I’ve mentioned the usefulness of Google alerts before, I think. I have two set up, one for each of the variant spellings of ‘Hundleby’. It provides a lot of interesting links from the news, websites and blogs, although it has to be said that it isn’t perfect and misses many. But it recently led me to a useful website, called RootsWeb. It's one of many such sites on the net, and often you need to pay to get access to the best information and sources, but this was one’s great advantage is its message board.
A Google alert let me to an enquiry on that board by Becky Whatmough about her great-grandfather who had married a Hundleby sometime around 1916/17.
http://boards.rootsweb.com/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=38201&p=localities.britisles.england.lan.general
It fitted neatly with one of Susan’s charts and I calculated that I was Becky’s third cousin, once removed. I mention that partly because I’m proud of the fact that I have finally learned what that sort of expression means. There’s a helpful explanation here, including a handy chart.
The way our families are linked seemed quite straightforward, but the correspondence on the message board has thrown up one or two mysteries. So I’ll list the facts and queries in chronological order, for information and in the hope that people out there might throw some light where things are dark.
I should add that I have not visited any original sources myself, and I have Becky’s permission to name the current members of her family.
First generation:
Let’s start with Joseph Hundleby (1853-1938), the grandson of Thomas Hundleby and Ruth Bradley. He married Annie Inman, and spent his first years in and near Lincolnshire - Baumber, Laughton, Worksop – and worked in the threshing trade, as did so many Hundlebys of that time.
By 1889 he had moved south to Hertfordshire, and his fourth child, Samuel, was registered as being born in Standon. It is worth noting that his third child, who was sadly killed in action in 1918, was called William.
Second generation:
Joseph’s sixth child was his daughter, Susan (1892-1972), and it is possible that her place of birth was Standon Lodge (pictured above).
According to Susan, Susan married John Whatmough. One of Becky’s correspondents has discovered that John (known as Jack) Whatmough married a Lily Hundleby at Willesden, London, in 1917.
This is our first query. Is Lily the same person as Susan, and if so, why the difference in name? Did she bear them both? Was Lily a pet name for Susan, as our contemporary Susan has suggested, as the Hebrew for lily is the basis for the name Susan?
Third generation:
William Alexander Whatmough appears to have been born in 1916. This is or Susan’s belief and also that of Becky’s family. There are a few questions, though:
There is a record of the birth of William Alexander Hundleby in Lambeth, 1916. Is the father’s name on the birth certificate? Was that father John Whatmough, and was William subsequently legitimised and renamed by the marriage of John and Lily/Susan? Or was he adopted?
According to Becky’s information, William was born on 21 June 1916 in St Mary’s London and his death is recorded as 21 June 1987, aged 70.
William had a sister, Marjorie Jane, who was born about 1926 in Manchester. She went on to marry Peter Haynes.
Doubts have been raised by a correspondent searching in ancestry.com’s births, marriages and deaths index who found a William Whatmough born in Preston in 1916 to a mother named Mitchell.
Moreover, there is also a strange reference to two children, Marjorie Whatmough and William Alexander Whatmough, born respectively in 1924 in Prestwich and 1930 in Lambeth, both with a mother whose maiden name was Hundleby. How can that be explained?
Becky is adamant that William, her grandfather, was born in 1916. And she should know.
At this point I should name some of the other surnames acquired by Joseph Hundleby’s other daughters, which might be helpful to Becky:
Mary (1885-1955) married Joseph Ratcliffe.
Jennifer/Jane (1894-1948) married William Stone.
Annie Dora (1901-1972) married William Sutherland.
Eva/Evelyn (1904-1976) married Edward King (possibly Wing).
Becky is aware that her grandfather, William, had a cousin named Hundleby, possibly ‘A. Hundleby’, who could well be Alfred Joseph Barber Hundleby (b 1916), son of the Samuel mentioned earlier.
Just as a matter of interest, Annie Dora Hundleby, Susan’s younger sister (1901-72), who married William Sutherland, had four sons, the first three of whom married respectively women called Alexandrina, Jamesina and Christina.
Fourth generation:
William Alexander Whatmough had three sons, Clifford, Alexander and Tracy (now known as Terry). Alexander is Becky’s father and, if my calculations are correct and the established information accurate, my own third cousin, born by chance in the same year as I, 1949.
