from Dr. LARCH GARRAD
I SAMPLERS
Dr. Garrad writes:
The Manx Museum has a few items which have close association with particular people. It was thought possible that the following list of names which appear on samplers might be of interest to members of the Family History society. This list covers all those in the collections in December, 1980, with information as to the identity of each embroidress, where it is available. is considering whether an individual is relevant to your family tree, It should be remembered that the usual age-range of Manx sampler sewing was 9-15.
Few of these are on display. If you wish to see a sampler, please make your arrangements with us well in advance (at least 2 weeks). A few of the samplers are in a condition good enough to be photographed. That can take up to a month. At present no negatives exist, so you would probably have to pay the cost of the photographer's time, as well as for your print or slide. Such photographs may normally be reproduced without additional charge, providing they are acknowledged to the Manx Museum - in for example, a Family Newsletter. If you wish photography to be arranged, please specify whether you require colour or black and-white, and the size and type of print, slide, etc.
MANX MUSEUM COLLECTION OF SAMPLERS (as at December, 1980)
On June 22, in ceremonies of state in the lavish Rayburn Room of the U.S. Capitol, the Hon. Charles Kerruish, Speaker of the House of Keys. presented a 'true image' of the Manx Sword of State to the Congress and the People of the United States on the occasion of the U.S. Centennial. Noting that Mr. Speaker Kerruish represented 'the oldest continuing democratic assembly in the world', U.S. Speaker of the House, Carl Albert, said'
"....we appreciate your generous Bicentennial gift. We shall exhibit it to millions of Americans. And to all those who have origins in your homeland, who come to the Capitol. it remind them of the historic role played by Tynwald in the development of the greatest institution that the human race has produced, that institution known as free and democratic government."
The Sword was given a place of honour in the Rayburn House Office, where it remained on display to millions of visitors during the Bicentennial year. It was returned to the Capitol on January, 1, 1977, where it remained until August 16th 1977, when was one of the six state gifts selected for deposit with the Smithsonian Institution for exhibition during the Tricentennial one-hundred years hence, and on selected occasions during the Intervening years.
A curious and unique tradition in the Capitol is credited to yet another speaker of the House of Representatives, A Manxman. In the cold of winter and in the beat of summer, the Congressional Dining Room serves hot bean soup, a favourite of Joseph Cannon, Speaker of the House from 1903 to 1911, who directed that it be served dally, a custom continued to this day. Speaker Cannon, a representative of Manx descent from Illinois, is also honoured in the name of the Cannon House Office Building, completed in 1908, located on the southeast corner of Independence. and New Jersey Avenues on the south side of the Capitol grounds.
The Manx heritage has in recent times been represented in Congress by Senator Howard Cannon of Nevada, and Representative J. Danford Quayle of Indiana. By coincidence their surnames are combined in yet another famous Manxman to have served in Congress. George Quayle Cannon. Cannon, publisher, railroad executive and church leader, served four terms in Congress, where he gained the nicknames of 'Smooth-bore Cannon', for what one author of the period described as his 'singularly persuasive manner and a certain quiet, stately and restrained eloquence'.
EDWARD SAYLE
The genealogist's most useful stepping-stone back into history, I have found, is the 1851 Census Returns. Not only did it list the whole population, house by house, family by family, recording ages and relationships, as had been done in 1841, but for the first time it recorded place of birth. And with such a distinct picture of families, the historian can often deduce facts about his ancestry far back into the 18th Century.
Hence, when our Secretary, Mrs. Iris Lyle, suggested that our little Society make a project out of indexing the 1851 Census for Douglas, she was calling us to the creation of an invaluable tool for all researchers, and not least for the Manx Homecomer, who on a rare, perhaps only once-in-a lifetime, visit to the Island, and able to afford perhaps only a few brief hours in the Manx Museum Library in the hope of tracing his Manx roots, can thereby get a head start in what may prove a lifetime hobby. This particular task has been done, and owes more to our Secretary's drive and inspiration than can ever be told. She had all too few of us to assist in the work.
