RUSHWORTH and WEBSTER - what's the connection?

'Curious' is this week's theme for '52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks'. I'm curious to know more about the connection between my WEBSTERs and the RUSHWORTH family.

1. In 1793, Joseph RUSHWORTH was a witness at the marriage of William WEBSTER and Elizabeth Harley PORTER in Middlesex, England. [Source: Parish register of marriages, St.James, Clerkenwell, Middlesex. London Metropolitan Archives ref. p76/js1/034.]


2. In 1813, Thomas RUSHWORTH was chosen as the guardian of Thomas WEBSTER aged 19, 'child of William WEBSTER late of the Borough in Southwark London deceased and the nephew sole executor and residuary legatee named in the will of Henry WEBSTER' of Leeds, Yorkshire. [Source: Curation, Henry WEBSTER, 20 Oct 1813. Borthwick Institute for Archives, Yorkshire, England. Copy ordered via Prerogative and Exchequer Courts of York Probate Index.]


3. In 1841, Cecelia RUSHWORTH, 99 Waterloo Bridge Road, Lambeth, Surrey, was present at the death of Elizabeth Harley WEBSTER. [Source: General Register Office (England/Wales); death certificate of Elizabeth Harley WEBSTER. Cecelia was the informant.]

RUSHWORTH is not a very common name, and at the time of the 1841 census, most of them were in Yorkshire.

So the burning question is... when did the connection between the RUSHWORTH and WEBSTER families start? Are they related somehow (see Webster Family Origins: Yorkshire or Scotland?) or were they just friends, associates or neighbours? If you have any information, please leave a comment here, or email me at the address shown in the sidebar.

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This is my Week 4 post for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks (Amy Johnson Crow has challenged us to do something with the family history information that we've gathered).

(This post first appeared on https://judy-webster.blogspot.com/2022/01/rushworth-and-webster-whats-connection.html)

Photo of Col WEBSTER with Bert and Flossie

Col Webster playing with Bert and Flossie, 2005
(photo by Judy Webster)

Favourite Photo is this week's theme for '52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks'. I chose this photo because it brings back many happy memories of my Dad (Col WEBSTER) and our beloved dogs Flossie (a Border Collie) and Bert (a Smithfield). They were both 'rescue dogs', and hugely important in our lives.

Dad was aged 86 when I took this photo at 'Taminga' (the 32-acre property near Fernvale, Queensland, to which Mum and Dad retired after they left Cunnamulla).

Flossie came to live there in 1998. Bertie joined us for Christmas 2002, when my sister Robyn was "just fostering him from the pound until New Year". (Haha - a likely story!) To nobody's surprise, they fell in love with each other and Bert became the newest member of our family.

That Christmas was rather entertaining. In three days, Bertie ate a chair, an outdoor sofa, two foam boxes, a mat, a dog bed, assorted garden tools, and several toys belonging to Flossie. He was only ten months old, so the chewing phase was in full swing, but thankfully it didn't last too long. And in his entire life, he never chewed a shoe!

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This is my Week 3 post for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Amy Johnson Crow has challenged us to do something with the family history information that we've gathered. Even if I don't always stick to the suggested themes, I'll try to post something here each week. It may just be an 'On This Day' biographical snippet, or an extract from an interesting document, but anything is better than nothing!

(This post first appeared on https://judy-webster.blogspot.com/2022/01/photo-of-col-webster-with-bert-and.html)

Children of William WEBSTER and Elizabeth PORTER

In a previous post I wrote about the origins of William WEBSTER, who married Elizabeth Harley PORTER. William and Elizabeth had eight children - Thomas, James (my ancestor), Elizabeth, Ann, William, Henry, George and Ebenezer. They were all baptised at either Stockwell Chapel or St.Saviour's Church in Southwark, Surrey, England. All eight were still alive in early 1813, when they were named in the will of their uncle, Henry WEBSTER.

Brothers James and George WEBSTER married sisters Mary and Sarah GIBLETT, and I know a lot about their descendants.

Thomas and Ebenezer WEBSTER (the eldest and youngest of the siblings) died in Leeds, Yorkshire (unmarried).

