Janet (Aspinall) Jackson

For week two of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, the prompt is "Favourite Photo". I love finding photographs of my ancestors. So often it's difficult to find more than bare bones facts about my ancestors, as found in vital records, censuses, and the like. Having a photo of them really brings them to life! One that I'm especially fond of is this one of my great grandmother, Janet (Aspinall) Jackson.

Janet was born in 1894 in Southowram, which is just outside of Halifax, West Yorkshire. She was the third of four children of Jonas Aspinall and Sarah Hannah Fretwell.

She immigrated to Manitoba, Canada, in 1920, and in 1922 she married my great grandfather, Herbert Jackson. He had lost his first wife in 1921 and been left with a 3-year-old and a newborn baby, and Janet had moved in to help take care of them.

Janet gave birth to her first child, Charles, in 1925, but he only lived to be one year old. A few years later they had Leonard, my grandfather.

Janet died in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1968. She was 73 years old. She is buried in Boyd Cemetery, in Minto, along with Herbert, his first wife Emmeline, and baby Charles.

Revisiting my research on Janet Aspinall this week has filled in a few gaps, and I improved her biography on WikiTree a bit, but I still want to know more details about her! This has definitely motivated me to ask my grandpa for some stories!

Tune in next week for week three of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, when the prompt is "Longevity"! I'll be writing about the longest-lived of all my great grandparents.

Starting a mini one name study

Recently, I've started looking again at my Jackson line. Years ago, I traced it back from my grandpa to John Jackson, born around 1838 in Huddersfield, pretty easily. But as it turns out, finding more information about John Jackson, son of William Jackson, is no easy task. There are a LOT of John Jacksons in West Yorkshire!

Therefore, I've joined the new One Name Studies project on WikiTree. I've started a one name study of all Jacksons in and around Huddersfield. I know focusing on such a small area is a far cry from a full one name study, but even this is no small undertaking.

Basically what I'm doing is creating WikiTree profiles for all the Jacksons I find records for, whether or not I'm related to them. My hope is that this will help me to sort out all the different families. To give you an example of how important this detangling is, right now I'm looking at the records for Joseph Jackson and his wife Martha. I've tried to find their marriage record, and I've discovered that there were three couples named Joseph and Martha Jackson who got married in the 1830s in West Yorkshire. Seriously! So, I think this Martha might be Martha Scargill, based on the location, but she could also theoretically be Martha Moor or Martha Holdroyd, because they weren't too far away.

So wish me luck with this! And if you have Jackson ancestors in the Huddersfield area, let me know! Maybe we can work together to sort them out. Also, I ordered a yDNA test for my grandpa, so soon I might have another source of leads!

Wordless Wednesday - Emmeline Cockroft

Emmeline Cockroft (abt. 1883 - 1921) was the first wife of my great grandfather, Herbert Jackson. After her death, Herbert married my great grandmother, Janet Aspinall.

Ann Beaumont - Brick wall smashed!

Ann Beaumont was my 3x great grandmother. She was an exciting name to discover, because this revealed the origin of the name Beaumont, which runs in my mom's family. Ann had a son named Beaumont Jackson, Beaumont's grandson (my grandpa) has the middle name Beaumont, and my uncle has the same name as my grandpa, including the middle name Beaumont. So it was very cool to learn that that came from the last name of my great great great grandmother!

What I knew about her as of this morning was this: She was born in about 1841. On January 1, 1860, she married John Jackson in Kirkheaton, West Yorkshire. They had a son named Beaumont, who moved to Manitoba. Eventually Ann also moved to Manitoba (between 1911 and 1916, I think).

Today I discovered the site Beaumont Family History, which specifically says it studies the Beaumonts of Yorkshire! I was so excited! So, I sent them an email telling them what I knew about Ann Beaumont. Within a few hours I got an email back from Diana Beaumont, telling me that Ann lived in an area they hadn't covered in detail yet, but still giving me two census records, which give me the names of her parents, and 4 siblings. She also provided the exact dates of birth and baptism. I nearly fainted with joy.

So, here's what I know now: Ann was born on February 5, 1841, and baptised in Kirkheaton on May 16, 1842. Her parents were John Beaumont, a surgeon, and Mary (ooh, looks like I've got another brick wall to chip away at!). In the 1841 census, they lived in the household of Joshua and Ellenor Inman, on Stafford Hill (perhaps this street; check out that street view: beautiful!). Next door was a 60 year old John Beaumont, who could possibly be Ann's grandfather. Here's what the censuses contain:

1841 Kirkheaton Census, HO 107/1278/3

At Stafford hill

Joshua Inman 40 farmer

Ellenor Inman 40

John Beaumont 30 surgeon

Mary Beaumont 30

Ann Beaumont 4 months

John Beaumont 60 farmer

Charles Stancliffe 25 cow dealer

Joseph Beaumont 7

 

1851 Kirkheaton Census, HO 107/2294

At Hill Side #123 on schedule

John Beaumont H 43 surgeon Kirkheaton

Mary Beaumont W 43 Kirkheaton

Tom W Beaumont S 14 scholar Kirkheaton

Ann Beaumont D 10 scholar Kirkheaton

Maria Beaumont D   8 scholar Kirkheaton

Alfred Beaumont S   5 scholar Kirkheaton

Ada Beaumont D   3 Kirkheaton

 

This is so exciting! I'm not very good at working with UK records, but at the very least I can take this information to the library and search the Ancestry database, and hopefully find even more details.

 

I'm so grateful for the genealogy community! I only hope I can be this helpful on someone else's brick wall one of these days! :)