The DNA project continues to provide surprises. We now have a big breakthrough with the large Australian tree. The vast majority of the Cruwyses in Australia are descended from John Cruwys and Elizabeth Prichard who married in 1817 in Westminster, London. Their son, John George Cruwys, died in 1877 and two years later his widow Sarah Cruwys emigrated to Australia with her family. They sailed on the Blair Athole, arriving in Sydney on 4th March 1879. Despite much searching we have been unable to find any record of the baptism of John Cruwys senior. However, a descendant from this line has taken the DNA test and his results have now been received. He matches on 34 out of 37 markers with an English tester who is descended from the Wiveliscombe Cruwys tree. This line goes back to John Cruwys and Jone Lee who married in 1708 in Oakford in North Devon. Their son Richard Cruwys moved to Fitzhead in Somerset where he married Betty Moor. Later generations of the family settled nearby in Wiveliscombe. In 1794 Richard's son John Cruwys tried unsuccessfully to bring a claim against the Cruwys Morchard estate in the Court of Chancery. He claimed that he was a descendant of John Cruwys of Cheriton Fitzpaine, the shoemaker mentioned in the will of the Reverend John Cruwys of Cruwys Morchard.
The 34/37 match indicates that the two men have a 91.75% probability of sharing a common ancestor within 16 generations and a 99.21% probability of sharing a common ancestor within 24 generations. Further research will now be necessary to establish precisely where the two lines link, but at least we now have a focus for our research.
The testers from the Australian and Wiveliscombe trees rather surprisingly both belong to haplogroup G. They are predicted to be in haplogroup G2 but a haplogroup backbone test is required to confirm this prediction. Haplogroup G is very rare in the British Isles and only around 1% or 2% of men belong to this haplogroup. Further information on haplogroup G can be found here. Further information about the DNA project can be found here.
What this result also means is that we now have two distinct Cruwys groups, which is somewhat unexpected in view of the rarity of the surname. (There were only 126 people with the surname Cruwys in the 2002 UK Electoral Register.) The first haplogroup G result was so surprising that I initially assumed that it was a rogue result and was perhaps the result of a so-called "non-paternal event" in more recent times. With the two matching results from two men with the same surname this is clearly not the case. Oakford is just a few miles away from Cruwys Morchard, the ancestral parish of the Cruwys family. It seems inconceivable that the surname could develop independently in the same area of North Devon. I would therefore guess that there has been a non-paternal event in the distant past in one of the two Cruwys lines. The picture will become clearer as we test more people and more results are received. It is proving to be a most interesting voyage of discovery.
Showing posts with label Australian Cruwyses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Australian Cruwyses. Show all posts
Friday, 2 May 2008
Friday, 1 February 2008
John Cruwys - from Devon to Australia
Another long-standing mystery has finally been solved which has been a very special surprise as it involves a member of my own family, my great-great-great uncle, John Cruwys. John was last sighted in the 1851 census when he was a widower aged 32 working as a gardener and living at West Street, Millbrook, in the parish of Maker in Cornwall with his 13-year-old son, William, a printer and bookbinder. I could find no trace of John and his son in any of the subsequent censuses and there was no corresponding record of their deaths in the GRO indexes. I have been aware for some time of the few Cruwyses in the Australian records, mostly in Victoria, who do not fit into the large Australian tree, but until now I had been unable to place them. Little did I realise that they were all my own relations! Sharon Hindmarsh in Australia had done some research on my John when reconstructing her own family tree to see if she could find any connection with her own family. She has very kindly sent me all the details of her research, and I now have an almost complete pedigree for John and his family in Australia.
John Cruwys was born in 1816 in the small village of Mariansleigh in North Devon. He was the son of William Cruwys, a husbandman and shoemaker, and Margaret Eastmond. John married Ann Rowe on 26th July 1838 at the Independent Chapel in Chulmleigh, Devon, and they had two children, William, born in 1839, and Mary Ann, born in 1842. John was a shoemaker at the time of the 1841 census but by 1845 he had become a labourer. The so-called Hungry Forties was a time of economic depression. The situation was compounded by the potato blight and famine in 1845-7. Many of the people from North Devon emigrated during this period, with a large contingent (including John's brother William) settling in Prince Edward Island, Canada. John stayed behind in Devon, but one can only imagine that by 1845 his circumstances had become desperate as his wife, by now expecting another baby, decided to have an abortion. Abortion had been made illegal in 1803 but the death penalty was withdrawn in 1837 and consequently the number of abortions rose dramatically in the 1840s. Abortion was widespread and easily accessible, and became a popular form of birth control. Without modern medicine and sanitation the procedure would have been a risky undertaking, which was probably done by a local woman in her own home. Tragically Ann did not survive the operation and she died on 26th February 1845, leaving John to bring up his two young children on his own. The next account of John in the English records is in 1848 when he was committed for trial at the Exeter Assizes for stealing a cow and sentenced to twelve months' hard labour. A transcript of the newspaper report of the trial and the story of John's attempted escape from prison has been published on the Chulmleigh page of Genuki.
