Roadbloack - Carter Family - Which John Carter?

[kcarter]

I have reached a roadblock in my Cornish ancestry - it's not Penwith, but it's close enough: 

My 3rd GGrandfather, Henry Carter, was b. Jan 1785 in Camborne to father John Carter and mother Beaton/Beaten/Bettan Donithorne (married 28 July, 1771 - Camborne).  I have Beaton Donnithorne's ancestors worked through fairly well, but when I try to pinpoint Henry Carter's father, I have two choices.

1)  John Carter, son of John Carter, born Camborne 1750 (marriage at age 21)

2)  John Carter, son of Somer Carter, born Camborne 1745 (marriage at age 26)

Children of John Carter and Beaton Donithorne (all in Camborne):

    1) "Summer Carter Donithorne", "Base" son of Beaton Donnithorne baptised 28 July, 1771 (the exact same day of the marriage of John and Beaton)

    2) John Carter b. 13 Dec. 1772  

    3) Margaret Carter b. 1774

    4) James Carter b. 1775

    5) William Carter b. 1777

    6) Henry b. 1778 (died)

    7) Margaret b. 1779

    8) Anne b. 1782

    9) HENRY Carter b. 1785 (my ancestor)

    10)  Charles b. 1786 

So, I have a bit of a dilemma as there is not enough information for a definitive answer as to which John is Henry's father.  Cornish naming conventions have to be tossed out the window other than that the first son is John, but is that John for the grandfather (as suggested by Cornwall OPC), or John after the father (which seems to be the norm). 

Also, I am trying to figure out who the father of Henry's half brother (?) Summer Carter Donithorne is.  A compatriot with the same lineage said it must be John Carter (there is no paternity bond in the records), but why would John Carter marry and have his wife's son baptized on the same day? If he were the father, wouldn't he have just married her before the birth and left out the surname Donithorne?  One other tidbit to note, there was a Summer Carter in Camborne who married in 1770; a year before Beaton Donithorne married John Carter and named her base son "Summer Carter Donithorne."  I was wondering if he might have been the father.

To complicate things even more, John #2 (born 1745, son of Somer Carter) would be the first cousin of his wife, Beaton Donithorne. 

So, there you go.  I am leaning towards John Carter #1 - it is just a gut feel - age is right, 1st son's name is right... - but most of the family trees I have found for my 3rd GGrandfather Henry have the father as John #2.  I don't know if that's laziness and they just copied and pasted somebody else's tree and couldn't be bothered verifying the information.  Maybe they had their own gut feelings about it.

Any words of wisdom, insights, assistance of any sort would be most welcome! 

Cheers!

K

[Cornish Terrier]

You are quite right to be sceptical of online family trees as many are indeed merely copied ad nauseum from others. But you should never totally ignore them either because some do actually have some helpful information.

I don't know much about the Carter families but on reading your outline there is one possibility that leaps out at me!

Before I go into that I need to say that it is not unusual to find a couple baptising their first child on the same day as the marriage. In most cases the groom will most likely be the actual father and maybe having the baptism and the marriage on the same day might have earned a discount from the vicar! Sometimes you will also find children baptised within days or sometimes weeks of the marriage.

But now to my possible solution to your problem. The fact that beaton named her child 'Summer Carter Donihtorne' I think is significant especially as there is a potential father-in-law of that name.

I think you have two options:-
Option 1 - The husband to be is indeed the father of the illegitimate child in which case the name given to the child was meant to indicate that his father was the son of Somer Carter.
Option 2 - It is possible that John Carter (the groom) was the Uncle of the child. That is to say that perhaps John had a brother named Summer/Somer and that it was he who fathered the child. In this option it may be that Summer Carter had died and his brother John then stepped in and married Beaton.

Hmmm - I don't think the second option will work because I just checked the OPC records and Somer/Summer Carter married Jane Bennetts in 1770 and was baptising children at Camborne from 1771 onwards.

The name of Beaton's illegitimate child suggests that the father of that child was a son of Summer Carter which now indicates Option 1 above is the most likely scenario.

I hope those thoughts are of some help.

CT

[kcarter]

CT,

Thank you. Your reasoning is sound, and your Option 1 is perhaps bolstered by the fact that Summer Carter Donithorne disappears from the records and only "Summer Carter" remains. As if the "base" child discarded his baptismal surname of Donithorne and went through life as Summer Carter. Still, do you think the family would have been okay with first cousins marrying? John Carter, son of Somer Carter (Option 1) was Beaton Donithorne's cousin. I know it was frowned upon by the church but odds are the vicar didn't know the family's intertwined history.

K

[Cornish Terrier]

Still, do you think the family would have been okay with first cousins marrying?

Hmm - I see you are not very familiar with Cornwall! It was extremely common in Cornwall for first cousins to marry at until well into the 19th Century and possibly the early 20th Century. In my own family I have three children of one brother marrying three children of another and a period of three consecutive generations of first-cousins in one section of the family!

So it would have been quite normal around Camborne and the Carter family as well.

Also, it was common for an illegitimate child to be baptised under one name and then take on the mother's married name later whether or not the husband was also the father.

BTW - I will move this conversation to the Camborne Forum in the Parish section.

CT

[kcarter]

Thank you, CT!

I have been giving myself a crash course in Cornish genealogy, history, and culture - but there's so much to learn! Up until about six months ago my Mormon cousins had our Carter tree end-stopped with my great-grandfather in Kentucky, USA. I figured out that the Kentucky connection wasn't right so did some really outside-the-box sleuthing and found the Mormons had been wrong all along. The correct Carter g-grandfather was the first of my Carter line born in the U.S. All his older brothers and sisters were born in Cornwall and now I have the tree fairly solidly filled out back to the mid- to late-1600's. I was just stuck with the "which John Carter" question. As we've discussed earlier, so many trees out there have incorrect information or information that is not backed up with documentation. I've had to made some educated guesses as well :-(

Once again, thanks much for your help.

K

[Cornish Terrier]

It is all a learning curve for everybody and we are always happy to help if we can.

A now deceased long distant cousin who I met for the first time at the Cornwall Record Office in 1994 gave me a few little quotes to go on with way back then. From that day I learned to think 'outside the box' with my research and have managed to solve quite a number of problems that had previously been dismissed by others as 'brickwall unsolvable'. I have always been an Agatha Christie fan but cousin Nancy is responsible for much of the way I think when it comes to genealogy.

CT

[genie]

I am related to this family.
Charles Carter bapt 1786 buried 25th January 1837 and a son of John Carter and Beaton ?. Charles married Hannah Floyd 1 Jan 1833 at Gwinear.

[kcarter]

Genie, I added Hannah Floyd to Charles Carter in my tree, along with three children. If you're related to John and Beaton, then you're related to me!