Fifth generation:
This brings us to Alexander’s children, Becky herself and her brother Mark Alexander, and Becky’s son, Joshua Shaun, born on 17 January 2007, the representative of the 6th generation. Since I think I’ve got the hang of the term, I can’t resist saying that little Joshua is my third cousin, twice removed.
Probably.
A Google alert let me to an enquiry on that board by Becky Whatmough about her great-grandfather who had married a Hundleby sometime around 1916/17.
http://boards.rootsweb.com/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=38201&p=localities.britisles.england.lan.general
It fitted neatly with one of Susan’s charts and I calculated that I was Becky’s third cousin, once removed. I mention that partly because I’m proud of the fact that I have finally learned what that sort of expression means. There’s a helpful explanation here, including a handy chart.
The way our families are linked seemed quite straightforward, but the correspondence on the message board has thrown up one or two mysteries. So I’ll list the facts and queries in chronological order, for information and in the hope that people out there might throw some light where things are dark.
I should add that I have not visited any original sources myself, and I have Becky’s permission to name the current members of her family.
First generation:
Let’s start with Joseph Hundleby (1853-1938), the grandson of Thomas Hundleby and Ruth Bradley. He married Annie Inman, and spent his first years in and near Lincolnshire - Baumber, Laughton, Worksop – and worked in the threshing trade, as did so many Hundlebys of that time.
By 1889 he had moved south to Hertfordshire, and his fourth child, Samuel, was registered as being born in Standon. It is worth noting that his third child, who was sadly killed in action in 1918, was called William.
Second generation:
Joseph’s sixth child was his daughter, Susan (1892-1972), and it is possible that her place of birth was Standon Lodge (pictured above).
According to Susan, Susan married John Whatmough. One of Becky’s correspondents has discovered that John (known as Jack) Whatmough married a Lily Hundleby at Willesden, London, in 1917.
This is our first query. Is Lily the same person as Susan, and if so, why the difference in name? Did she bear them both? Was Lily a pet name for Susan, as our contemporary Susan has suggested, as the Hebrew for lily is the basis for the name Susan?
Third generation:
William Alexander Whatmough appears to have been born in 1916. This is or Susan’s belief and also that of Becky’s family. There are a few questions, though:
There is a record of the birth of William Alexander Hundleby in Lambeth, 1916. Is the father’s name on the birth certificate? Was that father John Whatmough, and was William subsequently legitimised and renamed by the marriage of John and Lily/Susan? Or was he adopted?
According to Becky’s information, William was born on 21 June 1916 in St Mary’s London and his death is recorded as 21 June 1987, aged 70.
William had a sister, Marjorie Jane, who was born about 1926 in Manchester. She went on to marry Peter Haynes.
Doubts have been raised by a correspondent searching in ancestry.com’s births, marriages and deaths index who found a William Whatmough born in Preston in 1916 to a mother named Mitchell.
Moreover, there is also a strange reference to two children, Marjorie Whatmough and William Alexander Whatmough, born respectively in 1924 in Prestwich and 1930 in Lambeth, both with a mother whose maiden name was Hundleby. How can that be explained?
Becky is adamant that William, her grandfather, was born in 1916. And she should know.
At this point I should name some of the other surnames acquired by Joseph Hundleby’s other daughters, which might be helpful to Becky:
Mary (1885-1955) married Joseph Ratcliffe.
Jennifer/Jane (1894-1948) married William Stone.
Annie Dora (1901-1972) married William Sutherland.
Eva/Evelyn (1904-1976) married Edward King (possibly Wing).
Becky is aware that her grandfather, William, had a cousin named Hundleby, possibly ‘A. Hundleby’, who could well be Alfred Joseph Barber Hundleby (b 1916), son of the Samuel mentioned earlier.
Just as a matter of interest, Annie Dora Hundleby, Susan’s younger sister (1901-72), who married William Sutherland, had four sons, the first three of whom married respectively women called Alexandrina, Jamesina and Christina.
Fourth generation:
William Alexander Whatmough had three sons, Clifford, Alexander and Tracy (now known as Terry). Alexander is Becky’s father and, if my calculations are correct and the established information accurate, my own third cousin, born by chance in the same year as I, 1949.
Fifth generation:
This brings us to Alexander’s children, Becky herself and her brother Mark Alexander, and Becky’s son, Joshua Shaun, born on 17 January 2007, the representative of the 6th generation. Since I think I’ve got the hang of the term, I can’t resist saying that little Joshua is my third cousin, twice removed.
Probably.
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