Roy Brown: Fox Street and the church incident

In the early 1990s, my dad (Roy Brown) lived in a house on Fox Street, Scunthorpe. At that time we would stay overnight sometimes at the weekend.

While a lot of the time seemed to be occupying ourselves while dad watched telly, we did often walk to the newsagent, which must have been on Froddingham Road. He would buy my the 'Discovering Nature - on the trail with Billy Bumble' magazine, which seems to have been issued in 1991/1992 - which possibly provides dates for this period of time.

On one occasion we were walking back from the newsagent's and were walking past Centenary Methodist Church and an old lady fell down the steps while leaving the church and cut a large gash in her shin. I remember dad rushing inside to get a chair for her and making sure she was ok. I was proud of my dad that day and wish I had more memories like this.

He lived at Fox Street for a while, and had a dog there for a time, he moved around a lot and this is one of the only streets I remember him living. I remember me and my sister (Naomi Brown) playing in an alleyway there, I'm not sure if this was at the back of the houses or down the side of the house.

Here's the first tape of that magazine series:

Getting back into it!

I don't think I've done any really family history research since last year. It's been on my mind a lot, but many things have kept me away from research. Things like:

• The birth of my son!
• The stupid illness (ME)
• Having my wife and son at home for the first 12 months
• Getting ready to move house
• Moving house!
• Other interests, such as photography (which has taken up a lot of my free time)

However, my son has started nursery and my wife has gone back to work. We finally moved home  11 days ago and things in general are starting to settle down.

I have so much scanning to do, it's unbelievable. This is because I found a big collection of photographs and newspaper clippings at my mum's house, which I've had for about a year now and not even looked at since I first found it. Also, my father-in-law gave my wife a suitcase full of photographs and various records. So, I think the scanning will be a big priority - and the cropping that comes after it.

I was lucky that someone in my extended family has access to the 1939 register. But unlucky that I only had 2 grandparents that lived in England and only 1 was on the register! I need to add the information to my family tree as it provides data not just on my grandmother, but some of her siblings, her father, and his second wife.

So, I have 2 main tasks. I know what I need to do. Now all I need is the motivation to do it!

Surname: Brown

This surname post will be different to my post on the surname HAVENITH due to BROWN having a much shorter history within my family. The information within the post will be fairly general (due to lack of professional research into the surname) and will focus more on the personal history of the surname in my family.

Origin
The origin of the surname BROWN and its variants is not known. This is due to this being a nickname surname.

Within my family, my grandfather Ernest BROWN is said to have chosen the name. He was part of a traveller family and the story goes that he changed his surname to avoid conscription into the army. Unfortunately, he died when my father and his siblings were children, therefore very little is known. We don't know why is chose BROWN as his replacement surname, but we do know that he settled down for a number of years with my grandmother and had 6 children. His occupation changed over the years, but he was best known as a rag and bone man. His original name was Ernest HARWOOD.

Distribution
This is a wildly common surname and is found throughout Britain and is noted as being the sixth most common surname at the time Graeme Davis published Research your Surname in 2010.

Meaning
This surname is considered to be a nickname surname referring to things such as hair colour or hair colour, or sometimes even the colour of someone's clothes. These ideas - especially relating to hair colour - seem unrealistic, however without further investigation by experts, we are likely to remain with this answer.

Another idea is that it could possibly be a patronymic of the first name 'Brun' or relating to a place name that has brown in the name.

There may well be possible origins for this surname. The further back you can trace this surname in your own family history; the closer you'll be to an answer (hopefully).

Variation
There is no variation of this surname within my family as I was part of the third generation to have the surname.

Conclusion
My interest in the surname BROWN, it's fair to say, is quite superficial. This is due to the surname having such a short history within my family. At the moment, I know as much as I can know about why this surname is in my family. I think that there may still be some people that knew my grandfather, but they are travellers and unfortunately I'm unlikely to ever meet then and find out more about my grandfather's history. 

Sources
Graeme Davis, 2010. Research Your Surname and Your Family Tree: Find Out What Your Surname Means and Trace Your Ancestors Who Share It Too. Edition. How to Books. 

