JONES and HENGLER (HANGLER) update

 This is the final one of three updates about the documentary research I've been doing on my own ancestry during the past month.  This time, it concerns my firework making ancestors. 

I've started looking at this branch again, having made the 'mistake' of mentioning to one of my friends about how some of my ancestors used to produce firework displays at the ends of circus and musical performances.  I'd forgotten that my friend is involved with our local family history society, but I imagine it's not a coincidence that I was later contacted with the question, "Could you write a piece about them for the journal?"

Initial 'panic' - do I know enough to write something of sufficient interest to the local members?  And am I sure of all my facts?  This is another family whose period of activity starts in the late 1700s, and they originate in Germany, so much of the story is second hand, and that is always a concern when it comes to the reliability of the information.

But then FindMyPast’s newspaper collection came to the rescue - while the family primarily lived in London, they did travel around the country to put on performances and, lo and behold, there are reports of them putting on events in this very area.  So I am hoping to create an interesting piece, just summarizing the family line and their wider activities, before using the specifics from those events to provide the local aspect.  

Who knows, some of the readers' ancestors might even have been at the performances!

I'm not going to write much about the family here now, but I thought I'd just mention some of the recent discoveries, which aren't directly relevant to the article.

The earliest known ancestor for this family line is John Michael HENGLER, who was buried on the 18th February, 1802, in Southwark, London.  There are almost seventy family trees on Ancestry for him, some of which now show a birthdate of 1759, along with potential parents' names.  I hadn't seen this information before, which comes from a database on Ancestry called "Germany, Select Births and Baptisms, 1558-1898". But, since I haven't investigated the details further, and there are other pedigrees that give his birth as around 1740, I won't be adding these earlier generations to my tree just yet.  I have my doubts as to whether someone born in 1759 would have been old enough to have served as a Lieutenant in the Hanoverian Artillery, and developed the skills necessary for producing large scale firework displays, before moving to London in around 1780 and setting up a firework company three years later. (But I could be wrong!)

It is often helpful to research more widely than just one's own direct lines.  Whether that is in the form of a One-Name, or a One- Place, Study, or using the "Friends, Acquaintances, & Neighbours" (FANs) principle of developing clusters of the people who were connected to 'your' people, these methods of researching can be very helpful in solving some of the more difficult genealogical problems, such as identifying who is who, when there are several people with the same names and ages, in the same area, or when individual records have insufficient information to confirm identification.  It's useful to build up biographical profiles of the individual, and to ensure you aren't creating a 'fictional' person in your tree, through a mix of references that actually relate to several different people.

But sometimes such research doesn't (immediately) lead to a solution - just to another sad story.

In the 1841 census¹, John Michael's widow, Sarah, aged 70 and now remarried, so under the surname FIELD, was living with her daughter, Magdalen JONES, aged 45, along with a Harriet JONES, aged 5.  The occupations of Sarah and Magdalen were given as "artist in fireworks".  Their neighbours were an Elizabeth CANNON, aged 30, with two children, Elizabeth aged 4, and Sarah, aged 1.  Also in the house was a Thomas NASH, aged 20, and a Henry CORBY, aged 40.  Elizabeth CANNON and Thomas NASH were both listed as firework makers.  

I had previously seen that some pedigrees gave a maiden name of "CANNON" for Sarah, but it was only when searching recently that I found potential confirmation of this, in the parish records for St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, on Ancestry, where, on the 15th September 1783, "Michael HANGLER" married Sarah CANNON.  So I decided to purchase the birth certificate for the one year old Sarah CANNON, to see if that might eventually lead to more information about the earlier generations of the CANNON family. 

The certificate showed that Sarah was born on the 25 February 1840. Her father was a William CANNON and Elizabeth's maiden name was NASH.  Their address was Edwards Place, Westminster Road, the same as in the census entry.  

