Way Back Wednesday: Samuel AVERY and Jane BIRCHALL 1806

Today's "Way Back Wednesday" post is about my gggg grandparents.  All I know about them are their names and the date they married.  Oh, and of course I know one of their children: George AVERY 1814-1878, because he was my ggg grandfather.

The couple in question: Samuel AVERY and Jane BIRCHALL.  They were married 18 November 1806 in Stoke Dameral, Devon, England.  Samuel was a carpenter.  Since the Napoleonic Wars happened between 1803-1815, he probably had something to do with building ships for the Navy.  Jane is a complete mystery.

La bataille d'Austerlitz by Gerard

Does anybody have any information on either of them, please?

Fearless Females 2013: Day 26: Education

What education did your female ancestors receive?

Well, this originally asked what education was received by your mother, your grandmothers, or your great grandmothers.  I decided to be a rebel, and have chosen a great great grandmother!

Emma Elizabeth Dunstone AVERY was christened 4 June 1837 in Rame, Cornwall.  1889 saw her being committed to the County Lunatic Asylum in Bodmin, Cornwall, where her admittance notes describe her as being "well educated for her station in life"...

Once again, in honour of National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist blog presents Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.  I know this is really US-centric - but that's not going to stop me honouring my own Fearless Females...

Fearless Females 2013: Day 16: Thomasine Dunstone Avery

If you could have lunch with any female family member (living or dead) who would it be? Where would you go? What would you eat?

No question! I would have lunch with Thomasine Dunstone AVERY (my paternal great great great grandmother).  She was a pub landlady for many years in the latter half of the nineteenth century - so we would eat pub grub!

Here is a pic of the inn she managed: Halfway House Inn, Kingsand, Cornwall:

Once again, in honour of National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist blog presents Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.  I know this is really US-centric - but that's not going to stop me honouring my own Fearless Females...

Fearless Females 2013: Day 9: Family Documents

Take a family document (baptismal certificate, passenger list, naturalization petition, etc.) and write a brief narrative using the information.

Rame Head, Cornwall

Emma Elizabeth DUNSTONE was christened on 4 June 1837 in Rame, Cornwall, and married Charles Henry CHASE in 1855.  I still have to find out what happened to Charles Henry, because on 29 July 1860 in Stoke Damerel, Devon, she married John Dunstone AVERY, her cousin. Maybe Charles Henry died? did Emma Elizabeth take her small sons with her (one, Charles Russell CHASE, had only been born in the April-May-June quarter, so he might have been as young as one month old when his mother remarried).  They do not any of them appear in the 1861 census.

And then, her story becomes fairly uneventful - at least, as far as the census records can tell.  Until the 1891 census, when her husband John described himself as a widower, so I thought that Emma had died - then in the 1901 census, Emma was mysteriously back from the dead, and John was missing. After much research, and even more miracles, I found that in 1891 Emma had actually been in the County Lunatic Asylum in Bodmin - and, in 1901, her husband John was there instead!

Bodmin Lunatic Asylum © Peter Higginbotham

 Emma was committed to the Asylum in 1889 for being homicidal, sometimes refusing food, and having 'her bedroom all in disorder'.  After seven years in the Asylum, all she was given were tonics, she appeared better, and was discharged on 3 June 1896.  (BTW, her husband was then admitted with head injuries, and died three years later.  More exciting research beckons...)

Millbrook, Cornwall

Emma went on to live with her daughter, another Emma, and son-in-law Samuel HAYWOOD at 32 West Street, Millbrook, Cornwall.  She died on 21 April 1915 of heart disease and dropsy in Kingsand, Cornwall.






Once again, in honour of National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist blog presents Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.  I know this is really US-centric - but that's not going to stop me honouring my own Fearless Females...  

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories: Holiday Happenings

Edmund George HAYWOOD, my paternal grandfather, was born on 15 December 1903 in Millbrook, Cornwall, England. Most of his paternal forefathers had been involved in brickmaking; however, Edmund George chose to follow his maternal ancestors and worked with the sea. His grandfather (John Dunstone AVERY) had been a rigger, his great grandfather (George AVERY) a shipwright's apprentice, a ship's carpenter and then a shipwright, while his great great grandfather (Samuel AVERY) was a carpenter, and is listed as a mariner at the marriage of his daughter Susanna - also on 15 December, this time 1832.

Edmund George served in Bermuda (as a shipwright) in WWII, where he met his second wife, Etta May COLEMAN. After he returned to England, years and years of passenger manifests list him travelling to Bermuda (often via New York), back to England, and back to Bermuda again.

He died in 1984.




“The Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories (ACCM) allows you to share your family’s holiday history 24 different ways during 24 days in December! Learn more at http://adventcalendar.geneabloggers.com."

Fearless Females 14: Ancestor fined for assault

Once again, in honor of National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of  The Accidental Genealogist blog presents Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.

March 14 — Newsmakers? Did you have a female ancestor who made the news? Why? Was she famous or notorious? Did she appear in the social column?

Thomasine Dunstone AVERY (1814-1897) was my paternal great great great grandmother.  I enjoyed reading this excerpt from the Royal Cornwall Gazette of Friday 15th January 1858.  It detailed a case held at the Torpoint Petty Sessions on Tuesday, 12th January, before J.C. Roberts, W. H. Pole Carew, J.S.Tucker, Esqrs. and Rev S.W.Roberts, justices:-

Thomasine Avery, wife of George Avery, of Kingsand, a shipwright in H.M.Dockyard, was summoned by Elizabeth Trevethan, of the same place, singlewoman, for violently assaulting her, on the 29th December.

