Mary's Comment
This comment from Mary is, I think, too important to many of you to be tucked away in the Comments. To me, Robert Drew (or Lawry, or Drew-Lawry) is an interesting story of one of the several "base children" scattered through our trees.
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Mary said:
I too have been musing recently over Robert Drew or Lawry born at Penzance in 1772. He must surely have lived in the Helston area under the name of Drew around 1800 because he married Mary Bosisto there in 1801 under the name Drew, and their first son James Drew was baptised under the name Drew at Helston on 14 February 1802. From your research, I see that Bennett Drew of Creed married Jenifer Tallack at Mylor in 1792 and in Phillimore's Marriage Register he is listed as Bennett Drew of Helston (Widower). So did young Robert live with or near his natural father's brother, Bennett in Helston?
Then there is the enigma of why when Robert and Mary moved to live in Penzance they had their sons William and George baptised at St. Mary's Church, Penzance under the surname Lawry on 10 April 1803 and 17 February 1805 respectively. However, when their children Sophia and John were baptised at St. Mary's on 30 September 1807 and 29 October 1809 respectively, they were baptised there under the surname Drew. John was buried under the name Drew at Paul on 3 September 1811 and Mary and Sally were baptised at Paul on 2 September 1812 and 4 March 1815 respectively. From then on according to census details and burial records the family was always known as Drew.
I ask myself why when Robert returned to live in Penzance in the years between 1802/03 and 1805/06 he was using the name Lawry only to change it from 1806 onwards in Penzance and later in Mousehole/Paul back to Drew. Maybe he did not want to use the surname Drew to cause problems with his natural father who may well have still been alive and residing in Penzance during those years.
I would be interested to learn your views on the above enigma.
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My great-grandfather, Samuel, had a 'base' half-brother Edward George Drew who appears to have used the Drew surname in all official matters during his long life at Mylor. Even when he was living with his natural mother, Elizabeth Dingey, at the time of the 1851 Census, he was known as Edward Drew. It appears that this particular branch of the family were respected citizens of Mylor (in particular, the Wesleyan community). However, we in Australia had no oral history of the existence of Edward George II and his large family. It was the oddity of the 1841 Census, with two Edward Drews with a 20 year age difference living in Illogan, that set me to head scratching until Chris came along with some of the details.
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Mary said:
I too have been musing recently over Robert Drew or Lawry born at Penzance in 1772. He must surely have lived in the Helston area under the name of Drew around 1800 because he married Mary Bosisto there in 1801 under the name Drew, and their first son James Drew was baptised under the name Drew at Helston on 14 February 1802. From your research, I see that Bennett Drew of Creed married Jenifer Tallack at Mylor in 1792 and in Phillimore's Marriage Register he is listed as Bennett Drew of Helston (Widower). So did young Robert live with or near his natural father's brother, Bennett in Helston?
Then there is the enigma of why when Robert and Mary moved to live in Penzance they had their sons William and George baptised at St. Mary's Church, Penzance under the surname Lawry on 10 April 1803 and 17 February 1805 respectively. However, when their children Sophia and John were baptised at St. Mary's on 30 September 1807 and 29 October 1809 respectively, they were baptised there under the surname Drew. John was buried under the name Drew at Paul on 3 September 1811 and Mary and Sally were baptised at Paul on 2 September 1812 and 4 March 1815 respectively. From then on according to census details and burial records the family was always known as Drew.
I ask myself why when Robert returned to live in Penzance in the years between 1802/03 and 1805/06 he was using the name Lawry only to change it from 1806 onwards in Penzance and later in Mousehole/Paul back to Drew. Maybe he did not want to use the surname Drew to cause problems with his natural father who may well have still been alive and residing in Penzance during those years.
I would be interested to learn your views on the above enigma.
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My great-grandfather, Samuel, had a 'base' half-brother Edward George Drew who appears to have used the Drew surname in all official matters during his long life at Mylor. Even when he was living with his natural mother, Elizabeth Dingey, at the time of the 1851 Census, he was known as Edward Drew. It appears that this particular branch of the family were respected citizens of Mylor (in particular, the Wesleyan community). However, we in Australia had no oral history of the existence of Edward George II and his large family. It was the oddity of the 1841 Census, with two Edward Drews with a 20 year age difference living in Illogan, that set me to head scratching until Chris came along with some of the details.
posted by Geoff_D @ 6:26 am
1 Comments:
At 8:52 pm,
Mary said…
Thanks for your response Kathryn. In Mousehole I believe quite a lot of name changing went on at around the turn of the 18th/19th century. On my mother's side her great-great-grandfather was known as Ben Harvey. However, although he appeared on the 1841 Census under the name Benjamin Harvwey and was married and buried at Paul under this same name, for several years I could find no baptism record for him. Then, after trying to find out about other members of his family, I discovered he had a brother James Harvey who was a fishing boat owner and who employed Ben's son Benjamin as a crew member - according to the 1851 census - following Ben's death. Following up the parentage of James Harvey (James and Jane Harvey,) I discovered they had a son ABEDNEGO Harvey baptised in early 1806, at the very same time that Ben would have been born as per the 1841 census (1805/1806). According to the Sennen OPC Sandra Pritchard, men called Abednego were often known as just Ben. So therefore, it became apparent that my 3xgreat-grandfather had been baptised as Abednego Harvey, had probably always been known as Ben and later on his life was recorded under the name Benjamin Harvey.
It just goes to show how flexible we all have to be when following up these early records if we want to get at the truth.
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