Family secrets...

I've been having a great time perusing the scans of documents that have recently been put up on FamilySearch.org.  Out of curiosity, I looked up one of my ancestors.  According to stories I heard from the family, he'd died of the flu in 1919 (I'd always assumed he was caught up in the major pandemic).  But I could never figure out why his place of death was nowhere near where he and his family lived.  I think I've found the answer.

He didn't die of influenza.  He died of "exhaustion of acute mania" in an insane asylum, after being there for just over two weeks.  I suppose mental illness was one of those things that wasn't talked about back at that time.  I have my doubts as to whether anyone other than his wife even knew the truth; perhaps it was just easier for her to tell her children that their father had gotten ill with the flu and died.

It's a good illustration of why we need to be skeptical about stories that are passed down orally.  There are plenty of things that people might want to hide.  Unfortunately, unless we can find written records to determine what's actually true, these stories will keep getting passed along as the truth.

Horne family in... New Zealand?

I was recently contacted by another researcher about someone in my tree by the name of John Lewis Horne.  According to the information I had, John was born in 1845 in Edinburgh to James Wilson Horne and Sophia Lewis.  I'd found records in New Zealand for a John Lewis Horne on FamilySearch.org... but I was never sure if it was the same person or just a coincidence.  But now, it looks like this John Lewis Horne is actually one of my Hornes: my great-great-grandfather's first cousin.

John married a woman named Elizabeth Margaret Lodge, and he was her second husband.  Elizabeth seems to have been quite an interesting character.  You can read about some of her trials and exploits on FamilySleuth's blog.

John and Elizabeth had one son, also named John Lewis Horne.  I knew that a number of my Hornes had spread out from Scotland, but this is the first time I've been able to trace any of them to New Zealand.  I wonder how many distant cousins I've got there that I'm not even aware of...

From the royals of one country to the "royals" of another...

The Daily Mail ran this piece last week on some of the connections the new royal baby will have with some Hollywood royalty.  As someone who's been trying for over a decade to track down ancestors, I know how difficult it can be... so to see that genealogists have managed to determine that the new little prince or princess will be the Jolie-Pitt kids' 27th cousin boggles my mind.  One of my (possible) branches goes back far enough to allow me to determine my 15th cousins... and that takes us back to the late 1400s.  To get to the common ancestor for 27th cousins... how far back is that?  Another 400 years or so?  Who are these miracle worker genealogists, and can I get them to help me out with my tree?

What am I doing wrong that I've only been able to crack the year 1500 maybe once in over a decade of searching?  (I'm sure having mostly servant-class ancestors doesn't help, but come on...  They say we're all connected if we go far enough back.  I want to see it!)

Remind me to send those family reunion invites to Charlemagne, Nefertiti, and Confucius...

"You can ask whether everyone in the Western world is descended from Charlemagne, and the answer is yes, we're all descended from Charlemagne. But can you prove it? That's the game of genealogy."

-- Mark Humphrys

I'm still playing that game... without much success. I wonder if there is a list somewhere of English surnames that are most likely to be linked with the royal families of Europe, or perhaps some of the families who came over immediately after 1066. It would be helpful to know whether one particular family name is likely to be linked to royalty or not; chasing peasant lines for decades (and running up against the inevitable brick walls) seems like a bit of a waste of time... at least for this particular purpose.

Another brick wall...

I have so many brick walls. Some of the trickiest to smash through are (for some reason) those at around 1800. I'm not sure why. I would've thought that those around 1837 or 1855 would be more difficult...

In any case, this brick wall has been troublesome for a while now. I'd love to find more information on a man named William Withers. Census records state that he was born in Earley, Berkshire around 1801. He married Elizabeth Collins in 1821 in Tilehurst. Five of their six children were born in Tilehurst; the other was born in Earley.

There are a number of baptisms for William Withers in Berkshire on FamilySearch... but none are even close to Earley.

I have no idea how to smash down this brick wall.

A very mobile shoemaker?

I still haven't been able to find much information on my ancestor David Horn(e). I know he was born in Makerston, Roxburghshire in 1793. He appears on the 1841 census in Edinburgh. He's probably dead by 1851. But other than his baptism record, the 1841 census record, and the baptism records for two daughters (Isabella and Agnes), I can't find anything. This has led to quite a few questions and a lot of frustration.

