Pursuing the Dixons of Ryedale

Pursuing the Dixons of Ryedale - Part 2

It's amazing what you can find in a day or two. I've been making good use of the parish registers in Ryedale and have been able to find answers to things i was looking. As a genealogist, anything that corroborates the date you have - or the assumptions - is much sought after. I answered one question but potentially opened up another. I knew that there were definitw connections to Lastingham, Kirkbymoorside and Helmsley.

Thomas Dixon, marriage and movements.

I knew that Thomas Dixon (born about 1804) was a stone mason - and that he had lived in Lastingham. He had also given his birth location as Lastingham in the 1841 census.

However, a careful search of the Lastingham parish registers, generated nothing to confirm this. He actually belonged (according to the Lastingham parish registers) to the kirkbymoorside parish though when he married his wife - Mary Cook. This marriage took place in 1824. It suggests that he moved around a bit. The reason i say this is because i could not find a record for his birth in Kirkbymoorside parish registers also. Nor in Helmsley. In fact i struggled to find it almost anywhere.

Thomas with the parish listed as Kirkbymoorside and not Lastingham

I also learned something else unusual. Mary appears to have remarried (the surname Keech with a Bedfordshire connection crops up) though this needs validation. Thomas seems to never appear in the 1851 census - nor does his family as we see them in 1841. It is highly probable he died in his mid to perhaps late 30's. His son John Dixon (my 3rd great-grandfather) would have been quite young - at best a teenager - when that happened. He was fortunately old enough to have been apprenticed in to the trade that his father was doing - stone masonry.

I am still looking so i cannot take this at face value. More to come.

Comments

Charlotte Simms, her son born out of wedlock, and who the probable father was.

As i go through my family tree i often mark down individuals for further consideration, especially if they are not priority research targets, and especially if initial research yields little. One such person was Charlotte Simms . I came across her when i was filling out the family of my 2nd great-grandfather William Simms. I found her, and marked her down with her year of birth, which was 1876 and in Brailes. I tend not to go into huge detail on indirect descendants of my connections straight away - and, even less so, those that are daughters. These can be, and are, explored at a later date. However i came across a curious article about a young girl called Charlotte Simms who simply had to be the same person. The story, published on the 14th of April 1892, and warranted deeper investigation. Article published 14th of April 1892 She was making a case against a young boy called Frank Bloxham that he was the father of her son born just a couple of months before on the 2nd of Jun...

Jack Dixon, and the rumour of his decapitation...

When i spoke to my first DNA contact within the Dixon family one of the first things they told me about Jack Dixon [1928-1968] ( who i may be more directly related to than would initially be considered ) was that he had been decapitated in a fatal road accident, in Surrey, in the late 1960's. It is not in our immediate thoughts to question such things. In fact a quick turn up of the registers of deaths does indeed confirm his death. I left that to lie for a while in favour of other tasks and research i wanted to do but the graphic nature of his death kept coming back as a question mark in my mind. I made a careful search of local newspapers which turned up nothing of this grisly death. I guess the question started to form in my mind that... was he really even killed in a car accident? This is a prime case when, outside of a registry or death, we absolutely need a death certificate. I ordered one and it answered my questions. Something also circumstantial worthy of ...

The family of Emil Winker - Part 2

In the last article we discuss the immediate birth, immigration and subsequent family of Emil Winker (1866-1919). Now we need to delver deeper into who his parents and siblings were, where they came from, and where they went. We are confident that Emil was born in Spaichingen, Wurttemberg deep in the southern part of Germany at real crossroads in Europe. Switzerland, Luxembourg, Austria are all in close proximity. Spaichingen, Wurttemberg In Emil's marriage to Katherine Schroeder, in 1898, we learned of his parents names. Parents Lawrence and Elisabeth This gives us our first starting point... although, finding a marriage between Lawrence and Elisabeth, anywhere in Germany, proves initially troublesome. We know for a certainty they were both native-born Germans like their son. This is a fact and there would have been no reason to lie about that on the census returns when listing their parents birth country. Locating them in records from Wurttemberg will prove...

Dixon and Simms Family History Blog

Search This Blog