You say ask where the fruits of the project can be consulted. Well, they say that when a 16th Century Pope looked in one day at the Sistine Chapel, and stared reproachfully at the bare ceiling, calculating all the months that Michael Angelo seemed to have spent equally simply contemplating it, and ventured to put the question hesitantly to the artist, when would he be starting the picture, ho received the answer "Start the picture! The picture is finished" all I have to do is paint it.' Iris Lyle's project has reached the same point. its need only find a way to produce it in a worthy to form.
Herewith is the sample first page. I would like to think it appears as a recognition of our Secretary's work in the field. But even more, as a challenge to us all. First, to ask for volunteers who will type it out. And then, to suggest to others of us that we might compile a similar index for the parishes in which we mad have a special interest.
To engage in the work is a demographic education in itself. You see forming before you all sorts of human stories and problems. You realise just what sort of people the Manx in general were. As Iris Lyle comments on this specimen page: 'Douglas was a predominantly working-class town of private and lodging house. The occupations were mainly those of craftsmen. Not all came from the Island. In fact the places of origin of the adults are quite telling! - Isle of Man, 5, Ireland, 4, England, 3. And interesting that children were called Scholar from the age of three.'
R.K.
....
This is a story our Family History Society always hope it would be able to tell. So often requests for genealogical help are met with sad shakes of the head, and the frustrating knowledge that we have no clue at all. But once it happened like this.
In June 1980, a lady in Tomah, Wisconsin, determined to take some step to find out about her Manx ancestry. She knew that two of her great-grandparents had emigrated from the Isle of Man. In an attic were some old postcards dating from around 1910, addressed to her father, and signed 'Your Cousin, Mary Jane Quirk'. The postmark was Peel, Isle of Man. Also in N. Clayton Cemetery in Crawford City, Wisconsin, was the grave of her great-grandmother, with the inscription, - 'Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Kissack. Born May 18, 1825, in Kirk Michael, Isle of Man. Died June 15, 18 In '. Her great-grandfather had married again, and moved away. Apart from. the cards and the gravestone she know no more.
So she wrote a letter to the Post Master at Peel, Isle of Man, and enclosed a photograph of the grave. She asked to be put in touch with any of her kin that might still be on the Island. She added a postscript' 'I would like a map of the Island, as I cannot find one that even shows your city of Peel'.
Ten days later this letter was on the desk of Miss Ann Harrison of the Manx Museum, promptly despatched thither by a perplexed but wise Postmaster. And it so happened that just as the photograph tumbled out of the envelope, your Editor walked into the library, under Miss Harrison's very eye. And within two minutes the letter was consigned for action into the hands of a Kissack living In Kirk Michael.
The first thing that impressed me was the bold clear hand in which the letter was written. It was in a copperplate style of such rare clarity and consistency that it deserved a place in a museum for that alone. Calligraphy indeed. Then it occurred to him that the letter and photograph need only to be mounted on a board, to make an exhibit at the Society's Open Day at the Villa Marina, at the end of that same week. It had even been written only on one side of the pages! And so it featured in the Society's displays not only at the Villa, but in the Homecomers' Tent at Tynwald Hill, and at the Ramsey Cruinnaght, under the headings 'The sort of Problem we get, and sometimes solve'.
But even before I had left the Museum, the information on the gravestone had led to the easy discovery both of Elizabeth's marriage and baptism. She was Elizabeth Quiggin, baptised at Michael church on May 22, 1825, and married there on December 20th, 1851. Her parents were Charles Quiggin, Yeoman, and Mary Cain. Their address in Michael was the Intack Kion Eydha Moanney. Her husband was Thomas Kissack, whose residence at the time was in Maughold He and his father, William, were both farm labourers.
1851 being a census year, it was easy to identify Thomas. He was 26, and had been working as a servant on Ballaterson, Maughold. But his birthplace had been Jurby parish. It was as easy to detect his family. His mother was Mary Lewin who had married William Kissack in Jurby on September 22, 1825, and there was also a daughter, Mary Ann, born in 1827.
