Tindalls of Broomhouse, Chatton, Northumberland

BROOMHOUSE

Now a Grade II listed property, Broomhouse lies about a mile west of Chatton Village, the farm comprising 300 acres of arable and grassland leading down towards the banks of the river Till.

For more than seven centuries the Tindall family, yeoman farmers on the domains of the Percys, Dukes of Northumberland, have lived and worked on this land.

Chatton Village

Lying 19 miles from the town of Alnwick and 24 miles from Berwick Upon Tweed, Chatton is a  small village, lying close to the Cheviot Hills, and is located in a valley on the river Till.....

 .......with an old and renowned pub, The Percy Arms........

.......and a church - Holy Cross -  where generations of Tindalls have been baptised, married and buried.

Chatton Parish registers 

Surname Saturday - Tindall

Name Meaning

English: regional name for someone who lived in Tynedale, the valley of the river Tyne, or a habitational name from a place in Cumbria called Tindale, which is situated on a tributary of the South Tyne. The name derives from a British river name Tina (apparently from a Celtic root meaning ‘to flow’) + Old English dæl or Old Norse dalr ‘valley’.


Below are the recorded ancestors - before them, generations of Tindall yeoman farmers living near Chatton, Northumberland, England.

TINDALL LINEAGE

Thomas Tindall (1685 - )

 5th great grandfather of Alan Toomey

Adam Tindall (1710 - 1767)

Son of Thomas - b/d in Chatton, Northumberland, England. Married Margaret Thompson 30 May,1747. 

Robert Tindall (1755 - )

Son of Adam - b/d in Chatton, Northumberland, England. Married Mary ?

John Tindall (1800 - 1863)

Son of Robert - b/d in Chatton, Northumberland, England. Married Mary Eleanor Charters in 1832.

Thomas Tindall (1840 - 1885)

Son of John - b. in Chatton, Northumberland, England. Married Jane Rutherford in 1865,  emigrated to New Zealand in 1866. d. Hilton, Geraldine, South Canterbury, New Zealand

John William Tindall ( 1867 - 1932)

Son of Thomas - b. Dunedin, NZ -   Married Georgina Cullen 30 April 1902. Farmer at Hilton, Geraldine , South Canterbury, NZ. - d. Timaru

Alice Eileen Tindall (1903 - 1974)

Daughter of John William - b. Hilton, Geraldine, South Canterbury, New Zealand. Married Mark Anthony Toomey 3 June 1931. d. Christchurch, New Zealand.

Alan Mark Toomey (1943 - )

Son of Alice Eileen

Tombstone Tuesday - Bryen & Pennella Coughlin

BRYEN COUGHLIN

Died June 27, 1909

PENNELLA COUGHLIN

Died May 15, 1903

***

Holy Cross Cemetery

Lackawanna

Buffalo, Erie County, New York

***

Alan's great-grandparents - Bryen and Pennella's son John and daughter Bridget emigrated from Nenagh, Tipperary, Ireland to America in  1890 and later brought out their parents and two sisters. Both of the other two sisters, Catherine and Mary came to New Zealand where Catherine would marry Mark Anthony Toomey. 

On this day.......a wedding!

George Cullen and Mary Ann Bailey

were married on 11th September, 1860

at St Peter's Church, Cooks River Road, Sydney, Australia

Below is a coaster in George's handwriting recording the occasion. 

Both George and Mary Ann were born in Somerset and George's addition of their English origin ( Kent and Essex) is an indication that they had moved away from their birth county   to work before emigrating to Australia.

George and Mary Ann Cullen are Alan T.'s maternal great grandparents.

Genealogy Fun - Ahnentafel Roulette

Saturday Night Genealogy fun from Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings


1) How old is your great-grandfather now, or how old would he be if he had lived? Divide this number by 4 and round the number off to a whole number. This is your "roulette number."

2) Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ahnentafel (ancestor name list). Who is that person?

3) Tell us three facts about that person with the "roulette number."


My great grandfather Appleton Richardson was born in 1840 which would make him 171. Divided by 4 and rounded up to the nearest whole number = 43 which brought me to one of my paternal great-great grandmothers.


