Site Guide

Bradley, Bustin, Catt / Cattley, Courtney, Coyne, De Normanville, Divall, Griesel, Grubb, Holbrook, Hopkins, Ingersoll, Jeffery, Milleman, Molnar, Murray, Paver, Pearl, Rankin, Robson, Skinner, Smart
 
Banchory Devenick, Banbury, Birkenhead, Bloomsbury, Buxhall (Suffolk), Camberwell, Catford, Croydon, Deptford, Forest Gate, Greenwich, Hull, Ilford, Lambeth, Lewisham, Limehouse, Liverpool, Margate, Newcastle, Plaistow, Rotherhithe, Tenterden, Tranmere, West Ham

Follow the specific name links above. The places are not linked yet but give an idea of some of the roots: the Bradleys in Suffolk, East London and Essex, and the Murrays in central and south east London, while the Hopkins and Bustins are from Oxford, Merseyside and the north-east. I am afraid I like the narrative approach to family history, so if you just want the bare facts the name pages may appear very wordy! Click Family History Home to return to this page, and use the Find function (Ctrl F) to locate a particular name.

August 3rd 2008 Hard to believe it's a year since I added anything to this site. There haven't been any great family history breakthroughs. I've been concentrating on my father's life before 1950, and my own personal family story - both ongoing projects.

July 17th 2007 Have added a timeline for our Murrays - go to Murray timeline. You'll need to use the back arrow to return here.

April 14th 2007 It doesn't get much better than this! Following up a family lead on the date and a hunch on the place I have got the death certificate for Sarah Murray (née Jones) the wife of Andrew, and my ggg grandmother. She died on the 31st August 1847 at 61 Charrington Street, Somers Town, St Pancras at the age of 78 (putting her birth in 1769) from apoplexy. Her youngest son William, not yet married to Elizabeth de Normanville (1848) registered the death and described her as the widow of Andrew Murray, Purser in the East India Company's service. Did Andrew join the East India Company at a young age then move to the shore-based Powder Mills, then after his marriage in 1800 retire to become a hairdresser in Bloomsbury? Watch this space!

March 23rd 2007 More Cattley baptisms have surfaced at the London Metropolitan Archives: and at St James Hatcham, not sure how I missed them last time! William Charles Cattley was baptised Jan. 12 1866, Isaac is a stoker and the address is 6 Clifton Rd., but no date of birth is given. Albert Cattley was baptised April 25 1871 (born 10 June 1870), Isaac is still a stoker, and the adddress is 15 Clifton Rd., as it had been on the baptism of Stephen James in 1867. So with Louisa Margaret (bap. 23 Feb 1873, b. 21 Oct 1872) that accounts for four of Isaac and Louisa's children, but I have still not found my Elizabeth Alice, who was born around 1863/4, in any of the Deptford parishes, or the somewhat suspect Louise (b. c1861 in Camberwell?) or Emma born in 1875 rather too long after Isaac's death in 1873.

Louisa Robson's baptism at St. Mary's Lewisham on Jan 31st 1844 certainly suggests that her parents, John Robson and Susannah Rosina [Divall] were married at the time, but I still can't find the marriage which must have taken place after the 1841 census. John Robson is consistently described as a coachman. In 1861 Susannah is a widow when she marries William Charles Cater. Isaac and Louisa are the witnesses a week before their own marriage. Louisa notably cannot sign her name though Isaac can - so he must have colluded in his re-naming as a Cattley, as that is how he signed on both marriage entries. Confusingly their banns at St Paul Deptford are in the names of Louisa Robinson and Isaac Cattley - so is that where the mis-naming of Isaac crept in?

February 26th 2007 I have found Isaac Cattley at last - or rather Isaac Catt, as that is the name he grew up and died with. I searched Ancestry for his wife in the 1871 census as she consistently called herself Louisa (about the only consistent name in the family) and was born 31 December 1843 in Lewisham. And there was the family transcribed with the surname Cart - as only the final T had been crossed - living in Clifton Road, Deptford. (See March 1st 2006). More to the point Isaac is there too, as an Engine driver (Railway), aged 31 and born in Tenterden, Kent. So how did the name get to be Cattley on Louisa and Isaac's marriage certificate and other official documents? And their children's names? I like to think Louisa wanted to be associated with the south London Russia merchant Cattleys and decided to upmarket the family name whenever she could! Much as Isaac is a farmer not a fireman on their marriage certificate - or was that a genuine mishearing or mistranscription? See new Isaac and Louisa page for more details.

February 20th 2007 Having been reminded of the existence of Gazettes Online, I remembered that it listed patents. I already have a copy of a patent for a chain pump that Charles Henry Murray (my gg grandfather) invented, and I'd always wondered if there were any more of his inventions out there, especially as my mother always referred to the working models (plural) of his machinery that they were allowed to play with when, as children, they were ill, not to mention two medals. His son-in-law George Bryce registered his death and described his occupation as Inventor. Nevertheless I was surprised at the number of references that came up for Patents with his name in the London Gazette in the 1860s and 1870s. The family story is that he designed the machinery that built the Embankment, and with patents for cutting off underwater piles, and new models of skips for raising ballast it seems this might be at least partially true. More research is needed here ...

