Hobby
or Obsession?
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Genealogy is
something of a passion of mine. I don't know how
much of
my life I have spent researching family-trees but it's too much - both
for my sanity and waistline. The
purpose of this site is to share my
interpretation of
the records
and invite you to confirm, correct or extend my work. It is certainly
not
presented as a definitive history of the Eggintons or Mellers of
Staffordshire or
any other of the families I have researched out of curiosity.
In this on-line tree, there are: incorrect
assumptions; errors introduced by my software; typos caused by my old
eyes and fingers; codes that I've added as memos
and individuals who I've invented just for fun (some very
obviously). I apologise if I end up misleading you
in any way - do not
take any of my 'findings' as 'facts carved in stone' - I urge you to
put them to the test. The vast majoriity of information is in the
'public domain' and I have tried to put in as many links to source
material as possible but note that recently the LDS
have
changed their databases and some of my hundreds of links are stilll
broken.
Worried about your name being
here? A word or two about Privacy
and Identity Theft.
The Eggintons of
Staffordshire
My
cousin Terry
(Teresa) has spent many years tracing our shared
'Egginton' ancestry
and collating details from other family members, especially
Diana Robinson
and Pat Wilson.
The fruits of their
labours
form the backbone of this site - thank you. I've filled
in some details using information found on the internet and from people
who have contacted me through this page
(many thanks to them too).
The story begins, with any degree
of certainty that is, with the baptism of Thomas
Egginton in 1793 at
St.Peter & St.Paul's Roman Catholic Church in
Wolverhampton. It is likely that his parents, Thomas
Egginton
and
Sara, were the Thomas Egginton and Sarah Dovey who
were
married at
St Peter's
Church ten years previously and that, sadly, Sarah died a couple of
months
after giving birth. Where Thomas
senior was born, we don't know, he may have been a local lad (there
were Eggintons being baptized in the town before 1700) or it may
be that he was born in Tamworth in 1763. This Tamworth
connection, I was given a long tiime ago and whilst I have been able to
confirm many of the elements of the 'backbone', I have not yet found
any evidence to support the notion that anyone from Tamworth did ever
come to Wolverhampton - and indeed there are problems
with that suggestion when you start to look at the individuals - be
sure
to read my notes about these
individuals.
It is unfortunate then, that some years ago, when I was less
unsure of the Tamworth connection, a few family-tree enthusiasts
stumbled across this site and copied the connections given here to
other on-line genealogical sites and now it seems to be taken as fact.
Our earliest record of the
Tamworth Egginton clan is
that of the
marriage of
Samuel Egginton
&
Mary Hair in 1681 at Lichfield Cathedral although the index of
students at Oxford University in 1674 does include a 16 year old Samuel
Egginton, son of Richard of Tamworth - it is very tempting to think
that this is the same man, the age certainly fits, however, there were
several Egginton families living in the Tamworth area at that
time. The relationships between the individuals
from Samuel
b1658 through to Thomas b1763 are based on reasoned
guesswork - there is little corroborating evidence to support them -
beware.
Not all of the
'Victorian' Eggintons in Wolverhampton are descendants of these
Thomases, a few other like-named families came
to the
town from Clent, Stone and Pelsall
and there were clusters in other nearby villages too - if
there was any
connection between them,
I don't know of it - yet. In Sedgley, John
Tertius Egginton's
Chemist's shop held a
particular fascination for me as a child - with 'my' surname writ
big for all to see.
I have attempted to explore JT's roots and a partial tree and
discussion
can be found by clicking on his link but as yet I have found no
connection to the Wolverhampton Eggintons - although, intriguingly,
Thomas b1793 and Frances Beatrice Roden were married in
Sedgley..
Andrew
Ward contacted me about an ancestor of his, John Egington b1857
and
wondered if he was a member of the Wolverhampton Egginton clan. After
some digging, it's clear that John was in fact born in Kinver and his
father, Joseph, is from Wordsley/Kingswinford. This made it more
likely that he is connected to the Sedgley Eggintons above - and after
further rummaging around in the LDS database - I believe I
that I have found that the two lines converge at Walter Egginton b1715 in Himley. It would seem that Joseph took his family
and relocated to Brightside, Sheffield but John didn't stay
long -
he 'escaped' a life in the iron industry became a very successful Music Hall artist and agent adopting the
stage-name of 'Jack Lotto'. He and his
children formed several troupes of trick-cyclists using names like 'Lotto,
Lilo & Otto' (Google search) and
toured the world. Jack himself was one of the founders of the charity The Grand
Order of Water Rats. Click here to listen
to the 2 minute story behind the origin of the name.
I have created a table of
Staffordshire Eggintons from the
1841-1901 Census returns and started to link the individuals
in an attempt to identify the various local Egginton strands.
To those who ask whether the
'Egginton' surname originates in the Derbyshire Village of
Egginton,
I would guess that the answer is a definite maybe - the Oxford
Dictionary of Placenames gives Egginton as the town and people of Ecga,
so it is a possibilty.