No records of John's sojourn in prison have yet been found. It seems likely that he moved to Cornwall soon after his release to start a new life in a place where his history would not have been known. His daughter, Mary Ann, died in the South Molton Union Workhouse on 25th February 1850 at the age of six. John would have been out of prison by this time but had perhaps had been unable to find work and was therefore forced to leave his daughter behind in the workhouse. After the 1851 census the last appearance of John in the English records is that of his marriage to Eliza Warren on 22nd March 1853 at the parish church in Maker, Cornwall. Eliza is believed to be the daughter of William and Annabella Warren. She was baptised on 21st August 1825 in Tavistock, Devon.
The story now continues in Australia. The Victoria passenger indexes show that a John Crews, aged 38, arrived in Australia on the Seringapatam in January 1855. He appears in the index to unassisted passengers so he had somehow managed to save enough money to pay for his fare. A William Crowes, aged 20, arrived in Victoria in November 1858. He is almost certainly John's son, William, from his first marriage to Ann Rowe. The following year Eliza Cruwys joined her husband and stepson, arriving in Victoria in January 1859 on the Annie Wilson.
John and Eliza had two children in Australia. Their eldest son, Francis Thomas, was born in 1860 in the Sandhurst district of Victoria. It is possible that John was trying his hand at gold mining at this time as this area was experiencing a gold rush. Francis died in 1866 at the age of six from an aortic aneurysm. Some time after Francis's death John and Eliza moved to the Deniliquin district of New South Wales just north of the NSW/Victorian border. A second son, Henry J Cruwys, was born in Deniliquin in 1868.
In 1870 John hit a bad patch where he owed £23.11.00 to a sawyer by the name of Simeon Boyle which he could not repay. He decided to become bankrupt rather than face the prospect of prison, which is quite understandable after his stint in gaol in England. In the sequestration papers John says:
Although there were no surviving children from John and Eliza's marriage, William Cruwys, John’s eldest son (from his marriage to Ann Rowe) went on to marry and have children. He married Margaret MacKay, the daughter of John MacKay and Sarah Sweeney, in 1874 at St Kilda, Victoria. Margaret was born in 1839 in Newcastle upon Tyne in the north of England. William and Margaret had two children: Mary Ann, born in 1875 in the Hay district of New South Wales, and William John Cruwys, born on 4th July 1878 in St Kilda, Victoria. William served with the Australian Flying Corps in France in World War I. He married Ethel May Grant in 1907 in St Kilda, Victoria, and had two children, Horace Theodore Cruwys and Alvina Rita May Cruwys. There are Cruwyses living in Victoria today who appear to be the descendants of Horace Theodore Cruwys. I am hoping that it will now be possible to make contact with them to share the story.
John Cruwys was born in 1816 in the small village of Mariansleigh in North Devon. He was the son of William Cruwys, a husbandman and shoemaker, and Margaret Eastmond. John married Ann Rowe on 26th July 1838 at the Independent Chapel in Chulmleigh, Devon, and they had two children, William, born in 1839, and Mary Ann, born in 1842. John was a shoemaker at the time of the 1841 census but by 1845 he had become a labourer. The so-called Hungry Forties was a time of economic depression. The situation was compounded by the potato blight and famine in 1845-7. Many of the people from North Devon emigrated during this period, with a large contingent (including John's brother William) settling in Prince Edward Island, Canada. John stayed behind in Devon, but one can only imagine that by 1845 his circumstances had become desperate as his wife, by now expecting another baby, decided to have an abortion. Abortion had been made illegal in 1803 but the death penalty was withdrawn in 1837 and consequently the number of abortions rose dramatically in the 1840s. Abortion was widespread and easily accessible, and became a popular form of birth control. Without modern medicine and sanitation the procedure would have been a risky undertaking, which was probably done by a local woman in her own home. Tragically Ann did not survive the operation and she died on 26th February 1845, leaving John to bring up his two young children on his own. The next account of John in the English records is in 1848 when he was committed for trial at the Exeter Assizes for stealing a cow and sentenced to twelve months' hard labour. A transcript of the newspaper report of the trial and the story of John's attempted escape from prison has been published on the Chulmleigh page of Genuki.