In those days William was the most popular name to give a Kissack, (and many other families too), but my luck held. For in the 1841 census I found a family of Kissacks at Ballamoar in Jurby, four of which were William, aged 40, Mary, 38, Thomas, 14, and Mary, 12, but which also included the parents of William, Stephen Kissack, agricultural labourer, aged 75, and his wife Ann,83. Stephen being a rare first-name in those days, I could trace the family further back into the 18th century. Stephen had married Ann Kelly in Jurby in 1785, and they had four daughters and three sons - Ellinor, 1788, Leah, 1790, Catherine, 1792, Daniel, 1794, John, 1795, William, 1798, and Esther, 1801.
In Jurby records, I also found Stephen's own baptism, in 1765. His parents were William Kissack and Esther Garrett. He had three brothers and two sisters, John (1755), William (1756), Thomas (1758), Esther (1759) and Ann (1762). Very interesting is the entry of his parents' marriage in 1751. It was a double wedding, the other couple being John Garrett and Ann Kissack (alias Kewish). I should add that at this point in history the fatally name was spelled Kissag or Kissage. I recalled from my studies of the Kissack family in Lezayre, that in 1727 a William Kissack had marred an Ann Kewish, and the Andreas registers recorded the baptism of a daughter Elizabeth in 1732, and the Jurby ones a son Robert In 1735. I cannot trace the baptism of any son William to then, but I found among the Testamentary cases of the Ecclesiastical Courts a document to the effect that Ann Garrett, alias Kiseage, died on July 12, 1767, intestate, and the administration of her estate woe granted to William Kissack, 'her only son'. So William was certainly the name of her son, and since weddings involving Kissacks were relatively rare in Jurby at that time, I think it is a fair presumption that Ann Kissack was the younger bridegroom's mother, and probably her new husband would have been the bride's father. There were other instances of Garrett/Kissack marriages in Jurby, a William Kissag married Mary Caret in 1679, and a Philip Garret married Catherine Kissage in 1772.
Ann Kewish, because first married In Lezayre, would have presumably been of a family in that parish. It is a name almost extinct in the Island today, and not overplentiful in the 18th century, so that I think it very likely that Ann would have been the child baptised in Lezayre, daughter of William Kewish, in 1701. I cannot tell who might have been the William Kissack she married in 1727. There were several Williams alive in Lezayre, but I would hazard the conjecture that he would have come into the parish for the wedding, and be the son of the William Kissack who married Mary Garet in 1679. A William Kissack use buried in Jurby in 1734.
William and Ann clearly moved about from parish to parish, a fact that suggests that William may not have been a farmer. There were many Millers at the time in the Lezayre and Maughold branches of the name, and perhaps he too was one.
The search for the Quiggin side of Vesta Hendrick's ancestry (for that was our letter-writer's identity) was never likely to be easy, at least not in comparison with my own name. But here too I got off with unexpected good fortune. Present at the Villa Marina Display of June 28th was Tom Cashen, Schoolmaster and Historian of Kirk Michael. From the records of his school he could say at once that there had been a long connection of Quiggins with the western side of the parish. Quirk, however, was not so indigenous a name. Learning however that one of the Quirk postcards had borne the name Sartfield, he suggested that some of the older people at Barregarrow Methodist Chapel might be able to give me a lead.
This chapel, like many in the Island, stands at a cross-roads. The westward branch connects with the modern Peel-Michael coast road, and the ancient Staarvey road just above the Spooyt Vane. Northward the road runs through Michael village as the TT Course to Ramsey. The eastward branch strikes up the mountains, and is the main crossing route to Laxey. It passes the farms of Lower and upper Sartfleld. Southward the main road to Castletown heads towards St. John's, but more immediately passes farms named Ballaskyr, Shughlaghcain and Shughlagquiggin. Two miles uphill it reaches Cronk-y-Voddy, whence another road leads off to the left to join the Laxey road, via the Little London valley. It turns out that in this triangle Here the homes of Quirks, Quiggins and Caine
Barregarrow Chapel in 1980 celebrated the centenary of the present building, but in 1981 it celebrates the bicentenary of John Wesley stopping at the site to preach 'to a congregation of loving and artless people' as his Journal describes them, on the texts' If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink.' Those same people built a chapel on the site, and a century later decided to replace it by a larger and more ornate one. They insisted that it occupy the precise site of the older building - an insistence that strangely matched that of the Emperor Constantine on the precise location of his Basilica of St. Peter's in Rome. Insistences that sweep all constructional problems and cost on one side, give the strongest corroboration to the precise spot under which St. Peter Has buried, or on which John Wesley stood to preach.
