On now to the second of the two extended groups of Waters Uptonians with kinship connections.

Titley, Atcherley, Wase, Dickin, Icke, Griffiths, Harper, Shakeshaft, and Gregory connections

These are the relatives and others who were linked in one way or another to 14 year old Thomas Titley, living in household 27 in 1841 with his father John Titley (and a servant, Mary Griffiths, regarding whom I will say more shortly). The first sub-group of these people are those to whom Thomas was related (however remotely) through his late mother Mary Titley née Atcherley (who was also my 2x great grandmother).

Here we see these Waters Upton residents:

• Mary Atcherley’s maternal aunt Charlotte Shuker (née Wase) in household 25 with her husband Thomas Shuker (who was of independent means) and a servant. Whether these Shukers were related to William, Alice and Thomas of household 26 I do not know, but what a coincidence if they weren’t!
• Mary’s maternal aunt Elizabeth Dickin (née Wase), widow of John Dickin, in household 2 with her son and daughter John Dickin (a landowner and farmer with 7 servants, one of whom – John Pidgeon – appears later in this article) and Ann Dickin, neither of whom were married.
• Mary’s first cousin John Atcherley, a tailor, the sole occupant of household 7.
• Mary’s first cousin Robert Atcherley, an agricultural labourer, the only denizen of household 37.
• The parents-in-law of Mary’s brother Robert Atcherley, William Icke and Eleanor (née Icke, almost certainly a relative of her husband) in household 41, a public house, with their son, Mary’s brother-in-law, Robert Icke, and three servants.

The second sub-group of Thomas Titley’s kin are those related to him through his father John.

In this, our final chart, the following are shown:

• John Titley’s brother-in-law James Gregory in household 34, with his widowed mother Elizabeth Gregory née Hughes, wife Sarah (née Davies), and children Emma, Sarah, James, Elizabeth and Mary (plus servant Samuel Allen, who we will see again soon).
• John’s paternal aunt Jane Harper née Titley in household 3, with husband William Harper and children Charles and George. I am not aware of any connection between these Harpers and those of household 8 (William, wife Martha, and children Elizabeth and Sarah).
• John’s uncle William Griffiths, widower of John’s paternal aunt Lydia, in household 35 with granddaughter Lydia Titley (age 15), married daughter Jane Shakeshaft, son-in-law John Shakeshaft, and their daughter Elizabeth (plus a guest, Samuel Harrison, who does not appear to have been a relative). There was also one other person in this household, who was definitely a relative – I will return to her later!
• In the Titley’s own home the aforementioned servant was John’s first cousin Mary Griffiths; a daughter of William Griffiths and (unmarried) mother of Lydia Griffiths.

That’s a group of 30 people spread across 9 households (2, 3, 7, 25, 27, 34, 35, 37 and 41) with varying degrees of kinship between them. And if the Elizabeth Matthews (1747–1818) who married Joseph Titley was related to the Sarah Matthews (1766–1815) who wed William Pascall (see Part 1 of this article), this group would link up with the first one. That’s an intriguing possibility as it would give us a single group of 65 people (out of a total of 226) across 19 household (out of 41)!

Less complex connections

Having looked at the more tangled trees, let’s move on to the less complicated cases of kinship within and across households. Mary Worrall for instance, a resident of household 24 with Joseph and Martha Wilks (or Wilkes), was that couple’s granddaughter through their daughter Elizabeth Wilkes (wife of James Worrall), who was not resident in the parish.

Elizabeth Pickin, wife of John Pickin in household 36, was the daughter of Thomas and Ann Felton, who lived close by in household 33.

As we have seen, some of the young servants of Waters Upton were children of families living in other households in the parish; two more examples follow. First, residing with farmer John Dickin in household 2, was teenager John Pidgeon whose family was living in household 19. The young Pidgeon had evidently flown the nest but settled not far away. Incidentally, William Cowley, part of the Pidgeon household in 1841, was the pre-marital son of William Pidgeon’s wife Martha, née Cowley.

Another servant of interest is 11-year-old Samuel Allen, who in 1841 was ensconced with tailor James Gregory and family in household 34. Despite his seemingly low status, Samuel appears to have been a member of the agricultural Allens who farmed in the neighbouring parish of Ercall Magna. Specifically, it looks like his parents were Samuel (a farmer at Cotwall in 1841 and a retailer of wines and spirits in 1851) and Emma. If this was the case, farmer Charles Allen in household 11 was, I believe, Samuel’s paternal uncle.

William Pritchard was, along with the Morris family, an occupant of household 38. He was a son of Ann Morris, formerly Pritchard, née Jackson, born between her marriages to Messrs Pritchard and Morris.

Another child born out of wedlock was two-year-old James Andrews, enumerated in household 31 with the Cureton family, was, not surprisingly, the son of Deborah Andrews, aged 25 or more, who was also a member of that household. Like his mum, James he was born in Suffolk – but who was his father? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I call William Howard, living in household 41 with the Icke family. I’m going beyond the 1841 census with my evidence here, but what the heck: William Howard went on to marry Deborah Andrews, and by 1851 James Andrews had become James Howard. I put it you that on the balance of probabilities, William was the father of James.

Connected, or not?

There were several people enumerated on the 1841 census at Waters Upton whose surnames suggest the possibility of connections with others, which I have not yet been able to verify (or dismiss). The Harpers, the Lloyds and the Shukers I have already mentioned, but there were also the Williamses, some of whom coincidentally had a connection with the Lloyds who appeared at the end of Part 1 of this article. Was John Williams of household 23 related to Sarah Lloyd, formerly Edge, née Williams in household 12 or servants Charles Williams (in household 41) or Emma Williams (in household 28), or any of the latter to each other? The frequency with which the surname occurs makes the question less than straightforward to resolve, but in time I may have an answer.

In conclusion

More than half of the households in Waters Upton at the time of the 1841 census had at least one occupant related in some way to one or more occupants of another household. This leaves the following households inhabited by people with no confirmed links to others in the parish: 1 (Corfield family and servants), 5 (Anslow family), 9 (Edwards family & guests), 8 (Browns and servant), 9 (Evans), 10 (Dodd family), 14 (Woodhouse family and guests), 15 (Davies family), 23 (Williams / Lloyd family), 24 (Wilkes family), 26 (Shuker family), 28 (Tudor family and guest), 30 (Moore family), 32 (Ridgway family), 38 (Morris family), 39 (Bennett family).

Just one more thing …

… as TV detective Columbo used to say. I said I would return to another person in the household of William Griffiths. She features in this genealogical version of Only Connect, but I left her off the relevant family tree chart. Her name was Elizabeth Griffiths and she was the daughter of teenager Lydia Griffiths, the granddaughter of Mary Griffiths (John Titley’s servant), and the great granddaughter of William. This made her a first cousin twice removed from John Titley and a second cousin once removed from John’s son Thomas Titley. But she also had another, closer relationship to the two Titleys – and therein lies a story which requires a separate article.

Picture credit: Photo of Connect 4 game by Wikimedia Commons contributor Popperipopp; modified, used and made available for re-use under a Creative Commons licence.