February 1st 2007 I am finding more and more Essex connections. My Great grandmother Ann Skinner appears twice (not that unusual an occurrence) on the 1841 census in West Ham: once at home as an eleven year old member of the extended Skinner family, and again at the same premises as John Took, a journeyman baker, and a married couple. Was she a servant? She was in 1851. The 1841 Skinner family consists of Mary Skinner and her children - Emma, Anne, John, Sarah and Henry - her mother Mary Holbrook, and brother Robert Holbrook. Anne's father, John Skinner had died in 1838 a few months before the birth of the youngest child, Henry. Both Mary Holbrook and Mary Skinner died in 1842, and Robert Holbrook married in 1843. Not surprisingly the children are scattered on the 1851 census.

October 24th 2006 Found Charles Henry Murray's birth and baptism details at last. Tried the other church in Bloomsbury - St. George - at the London Metropolitan Archives and there he is along with brothers Andrew John, Robert and the William who went off to Australia. Their parents are Andrew and Sarah - presumably the Andrew Murray and Sarah Jones who married at St George's Hanover Square on 17th October 1800, and the same Andrew Murray baptised in 1774 in Banchory Devenick. The address is Everett Street, and Andrew's occupation is Hair Dresser - a far cry from the Superintendent of the Powder Works at Hounslow and the Purser of the marriage certificates for Charles Henry and William. The other children - James (born 1801) and Margaret (born 1804) must have been baptised in a different parish. So Charles Henry Murray my great great grandfather was born on January 3rd 1813, and baptised on January 31st 1813 at St George, Bloomsbury Way, Holborn. See March 1st 2006 for failed attempt at St. Giles Bloomsbury!

October 8th 2006 I don't know if anyone other than me reads this - I find it useful to remind myself where I've got to - but it's been a busy summer with not much time for family history research. However some things have come to light ...

One reason for stopping off in Edinburgh on the way to Skye was to visit New Register House. I've been pursuing Scots on my side and Tony's. So I did some research on my Murrays, following up the OPRs traced through ScotlandsPeople. This is all dependent on the accuracy of the information received from my Australian contact, but the Murrays and Sims were prolific families in Banchory Devenick in the 1700s. My 3g grandfather Andrew was baptised on May 26 1774, and the residence is the Miln of Banchory - his parents are John and Elspet Sim (slight problem here as all the other Murrays baptised to John Murray are with his wife Margaret Sim! - nothing is ever quite straightforward). The first Murray baptised from the Mill of Banchory was John in September 1766, before that the residence was Tillihowes (Tilliehowes, Tillyhowes) with the first child baptised being Isabel in 1759 (witnesses James Milne and Robert Sim). There were Sim baptisms from the Mill of Banchory in at least 1759 and 1762. So were the Murrays millers? As millers were the first engineers this would help explain the engineers all through the following generations right up to today.

We went to a family wedding at the beginning of September, and as we are now the older generation, it's down to pumping cousins for any memories they might have. So I tried to find out if anyone of them knew how my parents met: was it through a family or wartime friend connection? Apparently not. My father was working on the farm managed by his sister's husband, and my mother appears to have answered an advert for a housekeeper at the same place. I suppose I could check the Hampshire Chronicle for 1945-47 ...

August 3rd 2006 GenesReunited seems to be getting overheated - I get contacted by people who don't admit to it, and the Hot Matches include names that I don't have on my tree. Perhaps it's the heatwave!

July 21st 2006 Casually asked Tony who the elderly Elizabeth was who attended Hopkins family gatherings when we first met in the sixties, and he suddenly remembered Lizzie Clampitt. She married Jimmy (Hugo James) Cress the brother of the William Cress who married Tony's aunt Winnie. But that wasn't the only family connection. It turns out that she was also a cousin of his grandfather, the daughter of Eliza Courtney (sister to Sarah) and James Heaton Clampitt. All the Wirral Clampitts were descended from one Isaac Clampitt, a fisherman born in Bovey Tracey in Devon in 1768, who is living in Parkgate in 1841, with his steadily extending family. Lizzie Clampitt of course would have known the Hopkins/Courtney family secrets, and she was probably the source of the rumours of the Vestey/Dewhurst link. She was also aware that the family (ie the Courtneys it now appears) were a long established Tranmere family. She remained known by her maiden name as she didn't marry until she was in her sixties just after the Second World War, when she retired from her job at Lever Brothers, where she had been a much feared forewoman. She died in 1979 at the age of 90.

May 20th 2006 At last! I have found the marriage of Harriet Eliza Murray to Frederick Ingersoll in Greenwich in 1906 - only 12 years after the birth of their first child. I wonder what finally prompted them to get legal?

Got proof today through a GR contact that William Murray did settle in South Australia, and re-marry there and start a new family. See new page on the De Normanvilles.