No records of John's sojourn in prison have yet been found. It seems likely that he moved to Cornwall soon after his release to start a new life in a place where his history would not have been known. His daughter, Mary Ann, died in the South Molton Union Workhouse on 25th February 1850 at the age of six. John would have been out of prison by this time but had perhaps had been unable to find work and was therefore forced to leave his daughter behind in the workhouse. After the 1851 census the last appearance of John in the English records is that of his marriage to Eliza Warren on 22nd March 1853 at the parish church in Maker, Cornwall. Eliza is believed to be the daughter of William and Annabella Warren. She was baptised on 21st August 1825 in Tavistock, Devon.
The story now continues in Australia. The Victoria passenger indexes show that a John Crews, aged 38, arrived in Australia on the Seringapatam in January 1855. He appears in the index to unassisted passengers so he had somehow managed to save enough money to pay for his fare. A William Crowes, aged 20, arrived in Victoria in November 1858. He is almost certainly John's son, William, from his first marriage to Ann Rowe. The following year Eliza Cruwys joined her husband and stepson, arriving in Victoria in January 1859 on the Annie Wilson.
John and Eliza had two children in Australia. Their eldest son, Francis Thomas, was born in 1860 in the Sandhurst district of Victoria. It is possible that John was trying his hand at gold mining at this time as this area was experiencing a gold rush. Francis died in 1866 at the age of six from an aortic aneurysm. Some time after Francis's death John and Eliza moved to the Deniliquin district of New South Wales just north of the NSW/Victorian border. A second son, Henry J Cruwys, was born in Deniliquin in 1868.
In 1870 John hit a bad patch where he owed £23.11.00 to a sawyer by the name of Simeon Boyle which he could not repay. He decided to become bankrupt rather than face the prospect of prison, which is quite understandable after his stint in gaol in England. In the sequestration papers John says:
During the last six months I have been residing with my son assisting him as far as my years would permit in his trade of a well sinker receiving from him in return for my food & expenses and I further say that I have neither engaged in any commercial transactions of any sort nor have I kept any books or documents whatsoever.John also says he has had sickness and death in his family – this latter would have been a reference to the death of young Francis. He also says:
I am upwards of 55 years of age and therefore have no prospect of being able to earn sufficient to satisfy said judgement debt. I have disposed of no property by sale, assignment, hedge deposit or in any other manner to the amount of ten pounds at any one time during the last sixty days nor in fact during the last four years.John was granted his bankruptcy, but no further references to him can be found after this date. There does not appear to be any record of his death, though it is likely that the record cannot be traced because of a mis-spelling. We know he died before 1901 because this is when his second wife Eliza died at Carrathool near Hay in New South Wales. Eliza left a will and from this we learn that she is a widow with no surviving children. Her second son, Henry J Cruwys, had predeceased her in 1899. His death was registered at Albury, a town which is on the border of NSW and Victoria. In her will Eliza left her money to her brother William Warren of Churston Ferrers in South Devon. The value of her estate was £279.13 10 after debts of £32.4.6 had been deducted.
Although there were no surviving children from John and Eliza's marriage, William Cruwys, John’s eldest son (from his marriage to Ann Rowe) went on to marry and have children. He married Margaret MacKay, the daughter of John MacKay and Sarah Sweeney, in 1874 at St Kilda, Victoria. Margaret was born in 1839 in Newcastle upon Tyne in the north of England. William and Margaret had two children: Mary Ann, born in 1875 in the Hay district of New South Wales, and William John Cruwys, born on 4th July 1878 in St Kilda, Victoria. William served with the Australian Flying Corps in France in World War I. He married Ethel May Grant in 1907 in St Kilda, Victoria, and had two children, Horace Theodore Cruwys and Alvina Rita May Cruwys. There are Cruwyses living in Victoria today who appear to be the descendants of Horace Theodore Cruwys. I am hoping that it will now be possible to make contact with them to share the story.