Ann WEBSTER was born circa 1800, and her brother William WEBSTER was born 21 Dec 1802 (the baptism register shows his birth date). When Michael FLYNN (historian, author, and my 6th cousin) was researching the PORTER descendants, he found the 1851 census entry, in Tottenham (Middlesex), for William WEBSTER (aged 47, born Southwark Surrey, unmarried), Anne WEBSTER (aged 49, sister, born Stockwell Surrey, unmarried), and Mariamne PORTER (aged 14). Other sources confirm that her name was Mariamne, not Marianne. For her relationship, it looks as though the enumerator couldn't decide whether to put 'Niece' or something starting with C. Mariamne was in fact a daughter of William and Anne's cousin.

Although Ancestry's index showed the wrong year, I found an image of an 1857 burial register entry that, based on the address (Tottenham) and age, fits this William WEBSTER. To check whether it was the same person, I bought the 1857 death certificate. William WEBSTER's occupation shown there fits with the 1851 census entry ('agent for iron works'). Although I'd have liked to find a will, I'm still confident that this William and Anne are the children of William WEBSTER and Elizabeth Harley PORTER.

I have yet to research the other WEBSTER siblings - Elizabeth (baptised 1797), Ann (baptised 1800) and Henry (born and baptised 1805). If you'd like to exchange information about the family, or if you have questions about the sources that I used, please email me at the address shown in the sidebar.

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This is my Week 2 post for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Amy Johnson Crow has challenged us to do something with the family history information that we've gathered. Even if I don't always stick to the suggested themes, I'll try to post something here each week. It may just be an 'On This Day' biographical snippet, or an extract from an interesting document, but anything is better than nothing!

(This post first appeared on https://judy-webster.blogspot.com/2022/01/children-of-william-webster-and.html)

Webster Family Origins: Yorkshire and Scotland?

Pedigree chart showing our earliest known Websters
(ignore the numbers generated by my genealogy software)

My WEBSTER family allegedly left Aberdeen (Scotland) in 1745 ('because of the political troubles of the time') and settled in Yorkshire (England).

My 4xgreat-grandfather William WEBSTER (who married Elizabeth Harley PORTER) died in 1810 aged 44. He was in Southwark, Surrey, but as yet I don't know where he was born. William was a dyer.

His brother Henry WEBSTER, a drysalter, died in Leeds, Yorkshire, in or before 1813. One of the wills that I bought *proves* that William and Henry were brothers. It also proves that umpteen trees on Ancestry have the wrong birth/death years for William!

If you'd like to exchange information about this family, please email me at the address shown in the sidebar.

Sources include... (contact me for more detailed citations)

* Exchequer Court of York probate records.
* Freedom of the City admission papers, London, England.
* Non-conformist parish records, Leeds, Yorkshire (two versions of a burial register, plus a third volume that appears to be a register of graves).
* Newspaper death notices, Leeds, Yorkshire, England, 1823 and 1826.
* Birth, death and marriage certificates.
* Parish registers of baptism, marriage and burial.
* Private family papers, including letters written by a relative in England before 1903.

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This is my Week 1 post for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Amy Johnson Crow has challenged us to do something with the family history information that we've gathered. Even if I don't always stick to the suggested themes, I'll try to post something here each week. It may just be an 'On This Day' biographical snippet, or an extract from an interesting document, but anything is better than nothing!

(This post first appeared on https://judy-webster.blogspot.com/2022/01/webster-family-origins-yorkshire-and.html)

Genealogy in 2016: Accentuate the Positive

With the 'Accentuate the Positive' geneameme, Jill Ball encourages us to focus on our recent genealogical achievements, not the things that are still on our 'to do' list at the end of 2016.

• An elusive ancestor I found was my gr-gr-gr-great-grandfather William WEBSTER (occupation: dyer), whose burial was among 79,000 new records added to the Greater London Burial Index on FindMyPast. I subsequently found an image of the original burial register in the London Metropolitan Archives collection on Ancestry.