I was planned to preach at Barregarrow Chapel one Sunday, in July, and I used the pulpit to ask if any one could give a word of long gone Quiggins or Quirks. And after the service two octogenarians pointed me further on the trail. The Quirks and Quiggins had had a noble part in the chapel's history. Tom Quayle volunteered that a Quirk, now in his 80's, still lived at St. John's. And Ada Kissack 'who had Quiggin on her herself', nodded to the Little London area, and said the Quiggins had held several farms all near each other, 'and I've heard it said, all the Quiggins in the Isle of Man came from round there - even the Timber Merchants in Douglas'.
Soon afterwards as I was driving past Upper Sartfield on the mountain road, I noticed the farmer who supplied us with milk at work In one of the roadside fields. So on his next visit I asked about his relation with Sartfield, and was told it was part of his holding. When I asked him about Quirks, he said he had an idea that he had seen the name in his Deeds, and even delivered the documents with the next batch of milk bottles. Having read them I duly returned them with the empties. And so I read the saga of three generations of the Quirks, mainly in pencilled genealogical comments made by some lawyer, as he worked out legacies.
In 1847, Thomas Quirk deeded part of his lands, namely Sartfield and Conrheanney to his youngest son, Robert. When Eliza, widow of his eldest son, Thomas, died in 1886, she left their estate to their nephew, John, the son of Robert, who inherited his father's part in 1895. John himself died in 1902, and the lands passed to his brother, Robert Charles Quirk. He did not live on them, and sold them in 1918 to a Philip Caley. The Mary Jane Quirk of the Postcards in the Wisconsin attic was the sister of John and Robert Charles Quirk. and their mother was Jane, the elder sister of Elizabeth Quiggin, whom he had married in 1845.
The household of the parents of Jane and Elizabeth is described in the census returns for 1851. Charles Quiggin, aged 60, was a freehold farmer at Little London, and with him lived at the time, his wife Mary (nee Cain), 61, Elizabeth, 25, dressmaker, Eleanor, 23, and Mary 19, called 'farmer's daughters'. Mary Quiggin was to die at the age of 63 In September 1853, less than two years after Elizabeth's wedding to Thomas Kissack. She died at Kion Eyyda Moanney, Little London, and Charles Quiggin also was living there when he died aged 81, in 1873. Elizabeth's sister, Jane Quirk herself died in Kirk Michael, in May 1878 aged 54, less than a year after Elizabeth herself. Her husband, Robert Quirk, was 82 when he died in 1895, but her son John only 54 at his death in 1902.
I have not been able to trace the Quiggin family backwards as easily as the Kissacks. But Elizabeth came on both sides of families whose records in the parish of Michael go back well into the 17th century, the Quiggins to 1637, and the Caine 1611. I have already alluded to farms called still Shughlaghcain and Shughlaghquiggin. (Shughlagh means a piece of land running up into the mountains.) But this much I can conjecture with some confidence,
Elizabeth's father, Charles, was baptised March 25, 1791, the son of Philip Quiggin and Ann Shimmin. Her mother, Mary, was the daughter of John Cain and Jane Corlott, baptised November 15, 1789. Charles had brothers John (1793), Philip and John (twins) 1795, Robert (1797), Wm (1808). Her mother had 2 brothers, John (1786) and William (1792), and a sister Ann (1794).
