John Lisle

Apr 022016
 

A gentleman recently sent me an image of a picture that he found in a Belgian photo album. It was taken in Geneva, Switzerland. He estimates that it was taken about 1865. Someone wrote on the back: “Rosa Steedman Amerique”.

Rosa-Steedman-1865-back

My guess is that this is Rosa McKean Steedman, daughter of Adm. Charles Steedman, born 1844 in Philadelphia and died 1903 in Boston. Admiral Steedman’s biography documents that after the Civil War, he did go to Europe so it is quite possible that his family accompanied him.

I have no other Rose/Rosa Steedman in my records from America and from this time frame. Anybody have a different suggestion?

Dec 112015
 

Followers of my Stedman work over the years will note that I have avoided doing a lot of the Stedman genealogies in Scotland. This is in part because I do not have good access to primary documentation from Scotland without paying the outrageous fees requested by Scotland’s people. (I am half Scottish myself…)

A primary work that I have tried to transcribe into this genealogy has been the 1858 Barton-Steadman genealogy by John Stedman of Bath. This work has many critics. From that, several trees have been drawn. I have made a PDF of a tree I was sent about 2005 and you can view it here :Barton-Steadman Family Tree.

I have received a number of other documents on the Genealogy of the various Steedman families in Scotland. An important recent addition has been extracted from David Marshall’s “Kinross-shire and Its Owners” that is in the Kinross library. I have received a photocopy of that document from my colleague David Stedman in Wales. This work presents some serious differences to the 1858 John Stedman of Bath (JoB) work. I have not yet been able to process this at all and convert it into a modern genealogy I can present to you on this web site, but at least I can share the source material and welcome your help in sorting this out. Kinross-shire and its Owners by David Marshall.

Lastly, I have documented a link that I am sure is wrong. Hopefully, this last work will help sort this out correctly. Robert Steedman, son of James Steedman and his cousin Janet Steedman was probably not the husband of Margaret Lambert, as published in many genealogies. We now believe that it was another Robert Steedman. There is evidence suggesting that Robert, son of James and Janet, died young. He was also part of the Barton-Steadman family (if you believe JoB…). DNA evidence from two Steedman men (one in Canada and one in New Zealand) gives them different DNA from what we see for presumed Barton-Steadman descendants. (Hopefully, David will elaborate on that comment…) We have another DNA match to this family that I still have not been able to connect into this family and may come in from an earlier generation.

As you may deduce from the additions I am making to the UK Stedman/etc genealogies, my current interest is in fully documenting the UK Stedman families of the 19th and 20th centuries. That way I can determine how many lines trail back to the 1700s where sorting out families is more difficult. I want your help with your research, especially into the Scottish families, to try to make sense of what now seems to be a jumble.

Thanks for reading…

john.

Dec 112015
 

My much delayed UK Stedman/Steadman/Steedman genealogies was just been updated. Almost 6000 new names have been added since the last update. At least as many existing individuals have been updated.

I am continuing to assure that more of the members of the Stedman DNA project are included. I still have several more, especially more recent members, to include in this extended family tree.

I have added a large number of Scottish Steedmans/etc. I know this just barely scratches the surface and several of the family links are considered by me to be somewhat tentative. I hope to get more comments and updates in the upcoming months about Scottish families.

As part of the Scot effort, I added hundreds of Scot Steedmans who went to New Zealand. I am looking for feedback on these families as I still have a number of loose ends. I have also done a lot of work on other Stedmans and Steadmans in bother New Zealand and Australia.

I have been continuing to try to sort our the Stedman/etc. families who lived in Birmingham and Manchester regions. These folks turn out to be very difficult and a lot of existing on-line trees are just plain wrong.

I have added several more Stedman/etc families who migrated to Canada in the 19th and early 20th century from UK and Ireland. This is still a work in progress.

I have done a couple more of my given name studies – that is where I look for everyone with a certain given name as part of their given name. The most extensive was for the given name Leonard. I have identified almost 100 Stedman/etc men in the UK with Leonard as part of their given name. For most, I have traced their origins to an existing family or to an ancestor born before 1810. I have also tried to trace their extended families, meaning descendants and the family lines of their Stedman/etc. siblings and cousins.

These are just some of the recent highlights that I worked on.

