Fearless Females 10: Minda EDGCOMBE's Religion

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.

March 10 — What role did religion play in your family? How did your female ancestors practice their faith? If they did not, why didn’t they? Did you have any female ancestors who served their churches in some capacity?

 

Minda Mary Edgcombe BALL (yes, she whose corset hurt her so much in the photograph below!) seems to hint at nonconformism in some of the documents I have and information which I have received over the years.

On the 1901 census, where she was 6 years old in County Mayo, Ireland and living with her coastguard father, they are described as Wesleyans.  In the early 1920s when she married, it was in the Ebenezer Chapel, Kingsbridge, Devon, which I thought to be Wesleyan (Methodist).  Until I looked at her marriage certificate more closely, when I realised that she had been married "according to the rites of the Congregationalist Church".  I looked up the Ebenezer Chapel, but to my dismay found it listed twice: once as a Wesleyan Methodist chapel, and once as belonging to the Presbyterians/Independents/Congregationalists (according to the GenUKI site, which is very knowledgeable about everything.)

So now I am more confused than ever.  Can anyone enlighten me?

On This Day: 14 January

My family tree software rather unromantically calls him "Husband of 1st cousin three times removed", which is technically correct, but oh-so-clinical.  He is William KELLAND, who was born 14 January 1844 in Dodbrooke, Devon, England.

On This Day: 21 December

A baptism and a wedding today - in that order because they are different families.  Thomas DUNSTONE was baptised/christened on 21 December in 1752 in Rame, Cornwall - he is my 5 x great grandfather, and eventually his descendants married into the HAYWOOD line.

William EFFORD and Elizabeth ELLIOTT were married on 21 December 1802 in Kingsbridge, Devon, my 3 x great-aunt and -uncle.  I only know William's name and baptismal date, but I have discovered that Elizabeth was a schoolmistress.  I first found out about her from her father's Will (John ELLIOTT, 1748-1823), where she was left £100; according to measuringworth.com's calculator this is worth £76,500 in today's money - a huge sum.  Her father also bequeathed her £20 for her own use: £15,300 (without the "interference" of her husband - this is the wording of the Will). The ELLIOTT family eventually married into the BALL family on my mother's side of the tree.

My question is: where did all this money go?

Surname Saturday: Damerell

I have traced my DAMERELLs back to East Allington (Devon) in 1658.  part of a farming community, they moved to nearby Loddiswell, then to Charleton and Kingsbridge.  Great great grandfather Henry started out as an 'engine rail driver', but soon graduated to the sea, as did many of my ancestors, working as a sailor for nearly twenty years.  He later became a marine-store dealer, which in fact sounds posher than it actually is.  (It also sometimes refers to gypsies, but I do not think I have any Romany blood in me).  Basically, a marine store dealer was a scrap man who sold to mariners. 

" A Marine Store Dealer was a licensed broker who bought and sold used cordage, bunting, rags, timber, metal and other general waste materials. He usually sorted the purchased waste by kind, grade etc. He also repaired and mended sacks etc.
Marine Store Dealers were governed by an Act of Parliament 1st. Geo. IV. sec.16 cap.75. which enacted that every marine-store-dealer shall have his name inserted in legible characters over his shop-door and shall also keep a book in which he shall insert the name and address of any person from whom he shall buy any article." (rootschat.com) and was mentioned by Dickens as early as 1836.

Later, he became a stoker in a steam ship, and in fact was still a stoker in his early sixties.  He was obviously a very strong man!