Elizabeth Maria Symonds and my other Symonds ancestors

Elizabeth Maria Symonds (1826-1911).My 3rd great-grandmother. Elizabeth Maria Symonds was born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, in 1826 and baptised in St Nicholas’s Church on 24 November that year. Her parents were fisherman Charles Robinson Witchingham Symonds and Susanna Waters (see below). Elizabeth married mariner William Mark Green, a Yarmouth native, at St Nicholas’s on 29 […]

Mary Pilgrim and my other Pilgrim ancestors

Mary Pilgrim (1811-1867).My 3rd great-grandmother. My Pilgrim ancestors came from Norfolk in East Anglia and joined my family tree when Mary Pilgrim married James Goulty in 1842. Mary was born illegitimately to mother Elizabeth Pilgrim on 7 January 1811 at Morley St Peter in Norfolk and was baptised there on 13 January. From a court […]

Harriet Wetherall (1801-1859) – married a leading artist

Norwich by Thomas Lound

Harriet Wetherill (1801-1859) and Thomas Lound (1801-1861).My 5th great-grand aunt and uncle. Harriet was born on 11 June 1801 and baptised on the 16th at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth. Her parents were James Wetherill and Mary Proctor. She grew up in the coastal town without knowing her father, who’d died just weeks before […]

Susanna Green (1844-1920) – a marathon journey to Utah

Susanna Green (1844-1920) and Henry Gillins (1840-1919).My 3rd great-grand aunt and uncle. Susanna Green was born on 10 May 1844 and baptised at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, on 9 June. Her parents were William Green and Willoughby Staff. She spent her childhood in the town but after the death of her father […]

Sarah Ann Green (1829-1902) – a troubled marriage

Sarah Ann Green (1829-1902) and Jonathan Jary (1831-1890).My 3rd great-grand aunt and uncle. Sarah was baptised on 5 June 1829 at St Nicholas’s Church, Great Yarmouth, and grew up with her siblings and parents William Green and Willoughby Staff in the town. The 1851 census recorded her living with relative and mariner’s wife Elizabeth Saunders and […]

Willoughby Staff (1803-1886) – a journey to the USA as a Mormon

Willoughby Staff (1803-1886) and William Green (1799-????). My 4th great-grandmother and grandfather. Willoughby Staff may have been born in rural Norfolk but she ended up as a member of the Mormon church in the American state of Utah… Her birth, though, is a bit of a mystery. Census records suggest it was Hickling, a village to […]

Mary Ann Green (1853-1918) – widowed by a storm

Mary Ann Green (1853-1918), Frederick Rowland (1854-1881) and Daniel Robert Beales 1852-1909). My 2nd great-grand aunt and uncles. Mary Ann Green was born on 13 January and baptised on 17 April 1853 at St Nicholas’s Church, Great Yarmouth, to parents William Mark Green and Elizabeth Maria Symonds. Her first husband would drown in a notorious […]

Emmeline Louisa Wetherall (1872-1932) – widowed by a mill accident

Emmeline Louisa Wetherall (1872-1932) and Albert Robert Woods (1872-1917). My great-grand aunt and uncle. Emmeline was born on 2 June 1872 in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, and baptised in the town on 14 July at St Nicholas’ Church. Her parents were Benjamin Thomas Wetherall and Sarah Ann Elizabeth Green. Emmeline (pictured top with her children Leslie […]

Helen Daisy Wetherall (1885-?) – married in South Africa

Helen Daisy Wetherall (1885-?) and Frederick Davis.My great-grand aunt and uncle. Helen, or Daisy as she was usually known, was born on 8 April 1885 in Great Yarmouth and baptised in the town’s St Nicholas parish church on 23 June. Her parents were shipwright Benjamin Wetherall and Sarah Green. She grew up surrounded by her siblings […]

Robert Wetherall (1829-1905) – Marylebone bricklayer

Robert Weatherall

Robert Wetherall (1829-1905) and Charlotte Watering (1829-1917).My 3rd great-grand uncle and aunt. Like several of his siblings, Robert’s actual birth and baptism dates are a bit of a mystery and it may be that he wasn’t baptised at all. Certainly, I’ve found no records recording it. Earlier census returns suggest he was born in Great […]

Edward Charles Stolliday (1873-1966) – baker and chef

Edward Charles Stolliday (1873-1966) and Margaret Elizabeth Bowles (1876-1939). My great grand-uncle and aunt.  Born on 2 March 1873 to parents Edward Stoliday and Harriet Goulty, young Edward Charles Stolliday was baptised at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, on 28 February 1875. Bearing in mind that his parents were married on Christmas Day 1872, […]

William Brooks Wetherill (1820-1903) – transported to Australia

Hobart in the 1840s

William Brooks Wetherill (1820-1903).My 5th great-uncle. William Brooks Wetherill was born on 7 March 1820 to Thomas Wetherill and Rebecca Brooks and was baptised on the 12th at St John Timberhill in Norwich, Norfolk. He was found guilty of burglary and sentenced to 10 years’ transportation to Australia. He grew up in Norwich with his […]

James Wetherall (1833-1918?) – service in the Royal Navy

HMS Gorgon

James Wetherall (1833-1918) and Rhoda Brown (1839-1904). My 3rd great-grand uncle and aunt. James Wetherall was one of the children of my 4th great-grandmother Rebecca Frances Wetherall, and like his siblings he was born illegitimately in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. I’ve yet to find a baptism record for him but surviving census returns estimate his year of […]

Gertrude Wetherall (1877-1964) – war service and tragedy

St Nicholas Church, Great Yarmouth

Gertrude Wetherall (1878-1964) and George Albert Harvey (1882-1937). My 2nd great-aunt and uncle. Gertrude Wetherall was born on 5 December 1878 and baptised on 23 December that year at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk (above). Her husband, who fought in The Great War, killed himself on the railways. After growing up in Admiralty […]

Alice Amelia Stolliday (1877-1929) and a tale of tragedy

Alice Amelia Stolliday (1877-1929). My great-grand aunt. Alice died relatively young, leaving her husband so distraught that he took his own life. She was born on 5 August 1877 in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, and baptised on 12 May 1878 at St Nicholas’s Church to parents Edward Stoliday and Harriet Goulty. She grew up in the […]

Robert Stolladay (1804-1862) – transported to Australia

Sydney from Pinchgut Island in about 1826, when Robert arrived

Robert Stolladay (1804-1862) and Mary Anne McGuigan.My 3rd great-grand uncle. Every family has its share of black sheep and Robert Stolladay was one of ours. He suffered the horrors of transportation to Australia for burglary but forged a new life there, had a family and then died a miserable death. The eldest child of James Stoliday […]