Complainant has had 3 bastard children, and having boasted that she had received 2 sovereigns of defendant's husband on the Saturday night previous, Mrs.Avery on meeting Trevethan, asked her for them, and on her denying that she had them, Mrs.Avery, to use defendant's words "turned her upside down" and took away her pocket, containing about 2s.8d, and also some letters. Mr. Beer appeared for Mrs.Avery.

The bench considered the assault to be proved brutal - but at the same time, taking into account the character of defendant, and extenuating circumstances, they only inflicted a fine of 1s. on the defendant with costs.

Fearless Females: Emma Elizabeth Dunstone AVERY - an educated woman

Emma Elizabeth Dunstone AVERY(1837-1915) was my paternal great-great-grandmother.  On the 1891 census, her husband is described as a widower - but Emma Elizabeth had not died.  She had been committed to the Bodmin (Cornwall) Lunatic Asylum on 25th July 1889 as a 'pauper patient' being of 'unsound mind'.  The Medical Gentleman (the form actually calls him that!) had to record various notes and medical reasons for her being there, and give a description of her - in this case, not a physical description as such, more of a mental one.

Emma Elizabeth is described as being 'fairly well educated for her station in life', that is, as the wife of a dockyard labourer.  I wonder what constituted 'fairly well educated'?

She was given tonics, and appeared cured, so was discharged on 3 June 1896.  Seven years in a Lunatic Asylum - and the cure was taking tonics!  Was that because medical knowledge hadn't advanced far enough, or because her 'illness' wasn't actually that severe?  She lived for nearly twenty years after that, but I'm sure her stay in the Asylum had left its mark.


This post is part of the Fearless Females theme to honour National Women's History month.

Fearless Females: Thomasine Dunstone AVERY in six words

I am participating in the Fearless Females theme to honour National Women's History Month.

March 15 — Write a six-word memoir tribute to one of your female ancestors.


Nearly eighty and still working hard.

Maritime Monday: Responsibilities of a Rigger

My gg grandfather, John Dunstone AVERY (1835-1903) is listed on several censuses as a Rigger.  This was a specialised job (nowadays you need to go through an apprenticeship!) working with the ropes that hoisted the sails on a ship.  Ehow.co.uk says that ship riggers need to have excellent physical strength, control and endurance, and that they have to be able to work quickly at times.

From Wikipedia: "Sailors could put their rope skills to work in lifting and hauling, in an era before mechanical haulage and cranes, ropes, pulleys and muscle power was all that was available to move anything."

In our day, riggers work for construction agencies, manufacturing plants, logging yards and the entertainment industry. They work with heavy equipment and machinery.  John Dunstone AVERY, whose grandfather was a carpenter/mariner and father was a shipwright, was pensioned off some time between the 1871 and 1881 censuses, and died in a lunatic asylum in 1903 of acute nephritis.  I wonder if he had an accident at work? or if he had served long enough to be released from his job?  I have looked in Documents Online for his service record, but unfortunately there seem to be rather a lot of John Averys...

Running Rigging of a Merchant Sailing Ship

1.Flying jib-guys. 2 Standing jib-guys. 3 Spritsail lifts. 4 Spritsail braces. 5 Fore-yard tackles. 6 Main-yard tackles. 7 Fore-lifts. 8 Fore-braces. 9 Main-lifts. 10. Main-braces. 11. Cross-jack lifts. 12 Cross-jack braces. 13 Slings of fore-yard. 14 Slings of main-yard. 15 Slings of cross jack-yard.  16  Fore-top-sail-lifts. 17 braces. 1 8 reef-tackles. 19 Main-top-sail-lifts. 20 braces. 21 reef-tackles.  22 Mizen-top-sail-lifts.

23 Mizen-top-sail braces. - 24- Fore-top-gallant-lifts. 25  Fore-top-gallant-braces. 26 Fore-top-gallant-halliards. 27 Main-top-gallant-lifts. 28 Main-top-gallant braces. 29 Main-top-gallant halliards. 30 Top-gallant-lifts. 31 Top-gallant .braces. 32 Top-gallant halliards 33 Fore Royal Lifts. 34 Fore Royal braces 35 Fore-royal halliards. 36 Main-royal-lifts. 37 Main-royal braces. 38 Main-royal halliards. 39 Signal halliards. 40 Mizen-royal-lifts. 41 Mizen-royal- braces. 42 Mizen-royal-halliards. 43 Fore-top-sail tie and halliards. 44- Main-top-sail tie and halliards. 45 Mizen-top-sail tie and halliards.

46 Mizen-gaff peak halliards. 47 Mizen-gaff throat halliards. 48 Mizen-gaff -vang-pendants and falls.  49 Mizen-gaff signal halliards. 50 Spanker-boom topping-lift. 51 Spanker-boom quarter guys. 52 Spanker-boom sheet. 53 Spritsail-yard. 54- Fore-yard. 55 Main-yard. 56 Cross-jack-yard. 57 Fore-top-sail-yard. 58 Main-top-sail-yard. 59 Mizen-top-sail-yard. 60 Fore-top-gallant-yard. 61 Main-top-gallant-yard. 62 Mizen-top-gallant-yard. 63 Fore-royal-yard. 64- Main-royal-yard. 65 Mizen-royal-yard. 66 Spanker boom. 67 Spanker gaff.

taken from The Art of Rigging, 1848