William CANNON and Elizabeth NASH are possibly the couple who married in St. Bride Fleet Street, London, England, on the 5th June 1830.  Sarah CANNON's birth certificate did not indicate that William was deceased but, as I searched the BMDs and newspapers, I soon discovered newspaper reports of two accidents he seems to have been involved in, the second of which led to his death.  I also found a record of his burial in St George the Martyr, Southwark, on 31 Jul 1839, aged 30.

The first accident was in 1835, and was reported in several newspapers.  The following is from the London Packet and New Lloyd's Evening Post, 08 July 1835, available through FindMyPast.

I am reasonably confident that this is the correct William CANNON, since he is described as an artist in fireworks, from Westminster Road.  But I have noted that it mentions his mother being present, but not the fact that he was married.  (And it's a shame that the report doesn't give his mother's first name!)

The second accident, which led to his death, took place in 1839.  Again it was widely reported - the following being from the Blackburn Standard, 31 July 1839, available through FindMyPast.

Another article, from the Morning Herald (London), 27 July 1839, indicated that William CANNON had told his wife, after his admission to the hospital, that the boy, on leaving the room, had "slammed the door sharply after him, and that the current of air caused by the violent shutting of the door, blew a spark from the candle into some firework composition which was spread on a bench to dry.  The fatal explosion instantly took place."

Elizabeth must have been in the early stages of pregnancy at the time of William's death, since the articles only mention one child, and Sarah was born seven months later.  The reference to Elizabeth's brother in the article suggests that the Thomas NASH in the 1841 census might be that brother.

So that's one sad story.

There's a potential second sad story, which stems from a greater appreciation that "John Michael HENGLER" can appear as just "Michael HANGLER", and that it's therefore worth searching for  HANGLER entries, as well as "HENGLER", "ENGLER" etc.  

I'd probably always known this, at some level, because the baptisms of two of the children usually recorded as born to John Michael and Sarah HENGLER (Henry Michael, bapt. 30 June 1784, and Magdalen Elizabeth, bapt. 8 June 1788), as well as the burial of a third child, (Tobias Joseph, bur. 1 Sept 1786), are all under the surname HANGLER in the  "All London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812" database on Ancestry, with the parents listed as Michael and Sarah (ignoring the one record that has the father as "Richard" - despite the image clearly showing Michael!)

A search on Ancestry (UK and Ireland) produces 120 results for HANGLER, and on FindMyPast (Britain), just 44 results, so it is not a common spelling.  When I narrowed the dates down to an expected range for children to John Michael and Sarah, in addition to the known London events, I found a burial of a Barbara HANGLER, daughter of a Michael, in Hull, on the 31 October 1791.  Intrigued, I tried the HENGLER spelling, and found, not just the baptism of Tobias Joseph in London (8 Mar 1786), but also the baptism of a Barbara HENGLER in Nottingham, on 28 Mar 1790, parents Michael and Sarah.

The HENGLERS are known to have travelled around the country producing firework displays.  The later generations certainly performed in both Nottingham and Hull². 

Although I haven't been able to find any newspaper reports of them being in those cities, in those particular years, could it be that there was a fourth child, now long since forgotten in the modern accounts of the family? 

It would be interesting to know if the John Martin Turner Circus Research Collection³, which contains a family tree for the HENGLERs (along with a vast quantity of information relating to the family, and other circus performers), mentions Barbara.

Notes & Sources

1. 1841 census entry:  HO107; Piece: 1086; Book: 9; Civil Parish: St George The Martyr; County: Surrey; Enumeration District: 18; Folio: 10; Page: 13;

2. Newspapers containing adverts for displays of fireworks by the HENGLER family in Hull and in Nottingham appear in The Hull Packet 28 July 1807, and The Nottingham Journal 29 June 1838

3. Details about the John Martin Turner's Circus Research Collection, held at the National Fairground Archive, University of Sheffield Library: https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/2c11bc5a-26a5-343a-9fc2-dd1dfe2f420f , https://archives.shef.ac.uk/repositories/2/resources/10 .

JONES and SAUNDERS update (and possibly a little rant!)

