Working on Tree, New Discoveries!

I have been doing better about working on my tree, although I am still slacking off on writing regular blog posts. So I thought I would take a moment to write a quick update about some of my recent findings....

Several months ago I had been contacted by a gentleman named Bruce in Canada saying he was a match to a couple of tests that I manange and that he believed it is on my Simmons line, and he let me know that Simmons was not their original surname which is why I was having trouble getting past my 2x Great Grandfather George Simmons b 1841.

His theory is that George's parents are George Clements b 1801 and Mary Wagstaff, and that they used the Clements surname until sometime before the birth of their youngest daughter. I beleive there is some credience to his theory.

The oldest male son of George (1841) is George Thomas Wagstaff Simmons. That is point one in favor of a family connection to a Clements/Wagstaff couple. Also the marriage certificate for George to Emma Halsey says that his father's name was George and he was a Coachman.

I did take a quick look at his information, but since I was busy on different projects at the time I basically said thank you for the information, filed it in the back of my mind and didn't really pursure it. He was kind enough to give me viewer access to his DNA, which will prove relevant to the story here.

Recently I received an email from a woman saying she was trying to trace her family and she was a match to several of the tests I manage. I took a little time to check out how much she shared with the various tests. Lo and Behold, not only did she match me and my known cousins on the Newman/Simmons side, but she also matched Bruce! These means that we all probably descended from a common "Simmons" ancestor.

I contacted Bruce to tell him of this new match and we worked together to come up with a spreadsheet chart of all the shared matches between us. We now have a pretty good supportable theory on the descendants of George Clemments and Mary Wagstaff as we seem to have descendants of at least 3, possibly 4 of their 7 children.

We used a combination of old fashioned record research, and careful analysis of DNA matches to reach this conclusion. So what was a brick wall for me, has become another generation of ancestors! We are still working some of the DNA matches and maybe in those matches we will find descendants of some of the other children.

I am pretty excited about the breakthrough, and have hopes for further developments on this line.

Frederick Charles Newman, come out, come out wherever you are!

Frederick Charles Newman, come out, come out wherever you are! Seems he disappeared after 1891, or at least I can't find him after that point....

So I am looking for descendants of:
George Newman (b 1822 Chelmsford, Essex, England d 1868 Chelmsford, Essex, England He was a Printer/Composter) and
Mary Ann Bridge (b 1834 Essex, Southminister, England d 1911Chelmsford, Essex, England).

To my knowledge Mary Ann Bridge and George Newman had 5 children all born in Chelmsford, the youngest was born after George’s death.
They were:
George Henry b 1860 (1859 D Quarter)
Louisa Jane b 1862 (1861 S Quarter)
John William b 1864 (1863 S Quarter)
Frederick Charles (my great grandfather) b 02 November 1865 he married Mary Ann Simmons. Interesting story with these two, see below...
Alice Mary Newman b 1868 (1865 D Quarter)

After George’s death she married Francis (aka Frank) Willsher b White Colne, Essex, England.

1911 census says Mary Ann and Frank had 3 children, with 2 still living:
Mary Ann Willsher b1874
Florence Edith Willsher b 1876 (1876 J Quarter, Chelmsford)
Maud Minnie Willsher b 1879 (1878 S Quarter, Chelmsford)

On the 1891 census I have Frederick Charles (he was a billiard marker) and Mary Ann (Molly Ann) living in London, with their 2 sons (Frederick John and Eric Alexander)

In 1901 Mary Ann is living with her sister and brother in law, with another sister and brother in law in the next household. Frederick John is living with his maternal grandparents in St Albans, but I can't trace Frederick Charles or Eric in 1901. Although I do find an Eric Newman with correct birthdate registered at St John The Evangelist School father's name is listed as Frederick in July 1896...

In 1903 Mary Ann gets on a boat and comes to Philadelphia where she is met by her groom, license in hand. Problem is she has told him she is 10 yrs younger than she really is, and that she has never been married! (I have passenger list and marriage affidavit/license) When Frederick John came over a couple years later the passenger list says he was going to his "Aunt" and uncle. (Later in life she did finally admit that she was Fred and Eric's mother after making them call her Aunt Mabel for years). Side note: 2 of her sisters also immigrated to USA with their families.

Eric somehow was sent to Canada for reasons unknown to him. and eventually came down to Pennsylvania/New Jersey where his mom and brother were living.

I don't know what happened to Frederick Charles.

The story I heard growing up was that he gambled away their house and that is what broke up the family. A few years ago my oldest cousin on this line said he had heard that Frederick Charles had been hung for stealing a horse. I would like to find documentation as to what happened to Frederick Charles, part of the problem is Frederick Newman is a fairly common name, so finding the correct records for my great grandfather has been a challenge. Also, how and why Eric ended up in Canada before coming to America. I am thinking maybe tracing Frederick's family down might help me find out more about him.

I have tested with Ancestry as has my great uncle Eric's grandson Carl. Hoping that will help us find some answers.

Thirteen Months

Thirteen months since my last blog post.

Thirteen months of still letting other things interfere with something I love doing.

Thirteen months of letting urgent take priority over important.

I realized recently that my mindset and my way of thinking lately was leading to some resentments, discouragement and at times even some real feelings of anger. None of that is healthy or helpful. I kept telling myself that when "A" happens, then I can do "B".

Well, it doesn't look like "A" is going to happen anytime soon. And there really isn't anything I can do to make "A" happen, or at least nothing that I am willing to do.

Once I realized that, I had to decide if I was going to stay on the same treadmill of thinking (which was making me frustrated and unhappy) or if I was going to change my way of thinking and make some changes.

My decision is to try and change my way of thinking and look at ways to make the situation workable. Since I can't do anything about "A" I have to find a way to do "B" anyway.

Doing "B" means I have to take more control of my finances. Doing "B" means taking control of my way of thinking about things and my response to those things. Doing "B" means putting myself and my needs as a priority. And my needs include following my passions (like doing genealogy and writing).

I really hope that this time I managed to figure out a way to accomplish this. I thought I had set small enough goals last year to be successful. But even though I set goals, I didn't really make plans on how to meet those goals.

Part of problem for me in making structured plans is that my health is unpredictable, so saying I will do X on Mondays at 1 pm doesn't really work well for me. I have made to-do checklists, but they get set aside and I don't follow through. Maybe I am making them too detailed and complicated. I do tend to do that sometimes.

Maybe it is time to take a new look at those checklists and pare them down to a few basics, then with time as I build habits I can think about adding to my list.

Here is to it not being another thirteen months between blog posts.