Sarah Bennett nee Riley 1821 - 18--

1. Sarah was born in and would live her entire life in Ilkeston , Derbyshire, England.

2. She married Joseph Bennett on 29th December,1846 and they would have four children - Elizabeth, Thomas,Ellen and Sarah. She would be widowed while still in her 40's.

Part of Market Place today

3. In the 1851 census the family is living at 192 Market Place. Joseph was a tailor and barber so it's likely they lived above the business premises in this busy central part of Ilkeston. Sarah is a dressmaker and most likely a full time helper with the the tailoring as the household includes a nursemaid to look after baby Elizabeth.

I still have a lot to find out about this family!

Looking for Johnstons......Part 1

......is like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack and isn't helped by the fact my mother told me next to nothing about her father's family. I've tended to push this branch of the family to one side because it's all too difficult but I'm learning to have patience and take one small step at a time and slowly I'm getting results.

This is my grandfather John Kirkpatrick Johnston. (1874 - 1940)

Prior to 2007 I knew

• the family came from a small village called Lochfoot about 5 km west of Dumfries in Scotland.
• my grandfather was born on the 24th September, 1874 ( from an old birthday book of my mothers)
• he came to New Zealand as a young man. 
• his father's name was also John and he married an Agnes (probably Corrie) 

In the 1990's my mother's eldest sister, Edith,  died and as my mother was the last surviving child she inherited a few special family items but it wasn't until after she died in 2007 and they came to me that I discovered an envelope that contained several BMD certificates including my grandfather's baptismal certificate.

It confirms the birthdate ,  that he was baptised on the 10th January, 1875 and his parents are John and Agnes. But the big surprise is the location - Barrow in Furness , Lancaster, England. That makes a huge difference because with so little information I wasn't prepared to tackle ScotlandsPeople's pay to view site but I can search the English census records.

You wouldn't believe how many John Johnstons there are and most of them seem to have married women named Agnes. 1871 -81-91...........so many looked at but none appear to be my John and Agnes. Perhaps they went back to Scotland?

I'm discouraged and the Johnstons get pushed under the bed again.

Tombstone Tuesday: James Gibbs

St Barnabas, Woodend, Canterbury, New Zealand

The Story of James and Elizabeth

James Gibbs was born in 1820, in Turvey, Bedfordshire, the son of George and Sarah (nee Stanton) Gibbs and cousin to our Joseph.

In 1841 he is living at home and is described as an agricultural labourer.

On the 21 September, 1846 James marries Mary Huckle and later that year their son, Thomas is born but sadly, in June of 1847, Mary dies.

On the night of the 1851 census James is visiting his aunt and uncle, James and Esther Ayres, but his son is at the home of Keziah and Ben Bailey - Keziah is his sister and I think it's safe to assume that James and Thomas are living with the Baileys.

Elizabeth Gibbs was born in 1821, in Lavendon, Buckinghamshire, the daughter of James and Catherine Drage.

In 1841 she marries William Stanton - cousin of James Gibbs - they live in Turvey and in 1844 their daughter Mary is born. But William will also die before the 1851 census where Elizabeth is listed as a widow , a lacemaker,  living with her daughter at 166 High St, Turvey.

Both widowed with a child to raise it seems natural they would find some solace together but in 1855 James and Thomas are part of the Turvey family group preparing to set sail to New Zealand on the Cashmere - and that raises questions which will never be answered but are interesting to think about.

• Did James ask Elizabeth to marry him and go to NZ and she refused?
• Did they see their relationship as only an interlude before each went their separate way?

And the big question - Did they know Elizabeth was pregnant when James left? My feeling is they didn't . The Cashmere left London on the 2 July - the travellers would have been gone from Turvey sometime in June. Elizabeth's baby was born in February of 1856, eight months later and she named him James Gibbs Stanton. 

Two years later Elizabeth, Mary and James are part of the another group from Turvey heading for New Zealand on the ship 'Zealandia'. They arrived in Lyttelton on 21st September, 1858 and a month later, on 27th August, 1858 , Elizabeth Stanton (nee Drage) and James Gibbs are married and settle in Woodend and in 1862 another son, Samuel is born.

A fascinating story and one that took quite a while to put all the pieces together . It deserves a 'they lived happily ever after' ending but unfortunately it doesn't. 

James Gibbs died in 1864 - he was only 44.

Elizabeth Gibbs would spend another 27 years as a widow - she died in 1891.