Monday, 3 December 2007
Cruwys of Shrewsbury
Sharon Hindmarsh in Australia has been in touch and sent me some interesting information about a Cruwys family from Shrewsbury in Shropshire. Sharon's mother-in-law is descended from John Cruwys and Elizabeth Prichard who married on 10th February 1817 at St Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar Square, London. John and Elizabeth's daughter-in-law, Sarah Ann Cruwys née Harris, emigrated to Australia in 1879 with her five sons Colin, John, Ralph, Ernest and Arthur. Sarah's daughter, Selina, had emigrated to Australia the previous year with her new husband John Parkes, his parents and his brothers and sisters. Nearly all the Cruwyses in Australia are descended from John Cruwys and Elizabeth Prichard. Interestingly Sharon tells me that her mother-in-law's family have always pronounced the surname Kruse, whereas elsewhere in Australia it is pronounced Crewiss. Judith Bowen is the expert on the Cruwyses of Australia and she has over the course of the last 30 years recorded nearly all the Australian descendants. However, the birth and death of the John Cruwys at the head of the Australian tree remain as elusive as ever.
Sharon has only recently made contact with Judith and wasn't aware of all the research which had already been done on the Australian family. In the quest for the elusive John Cruwys she purchased a number of certificates for a family from Shrewsbury, Shropshire, before she realised that the timeline did not work out. She has now very kindly sent me copies of all these certificates which have all proved very useful.
I have not so far heard from anyone who is researching the Shrewsbury Cruwys family so I will publish some details below in the hope that other researchers will be able to get in touch and provide further information.
The Shrewsbury tree begins with Thomas Cruwys, a tailor, who was born about 1768. In the 1841 census he is living in the Parish of St Mary's in Shrewsbury with his wife Hannah and their children Richard, 25, a gardener, Harriet, 15, a female servant, and Robert, 15, a tailor's apprentice. Thomas stated in the 1841 census that he was not born in Shropshire. Unfortunately he died in 1848 and we therefore have no further clues as to his place of birth. I have not been able to find any record of Thomas and Hannah's marriage but we now know that they had the following children:
1. John Cruwys, born about 1804 in Shrewsbury. John moved to London where he appears to have worked first as a tailor before becoming the innkeeper at the Bell Inn in Kilburn. John seems to have married three times. He married Margaret Taylor in 1829, Mary Ann Farnsworth in 1836 and Eliza Plumridge née Brown in 1843. All the marriages took place at St Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar Square.
2. Elizabeth Cruwys was born about 1815 in Shrewsbury. In 1851 she was living at the Bell Inn with her brother John and working as a barmaid.
3. Richard Cruwys was born about 1815 in Shrewsbury. He worked variously as a gardener, seedsman and police constable. He married Margaret Sanderson in 1851 at St Martin in the Fields.
4. Ann Cruwys, was born about 1816, probably in Shrewsbury. She married Alfred Lloyd, a painter, in 1838 at St Martin in the Fields.
5. Harriet Cruwys was born about 1823 in Shropshire. She married James Walsh, a leather breeches maker, in 1843 at St Martin in the Fields. By 1851 they were living in Westminster St James and had three children.
6. Robert Cruwys was born about 1824 in Shrewsbury. He was a tailor. He married Eliza Tomson in 1851 at St Martin in the Fields.
Intriguingly we know that Thomas Cruwys was sent to Gaol in 1811. The full details are not yet known but "Thomas Cruwys, late of Shrewsbury, in the county of Salop, Tailor" was included in a list of "Prisoners in the Gaol at Shrewsbury in and for the County of Salop" which was published in the London Gazette on three separate dates in July 1811. Thomas's absence in prison might well account for the gap between the births of John in 1805 and Elizabeth in 1815.
I've had great difficulty tracking Thomas and Hannah's children beyond the 1851 census and would be very interested to hear from anyone who is related to any of these families.
Sharon has only recently made contact with Judith and wasn't aware of all the research which had already been done on the Australian family. In the quest for the elusive John Cruwys she purchased a number of certificates for a family from Shrewsbury, Shropshire, before she realised that the timeline did not work out. She has now very kindly sent me copies of all these certificates which have all proved very useful.
I have not so far heard from anyone who is researching the Shrewsbury Cruwys family so I will publish some details below in the hope that other researchers will be able to get in touch and provide further information.
