Live Blogging An Ancestor Hunt

My fortuitous coincidence from the other day has continued paying dividends. Ancestry informed me that someone had the death certificate of my great great great grandmother, Hannah Maria Holt, saved in their private tree. I contacted them to ask if I might be able to have a copy, and it has turned out to belong to a close relative - my Dad's cousin's husband. I'm thrilled to be in touch with them again, as I last spoke to them probably 15 years ago, and wasn't sure how to find them again.

Right now I'm working through my daughter Poss's paternal ancestry. I've found a branch of her family came from Jersey, on the Channel Islands. The main family lines there are LeBoutillier and Payn(e). A quick search for Leboutillier returns this factoid about the surname:

<snip>... recorded in Jersey, Channel Islands U.K. as far back as 1205 

So there could be some lengthy links with that part of the world.

I have Eliza or Elizabeth Maria Esther Le Boutillier marrying Elias Payn or Payne in Jersey. She died in 1860, but he remarried in Surrey to Susannah Horlick and died in 1891.

I can't find any hint through Ancestry of what Eliza(beth) Maria Esther Le Boutillier's father's name was, but Trove has come up trumps again with this little gem:

Interesting that the maternal grandfather was singled out by name in this notice. Was he important?

I can't find any records in Ancestry that confirm that Elizabeth's father was George LeBoutiller, but I did find this interesting post on Rootsweb:

John married Mary Falla, His sister Elizabeth born 1816 married Elias Payn. Parents of John, Elizabeth and Phillippe were Jean Le Boutillier and Elizabeth Hacquoil. 

If that's the case, then I can easily identify Elizabeth Hacquoil (born 1797 at St Ouen, Jersey) in other Ancestry trees, and her family connection to Jersey goes back generations. The earliest Hacquoil I can find without stretching myself at all is Nicolas Hacquoil, born "Abt 1570 in Bailiwick Of Jersey, Channel Islands". The trick is going to be to find some supporting evidence to tie it all together.

I found an 1841 census entry for Jean LeBoutillier and Elizabeth Hacquoil's family that supports the Rootsweb poster's information; it shows that three of their children are John, Philip and Elizabeth, but it doesn't offer any way to confirm if that's our Elizabeth who went on to marry Elias Payn.

Further census results show Elias Payn(e) was a Master Carpenter. His marriage to Susannah Horlick gives his father's name as Philip Payne. Digging around Ancestry, I find some trees have his father recorded as "Phillippe Payne Jr" (born 24 June 1787, at St Martins, Jersey) and his mother as "Anne Le Sueur" (born circa 1790, at Trinity, Jersey).

Looks like I've got a whole new chapter of research opening before me. Lots of clues, very few sources so far.

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A Fortuitous Discovery.

Well, the other half has returned from his jaunt halfway around the world and life is returning to normal here, so I've gleefully dived back into my tree.

Tonight I put some effort into researching Hannah Maria Holt, my great great great grandmother. She married Richard Smart Groombridge in 1842, and gave birth to my great great grandmother, Harlettee Louisa Groombridge in 1846. Tragically she was widowed in 1858 when Richard Groombridge suffered "a series of epileptic fits" which resulted in his death.

In 1861 she remarried to Edward Henry Palmer.

Reviewing my tree today, I saw some impossible dates on Hannah Maria Holt. Her birth was given as 1800, and her deadth as 1902. While she could have lived to 102, I doubted that she married for the first time at the age of 42, and was having children into her late 40s. I found other trees that recorded her year of birth as 1820, which sounded far more reasonable. I thought I'd try to look up her death record to see if I could find any further information, and I went to Trove because I was curious to see who might have placed a death notice for her. That was a dead end. I searched for Hannah Maria Palmer in vain.

I turned my attention elsewhere and worked through some other bits of the tree. I looked into her granddaughter, Myrtle Elsie Adelaide Turner, and found the shipping record of her departure from England after the visit in 1950 that I referred to in an earlier post. Myrtle's address in the UK was given as 6 Beckenham Road, W. Wickham, so that's another angle to pursue some day.

She left England on the Himalaya on the 6th of September, 1950.
I also took another look on Trove at the account of Myrtle's apparent suicide attempt some years prior. The Mercury reported on the 4th of January 1932:

Woman Poisoned
Mrs. Myrtle Rush, 42 years, of 175 Elizabeth Street, Hobart, was admitted to the Hobart Public Hospital about 11.30 last night, suffering from the effects of an irritant poison. She is alleged to have taken a quantity of disinfectant.
It is stated that Mrs. Rush underwent a serious operation about four months ago. An emetic was administered, and her condition was afterwards satisfactory.

My understanding is that Myrtle's marriage was not a happy one, but even her mother's letters from the early 1920s mention Myrtle suffering from health problems.

 After that, I suddenly decided to try searching for Hannah Maria Holt again, but this time I used the surname from her second marriage, Groombridge. In doing so I found her death notice. It had been listed under the name "Parmer" instead of "Palmer". I never would have found it but in a stroke of enormous good luck, George Groombridge died a couple of days later and his obituary was in the same column (good luck for me, not so good for George).

GROOMBRIDGE. - On Tuesday, December 16, 1902, at his late residence, 11 Cross-street, Battery Point, George, the beloved husband of Margaret Groombridge, in the 58th year of his age.

PARMER - On December 10, at her son's residence, Kingston, Hannah Maria Parmer, aged 82. 

No information on who placed the notice, but I have something I didn't have before: an exact date of death.

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