I cannot find a record for David's marriage to Isabella. The only record that I could find for a David Horn(e) at around the right time was for a shoemaker named David Horne who married a woman named Janet Wilson in 1822 in Glasgow. The occupation is right, the date is plausible, and Janet's maiden name also fits into the picture (David's eldest son is James Wilson Horne; I'd assumed the "Wilson" was from David's mother, Agnes Wilson, but perhaps there's another explanation here...). Also, if David was married to Janet before he was married to Isabella, it might help explain why there is a six-year gap between James and his next younger sister (the subsequent children are all separated by three or fewer years). James Wilson Horne's death registration does state that his mother was named Isabella... but James may not have remembered his real mother, and the person who registered the death probably never would have met Isabella or known the real story. So I'm thinking Janet could be a real possibility...

... except for the Glasgow bit. It seems odd to me that a shoemaker would move around that much. From Makerston to Glasgow to Edinburgh? A soldier or a merchant or a seaman... okay. But a shoemaker?

Missing Horne found?

It seems there are quite a few stories in this branch of the family that aren't quite true. James Wilson Horne and his wife did not both tragically die in the same year, leaving their children orphaned (they died about three years apart). Their children were not all taken in by James's brother Robert, nor were they taken under the wing of the Lord Provost of Edinburgh (wishful thinking!). As far as I can tell, the orphaned children were split up, since they ended up scattered around the globe:

Margaret Kinnimunth Horne ended up living in Linlithgow, where she died in 1923. Various censuses show her as an unemployed boarder. One census even lists her as an imbecile! I can't find any evidence of her being a schoolteacher, as the family stories claim.

David Horne was supposedly the captain of a ship (highly unlikely, since he would've been a teenager at the time) and went to sea. Family stories say he disappeared in San Francisco some time before 1873, most likely the victim of murder since he had a temper and probably got himself into trouble. More about him in a minute...

John "Jack" Stafford Horne married a woman named Mary Brown, and their son, James Wilson Horne, was born in Glasgow in 1881. Jack ended up in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada... and is buried in the same plot with two of his brothers. I have no idea what happened to his wife. His son married Margaret Crawford in 1906 in Glasgow... and then the trail goes cold.

Isabella Horne, the first baby girl to have this name, died at the age of six months.

James Wilson Horne was said to have gone in search of his older brother, David, and was washed overboard near Cape Horn. No... I'm not kidding. I'm sure the poor kid didn't appreciate the coincidence in his last moments, though.

Stafford Horne left Scotland and had a few kids in Illinois before bringing his family to Victoria. He's another of the brothers buried in the aforementioned plot.

Isabella Horne, the second child to bear the name (the family seemed to adhere to the Scottish naming pattern, so I guess they needed an Isabella) married one of the sons of Barry Sullivan (the actor) in Lancashire, England in the 1880s. They later moved to Australia.

Thomas Henderson Horne was supposedly one of the children in need of guardianship, but I lose track of him between 1871 (on the census just before the death of his mother) and 1881 (where he turns up working on a farm in Ontario, Canada). He moved to Victoria and raised his family there. He's the third brother buried in the aforementioned plot.

William Stafford Horne was another baby who only lived a few months. I didn't even know about him until I found the birth and death records. Family stories never mentioned him (though they did mention the first Isabella); I don't know why William was forgotten.

Now for David Horne (see above)... Obviously, an 18-year-old as the captain of a ship is pretty unlikely. Getting oneself into trouble because of a bad temper... more likely, but probably a dramatic story that was made up because nobody knew what actually happened to David. Thanks to the Internet, the mystery may now be solved.

There is a David William Horne, born c1855 in Scotland (our David was actually born in Berwick-upon-Tweed, England, but he was raised in Edinburgh from the age of 3... so perhaps he thought he was Scottish), who was living in Sonoma County, California (not too far from San Francisco) from the 1870s onward. The censuses say he arrived in either 1870 or 1871. This could very well be our David. Perhaps he decided to settle in California. It's said that he was never heard from again... but if we think about this, we can see that that doesn't necessarily mean he was killed. If he'd written home in 1871, who would've been there to receive the letter? His parents were gone and his siblings were scattered about. The children on both sides of the Atlantic most likely never knew what had become of their siblings. How sad!

David William Horne (1855-1939) married a woman named Elizabeth Watts (1860-1910) and had seven children:

Jessie Elizabeth Horne (1880-1961)
Marian "May" C. Horne (1881-?)
Hadie Watts Horne (1884-1955)
Richard William Horne (1886-1960)
Jeanie R. Horne (1888-?)
David J. Horne (1894-1970)
Archibald Charles Horne (1897-1957)

Since these are fairly recent dates, I haven't been able to find much. I've only found three descendants in the next generation, and they're all from the girls; I don't even know if the boys married. I would dearly like to know if there are more Hornes out there... and if so, find out what their family stories say about how their ancestor, David Horne, arrived in North America!