Beyond this progress is going to depend on chance evidence from non-register sources, such as Wills and Land-sales. I cannot find any record in the Michael marriage registers of the wedding of Philip Quiggin and Ann Shimmin, but there may be a record in another parish somewhere. The Michael registers mention Philip Quiggins born in the 18th century. The first (1722) is clearly too old, the last, 1772, too young. And the choice seems to lie unresolved between the child of John Quiggin and Margaret Cain (1747) and that of Robert Quiggin and Ann Killey (1761).
Another happy spin-off of this research has been to relate Thomas Kissack to another family of Kissacks (not my own!) who have lived for over a century in Kirk Michael, and to which I have already alluded as helping me in my search for the Quiggin-Quirk connection. There was a John Kissack, who appears in the 1841 census, and again in the 1851 census as a manservant on farms in the Little London/Shughlagh/Ballaskyr area. He came from Jurby, and his age corresponds with that of another grandson of Stephen Kissack. He married Jane Kneale from Lezayre, in the sane year as Jane Quiggin married Robert Quirk (1845). Witnesses to the wedding were Thomas and William Quiggin, and Eliza Shimmin - this last name being the wife of Thomas Quirk, elder brother of Robert Quirk. It is no more than speculation, but could it be that Thomas Kissack, whose working life had been centred on Jurby and Maughold, came to meet Elizabeth through his cousin John ?
John and Jane Kissack remained all their lives in the area, raising a family - John (1845), Beth), William (1852), Ann Jane (1854) and Catherine Mary (1857). John himself was barely 40 when ho died in 1859. Jane worked on. The 1871 census shows her farming for herself with her youngest daughter at Balla-garroby, with William, the second son a farm servant at Ballaskyr. John, the eldest, it is said had emigrated to Cumberland, married, was widowed, returned to the Island and remarried to a Miss Renton, who bore him 2 daughters and a son, when she was over 40. He was a gardener, and lived at Ivey Cottage at the foot of Barregarrow hill. His son John Alfred, married Lila Boyle, and it was she who was so helpful in telling me of the Quiggin family. What is more their daughter, Phyllis Kissack, is the wife of Tom Cashen, the Schoolmaster.
One of the particular joys of this little voyage of Family Exploration, was to receive from Mrs. Hendricks' husband photographic retakes of early photographs of Thomas Kissack and Elizabeth Quiggin, and their seven children. Particularly pleasing to to see Thomas not just in age, but as a soldier in the Unionist Army. All these faces show tremendous strength of will, and the tensions of frontier life over a century ago.
I like to think that these people, of pure Manx descent, drew from generations of wrestling with the insecurities of farm life in our Island, the qualities of will and endurance that were to serve so well in the building of America.
Mr. Robert Hendricks, by the way, is not only a keen photographer, but also an Amateur Radio enthusiast. His call Sign is W9 QVI, and he wonders if any members of the FHS have a like interest. If so call him up.
R. KISSACK
Fixed to the southern wall of Ballaugh Old Church by the entrance is a stone reading
'To the Memory of Thomas Corlett, Mariner, son of William Corlett and Ellen Cry of Ballacry in this Parish, Who dyed in Jamaica in the Year 1755 and out of his love for the Poor of this Parish where he was born willed to then the yearly interest of the sun of L300 English for ever and the rest of his goods to his Nearest Relations. This Monument of him is by them set up in the Place'.
My maternal grandmother passed an to our family stories of the Isle of Man as -told to her by her mother and her father's sister, so we knew something of the LaMothe association with the Island, and to a lesser degree that of the Grant and Ralfe families.
Dr. Dominique La Mothe was born on 4th August 1751 at Bayonne, in the Basque Pyrenees, France, and died on 8th January 1807 at Castletown, I.O.M, after 47 years residence, where he had practised medicine. the story of how he came to the Island in 1760 is well enough known. He married Susanna, daughter of Henry Corrin of Castletown, in St. George's Church, Liverpool, in 1765, and they had 11 children. His third son, Frederick, studied medicine in London, then returned to set up practice in Ramsey about 1789. He married Margaret, daughter of John Corlet of Glentramman and his wife Ann (nee Cowle), in 1804. Their eldest daughter, Anne Susannah, married Lieutenant Pilcher Ralfe RN, in 1831 and were my great-great-great grandparents.
