Leeds in the 1870s

[barlickgirl]

cnosni wrote: Hi BarlickgirlIm a bit mixed up you said that the Charles Auguste Wells i have in my tree had a sister Rosa, who had an illegitimate daughter, Winifred Rose Wells. She is seemingly unrelated to our Wells line.As Charles Auguste Wells is in your tree,and therefore is a relation of yours ,then why would his sisters illegitimate daughter be unrelated to your Wells line?Or am i reading it wrong,it wouldnt be the first time id done that.     I know it's confusing, I'll try to clarify:Charles Auguste Este Wells was the person who married a Tudor. I have a Charles Auguste Wells in my tree and since our Wells and Coultas family lines stuck tight to naming traditions it seem too big a coincidence to ignore, on Dakota and my quest for a slice of Hapton Park Palace . Given that we have 2 Wells/Coultas matches already and here was another one with Winifred Wells and Lawrence Coultas (who is in our line) I was interested to see whether there was also another link to our tree with Winifred's Wells line. I can't find a direct link, but it seems that the bridesmaids potentially link to our tree and I believe we'll find one with Charles and Winifred as wells, eventually, which could mean we do have a link to the Tudors.Wishful thinking? Probably!

[dogduke]

anything new to tell us Dakota - Barlick Girl ?

[Dakota]

Sadly no, I've been longing to get back into searching but the paint brush has been my best friend for several weeks, but I'm just about done and now that fall is coming I can get back into searching and asking questions. I can hardly wait, it's been like going through withdrawal. I know Barlick Girl had a wedding about 10 days ago so she's probably still in recovery mode, she was moving really fast there getting everything planned and done.

[dogduke]

Have you let go ofthat paint brush yet Dakota ?

[tyke bhoy]

dogduke wrote: Have you let go ofthat paint brush yet Dakota ? I suspect so as most of last week would have been battening down the hatches for the approach of Hurricane Earl. Although that far inland the worst of the winds and rainfall would have been avoided

[Dakota]

Well, it's actually in the freezer as I have a few more spots to do, but I'm mostly done. Thank heavens. I like to paint, but it was getting to be a bit excessive. I just have some work to do on the pool house - I was power washing this spring and it got away from me so I must repair my damage and paint, but I'm waiting for a bit better weather so I don't pass out from heat stroke.I was contacted by another errant cousin (Shirley) - the granddaughter of one of my grandmother's brother's - her brother Rog found some stuff in their grandmother's attic and were wondering if I was interested in it. It had to do with Henry and Sarah so it was an absolute yes I would like it. But Rog is off on an Alaskan cruise so I have to wait for him to get back.Shirley had similar tales of Lady Ann and some connection to the Earl. I think I mentioned in a previous post that when Henry and Sarah went back in 1912 or 1913 that they came back with an elaborate tea set that was passed down to my grandmother who then split it between her 3 daughters and one of my aunts gave me a tea cup and saucer from it. Well grandpa Fred got the silver urn supposedly lined in gold - Shirley has it. And Barlick Girl is looking into some pearls that her side of the family has. Also, my father got the brass candlesticks that supposedly came from a political figure in England.So I went to do some more searching and I think I've come up with a possible scenario. It has to do with Sarah's brother Fred probably being the mine manager of one of the Earl's mines and a big exposition that was held about the time Henry and Sarah went over and was related to a new business the Earl was launching in America. I've got to go back and piece together the emails to have it make more sense and I'll do that. But I also learned that the Earl was a bit of dare devil and hung out in a local pub and then went flying through the village in his Aston Martin with girls - sadly he killed someone while driving drunk and then died in a car accident while driving drunk. One of his daughter's died in a car accident and I can't remember about his wife, but it possibly might have been a car accident. His one daughter is still alive. But the title passed to a construction foreman that lives in Maine. He did come over to see what he got with the title and the Earl had passed everything of dollar value on to his daughter Regina, so he went back to his day job in Maine.So, I've got a direction to start looking in and I'll get what I have pulled together and posted to see if you all think it makes any sense. It is interesting and I do wish one of them would have left a note or a diary or something to explain this...........oh well, who ever said it was going to be easy?

[Si]

Dakota wrote: ...grandpa Fred got the silver urn supposedly lined in gold - Shirley has it. Hi Dakota. Sorry to disappoint your Shirley, but the silver urn is unlikely to be lined in gold. Any gold would be on the outside! It's more likely to be silver-plated brass, or a similar yellow metal or alloy, like these in the picture.PS Good luck with your continuing quest! Please keep us posted.

[Dakota]

I did doubt it was gold as I couldn't imagine how you could brew tea in something that was lined with gold - it's such a soft metal it would become part of the tea. She was a little indignant with me when I was telling her what I had documentation on that sort of put the old family tales to rest. At one point she was insisting that Sarah went back to England after learning of her mother's death, but Sarah was in Bowling when her mother died and a couple of weeks later was in Leeds when the third son died........She really didn't want to hear about it, but it is what it is. However, the information I got on the Earl and exposition leads me to believe that perhaps Henry and Sarah did come back and the connection with Sarah's brother Fred got them into it and possibly they got to meet the Earl as he seems to have been a bit of a scalawag and may have had an interest in meeting them - or not. Anyway, I'll pull together what I've learned and put it out for consideration.

[barlickgirl]

It's amazing how the story whether myth, partial truth, or a bedtime story that Sarah used to tell the children who were missing home, has grown and spread and now has so much traction.My Mum says that many of the things that we are now treasuring in our families that have been passed down exist because past generations of family were servants and when they married it was often to another servant in the house. They were always given a present by their employer, which as the landed gentry gradually, became taxed off their lands, meant they had no money to spend and so they gave away something that the servants may have liked and admired. Mum knows this because her Gt Grandfather was the coach driver to someone in Norfolk and as the estate he worked for was passed into administration he was out of a job, but had been paid for quite sometime with treasures from his employers estate, because there was no money for wages.Given it seems to be Ann Coultas that is the major focus of these stories amongst the US cousins, I wonder if we could track her mother, Sarah to an estate somewhere in Yorkshire, it maybe that she or her Mother were in service. Getting the things dated could be a good starting point as well. The plates that I have are dated 1750 underneath, for instance and the history of them has been lost in time. Interestingly these stories haven't been passed down in the families that remained in Yorkshire.I just can't accept that we may never have an answer, I'm a bit thick like that!!!!!barlickgirl

[Cardiarms]

Punitive taxation on inherited estates didn't start until the mid 20th century, particularly following WW2. Back in the 18th and 19th centuries the gentry were in charge and didn't tax themselves into poverty. Selling off the silver then was usually due financial mismanagement of ill fortune.