If you search the trees and do not find your Stedman/etc. ancestor, I want to hear from you as updates from direct family members are the lifeblood of this project. Just a note: I prioritize research on people who currently have a Stedman/etc surname. I expect more assistance if you are from a daughter line where the Stedman ancestor was 100-200-300 years ago.

As always, I need your corrections. I try to document everyone correctly, but I use a proof standard based on the “preponderance of evidence”, meaning I use all of the data I can find to arrive at a conclusion, but I accept that additional evidence could lead to a different conclusion.

Happy Searching,

john.

Jul 062015
 

I have posted a major update to the Stedman Family Organization web site – www.johnlisle.us – where I publish the current results of my Stedman/Steadman/Steedman/etc. One Name Study. The update includes an update to the web site software (which has been one of the reasons for the delay…), but more interesting to all of you is an update to the tree for the Stedman Families of North America. (I expect the tree for UK Stedman Families to be ready in July.) I have probably added, since the last update, about 15,000 people and updated probably 5,000+.

This update has so many updates, both major re-workings of existing families and whole new families and family lines added, that I cannot begin to mention them all. Best to look for your own family and see what I have published.

I apologize in advance if any updates you have sent are not included in this update. I have received over 700 emails just this year. I know I still have a hundred or so to process and a backlog from last year. I wish there were more hours in the day … :-). But please keep them coming.

I have also added more allied families. These are families that connect in multiple ways into various Stedman lines.

An example is the Hoar family of colonial New England. Not only did they connect to several Stedmans but I had perpetuated an error about the spouse of John Hoar of Concord. Many trees show his wife as Alice Lisle, a daughter of Judge John Lisle, the Regicide. His brother Leonard did marry Bridget Lisle, and I have shown that Alice could not have been Bridget’s sister. As always, this study has focused on Hoar lines that eventually connected to various Stedman descendant lines. This Hoar study will be added to from time to time.

I have also done quite a bit of work on the Hyde/Hide families of New England. And, as always, am looking at connections that have Hall connections.

Further, I have begun researching the Gingrich family of central Pennsylvania. There are Stedman connections to that family. Early Pennsylvania Gingrich data is somewhat confused so it is hard to tell exactly which lines are connected. I have worked with several researchers to better document several lines. Of course, Speaker Gingrich was adopted so he is unlikely to have any blood or marriage connection to any Stedman, but I have included him in his family.

Lastly, I have begun a documentation of the Romney family. Gov. Mitt Romney is a direct descendant of one of the Hall families closely allied with several New England Stedman families, and many of his numerous cousins have married direct Stedman descendants, most notably, descendants of Isaac Stedman of Kent and Boston, through the Stowell family.

Lastly, to demonstrate that I am not working solely on non-Stedman lines, I recently did a lot more work on the Sullivan County, Tennessee, Steadman family. My focus on this family for the near term is to be to document the descendants. Although a lot of new records are available, this is still a family that is very difficult to work, but I have many descendants in my contact list. My colleague in the UK on the Stedman DNA project, Dave Stedman, and I have started to get DNA evidence that strongly suggests that this family are descendants of one of the Stedman families who came from Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. Our challenge is to correctly link this family with one of the Harper’s Ferry ancestors and then figure out the lineage back to England where the DNA shows a not too ancient match to the DNA of one of the large Shropshire Stedman families.

–> Please remember that my study covers all variants of the spelling of the Stedman surname!

I still have maintenance work to do – mostly in preparing virtual cemeteries and creating thumbnail image for the media – but as a genealogy research site, I think you will find it quite useful.

My site does provide a wealth of information about over 100,000 Stedmans and allied families. However, most of the information is provided to be evidence to validate my assertions of the family framework. You should consider it your job to extract what I provide and create your own personal family history of your family with the confidence that I am trying to give you the best information I have of your ancestry.

That said, I am not perfect. I have corrected several lineages in this update, both because of DNA evidence and because of new information that I have found or that you (collectively) have provided. I do not think I will ever achieve my goal of fully documenting the 19th century and later Stedmans, but we are working on it every day.

As most of you have given me updates and such recently, please review the site for your own family to make sure that I have everything correct. As usual, I am not publishing details of living people so if you wish to review the data I have of living folks, you will need to ask.