April 30th 2006 Update on the Bradleys. I knew the Romford registration district covered a large area including the modern boroughs of Redbridge, Havering and Barking - so I didn't really expect them to have lived in Romford itself - where I quite coincidentally worked when we first moved into Essex. However they didn't live too far away, and the family address seems to have been 1 Chadwell Avenue, Ilford. This is where Anne Eliza Bradley (ms Smart) died on the 8th April 1912 aged 59, and is the address given on the marriage certificate of my aunt Ada in November 1912. Aunt Eleanor married in St Edward's Church in the marketplace, Romford in 1907 and the address is Alandale, Mildmay Rd., Romford. John Pearl Bradley died on the 26th April 1915 at 41 Priory Rd., Barking. I already knew his oldest son Alfred by his first wife had been married in Brentwood, so I seem to have unwittingly come home to Essex!.

John Pearl Bradley's parents both died at 18 Plaistow Rd., West Ham: John Bradley in 1870 at age 53, and Sarah Bradley (ms Pearl) in1882 at age 66. His grandmother Christian Bradley (ms Otterwell) died in Buxhall 28 November 1854 at the age of 82.

I have a new Buxhall Bradley contact in New Zealand: a descendant of Susan Bradley the daughter of James and Christian, who married John Lewis.

Now that I have access to Ancestry at work I have some more census data which will find its way onto the Bradley listing shortly.

March 19th 2006 Sometime between 1901 and 1907 my father and his family moved from West Ham into the Romford registration district. His sisters Eleanor and Ada both married in that district in 1907 and 1912 respectively, and his parents both died there: Annie Eliza Bradley in 1912, and John Pearl Bradley in 1915. It's curently taking 15 working days to get certificates so I have to wait a while to confirm their new address. His sister Ethel, appears to have left home before marrying - was she a teacher? - as she married in Windsor in 1911. After the death of their father the younger members of the family (Dorothy, Annie and Sidney) must have moved to live with their married sister Ethel in West London. Dorothy and Annie (Nance) both married in Brentford in 1917 and 1925. I don't have my father's military service record, but I suspect he joined the Royal Artillery as soon as he was old enough. He married his first wife in Dunbar in Scotland in 1926.

March 5th 2006 Spotted a likely Molnar contact on GenesReunited - and yes he is a descendant of my grandmother's brother Louis Alexander Molnar. The nearest family contact I have made so far!

March 2nd 2006 I have had a contact through Genes Reunited from another descendant of James Courtney of Tranmere. This is Tony's side of the family, there were quite a lot of Courtneys, so I'm not really surprised to have encountered others at last.

March 1st 2006 I spent a frustrating day at the London Metropolitan Archives on Monday 27th February. Charles Henry Murray was not baptised at St Giles in the Fields between 1812 and 1819. On the 1851 census he gives his place of birth as St Giles, Middx., and in 1861 as Bloomsbury, Middx. In following censuses he just puts down Middlesex. So St Giles in the Fields seemed a fairly likely place to try. He may well have been born there, but not baptised.

I did manage to find two further references to confirm the existence of the elusive Isaac Cattley. His name is on the baptism registers for St James Hatcham for two of his children: Stephen James (1868, 15 Clifton Road, Fire man) and Louisa Margaret (1873, 5 Angus Street, Stoker). No sign of Albert (1870), or Emma (1875), nor of my Great grandmother Elizabeth Alice (1864?) whose birth was not registered either. This does confirm his steam engine/railway connections especially as they lived at New Cross - the registers are full of railway employees.

Finally I was able to confirm that Harriet Eliza Murray did not marry Frederick Ingersoll in St Mary's, Lewisham between 1892 and 1900. Nor was Charles Frederick Murray buried there in 1892 (though I didn't really expect him to have been!)

February 2006 I am currently researching the Murray line particularly trying to find the elusive Andrew born around 1780, and Superintendent of the Powder Mills at Hounslow in 1841. This has led on a lateral line to the De Normanvilles: Elizabeth, either the daughter, or perhaps grand daughter, of the Marquis de Normanville who fled France in 1792 married Andrew's son William in 1842. Her brother was an engineer working in London, and so were Charles and William Murray the aforementioned Andrew's sons. The link was made by a reference in Charles' will (1892) to his nephew Andrew Hodges de Normanville Murray (born to William and Elizabeth in 1861). Surely a name to be remembered, but one that seems to have disappeared without trace!

Following up a deed of grave given by William Murray to his brother Charles in 1861, it would appear that Elizabeth died in 1861 following the birth of Andrew. She is buried at Kensal Green. Her death announcement in the Times, and that of Andrew's birth, have both been placed by William Murray, CE, of Adelaide South Australia. I assume CE denotes Civil (or Chartered?) Engineer, as that is his status on his son Andrew's birth certificate. On his marriage certificate he gave his occupation as Surveyor. Searching the Adelaide City Council archives I came across references to a W. or William Murray who was City Surveyor pro tem, or, acting, in 1857 - can this be my William? It is perhaps no coincidence that William Louis de Normanville, Borough Surveyor and creator of Leamington Spa, and probably nephew to William Murray, went to South Australia in the 1860s where he worked in the Government Civil Engineers Department. There is a town south of Adelaide called Normanville - coincidence again?