Pilcher Ralfe was in the Coast Guards, and his daughter, Catherine Hester was born at Bantry Bay, Ireland, and his eldest son, Pilcher Frederick, at Sheerness, Kent. The younger two sons were born at Ramsey. His parents and he had lived originally at New Romney, Kent, and his father died in 1831 in the I.O.M, when his mother returned to England, and died in 1842. Both the Lieutenant and his wife died in 1841 and are interred in Lezayre.
Their son, Pilcher Frederick Ralfe and his brothers attended King William's College. Pilcher married Jessie Frances Greene on 8th March 1860, and their only son, Pilcher George. was born at Ellenbane, where P.F. Ralfe was farming. on 19th January 1861. In July 1861, Jessie F. Ralfe died. Leaving the baby with relatives, P.F. Ralfe sailed for Australia, finally coming to New Zealand in 1862. He settled on Banks Peninsular' and on 16th May 1865 married Isabella Bates, and from this second marriage two sons and a daughter were born.
One of the Lieutenant's younger sons, Frederick Whitfield, born at Ramsey, and baptised on 28th June 1838, married twice, first to Susannah Johnson, and had a family of six, among them a son Thomas, and a daughter, Lucy. Some of the family went to Canada. I do not know more about Frederick Whitfield Ralfe and his family, except that he had died before 1896.
John Henry Ralfe married Anna Maria Grant, whose parents at one time resided in Stanley Terrace, Douglas, on 28th January 1861, in St. Barnabas, Douglas. They sailed for New Zealand on 15th April 1861, arriving at Lyttleton., NZ, on 31st July 1861, in the Chrysolite. They first settled at Akaroa on Banks Peninsular for two years. and then moved to the Canterbury Plains. In 1867 they crossed over to the West Coast, where John Henry taught school at Okarito, and later at Ross. They had a family of nine, 4 sons and 5 daughters - Hawthorne, Jessie, Ethel, Theo, Spencer, Margaret (Daisy), Grace, Annie, and Fred. In 1871 John Henry Ralfe died of a stroke, barely 34 years old.
Catherine Hester (Lieutenant Ralfe's Daughter) had gone out meanwhile to NZ, arriving at Lyttleton in November 1866 on the Liechardt. She never married, but made her home with her brother a John Henry, and after his death shared with his widow care of the family. At one time, two of the children, Theo and Spencer. lived with Pilcher Fredericks their uncle. The youngest son, Frederick, died in a scarlet-fever epidemic in February, 1877. The eldest son Henry Hawthorne Grant Ralfe (1861-1949) stayed with his mother and aunt, until he entered the New Zealand Public Service, as a cadet of the Court. Anna Maria Ralfe's people (George James Grant and family) lived on in Douglas. They were living at 4, Adelaide Terrace, at the time of her father's death in November 1859. He was buried at Braddan, and her mother later moved to Southport, Lancashire.
My grandmother used to tell the tale of her mother attending a Boarding School run by the Misses Steel, in the Isle of Wight (but Gran could get muddled at times. It could have been the I.O.M.). where she was asked her father's occupation, and she replied Gentleman. She never knew her father to work:
Another branch of the La Mothe family came to New Zealand on the maiden voyage of the Rotomahana, the steamship which sailed in August 1879. Catherine Rose La Mothe had married William Johnson of London. She was the daughter of Frederick John Dominique LaMothe, MHK, and a niece of Mrs. Ralfe, Miss Margaret Eliza LaMothe, Mrs. C.R. Spencer and the Rev. John H. La Mothe. MA. and Mrs. Johnson came to New Zealand with a family of seven, and settled in the proving. of Taranahi, with their cousin P.F. Ralfe. Later they added a son and a daughter to their family.