AND, now that you see what I have, please feel free to give me more updates. Remember, I try to collect the following information about each Stedman descendant:

Full Name and any nicknames.
Birth date and place

and where appropriate:
death date and place
burial location
obituary
marriage(s) date and place
spouse(s) name and details (BMD dates and places, etc.)
Spouse parents names and their details
Children’s names and details.

–> I am especially interested in documenting 20th and 21st century families. As always, privacy of personal details is respected and I will completely hide living people at your request on information you provide. However, I would like to have the details for my confidential records as that may be the only way to keep the more complex families of today properly sorted out.

I also wish to announce that I have created a private Facebook Group for the Stedman Family Organization. Just search for the Group and ask to join. I think it could be a great forum for asking questions and providing stories and sharing photos and filling us all in on what is going on. In particular, I am looking for images that we can use for the cover picture for the page!

If you are on Facebook (and you should all be!), please Friend me – www.facebook.com/jlisle.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch by email, Facebook, etc.

Here is an unsolicited comment from someone who was in the first group being informed of this update…

“John, Thank you for all of the work you are doing and have done on the Stedman lineages. You have set a standard for others to emulate.”
Judith, a Steadman descendant on my maternal lineage

Yes, I hear this a lot. So, when I have folks question why I operate as I do, I remember all of the people who have written to me like this. This is what drives me to continue, knowing that what I do matters to other people.

Thank you for your participation!

Feb 132013
 

While I was reviewing and updating the family of Dr. John Bernard Stedman, I looked for a death record for his daughter Dorothy May Stedman who was born 21 July 1899 in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire. I found a death record for a Dorothy May Stedman whose death was registered at the Colchester RD in December 1994. That record showed a birth date of 2 August 1899. This was close, but I did not think it was correct, but no other record that seemed to match. According to Sussex Genealogies (where I found the birth date), she was unmarried as of April 1932 (the date of the publication).

I looked for another death record and none seemed to be a close enough match so I thought, maybe she married sometime after 1932. At this point, I decided that I should just sort out all of the women I had records for whose maiden or married name was Dorothy M Stedman. I did not check Dorothy M Steadmans or Dorothy M Steedmans. It is possible that some records left out the middle name initial and some used the wrong spelling. That study extension is for another day…

Believe it or not, there may be at least 40 different women whose name at one time was Dorothy M Stedman in UK or descended from a UK family. Most of them could be sorted out. But I still have a number of loose ends. In some cases, Dorothy may have left the UK, or married or died outside England and Wales, or changed her name, or was divorced, reverting to some former name.

Here is a summary of each of the ones that are not resolved. I welcome your help solving each of these puzzles.

1. Dorothy Mary Stedman (b. 1890, Gloucestershire – ?). She was a daughter of Charles and Minnie Stedman.

—> No further record. She has not yet been found in the 1911 Census.

2. Dorothy May Stedman (b. 21 July 1899, Bedfordshire – ? ). She was a daughter of Dr. Thomas Bernard Stedman and Clara Edith Hetherington. She was unmarried as of April 1932.

—> This is the Dorothy M Stedman who was the genesis of this study.

3. Dorothy Mabel A Stedman (1903-1904).

—> She was born and died in Wales (Crickhowell RD). I cannot identify who her parent were.

4. Dorothy Mabel Stedman (23 Feb 1905 – Feb 1992 in Sussex).

—> She is identified only from a death record. She is likely a wife or widow so her maiden name is not known or if she has any children. This is no England/Wales Dorothy Mabel Stedman that she could be. I suspect, but cannot prove, that she was the Dorothy M West who married Charles Frederick Stedman.

5. Dorothy May Stedman (b. 1907 in Surrey – ?) . She was a daughter of William John Stedman and his wife Sarah Jane.

—> She was likely the wife of Frederick Booth or one of the others mentioned below, but I cannot prove anything.

6. Dorothy Mary Stedman (b. 1909 in London – ?). She was a daughter of Walter John Stedman and Kate Lovett.

—> She was likely the wife of Frederick Booth or one of the others mentioned below, but I cannot prove anything.

7. Dorothy May Stedman (26 May 1910 – Nov 1993 in Surrey) married John Reginald Billmore (1922-1998) in 1953 in Surrey. They had children in 1955 and 1956 proving her maiden name.