Deep Ancestry
Mike
Stubbs-Egginton
has very generously shared with us a report from National Geographic
that is relevant to every descendant of the fore-fathers of Thomas
Egginton b1793 going back at least 14,000 years: Deep Ancestry .
It uses known changes (or 'markers') in the Y-chromosome, passed from
Egginton father to Egginton son, to trace the route by which this line
came of out Africa about 50,000 years ago and made their way to the
middle of England. It is well worth a read.
Thanks are due to Sandra Jenkinson who
has aided me with the details of Richard
Jones b1805 from
Ludlow & Munslow (photos),
Shropshire whose daughter Clara married Walter Egginton in 1855.
Here
are the charts of my Egginton grandparents:
Arthur Egginton
b1899 & Millicent Southall
b1900
The Mellers and Mellors of Staffordshire
The spelling of Meller or Mellor
is of very little
significance - seemingly, it became fixed as and when individuals
learned to write their names for themselves, each making their own
choice, I default to the E variant. I am told that one of the
earliest spellings was 'Melior' and is distinct from the
occupational name of 'Miller'
I am fairly confident in starting
'my' Meller
ancestry with John Meller
b1791, a potter in Lane End (in the
Potteries of course). Details of earlier forebears are being brought to
light with the kind help of Laura Bowcutt
who has researched this line
over several decades. John moved, with his young family, to
Higham-on-the-Hill, Leicestershire around 1815 (many thanks to Celia Hornbuckle
for helping with this) and many of his
descendants either worked the land in the local villages or moved to
the more industrial areas. My
great-grandfather Samuel, born in Higham in 1838, moved away in about
1860 - just before smallpox hit the village, claiming the lives of a
number of his kith and kin - to work on the farms around
Lichfield. In
1885 his wife Sarah gave birth to my grandfather James who became a
chorister in the Cathedral and a baker before moving to Compton,
Wolverhampton
at the end of the 19th century.
A contact from
Roger Ward
has taken me in an unexpected direction - to
Chicago in the USA. It would seem that one of John's sons,
Charles b1844, decided to try his fortune in the New World and made the
crossing to Cook County, Illinois, with his wife Ann Wheatley and two
very young children, in 1872. Carol
King, a descendant of Charles has done a goodly
amount of work on his family on that side of the Atlantic and I have
attempted to link him in to the family they left behind. Here are the
latest results of that research,
spanning over 235 years:
Charles
Meller's Family of
Chicago, Cook County, USA.
I have been asked many times by my Meller relatives whether 'our'
family is connected to that of the late John
P Mellor OBE QSM,
a prominent and very active figure in Wolverhampton. In the
summer of 2010, after reading a letter of his in the local Express
& Star, in which he outlined his origins, I decided to explore
his
roots more fully and see if there was indeed a connection.
Alas,
I have managed to get back to about 1750 in Abbots Bromley near
Uttoxeter without
finding one - but who knows - at this point the families were only 10
miles apart. At John's request, I have now expanded my
research to include more than just the Mellor line. John did have his own website
- a real treasure-trove of remembrances, musings and stories and I
thank him for those relating to my grandfather, 'Jim the Baker', when
Compton was one part of John's 'beat' as a village 'Bobby'
back in the early 1950s. Here in 'Pedigree' layout (so, some
text
will be small, be ready to use Ctrl-'+' to zoom in)
are my
findings:
John P Mellor
OBE QSM
Yet another Meller connection: Erddig
(pronounced Erthig), a stately home near Wrexham
(NT),
was in the possession of a John Meller in the early 1700's and
his coat
of arms can be seen there. He had no children of his own but there
could still be a link with his wider family.
If
you can help extend
our venture then please send any information to me, Clive Egginton,
here:
The Bishtons of
Worfield and Donington
My grandmother Annie Burns's grandmother was Tryphaena Bishton
b1808
from
Worfield and her father was Thomas Bishton but as yet we have no record
of his birth or baptism.
Much work has been done trying to shed light on their
ancestors and we have records of many Bishtons in the areas
around Worfield, Donington & Kilsall (nr
Albrighton,
Shropshire) going back to Shrewsbury and 1495
One branch became quite wealthy,
rubbing
shoulders with the likes of Abraham Darby, with their
coal and iron works out at Dawley. Remnants of their industry can be
found at Blists Hill
Museum near Ironbridge and they owned land and various prestigious
properties in and around Kilsall, near to what is now
Cosford. A
group of
their
early C19th graves, set in a rather privileged position, can still be
found today at Donington Parish Church in Albrighton (photos). We have been
very fortunate in that the Rev.Joseph
Dale,
the father-in-law of one of this famliy, had extracted many of the
relevant parish records and set them down in a letter which is still
available, see his notes.
Warning: the
precise
link between Tryphaena's father, Thomas, and
the earlier Bishtons is
not yet known, as such, I have tentatively attached him to John
Bishton b1767 & Mary Robinson, parents of
a Worfield
family that has a suitable gap in their list of
offspring. This
is not much more than a guess I'm afraid.
Even with the wider family, I am sure that my
interpretation of the records wiill contain many
errors here and I would love to hear from anyone who
can help me build up a more accurate set of connections.