The Shrewsbury tree begins with Thomas Cruwys, a tailor, who was born about 1768. In the 1841 census he is living in the Parish of St Mary's in Shrewsbury with his wife Hannah and their children Richard, 25, a gardener, Harriet, 15, a female servant, and Robert, 15, a tailor's apprentice. Thomas stated in the 1841 census that he was not born in Shropshire. Unfortunately he died in 1848 and we therefore have no further clues as to his place of birth. I have not been able to find any record of Thomas and Hannah's marriage but we now know that they had the following children:
1. John Cruwys, born about 1804 in Shrewsbury. John moved to London where he appears to have worked first as a tailor before becoming the innkeeper at the Bell Inn in Kilburn. John seems to have married three times. He married Margaret Taylor in 1829, Mary Ann Farnsworth in 1836 and Eliza Plumridge née Brown in 1843. All the marriages took place at St Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar Square.
2. Elizabeth Cruwys was born about 1815 in Shrewsbury. In 1851 she was living at the Bell Inn with her brother John and working as a barmaid.
3. Richard Cruwys was born about 1815 in Shrewsbury. He worked variously as a gardener, seedsman and police constable. He married Margaret Sanderson in 1851 at St Martin in the Fields.
4. Ann Cruwys, was born about 1816, probably in Shrewsbury. She married Alfred Lloyd, a painter, in 1838 at St Martin in the Fields.
5. Harriet Cruwys was born about 1823 in Shropshire. She married James Walsh, a leather breeches maker, in 1843 at St Martin in the Fields. By 1851 they were living in Westminster St James and had three children.
6. Robert Cruwys was born about 1824 in Shrewsbury. He was a tailor. He married Eliza Tomson in 1851 at St Martin in the Fields.
Intriguingly we know that Thomas Cruwys was sent to Gaol in 1811. The full details are not yet known but "Thomas Cruwys, late of Shrewsbury, in the county of Salop, Tailor" was included in a list of "Prisoners in the Gaol at Shrewsbury in and for the County of Salop" which was published in the London Gazette on three separate dates in July 1811. Thomas's absence in prison might well account for the gap between the births of John in 1805 and Elizabeth in 1815.
I've had great difficulty tracking Thomas and Hannah's children beyond the 1851 census and would be very interested to hear from anyone who is related to any of these families.
Saturday, 31 March 2007
Samuel Steer Cruwys
A number of people seem to disappear from the English records and it is often difficult to establish if they have gone overseas or are simply in hiding under a previously unconsidered mis-spelling of the Cruwys surname. Samuel Steer Cruwys was for a long time on my list of missing persons. He disappeared after the 1871 census and there was no record of his death in the GRO indexes. I have now finally managed to track him down in Australia.
Samuel was born in 1850 in Halberton, Devon. He was the youngest of six children born to Sarah Steer and Robert Cruwys from the prolific Mariansleigh Cruwys family. After a short spell as a publican at the Stuckley Inn in West Worlington Samuel's father became a farmer. The family lived at Alstree Farm in Halberton, which is probably the present-day Alstree House in the Lower Town. By 1871 Samuel had left home and found employment as a wine merchant's assistant working for William Bartlett, a wine merchant and town councillor living in Fore Street, Tiverton. We know that Samuel married in 1873, either to Sarah Ellis or to Marion Helen Jamieson. It was probably around this time that Samuel set himself up in business as a tobacconist and ale, wine and spirit merchant in Bideford. His business did not prosper and Samuel's final appearance in the English records is in 1878 in the London Gazette when his business goes into liquidation. We next find Samuel's name in the indexes to wills in the Queensland State Archives in Australia
I have been unable to find out anything further about Samuel's life in Australia. There are, however, seven people with the surname Cruwys living in Queensland who are listed in the current telephone directory who might well be Samuel's descendants.
Samuel was born in 1850 in Halberton, Devon. He was the youngest of six children born to Sarah Steer and Robert Cruwys from the prolific Mariansleigh Cruwys family. After a short spell as a publican at the Stuckley Inn in West Worlington Samuel's father became a farmer. The family lived at Alstree Farm in Halberton, which is probably the present-day Alstree House in the Lower Town. By 1871 Samuel had left home and found employment as a wine merchant's assistant working for William Bartlett, a wine merchant and town councillor living in Fore Street, Tiverton. We know that Samuel married in 1873, either to Sarah Ellis or to Marion Helen Jamieson. It was probably around this time that Samuel set himself up in business as a tobacconist and ale, wine and spirit merchant in Bideford. His business did not prosper and Samuel's final appearance in the English records is in 1878 in the London Gazette when his business goes into liquidation. We next find Samuel's name in the indexes to wills in the Queensland State Archives in Australia
I have been unable to find out anything further about Samuel's life in Australia. There are, however, seven people with the surname Cruwys living in Queensland who are listed in the current telephone directory who might well be Samuel's descendants.
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