 This is the second of my three surname updates for March.  This one was prompted by a query from a cousin's son, who is also researching his family history.  Our shared ancestry is on the paternal side of my family and the query specifically related to my 3xgreat grandparents, William JONES (abt 1809 - 1887) and his wife, Hannah, formerly SAUNDERS (abt 1814 - 1890) who lived in the parish of Llanigon, Breconshire.

Now, I've never properly researched this couple - like many of my 'non-PARRY' branches, the original research on them was carried out by my Dad, who started researching in the early 1980s.  Dad was a conscientious researcher of both local and family history.  However, compared to today, very little information was easily available and so he often did have to rely on (frequently paid) researchers for sources, such as parish registers and censuses. These records tended to be held in London, or in archives local to the relevant area.  Since my parents have now passed away, it's always been my intention to go through all their old paperwork, to confirm (or disprove) the details of our family, and also to develop the research further, particularly now that DNA testing makes it possible to be even more certain about connections.

But that's still on my "ToDo" list.

The details being queried were Hannah's birthplace (Ruhlen, Radnorshire, according to Dad's information, rather than Llanigon, Breconshire, which every census that includes a birth parish indicates), and the maiden name of Hannah, since the only marriage entry for those names seems to be in Bedwellty, Monmouthshire, on 29 July 1834, whereas there is another possible marriage of a William JONES to a Hannah WILLIAMS that took place in Glasbury, a parish on the border of Breconshire and Radnorshire, on 1st August 1835.   Since 'my' William and Hannah are living in Glasbury in the 1841 census, this later one does seem to be the more likely marriage.

But that doesn't make it the right one!

So, over last weekend, I went through some of Dad’s correspondence and found that he had obtained a possible birth certificate for my 2xgreat grandmother, Sarah JONES, back in 1994.  The birth at "Tregoid" (usually spelt Tregoyd), one of the hamlets in Glasbury, Breconshire, took place on the 21st July 1842, and Sarah was the daughter of a William JONES and Hannah, formerly SAUNDERS.

As I read through Dad's correspondence with researchers in the area, I could see that there were times when he doubted whether this was the correct birth registration.  But, eventually, he was able to obtain the birth certificate for one of Sarah's brothers, Lewis, who Dad had identified by working back from the details for an elderly aunt, who used to live with Dad's family, when he was growing up.  Again, the certificate showed the maiden name of Hannah, Lewis's mother, as SAUNDERS.  So I was reasonably confident that the mother's maiden name was correct but, just to add more evidence, I searched in the GRO for birth registrations of the other children.  Interestingly, some of the children's births were registered, but others' were not:

The children of William and Hannah JONES:

I have heard it said that, in the early days of civil registration, when the responsibility for getting births registered lay with the Registrar, rather than the parents, some people viewed baptism as an 'alternative' and therefore did either one, or the other.  It would be purely speculation on my part, to suggest that William and Hannah might have been acting under this impression, registering Sarah maybe because it was easier (or the Registrar followed up the birth) and then, not registering Jeremiah, possibly because the minister insisted on baptising both Jeremiah and his older sister, making baptism seem more important.  

I'll never know, but it can be interesting to ask "Why?" when we find variations in our ancestors' behaviour over time. 

Anyway, purchase of the digital image for the registration of Thomas's birth, also showed his mother's maiden name as SAUNDERS, and I haven't found another family in the censuses etc, whose children could account for these civil registration entries.

I also knew there was potentially additional confirmation of a SAUNDERS connection, based on a DNA match from 23andMe, who I had been in contact with some years ago.  They descend from a brother of Hannah - he, and Hannah's parents, Daniel SAUNDERS and Elizabeth, formerly LEWIS, emigrated to America.  But the shared DNA is only a 14cM segment so, although it is suggestive of the SAUNDERS link, it was always possible that we share other ancestry from the area, so I couldn't rely on the DNA alone. There needed to be documentary evidence, as well.

