WHITEHOUSE FAMILY HISTORY CENTRE
Newsletter, 2nd April 2012
It’s a glorious afternoon here, 12 miles south of London, with the sun shining and our three plum trees all in blossom at the same time, which is most unusual. We have a Rivers Early Prolific, an unidentified plum, rather like a Tsar, which came with the house and crops incredibly heavily and a Victoria. You seldom see “Early Rivers” in the shops, probably because the fruit is smaller than most plums and not sweet enough to eat raw unless really ripe, but it has a wonderful flavour when stewed or made into jam. Actually, we need rain, fairly desperately and I need to get on with this newsletter...
Quarterly report
This last quarter has been just as busy as the one before. The big effort on computerising trees last autumn has had a knock-on effect, as I have been busy making amendments to them in the light of further information. However, my main activity has been to improve trees and records that involve the Cannock area. The villages of Cheslyn Hay and Great Wyrley, both near Cannock, probably had the highest density of Whitehouses anywhere in the world in the mid 1800s. My own surname frequency study found the name to be as “common” there as Smith and Jones are in the whole of England and Wales.
As to trees, I am especially grateful to David F. Whitehouse (WFHC 149), another assiduous researcher, who enabled me to connect his tree via various female lines to several others. As to records, I have extended the 1891 census transcript to cover Cannock town, Brewood, Bushbury, Coven Heath and Lapley. It has thus grown by 50 percent. I have also improved the referencing with WFHC correspondent numbers. The 1911 transcript covers the whole of Cannock Registration District (over 530 Whitehouses). Parish records coverage includes Cannock marriages and burials. The burials records include those from churches and cemeteries. I thank Sue Challenger (WFHC 229) for her contributions of cemetery records, which she extracted from work done by Pat Everiss and Carol Adshead. Other significant contributions have come from David F. Whitehouse, mentioned above, and from Jake Whitehouse (WFHC 003). I also thank Sue and David for pointing out errors in my draft schedule. Additionally, I have transcribed Whitehouses in the early Methodist baptism registers of Cheslyn Hay, finding several errors in other sources.
Turning to the wider picture, I made a big late assault on the 1911 census (England & Wales) transcription project, which has grown by a third, reaching about 53% of theoretical full coverage. Here I was helped, once again, by Jayne Sandles (WFHC 441), who completed the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire, so very many thanks to her. Such contributions are worth more than their face value, because of the encouragement they give me.
Parish records have been another feature of the quarter, with Whitehouse marriages at Rowley Regis, Walsall and Wolverhampton from 1754 to 1837 being put on spreadsheet. Existing transcripts, such as those made by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the Birmingham & Midland Society for Genealogy & Heraldry (BMSGH), are wonderful as indexes, but lack witnesses. Occasionally, the witnesses at a marriage give vital clues, which is where my transcripts can bring added value.
At this juncture, I must thank Steve Whitehouse (WFHC 240), who has given the data processing people at the LDS in Salt Lake City a nudge about the delay in putting Aston parish marriages into the new Family Search, while at the same time withdrawing of the facility to search by batch number in the old Family Search. They are now searchable in the new version, so I am hoping to work on Aston in the next quarter.
Progress with computerising trees has been difficult this quarter, but I have completed another 7 and the total outstanding is down to 30. There have been 5 new registrations.
I am still seeking help with transcribing the 1880 US census. Indeed, practically any offer of help with anything is likely to be gratefully received !
Wanted, alive
Correspondent 222, Don Whitehouse's last known address is 6 Wasdale Place, Bomaderry, NSW 2541, Australia. An e-mail to him bounced and I do not have a telephone number. I have sent him an airmail letter, but am not hopeful that this will find him as he is not in the Australian 'phone book at this address.
A spooky story
Fanny Whitehouse, born 1866, married Gerard Collier in June 1889 at the Cannock Registry Office. Their eldest child, Fanny, born in 1890, became interested in spirtualism at an early age. The story goes that when she was 14, she was attending a spiritualist meeting with her aunt, when the medium told her that her mother, whom Fanny had seen only an hour previously, had just died. Fanny rushed home in tears, to discover that she had indeed. This took place in the Longton (Staffordshire Potteries) area, but there is no death registration that fits these facts. Fanny was one of a family of 8 children and as Gerard was a coal miner, there would have been little money to spend on his wife’s burial. Perhaps the death was never registered, although this would be unusual in the 20th century. If so, one would expect Fanny the elder to have been buried at Longton Cemetery, but no one has so far produced any evidence to show that she died. Certainly, she is with the family on the 1901 census and not with them on the 1911 one. In the absence of such evidence, I prefer a more earthly explanation for these events, which I will leave to the imagination of readers.
One of the Collier family was Beatrice, born in the 4th quarter of 1885. She was registered as Beatrice M.G.S.R.A.M.A.A. Surely, it must be worth buying the certificate !
A grim story
E-mail received by one of my correspondents (WFHC 482) and passed on to me:
“I've recently purchased a very interesting book called 'A grim almanac of Lancashire' which has a small story for each day of the year. Most of the stories are from the 19th century and one concerns a young girl called Charlotte Whitehouse and from looking at the censuses, appears to be the one in your tree. The story goes as follows -
13th June, 1895 – At the Police Court at Leigh, 16 year old Charlotte Whitehouse of Robertshaw Street, Leigh was charged and committed for trial for the manslaughter of her 9 year old brother Thomas William. Charlotte's mother and sister stated that when Charlotte had come home on Friday, her mother had beaten her with a sweeping brush, upon which the prisoner had kicked over a paraffin lamp. This had exploded and burnt her brother so badly that he died the following Saturday.
The Bench thought that it was a weak case, and in fact, the Grand Jury at the Liverpool Assizes threw out the case in July of that year.”
A troublesome marriage certificate
“I checked the Bishop's Transcript for the marriage of Mary Whitehouse to John Cartmail on 8th July 1838 at Walsall St. Matthew and found that the second witness' name is shown unmistakeably clearly as Jane White. You will recollect that your certificate obtained from the GRO says John White. Both of these documents are mere copies. The GRO certificate is taken from a copy made by the church and sent to the GRO, while the Bishop's Transcript is also made by the church, and sent to the Bishop. There should be two original registers that the parties sign when in the church, one of which, most regrettably, is still with the church (rather than in an archive) and the other of which is with the Walsall Registrar. The man at Walsall St Matthew who made the transcript for me [for a fee] is in Australia and will not be returning until the middle of this month and even then, there is no guarantee that he will be willing to inspect the register again, for no fee.” (From my e-mail to a correspondent... ...and the GRO indexed the groom as Curtmail !)
Just in time
The 1891 census of Bushbury shows a daughter born to Frederick and Mary Whitehouse, just one and a half hours old. They hadn’t got round to naming her.
A poet for a season ?
Married at All Saints Church, Upper Norwood, on 28th November 1911
Percy Shelley BYSSHE, aged 26, fruit grower, to Katie Muriel CHRISTMAS, aged 29.
(The poet Percy Bysshe SHELLEY, born in 1792, takes the middle forename from the marriage of his great-grandfather in the 1600s).
Best wishes,
Keith