Surname: Havenith

The most recent generations of my family are from Limburg in the Netherlands, so that is where I started with attempting to find the origin of the surname. During the same time, I scoured the Internet for the possible meaning of HAVENITH and came across a few variants along the way (discussed here). 

This post documents what I've found so far.

Surname: Havenith - variants in my family tree

On my quest to find my earliest recorded HAVENITH ancestor, I have come across a few different variants. Most connected to my family, but a couple that I've seen in the same scanned collections as the records I was looking for.

Here are the variants I've found so far, in chronological order:

The earliest record I've been able to find so far is a marriage record from sometime in 1696 for Joannes and Odilia. I say sometime, as it appears to be the only record not given a day and month! It is located between marraiges records on 4 July and record is 4 9bris (November), so is likely to have taken place between those dates. In this record the spelling is HAVENIT.

HAVENIT

Moving on to 1701 and we have a baptism record for their son, Joannes Hubertus, who later used the name Hubert. This time the surname is spelt: HABENIT.

HABENIT

In 1732, Hubert got married to Cathar(ina) Emonts. At this time, the surname was written as HAVENIET.

HAVENIET

In 1754 we find the first usage of HAVENITH. This is Joannes, Hubert's son, marrying Anna Elisabetha EMONS. You will notice that JANSSEN is appended to HAVENITH. This is likely to be the priests way of remembering which HAVENITH he is - although more commonly we see place names appended in this way. It may be the surname of the person who owns his accommodation or perhaps his employer and may therefore be a 'house' or 'farm' name [1].
As family historians we work from the child (the known) backwards to parent and extended family (the unknown): It was from Joannes' baptism record that I found the name of his parents. From searching the scanned collections, there are only 1 Joannes HAVENITH and Anna Elisabetha EMONS that got married, so I feel confident that I have the correct people.

HAVENIET

Joannes, had a son Joannes Josephus baptised in 1760. We see that the JANSSEN hasn't followed him and that the current spelling of HAVENITH has remained stable.

HAVENITH

But that stability doesn't remain! 

We then have HAVENIETH which starts with Johannes Josephus and continues until 1902 when my GGgrandfather is born with HAVENITH.
While HAVENIETH remains stable during these generations in the official records, the people themselves tend to sign their name as HAVENITH. I'm not sure if this is because HAVENIETH was seen as an official or formal spelling, but eventually the modern spelling won out.

HAVENIETH

My Ggrandfather's birth record. We're finally back to HAVENITH in 1902 and this spelling continues in my family up to the present day - including my son, who was born in 2015.

HAVENITH

The following two images show what appear to be variants and in the same area (Liège, Belgium), but do not seem to be related to my ancestors:

HAAFFNIT

HAFFNIT

References1) Kimberly Powell. (nd). German Surnames - Meanings & Origins. Available: http://genealogy.about.com/cs/surname/a/german_surnames.htm. Last accessed 25/06/2015.

My Genealogy Progress Report - April 2015

Time seems to be speeding along at the moment. My baby is due in the next couple of weeks and we've been putting the finishing touches to his nursery and sorting some other areas of the house.

We've both also been getting on with our family trees. My wife has been loaned lots of items from her mum, which I've been scanning and organising record sheets for and I've been continuing my quest to delve deeper into the Havenith side of the family.

Around 5-6 years ago I was given a few sheets of paper that showed the Havenith side of the family going back into Belgium to around 1610 from a distant relative via my Opa. While some of the records I've found don't exactly match the details I was given, it's close enough to give me some confidence that I'm heading in the right direction.

Looking at records for Belgium, which also consists of German records due to the administration at the time of my ancestors lives, has been an interesting challenge. I enlisted the help of a genealogy group on Facebook, who I'll write about in a future post, and they've been very helpful. I'm starting to get to grips with FamilySearch better and have started to learn the arch.be website when looking for records. While this can be a slow process, it's wonderful to finally see the names you're looking for appear on a BMD record - something that makes the hours spent worthwhile.

As our first anniversary is coming up, we decided to follow tradition and get each other paper gifts. We both chose records of our ancestors! I'm really hoping that these records help us develop a stronger feeling of connectedness to each other and with our ancestors.

I'm looking forward to writing more about my journey into the past and starting to feel much more confident about the whole process.

