Pursuing the Dixons of Ryedale

I am just putting some notes down as I rework this part of the tree. A (biological) cousin of mine has done some extensive work on this already and I wanted to encapsulate some of what he has written so I have a definitive point in time reference of some of what he has gathered. However all of the data needs to be very carefully verified to ensure all the research begins at the right point. Initial notes are:

Thomas Dixon (Born 1804) lived in Lastingham. A mason.
Francis Dixon (Born 1761) from Lastingham but lived in Kirkbymoorside, and Helmsley. Francis would have been one of the last hand weaver's on the Moor. It is believed that he had a brother called John and that they lived next door to each other in Helmsley.

Thomas and Mary in 1841 - Lastingham

Thomas Dixon - Mason in 1841

It is worth noting some supplementary information surrounding extremely serious flooding in Ryedale. In 1754, it was particularly devastating (Helmsley actually saw fatalities). There were other floods subsequent to that too that could have driven some people away.

Helmsley
5th of October 2017
Initial downloads of monument inscriptions and parish magazines do not identify any of the individuals above. They may have certainly lived there but perhaps it was not likely a particularly long term arrangement. There are certainly Dixons in Helmsley and the likelihood of a connection is valid but there is no way to confirm this… yet.

Kirkbymoorside
5th of October
Awaiting parish registers specific to this location to begin a name search.

Lastingham
5th of October
To follow – and is probably more important given that Francis is alleged to be “from there”. It can wait, for now.

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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.

In Emil's marriage to Katherine Schroeder, in 1898, we learned of his parents names.

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 to be difficult and it is not a skill set i have - yet. So i initially parked…

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.

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 June 1892. This new born son was tellingly also ch…

The family of Emil Winker - Part 1

I offered to help trace the family history of a good friend of mine recently and, after he passed on the details i needed to begin my search, i asked him which branch he would like me to delve into first and this [Emil] was the one he chose. Details of living (or recently deceased) people are withheld - exactly as they would be for any similar such research shared online. This information i am sharing here is 100% publicly available to anyone.

The start point for my research is for Emil Winker (1866-1919).

I knew the details of his son which in turn gave me my start point for him. Emil Winker spent most of his life in Iowa. We know this thanks to the various Iowa State / US Federal Census' records that we have (more on that). From the records we quickly learn that he was not native born in Iowa. He was actually from Germany. He arrived in the USA in May 1883 from a ship sailing from Hamburg as a 17 year old teenager and was among some 1.4 million German settlers who came to the un…

Dixon and Simms Family History Blog

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