So, that was Hannah's maiden name dealt with - but what about that "Rhulen" birthplace?

I eventually traced that back to what appears to be census entries supplied to Dad in 1993, by a researcher in Gwent:

Now, it's apparent that the researcher has added some additional details (census enumerators can't usually forecast death and burial dates! ☺)  

But, knowing the format of a census entry, I think most of us would probably read the 1851 details as if the birthplaces have been transcribed from the census.

However, these are the relevant portions of the actual census entries, from Ancestry:

1851 census:

1871 census

Since the images might be a bit hard to read, working down from William, the birthplaces are: Llanigon, Llanigon, Glasbury, Glasbury, Llanigon, Glynfach, and all of them are in Breconshire.  

So, as you can see, the birthplaces that were supplied to Dad, as if from the 1851 census, for Hannah, and three of their children, are totally incorrect.

The age for Thomas in the 1871 details is also wrong, since it is 19, not 10!

Perhaps I'd be doing the researcher a disservice, if I had a little rant, about how wrong the information is.  Perhaps they only had access to an index of names and ages, and everything else was just what the researcher 'thought' was correct.  

But it is not clear!  

There is no indication that other sources were used, even when, later, Dad queried the information.  So, as a result, my Dad spent years searching for Hannah's birth in the wrong place! 

Of course, it’s not just individuals who make such mistakes - during the course of checking the records for this family, I discovered that some marriages in Grosmont, Monmouthshire appear on Ancestry as having taken place in Cwmcarvon, Monmouthshire. And some burials in Llanelli, Breconshire appear on FindMyPast as being at Llanfihangel Pontymoile. 

Is it any wonder that we sometimes struggle to find the records we are looking for!

NAYLOR/NAYLER family research update

 I’ve been making progress with several branches of my family over this past month and, rather than lumping all the activity on them together into one ‘mixed bag of updates' post, as I had originally intended, I'm going to split them into three smaller posts, relating to each surname. So this first post is about progress on the NAYLER (NAYLOR)¹ line.

As I wrote on 5 February, when following up two recent new DNA matches at Ancestry, I have a cluster of matches who all seem to connect to me through the NAYLER family. I'd therefore made a start on confirming the information for that branch, which previously was just in a rough version derived mainly from other people's trees. I ended that post with details of a possible epitaph in St John The Baptist Church, Gloucester.  

Looking on Wikitree later, I discovered that someone had created a profile there for the Herald, George NAYLER (1764-1831)², along with profiles for his wife & three children.  I'm assuming that this was possibly done because George classes as a 'notable person', since the profiles for George and two of his children had then been orphaned.  So I have adopted those. I also created a free space profile for the epitaph³, which will provide another way of showing the connections between members of the family.  I do like the ability to include such pages on Wikitree, along with 'Research Notes' etc, on individual people's profiles - one of my concerns about family tree programs has always been that, once people are connected as parents/children to each other, it isn't obvious what evidence the relationship is based on, and it becomes more difficult to identify those connections that are just based on assumptions.  These options on Wikitree can be used to make it clear what information is reliable and what is still speculative.

One of the next steps was to try to confirm the epitaph.  Searching for St John The Baptist Church in Gloucester, I discovered that it still exists, but is now a Methodist Church called St John's Northgate⁴.   It seemed a bit strange to contact a minister directly, just to ask about their building, but eventually I decided to send an email.  Of course, I didn't realise that, the very next day, at the Malvern Family History Fair, there would be a stand from the Gloucester Family History Society and volunteers there very kindly also took details of my query.  

And so it is that I now have, not just confirmation that the monuments still exist, but photographs of them, from both sources, as well as a copy of a booklet showing all the monuments in St Johns, produced by the late Alan Morgan, who was a member of the church. Credit is also given in the booklet for information supplied by Dr Robert Tucker.

My thanks to the staff of the Methodist Church, and to the volunteers, Sue and Dave, from the GFHS, for dealing with my query. 

