Liverpool marriages

I have received a bumper pile of Guild marriage certificates from the Liverpool Marriage Challenge. Guild member Susan Atkins kindly offered to search the parish registers in the Liverpool Registration District from 1882 to 1911 to find marriages for Guild-registered names. I had a surprisingly large total of 14 Cruse marriages in this time frame and Susan was able to find nine of the 14 marriages. The remaining five marriages will probably have taken place in the Register Office, and details of these marriages can only be obtained by ordering the certificates. I have been aware for some time of a cluster of Cruses in Liverpool but have not yet had a chance to investigate this line. In the meantime I have listed below outline details of all the certificates I’ve received. I would be pleased to hear from anyone researching these lines and would be happy to provide copies of the certificates:

1882 The Parish Church Liverpool: William CRUSE, tin plate worker, son of John CRUSE, and Emma Jane FAIRHURST

1891 St Nicholas Church, Liverpool: Catherine CRUSE née McCUSKER, widow, and Thomas McCAFFREY

1892 St Simon’s Church, Liverpool: John Francis CRUSE, carter, son of Peter CRUSE, driver, and Esther Jane LOFTHOUSE

1898 St Stephen the Martyr, Liverpool: Sarah CRUSE, daughter of Patrick CRUSE, van driver, and Michael FINN

1898 The Parish Church, Liverpool: Ellen CRUSE, daughter of Patrick CRUSE, van driver, and John PASSEY

1898 The Parish Church, Liverpool: Alfred CRUSE, labourer, son of John CRUSE, labourer, and Mary Catherine GAVIN

1906 The Parish Church, Liverpool: Mabel CRUSE, daughter of William Henry CRUSE, labourer, and Ernest Henry MARSH

1908 St Nicholas’s Church, Liverpool: John CRUSE, window cleaner, son of William CRUSE (deceased), lamplighter and Mary RANDLES

1909 The Parish Church, Liverpool: Mary Elizabeth CRUSE, daughter of William CRUSE, safebreaker, and John Macdonald

More marriage certificates

I have received a bumper crop of marriage certificates from three recent Guild Marriage Challenges. I would like to thank my fellow Guild members Peter Copsey, Shelagh Mason and Shirley Forster for all their hard work extracting marriages from the parish registers in the Lambeth, Chertsey and Eastry Registration Districts. I have now sent out copies of the relevant certificates to all the interested parties. Most of the marriages are from existing trees but there are a few new names who are currently unfamiliar to me. The full list of certificates is given below with the names of the trees, where known, in brackets. If anyone is interested in any of these names and has not received a certificate please get in touch.

1873 marriage in Deal Kent: James Charles CRUSE, chemist, son of Charles CRUSE deceased, and Lucy JONES (Rode tree, Somerset)

1889 marriage in Addlestone, Surrey: Charles Alfred CRUSE, poulterer, son of Alfred CRUSE deceased, and Mary BUTLER

1892 marriage in Brixton, London: Ada Louise CRUWYS, daughter of George CRUWYS, gent, and Thomas Vincent (Mariansleigh tree, Devon)

1899 marriage in Tulse Hill, London: Ellen Mary CRUWYS, daughter of Robert CRUWYS, architect, and Reginald John YARNOLD (Mariansleigh tree, Devon)

1905 marriage in Tulse Hill, London: Bessie CRUWYS, daughter of Charles CRUWYS, builder, and Robert Ingram Howe PIPPETTE (Mariansleigh tree, Devon)

1900 marriage in Brixton, London: Benjamin James CRUSE, traveller, son of Benjamin Adams CRUSE, traveller, and Julia Ann GOLDING (Kenton tree, Devon)

1901 marriage in Lambeth, London: Albert Humphrey CRUSE, bookkeeper, son of Charles CRUSE, box manufacturer, and Lila Ann HAZARD (Bermondsey tree, London)

1907 marriage in Brixton, London: Eliza Ann CRUSE, daughter of Thomas John CRUSE, cabinet maker, and Arthur Randolph (John CRUSE and Mary ROOK line, London)

1910 marriage in Stockwell, London: Arthur Samuel CRUSE, insurance agent, son of Benjamin Adam CRUSE, commercial traveller, and Florence Ada HILLMAN (Kenton tree, Devon)