PATRICIA LINEHAN
Miss Linehan may be interested to know that another son of the original Dr. Dominique La Mothe also studied medicine, and served as an Assistant Surgeon with the Manx Fencibles in northern Ireland 1796-1802. A fellow officer, a Scotsmen, left some interesting diaries, which a descendant published in 1928. McKerlie's Two Sons of Galloway mentions Assistant Surgeon John La Mothe as 'a very handsome man, but a great fool'. He 'married the prettiest girl in Londonderry'. Seemingly, marrying without permission was a crime that seems to have constantly occurred among the Manx Fencibles. In the Museum are preserved the muster-books of some of the Fencibles, with the basic physical characteristics of each - colour of eyes, hair and complexion, age and height. You may find an Antecedent there, and the records of his crimes and punishments.
Editor.
In order to interpret the fascinating vignette of old-time Manx Life that we stumble on in reading the sentences of the various ecclesiastical courts that governed 18th and 19th century life in our Island, we need to understand something of the norms of Spiritual Law as it then prevailed. Our Secretary has copied out a few paragraphs, that seem of basic usefulness.
8. Also if either Father or Mother depart, having children, if the said children be of years of discretion, that is to sat xiiij Years of Age, they may divide goods either with Father or Mother, and may repair to whom they will.
9. Also if there be but one child betwixt Man and Wife, the Father's kindred shall have the custody of the aforsaid child and goods until xxiij Years of Age, except the Father make any other order by his last will, and leave the custody of the child and goods unto the tuition of any other, then that to be observed. And if there be two children, the Mother shall have the oje, that is to say the eldest and if the Mother dye before the Child come to Years of Discretion, she may leave the custody of the said Child to whom she thinketh good, and the Next of Kin of the Father's side and of the Mother's side Supervisors.
10. Also, if either Father or Mother depart, having children not yet come to Years of Discretion, having left Executors, and if any of them depart, the Ordinary shall make the rest, being alive, Executors and in case all dye under age, then the goods shall return to the Kindred from whence it came.
11. Also, if any Man marry a wife, and the Wife depart before a twelvemonth and a day, the Man shall have none of the marriage Goodes; and in like manner, if the Man departeth before a twelvemonth and a day, the Wife can have no Part or Portion of his Goodes, except it he given by gift, or bequeathed by the Will of either party; if there be no will or Testament made, then the goods to return to the Next of Kin.
12. Also, if they do remove from one Parish to another. and if the cock crow trice, they remaining three days and three nights after removing, that then the person departed shall pay all spiritual dutys to that same Church within the same Parish he doth remove unto.
16. That all Tyth Corne be received by the tenth Stoke for casting the tenth Sheafe in the Rean of Furrow was never used nor heard oft and for carrying of the tith Corn, away, the Parson or Proctor is at liberty to carry it the next Way keeping the Husbandman harmless, making the Ditch in the same sort, or as able as it whas or as he found it.
There is something about genealogical research which just seems to 'grab' you. then one is about to lose interest and give up, something just happens to turn up, doesn't it?
My continuing QUALTROUGH research was getting me a little 'bogged-down, shortly after my return from the Isle of Man last August. I had spent a very busy three. weeks there gathering all the QUALTROUGH references I could find and by the time I returned to New Zealand, knowing the daunting task ahead of me, my brain told me it "had had enough". (For further information on my QUALTROUGH research see earlier issues of this journal).
If you remember, I had obtained QUALTROUGH addresses from many areas in the world and sent a questionnaire and covering letter to them all. That was in May 1980, and I am still receiving replies.
One in particular sent me off on a very exciting and fruitful search the results of which I would like to share with you. The reply concerned came from one John Paxton QUALTROUGH of Illinois U.S.A. He did not seem to know much about his immediate ancestry, but added at the bottom of his sheets Did you know that There is a Qualtrough Street in both San Diego, California and Rochester, New York ? This little 'tit-bit' of information brewed away inside me for a little while till I determined that these streets must have been named after someone. What did I do ? Well I wrote to the City authorities in both cities, for information pertaining to these streets. The results that I was to receive from these two letters of enquiry are still astounding me!