• A precious family photo I found (courtesy of a distant cousin) was Helen Rebecca CAMPBELL (born Tiree, Argyllshire, Scotland) who married William Tasman WOOLDRIDGE in Tasmania, Australia. There is a strong resemblance between Helen and her brother John CAMPBELL, whose portrait (painted by Alfred Bock) was in the historical museum at Sale in Gippsland, Victoria.


• An ancestor whose grave I found was Carl Ludwig RIENECKER. I somehow missed it when I tramped through Forest Hill cemetery (Queensland), which has several sections separated by bushland. Luckily there is a grave location map linked to the Billion Graves Cemetery Index.


• An important vital record I found was the marriage of James WEBSTER and Mary GIBLETT in Bath, Somerset, in 1817. FindMyPast has an index (Somerset marriages post-1754) but the image of the original register is in Somerset, England, Marriage Registers, Bonds and Allegations on Ancestry.


• A newly found family member shared information about descendants of Annie Louisa WEBSTER (1848-1916) who married William SMITH, a builder in Camberwell, Surrey, England. Some members of that family use the hyphenated surname WEBSTER-SMITH.


• A geneasurprise I received was (1) Dick Eastman, in his famous online genealogy newsletter, recommended my Web page (Using and Compiling Indexes); (2) some of my English relatives were born or married in China (Ethel Winifred HUDSON, Edgar Murray HYND and their children) or died in Africa (Geoffrey Aubie TURNER). The sources I used included Andrews Newspaper Index Cards 1790-1976 and the National Probate Calendar on Ancestry, and British Nationals born overseas and British Nationals married overseas on FindMyPast.


• A 2016 blog post that I was proud of (because I think it will help a lot of people) was '40 of My Favourite Genealogy Indexes and Sources'.


• A new piece of software I mastered was IrfanView (see 'How to save source information so that it appears on an image' and 'Using IrfanView to Label Digital Photos').


• A social media tool I enjoyed using for genealogy was Tweetdeck. I make separate columns for selected people and topics (such as hashtags #genealogy and #AncestryHour) so that I can easily see those tweets. With Tweetdeck I can also schedule my own tweets to be posted when I'm away or asleep.


• A genealogy webinar from which I learnt something new was Publishing a Genealogy E-Book, by Thomas MacEntee.


• I was pleased with the presentation I gave to Toowoomba and Darling Downs Family History Society ('Not Just the Patient: how hospital and asylum records tell the story of a family' and 'Ancestors who moved or vanished'). Just before I left home, I broke my toe, so driving to Toowoomba and giving a long presentation was quite a challenge.


• I taught a friend how to use the full list of all record sets on FindMyPast to gain access to some that (inexplicably) can't be found via their A to Z Search.


• A genealogy book that taught me something new was Ancestral Trails: The Complete Guide to British Genealogy and Family History, by Mark Herber.


• A great repository I visited was the Borthwick Institute for Archives (Yorkshire, England) - but it was a 'virtual' visit, not an overseas trip! Many of the Borthwick's original records are now online as digital images. This year I downloaded several wills and hundreds of parish records via the magnificent Yorkshire Collection and Prerogative and Exchequer Courts Of York Probate Index on FindMyPast.


• A new history book I enjoyed was Shadows of the Workhouse: The Drama of Life in Postwar London (the beautifully written memoirs of Jennifer Worth).


• A geneadventure I enjoyed was a genealogy conference on a 7-night Barrier Reef cruise organised by Unlock the Past.


• Another positive I would like to share is... In 2016 I made a lot of progress because I took a close look at what I'd previously found (or failed to find). I studied certificates again, and suddenly realised the significance of witnesses' names. Taking one ancestor at a time (and then their siblings), I listed the records that were missing from my collection. I obtained certificates, wills, school records and other items that were unavailable (because of access restrictions) when I started family history 40 years ago. I checked what sources I'd previously used, and I looked for new indexes (and digital images of original records) on the Internet and in libraries and Archives.
  
  I'm sure that you, too, will enjoy success in 2017 if you follow Pauleen Cass's superb advice in My 3 Rs of Genealogy Research.

My previous posts in the 'Accentuate the Positive' series were in 2012 and 2013. If you'd like to join in, see Jill's blog.