1942 marriage in Deal, Kent: Joyce Ellen CREWS and Raymond WALE

1946 marriage in Deal, Kent: Leslie Arthur CREW and Coral Margarita FOAT

1958 marriage in Deal, Kent: Florence CREWS and Derek RICHARDS

Thomas Cruwys and the Battle of Towton

There is an interesting article in today's Sunday Times magazine about the Battle of Towton, which can also be read online on the Sunday Times website. The Battle of Towton is of particular interest to me because my ancestor Sir Thomas Cruwys (d. 1471) fought at the battle on the Lancastrian side in support of Henry VI. The battle took place on 29th March 1461 (Palm Sunday), between the villages of Towton and Saxton in Yorkshire (about 20 kilometres south-west of York). It is remembered as the bloodiest battle ever fought on British soil. Henry VI and his supporters were defeated by the Yorkist army of Edward IV, and some 28,000 men are believed to have lost their lives. Sir Thomas Cruwys miraculously managed to survive the massacre of the Lancastrian army. After the battle he received a royal pardon from King Edward IV, but was forced to forfeit many of his lands. The Deed of Pardon is in the family archives at Cruwys Morchard House. Sir Thomas survived for another ten years after the Battle of Towton. Undeterred by the carnage he had witnessed at Towton he fought again at the Battle of Tewkesbury on 4th May 1471, but was again on the losing Lancastrian side. Sir Thomas Cruwys's inquisition post mortem records that he died on 12th May 1471. After the battle some of the defeated Lancastrians sought sanctuary in Tewkesbury Abbey. The victorious Yorkists forced their way into the abbey and the surviving Lancastrians were all beheaded. Sir Thomas was quite possibly one of the group who was slaughtered in the Abbey, or he might simply have died of his wounds.

It's raining frogs!

I've just learnt of a useful new website Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers which is provided by the US Library of Congress. The website provides searchable digital images from a range of US newspapers for the period from 1890 to 1910. The website can be found here. I was most surprised to find the following story from Cruwys Morchard in The San Francisco Call on 11th September 1910. Enjoy!

FROGS FALL FROM SKY AND CRY LIKE RABBITS
Death Ends Croaking When Sun Rises After Storm

LONDON, Sept. 10 – Gloucestershire recently reported the arrival in that section of snakes which milked the cows. Now Jack Ayre of Temple Bottom, near Cruwys-Morchard in Devonshire, reports that after a violent thunder storm he found a long stretch of road covered with thousands of frogs, "which cried like rabbits".

Ayre expresses the opinion that the frogs came down from the sky, and he is supported in his view by another resident of the district, who has had experience of monsoons abroad.

This expert says that in the stillness which precedes monsoons in tropical regions all sorts of creeping things come out of their hiding places and croak. They are often carried up into the air by whirlwinds, and when the monsoons break, down they come again, as appears to have done at Cruwys-Morchard.

It was midnight when Ayre made his discovery. In the morning there were still a number of frogs left but many were dead.

DNA discounts

I have been notified by Family Tree DNA, the company who are running our DNA project, that they have a Summer Sale with substantial discounts on the costs of the various DNA tests. The discounts apply until the end of August 2008. If you have been thinking of taking part in our project then it is now an ideal opportunity to join and take advantage of the special prices. We have already made some very exciting breakthroughs with the DNA testing which has enabled us to link together previously unconnected trees. The details of the promotion are shown below.

Dear Group Administrator,

In June, Family Tree DNA ran our most successful promotion ever, in which we offered a significant discount on many of our test upgrades.

Now that our lab has had time to process the high volume of orders generated by that promotion, we are ready to challenge the record that we set in June by returning to you with our "Sizzling Summer Sale". This time, the promotion is geared towards bringing new members to your projects by offering the following big incentives:

Y-DNA12 orders include a FREE mtDNA test (Y-DNA12+mtDNA promotion price of $99; normally $189)
Y-DNA25 orders include a FREE mtDNA test (Y-DNA25+mtDNA promotion price of $148; normally $238)
Y-DNA37 orders price REDUCED to $119 (normally $189)
Y-DNA37+mtDNAPlus orders price REDUCED to $189 (normally $339)
Y-DNA67+mtDNAPlus orders price REDUCED to $288 (normally $409)
mtDNAPlus price REDUCED to $149 (normally $189)

This promotion goes into effect immediately and will be available until August 31st, 11:59PM CST.

As always, thank you for your continued support!

Best Regards

Bennett Greenspan
President
Family Tree DNA

Catching up

We've been away on holiday in Sicily for the last two weeks arriving back home in the early hours of Sunday morning at a very soggy Gatwick airport. In between dealing with mountains of washing I've been trying to catch up on the huge backlog of e-mails. I was delighted to learn that the DNA project now has two new members - two people from the Cruise of Ireland project have now joined my group. I'm waiting to receive details of their pedigrees. The results are through for our tester from the Sampford Arundell Cruse line in Somerset. He currently does not match anyone within the project. I have been somewhat surprised at the genetic diversity amongst our Cruse testers. Of the six English Cruses tested so far only two have close matches. There are however a lot of English trees which are still not represented and we will get a clearer picture of the number of genetic families when more people have tested.

I was very pleased to receive two packages in the post containing marriage certificates from two Guild Marriage Challenges. The Marriage Challenge is a project whereby Guild Members do look-ups in a specific Registration District to find marriages for Guild-registered surnames. Peter Copsey has sent me seven Cruwys/Cruse marriage certificates in the Lambeth Registration District, and Shelagh Mason has found four Cruse/Crews/Crew marriages for me in the Eastry Registration District. I shall be updating my records in due course and sending out copies of certificates to the appropriate people.

I have posted an album of Sicilian photos on my Facebook page (you can find me on Facebook under the name Deborah Cruwys Kennett). For those of you who are not on Facebook I have included below a photograph of our holiday resort, Giardini Naxos in Sicily, showing Mount Etna in the background.