First, I received a letter from the genealogy section of the San Diego Public Library to which my letter had been forwarded. The reply was most helpful and courteous. It went like this:
"Your query about the origin of the name QUALTROUGH for one of' San Diego's streets has indeed been a challenging one, involving the City Clerk's office and several departments of our Main Library. As far as I have been able to ascertain, It is not named for a local person. The street had at least one other name before it became QUALTROUGH Street in 1900. In that years many San Diego streets were renamed, in a huge ordinance, because there was too much duplication of names.Then new names were selected, Alphabetical series were often used; birds in one area, trees in another etc. The series chosen for the LaPlays area in which Qualtrough Street is situated was apparently one of naval men. Then I discovered that most of these men had been officers, I checked an Annapolis (US. Naval Academy) alumni directory in our government documents. Sure enough, there was a Qualtrough listed
QUALTROUGH' Edward Frank Commodore ISN.(Ret) Borne New York (state) Appointed from New York. Retired 30 June 1909 Died 13 November 1913.These brief items are all I could glean from the Alumni Directory. Perhaps if you wrote to the U.S. Naval academy, Annapolis, Maryland, they would be able to supply yell with more family information.
So I wrote to the U.S.N.A. in Annapolis and their reply included a copy of Edward Frank's obituary, also his father's name and birth details, which stated that he (Edward Frank) had been born in Rochester, N.Y.
The reply from Rochester City authorities was even more enlightening. The City Historian, to whom my letter bad been forwarded, told me the following:
''Qualtrough Road lies a few miles from RochesterSeveral Qualtroughs lived in Rochester and the vicinity in the last century. It seems most likely the road was named for Richard Qualtrough, a Penfield farmer with 83.55 acres of land. This man married Catherine Kennedy in 1854. Most prominent of the Rochester Qualtroughs was Joseph (died 22 February 1898) who emigrated from the Isle of Man and settled in Rochester earlier in the century, He was a prominent miller, an alderman in the 1860's and an overseer of the poor
John. Qualthro who apparently varied the name's spelling served in the New York State 6th Cavalry 1861-1865.
An L.M.. Qualtrough was a teacher at Central School in Rochester in 1877.
From that letter, which also included a list of researchers' addresses, I engaged what has turned out to be someone proficient in her job in every way Joseph Qualtrough (Died 1898, Miller) is the father of Edward Frank Qualtrough after the San Diego street is named.
Mrs. Nixon, my researcher from Rochester, has come to light with many Qualtroughs. besides Joseph the miller who from his death records was born 1825, there is also Richard who died 1905 aged 78, making his birth c.1827, (who was the farmer of Penfield), and another Edward who died of malnutrition' in 1891 aged 68, making his birth c.1823. From the Rushen (I.O.M.) baptismal records which I have, I have deduced that these three are brothers, all sons of William Qualtrough, late coroner end widower. of Rushen, who married Miss Elizabeth Qualtrough, spinster of Kentraugh, in 1822 or 1823. Of course this only theoretical at this point and needs proving.
Joseph Qualtrough was the first one to appear in Rochester from the Isle of Man in the early 1840's (his obituary says he came with his parents, but no trace of their burial records have been found yet) purchasing a block of land in 1849, Edward and Richard purchased land in Penfield, near Rochester, on what was later to become Qualtrough Road.
A Martin Qualtrough and family appear in Rochester too, and from the Rochester probate records given to me by Mrs. Nixon. and also from the Rushen (I.O.M.) 1861 census records which I have in my possession, I have identified Martin Qualtrough as being the one born in 1834, in Rushen, son of Paul Qualtrough and Mary Qualtrough (nee Clague) of Croit-e-Caley.
Rochester, New York state, appears to have been quite a gathering Place for Qualtroughs in the 19th century. Some fared well and others didn't. Joseph become a prominent figure in Rochester while his brother Edward died of malnutrition. In subsequent generations, there have been a John Qualtrough, a Frederick, Ray, Donald, Clarissa, Bridget, etc. My job now is to try and tie some of these Qualtroughs in with some of those who have answered my questionnaire.
Who would have believed that my two enquiry letters to San Diego and Rochester would have revealed so much!
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Any comments, errors or omissions
gratefully received received Editor
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