How My Cousin Helped

Many of you will have heard the story of my father's 'Do Good Money'. This was money he set aside and periodically loaned to a hard-working person in need of help. When Dad passed away, my sisters and I decided to continue his tradition.

On the user-friendly Web site of Kiva, a non-profit organisation working with microfinance institutions around the world, we choose a borrower to support with a loan of just $25. Similar loans by other lenders are combined until the required total is reached. In this way we enable people without access to traditional banks to expand their businesses, support and educate their children, save for the future and raise themselves out of poverty. My sisters and I have now made over 40 loans. As the money is repaid (often in monthly instalments) we could withdraw it, but we always lend it to someone else. A small sum that is loaned over and over again helps more people than a one-time donation.

Some of my family and friends do not like transferring money via the Internet. To avoid that problem, one of my cousins posted me a cheque for $100 and asked me to make loans on her behalf. I chose these four borrowers:

1.  Gulchehra (Tajikistan)

Gulchehra has four children, and her husband is a taxi driver in the Russian Federation. Since 2004 Gulchehra has been making gold embroidered capes for brides. She does this at home and sells the capes at a market. She asked for a loan to repair her house, specifically to buy plastic windows, doors and fibreboard. (This made me realise how lucky I am to have a house with windows!)

2.  Bordados Mazahuas group (Mexico)

The group consists of three women and one man who business is agriculture. They needed a loan to buy chickens and sheep. One of the women, Doña Soledad, is a 59-year-old widow whose profits are used to buy food, shoes and clothing for herself and her daughter. The other members of the group are Olivia and Juliana who raise chickens and Don Mario who has sheep.

3.  Mujeres Emprendedoras group (Paraguay)

This group has 22 members, all women. One member of the group, Alana, applied for a loan to invest in her tailoring business. She wanted to buy more fabric, buttons, glue, zippers and other materials so she could fill her current orders.

4.  Mirador De Yahuarcocha group (Ecuador)

This group consists of five entrepreneurial women with the same goal, which is to move forward with their business and improve their quality of life. The group's president, Paola, lives with her parents. She and her co-workers make shirts of Indian fabric. Her loan was used to buy an industrial sewing machine to increase productivity. Paola dreams of having a large workshop and employing people who need a job.

You can help!

At any given time there are thousands of individuals and groups listed on Kiva. Please join me in making a difference through small loans (not handouts). You can choose a borrower from Kiva's Web site - or if you don't want to make payments via the Internet, follow my cousin's example and send me a cheque for any amount you chose (it can be less than $25) and ask me to put it towards a loan on your behalf. When I do so, I will send you a link to the borrower's profile so you can follow their progress.

Freedom certificate, James WEBSTER

James Webster's freedom certificate (left side)

One of my family treasures is the original Certificate of Freedom issued to my great-great-great-grandfather, James WEBSTER, on 1 July 1823. James had been apprenticed to John PORTER, a stationer of Pall Mall, London, whom we believe was his uncle. (Thanks to Michael FLYNN for his help with the PORTER research.)

This certificate was entrusted to me by Rodney CARR. It was handed down through his branch of the family (descendants of James WEBSTER's eldest daughter, Sarah). The authenticity of this large document, only a portion of which is shown above, was confirmed by the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers.

For information about this family (including James's parents, William WEBSTER and Elizabeth Harley PORTER), see the Webster family tree on my Web site.

WEBSTER and HUDSON graves, Helidon

I have two sets of great-grandparents buried in the General Cemetery, Helidon, Queensland -

James Campbell WEBSTER and Ellen WEBSTER nee BUTLER

George HUDSON and Mary HUDSON nee PEACOCK

(Photos © Judy WEBSTER, 2003)

George HUDSON (son of William HUDSON and Christiana MATTHEW of Barton-le-Willows, North Yorkshire, England) married Mary PEACOCK (daughter of John PEACOCK and Mary HUGILL) at Stockton-on-Tees, Durham, England in 1863. George and Mary HUDSON emigrated to Queensland in the 1880s.

James Campbell WEBSTER and Ellen BUTLER were married at Coonamble NSW and later moved to Queensland.