Tombstone Tuesday

Today I'm writing a "Tombstone Tuesday" blog, in honour of the paternal great-grandparents that I never knew.

James Edward HARVEY and Evelyn Julia POTTLE were my father's Newfoundland grandparents. He also never knew them, as his father ran away from Newfoundland at age 15, to join the Royal Navy and sign up for WWI.

James was born in Freshwater, near Carbonear, Newfoundland in 1851. He married Evelyn Julia POTTLE in 1895. Evelyn was born in the next door village of Flatrock in 1872. They had 10 children including my grandfather.

James was a fisherman who went to sea on extended fishing trips up the coast of Labrador for months at a time. The family were from "planter" stock - that is settlers who were settled near the coast, and had "fishing rooms" and land. From what I have read about early Newfoundland, it seemed like it was an incredibly hard life.

The little we knew about my great-grandfather was that he died young, while at sea and had been pickled in rum to preserve him and buried much later. Terrible waste of rum I thought.

I found out later, he was actually packed in ice and buried three months later. His youngest child Julia, was born three months after he died.

I was relatively new to family history research when I found out about James and Evelyn. I had posted my interests in researching my grandfather Hedley HARVEY from Freshwater, Newfoundland on a Newfoundland genealogy site (Newfoundland Grand Banks), and got a message through from a Fred HARVEY. Fred (now in his 80s) turned out to be a distant relative. His great-grandfather John and mine (James) were brothers.

So he sent me the above picture of my great-grandparents tombstone. Up till then, I wasn't even sure of what my grandfather's parents names were. Fred was able to give me all his research, which I have incorporated into mine (correctly cited of course), and he has also been kind enough to send me what photos he had, and also any copies of certificates I might be interested in. Fred had been unaware of my grandfather's children and grandchildren.

This was sufficient information to really get me started on researching my father's family tree.

Sadly, I don't have any photos of James and Evelyn - apart from this one of their tombstone.

Maybe one day.

And I am still trying to find out about Evelyn's POTTLE family. I have been told that they owned the general store in Flatrock, but have yet to verify it.

Anyway, RIP to my great-grandparents James and Evelyn. Wish I could have conducted an oral history with you, I'm sure there are lots of great stories that you could have told.

Surname Sunday

Every so often, I like to post my research interests on Twitter - hoping to connect with an unknown descendant or fellow researcher. I've often found (or been found by) descendants or researchers courtesy of the internet:- Rootsweb and other genealogy message boards, Facebook - even by Googling.

You never know who is looking, or might recognise a name and pass on info.

I have researched most of my branches back to the early 1700s - but it must be noted, that I only have verified info for them all up till 1800, as I haven't as yet been able to purchase certificates for them to be 100% confident. In some cases, these certificates just don't seem to exist (Newfoundland and Ireland having similar histories in that their records offices went up in smoke and destroyed quite alot of valuable info). But mostly, its a question of economics. I'll get round to it.

In the meantime, I am trying to flesh out the histories around the people that I have verified.

For those interested:

• HARVEY – Carbonear, Newfoundland and Kent England; 
• POTTLE – Carbonear, Newfoundland;
• BOOTHER – Kent and London, England; 
• SULLIVAN – Kent, England and Cork, Ireland
• McKENZIE – Aberdeen, Scotland; 
• SWANSON – Aberdeen and Olrig, Caithness, Scotland;
• LITTLE– Kilmanock, Ayr and Edinburgh, Scotland;   
• DUNCAN – Edinburgh, and Cupar, Fife Scotland

• Seeking descendants of TURNER, BARCLAY, McKENZIE - descendants of Alexander McKENZIE  (b 1865, Aberdeen, Scotland) and Georgina SWANSON (b 1869, Caithness, Scotland) - children: George, Margaret (Cissie), Robert, David, Mabel and Elizabeth (Betty)
• Seeking info on ancestors and descendants of James Edward HARVEY (b1871 Freshwater Newfoundland) & Evelyn Julia POTTLE  (b1872 Flatrock Newfoundland)  - Canada
• John William HARVEY (b abt 1836 Clowns Cove Newfoundland), m Elizabeth SNOW; & father William HARVEY (b abt 1803 ?Ireland?) m Jane NOEL/NEWELL  
• Seek descendants of Margaret (Cissie) McKENZIE (b abt 1897 Aberdeen, Scotland) & James TURNER, children Alex, Margaret, Doreen, Eric, James 
• Seeking info Daniel SULLIVAN (b 1831 Cork?) m Julia UNKNOWN (b abt 1834 Cork?), children Ellen, Johanna, Michael, Margaret 

Anyone interested in learning more, or who thinks they may have a connection should go to my Tribal Pages site, and have a look.

You can contact me via a request to join there, or via this blog.