNA evidence.

And although we are both ruling out Henry as the father I'm not completely convinced that the Henry Bastian who married Ann Wills and the Henry who married Margery Cornish are two different people.
(1) I've looked at the images in the marriage register. I was expecting to find each mark as a cross but they are something of a squiggly line, and as such, I thought this could very well change a bit over time as I can't imagine he'd have much cause to repeat the mark over a period of 17 years. But then, this is probably one of the few marks of this type that I've seen so I've really got no idea. But it would be hard for me to convince the chap who's raised the issue.
(2) I had difficulty with Henry moving from St Keverne to Mylor. However, two of his brothers Richard and James were settled at Mylor and had married two sisters.
(3) James, the brother, names a daughter Mary Richa. I've seen the image for the baptism and that's what it looks like to me. She is buried at a young age and the name is also recorded as Mary Richa. Henry also has a daughter named Mary Richa (although I can't find anything further on her). This is from his second marriage. Richard, James and Henry are sons of John Bastian and Agnes RICHARDS. If that's where Richa comes from it adds further weight to the two Henrys being the same person.
(4) Oh and just to throw in that I can't find any other suitable candidate for the second Henry.