Updating the pages on Wikitree is one of my next tasks.

As well as adopting the profiles of the Herald and two of his daughters, I had created profiles for his father, George NAYLER (1722 - 1780)⁵, and for his grandfather, Joshua NAYLER (abt 1683 - 1750)⁶, who are both mentioned on the memorial.  

Joshua NAYLER, who died on the 14th December 1750, and was buried in St John's⁷, was described as a "Captain" in the epitaph, and is currently the earliest known ancestor in the NAYLER line. So he makes a good starting point for adding information about the rest of the descendants.

However, there is already an issue with regard to Joshua - who did he marry?

Over twenty family trees on Ancestry have claimed the marriage of a Joshua NAYLER to a Mary WISE, which took place in St Martin-In-The-Fields, London, Westminster, England, on 5 Sep 1717⁸, as the relevant marriage for Joshua, before his children were all born in Hull between 1719-1724. 

The marriage in London is currently the only marriage that appears on Ancestry for a Joshua, at about the right time, so I can understand why people might think that this one ‘must’ be the correct one.

However, FindMyPast shows a marriage of a Joshua NAYLER to a Mary GALL as having taken place on 30 Jan 1718, in Cottingham, Yorkshire⁹, and I wonder whether this might be a more likely marriage, considering that Cottingham is only about four miles away from the centre of Hull.

The marriage was by licence and I now have a copy of the licence from the Borthwick Institute for Archives, at the University of York.  Some of the document is in Latin, but, as far as I can work out, Joshua was described in the initial bond portion as of Newland, in the county of York, yeoman, and then, by the time of the marriage, he was described as of the parish of Cottingham, a sailor, aged 24.  

His occupation as a sailor at that time could potentially fit with him being described as a captain in the epitaph by the time of his death. However, the age would mean he was born in 1694, which would only make him 56 in 1750, rather than the 67 as stated in the epitaph.

Unfortunately, as with so many early records, there isn’t sufficient information in any of the documents to conclusively connect relevant entries together.  Is it more likely that the age of the Cottingham Joshua (or on the epitaph) is incorrect, or that a couple, who were both described as of the parish in London when they married, then moved almost 200 miles north to settle down?

Or is there another possibility that doesn't even appear in the currently available databases?

Perhaps DNA might eventually help to answer this question, by indicating a connection to descendants of either the GALL, or the WISE, families.  However, since Joshua is my 6th great grandfather, any such matches are likely to be related to me at about 7th cousin level, which is well beyond the reliable level of autosomal DNA testing.¹⁰

So Joshua has now become the "brick wall" of my NAYLER ancestral line.  

Notes and Sources

1. Many of the sources mentioned here use the spelling NAYLER.  However, the more recent generations of my ancestors often appear in records with the spelling as NAYLOR. 

2. The profile of George NAYLER (1764-1831) Herald, on Wikitree: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Nayler-58

        3. The Wikitree freespace page for the epitaph: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Nayler_epitaphs_%28said_to_be_in_St._John_the_Baptist%27s_Church%2C_Gloucester.%29

4. St John's Northgate: https://www.gloucestershiremethodist.org.uk/churches-old/gloucester-st-johns.html

5. Wikitree profile for George NAYLER (1722 - 1780): https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Nayler-126

6. Wikitree profile for Joshua NAYLER (abt 1683 - 1750): https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Nayler-127

7. Source for Joshua's burial: "Ancestry.com. Gloucestershire, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1813 [database on-line]."

8. The (potentially incorrect) marriage, included on many Ancestry pedigrees, is from the "Ancestry.com. Westminster, London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1558-1812 [database on-line]", as well as appearing in the "Ancestry.com. England, Select Marriages, 1538-1973 [database on-line]."

9. The Cottingham marriage is in the "Yorkshire Marriages" and the "Yorkshire, Archbishop Of York Marriage Licences Index, 1613-1839" on FindMyPast

10. The reliability of Autosomal DNA testing: https://isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_DNA