When our baby is born there may well be a gap in posting, but I'll be back to posting as soon as possible.

An Unfortunate Tradition

Last year I got married. The record of my marriage has my father's name and describes him as deceased. There is a line through the Rank or profession of father cell.

I didn't think much of it until my wife purchased my parents marriage record for Valentine's Day this year. I immediately saw that the same situation. I knew that my grandad had died from lung cancer (as my dad did) when my dad was a young boy. But, it still came as a shock.

Making a Research Log Spreadsheet

I realised recently that I needed to make a research log. I'm often guilty of getting caught up in the
thrill of the chase and then forgetting to note down the sources that I've been researching and how far I've got.

I wanted to make a spreadsheet that was simple enough to fill in, so it wouldn't feel like a chore I had to do after I've finished researching for the day. However, I wanted it to be comprehensive enough that I could note down:

• enough information to help me understand what I did on a certain date
• the documents and sources I used
• how I came to the results/conclusions I reached at that point in time 
• to use it to document the future research I wanted to do

Resolving a name confusion

In this post, I'll be writing about a brick wall that I've faced for some time. I'll write about the method
I used to get past it. While it may not be exactly the same as a name confusion in your family tree, I do hope that it will provide some potential ways you can get past your brick wall.

The Brick Wall

In my family tree I have people called Henri Magermans and Ida Ackermans, but I didn't have their date of birth. When looking online, I could only find a few records. This was odd as I was expecting many more.
I was missing their birth, death, and wedding records as well as the records some of the children I already knew they had. I was also stuck because I didn't have any information on their parents or siblings.
This was 4 years ago in the days of the old site Genlias; so I decided it was time to tackle this again...

What I already knew
I knew that they both lived in the Netherlands. I also knew that Henri was a  joiner as it says this on the marriage record for my great grandparents. I also had a note from 2010 when my Oma told me that there may have been another child called Gonda.
I also knew some of the children they had, including Johannes Joseph Magermans, for whom I had the birth and marriage record.

Next Steps

Using wiewaswie, I found people called Pieter Hendrik Magermans and Johanna Ida Ackermans. They lived at the same time as Henri and Ida and in an area close by.

With this information, I found that Pieter Hendrik Magermans was also a joiner and that he had a child called Hubertina Aldegonda Magermans.

I asked one of the Facebook groups I'm a member of to give me some help with this and they thought that Henri and Ida were also Pieter Hendrik Magermans and Johanna Ida Ackermans, but I wanted a way to be sure. Someone gave me a link to scans of their birth certificates and I saw that this site also linked to scans of the old Netherlands Bevolkingsregisters.

I made a spreadsheet to make a timeline of all the births, marriages, and deaths for ‘both’ couples and their children. I colour-coded the children who had multiple entries, so I could see if the parents name stayed stable for multiple records for individuals. What I found was:

1. The parents names did stay stable for individual children, for example a parents name on the birth record and marriage record for Johannes Joseph were the same. 
2. That each child was born in a different year - if multiple children were born within a year, this would have hinted that I was looking at two couples rather than one.
3. That the main 'name change' seemed to occur after they moved to Oud-Valkenburg from Schin op Geul. But that one birth had the full name and then they went to middle names.

A spreadsheet timeline to understand the individuals I was following.

BUT, importantly, this didn't 'prove' that they were the same couple. So I starting thinking about how to prove whether Henri and Ida were Pieter Hendrik and Joanna Ida.

The solution
At this point, what sprang to mind was that I needed to find the whole family documented at the same place and at the same time. The most obvious thing to do was to check the population records. 

After scrolling through many MANY scanned pages, I finally found the whole family in the Oud-Valkenburg census for 1850-1900.

My ancestors in the Oud-Valkenburg census for 1850-1900

This population register showed the couple as Henri and Ida, but has all of their children, including the children I already knew about and with dates I already had. Finding Henri and Ida's birth records, also led to finding the names of their parents.

So, I’m excited to have found that even though they both decided to go by their middle names in later life, that they are the same people! I had read that this name change was fairly common, but I hadn't come across it before and felt daunted that both of them had opted to use their middle names.

In future posts, I'll be writing about the resources that I used to find out all of this information, so add me to your blog reader, or sign up to receive new posts by email!