Burns of London -
Help Needed
My
grandmother Annie Burns's
father James
Burns
b1859
has been a bit of a mystery for me for the last few years with many
hours spent trying to find his
roots without success. After trying, yet again, to
discount an 1881 census return
showing him in Salop Street, Wolverhampton, I stumbled across a
reference by 2nd cousin Tony Smith to the 1871 census record.
'Ancestry' had
read 'Burns' as 'Broms' and the enumerator had heard 'Sheward'
as
'Shuara' - no wonder it was so elusive. That 1871
census
records James's place of birth as 'Enfield, Middlesex' and his absent
father as being a 'Gun Locksmith' these facts match exactly the
informationn we find on his marriage certificate and the 1911 census.
This, along with recently discovered
military documentation, seems to demolish the idea that he was
the James Burns
born in West Ham who previously had seemed to be the most likely
candidate. There are still plenty of gaps, particularly regarding his
father John and his whereabouts in 1861.
The Selveys of Wolverhampton
Selvey
(or Selby)
is a name that has cropped up a couple of times in connection
with the Eggintons back in the early 1800s. The strongest
link being
that of Rachel
Selvey b1823
& Moses Egginton and who were married in
1844. At the end of 2009, I began working with Roger Szendy in
Connecticut, USA, to bring some clarity to the relationships.
In 1870, Roger's
great-great-grandmother Lucy
Selvey b1836 & Henry
Fletcher, her husband, left
Wolverhampton for New
York with their children. Our
working partnership has been successful and most enjoyable and the
results
are continuing to grow with contributions from
Henry E.P. Pritchard of Philadelphia, USA. We
have recently made contact with some Selveys still living
in the UK and I have to thank Sandie Morgan for
some details of the family of Ellen Washbrook b1867, wife of
William Selvey b1864..
The gaps in the on-line records of St Peter & St Pauls RC
Church in the
IGI
and at Ancestry between 1830 and 1837 have required direct inspection
of
the registers on microfilm. Enough work has been done, by
Roger & myself, to paint a wider (but rough) picture of the
descendants of William
Selvey
b1763 & Mary Gill
who were married in St Peter's in 1790.
It would seem that there were a few separate Selvey families in
Wolverhampton
around 1800 and at least one with Walsall/Bloxwich
connections. Here is a working document
listing the records of all of Selveys in Wolverhampton at the time.
Most of the individuals have been associated with their respective
families but there are still a few unplaced ones. If you can help place
the 'orphans' please
let us know.
Whilst exploring the other famlies connected to the
Selveys, new strands connecting them to the Eggintons have
been uncovered. As a result, a substantial number of Careless and Leek family members
have been woven into this picture of Victorian Wolverhampton, however,
a couple of mysteries still remain to be solved - in particular the
precise connection of Ann
Careless b1848 and Hannah
Leek
b1820 to their
respective families.
Roger has a brilliant website covering his wider family circle and lots
of charts and photos here: Szendy Genealogy
The Shepherds of Willenhall
My wife's grandfather was Henry Shepherd a locksmith from Willenhall
and his background is another tangle I'm trying to unravel,
some of my preliminary findings are here.
It is clear that there were quite a few Shepherd families and if they
were
linked, it was well before 1800. There were also numerous
'Josephs' born just before 1850, this
marriage certificate has helped to determine that the father
of Joseph
Shepherd b1847
(husband of
Fanny Cotterhill and Henry's grandfather), was
William
Shepherd b1822.
Brevitts and Cotterills
Henry's other grandmother was Ann Brevitt b1840 and with the
encouragement and support of Edna
van Genderen
in Brisbane have included some of the Brevitt families in the area.
One Horatio Brevitt born in Darlaston became a solicitor and
Town
Clerk in Wolverhampton, a role for which he was knighted in 1915.
A fair bit of work has gone into mapping-out the various
Cotterill
families that lived in Tettenhall and Tettenhall Wood throughout most
of the 1700s and 1800s. Much of that work has been done by Dr
Richard A.Y. Jones and I hereby 'tip my hat' to him in
gratitude.
We start with Joseph
Cotterill
born there about 1690
Other Families
In an attempt to map out some more of my closer connections, I've been
looking at the stories of my cousins June Evans and Carol Brownsword's
fathers (Edward
Henry Evans and William
Brownsword) and husbands (Eric
Millington
and Bryan
Bayley) and cousin Royston Slater's wife, Linda Middleton.
Cousin Terry's daughter, Charlotte, put in a request for me to take a
look at her 'other' side, and so I did, here are her 'Russell' grandparents.
Although
there are a few mysteries unsolved, there's enough to warrant being
included.
Other family names traced back are those of Cross and Allen of Blackpool and Bradford, look
for
them in the Surname List. A recent contact from a Meller descendant has
resulted in an expansion of the Pugh
branch of West Bromwich and Madeley.
A
friend of mine, Vic Beards, has a surname that I'd seen in my
tree
and so I had a look to see if there was any connection between our two
clans - and there is, here it is: Egginton-Beards
- not surprising with two lock-making families rooted in Wolverhampton
for over 200 years. Other new names added include Turner,
Dean
and Anslow.
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