Jonas Aspinall - Mystery solved!



Jonas Aspinall, my great great grandfather

I wrote a post a while back about Jonas Aspinall's mistaken family tree. I've got it all sorted out now, and I'm sad to say that my family members who have worked on Jonas' family tree have done some unnecessary work. Jonas' father (also named Jonas) was confused with another Jonas Aspinall of approximately the same age. As a result, the line of Jonathon Aspinall was followed back instead of the line of Thomas Aspinall, who is my actual 4x great grandfather.

To determine which Jonas Aspinall was my 3x great grandfather, I ordered the younger Jonas Aspinall's birth record from the UK. (I'm confident that this Jonas is at least the right one, because there aren't any others born around the same time.)

Jonas Aspinall was born on the Eleventh of November 1857, in the registration district Great Boughton, in the sub-district of Chester Cathedral in the County of Chester and City of Chester. His father's name was Jonas Aspinall, a mattress manufacturer, and his mother's name was Ann Aspinall formerly Rangley. The birth was registered on the Twenty Fourth of November 1857, and the father was the informant.

When I had been searching on Ancestry and initially discovered this conundrum, I saw two marriage records for Jonas Aspinalls. The one that was with Ann Rangley recorded the groom's father as Thomas Aspinall. Somewhere along the way, someone found the other marriage record, between a different Jonas Aspinall and his wife Susey Sykes, with that Jonas Aspinall being a son of Jonathan Aspinall and Hannah Stake. This resulted in a false branch of my family tree.

It's scary to think how easy these mistakes are to make! I'd hate to think that my family tree could have branches in it that don't even belong there. Constant vigilance is required!