—> Her birth date is found from her death record. I have not identified a birth record.

8. Dorothy M Carrington married Frederick Stedman (1903-1978) in Essex in 1967 as her second husband. Previously, she had been married to Alfred Thomas Saterlay (1909-1965).

—> She had children with Alfred Saterlay so I can be confident that her maiden name is Carrington, but I cannot determine when she was born or when she died. I would estimate that she was born 1905-1915. It is possible that she married again after Frederick died.

9. Dorothy M Stedman married Frederick W C Booth (b. 1922) in Hampshire in 1942. The appear to have had children in 1947 and 1958.

—> If these are her children, Stedman was her maiden name, and the birth years of the children eliminate her as being the Dorothy I was searching for. I do not know who her parents were. She was likely born between 1910 and 1925.

10. Dorothy M Stedman (b. 1922 in Kent – ?). Her mother’s maiden name was Horne, and I cannot identify for sure who her parents were.

—> She could be the Dorothy M Stedman who married either Frederick Booth, Cyril Hill, or David Philpott.

11. Dorothy M Stedman married Cyril B Hill in Surrey in 1949. No children identified.

—> This could be Dorothy. Or, she could be a widow or divorcee. I could not find any provable death record to help identify her. She was born before 1932.

12. Dorothy M West married Charles Frederick Stedman (1895-1959) in 1949 in Sussex. I have not identified any children.

—> Considering that this is a later married for Charles, Dorothy was likely a widow or divorcee. I have not identified when she was born. She could still be alive if she was young when Charles married her.

13. Dorothy M Stedman (b. 1929 in Surrey, to Charles Stedman and Lilian Gardner – ?) is not further resolved.

—> She could be the Dorothy M Stedman who married either Cyril Hill or David Philpott.

14. Dorothy M Stedman (b. 1937 in Surrey, to William Stedman and Doris White) is not further resolved.

—> She could be the Dorothy M Stedman who married either Cyril Hill or David Philpott.

15. Dorothy M Stedman married David J Philpott were married in 1954 in Lincolnshire. I can identify no children.

—> She also could be Dorothy. She could also be a widow or divorcee or another Dorothy M Stedman. I cannot identify when she died or any details about David. They might still be alive.

16. Dorothy M Corke (1936-) married Ivan George Stedman (1934-1993) in 1959 in Kent. They had children (born in 1965 and 1970) proving Corke as her maiden name.

—> She could be still living, she died after 2006, or remarried.

17. Dorothy M Hannah married John H Stedman in 1965 in Kent. No identified children.

—> I was not able to identify who either Dorothy or John were.

After all of this, I do have about 20 more Dorothy M Stedmans who are fully identified; all of them are in the tree. And I still have not solved what happened to Dorothy, the daughter of Dr. Thomas Bernard Stedman!

I have not decided what the reward will be for anyone who solves one of these puzzles.

john.

Feb 132013
 

Winter always seems to be a busy time for research, and this year has been no exception. We dodged the worst of the recent Nor’easter – no loss of power or internet! We still have over a foot of snow on the ground. I posted these updates now in case we are not so lucky with the next storm.

This update has small and medium additions and updates throughout the genealogies from readers who have sent me updates in addition to a few major projects.

I was contacted by a descendant from Vermont whose Stedman family is part of the large Ardingly/Sevenoaks, England, Stedman family. I was able to massively update the whole family of William Stedman and Sarah Ann Whiting of West Malling, Kent, England. They had seven children: 2 died young, one moved to Guernsey; one daughter married and moved to Rhode Island. One of the sons, George Stedman, whom I had previously thought to have died young, had a family that have now been traced for up to 5 generations in England. Daughter Ellen died as a young mother; one daughter removed to Guersney; the other married and raised a large family in New Zealand. Alfred was the last child and his father died when he was an infant. He spent about 20 years in Guernsey before returning to England. Two of his daughters married Larg brothers and moved to New York; one of his sons moved to New Zealand; several died young in Guernsey; and one (Alfred John Stedman) married his uncle’s widow.

As I have said many times, a lot of my research is driven by the DNA results we get. Such is the case this month. We got an almost surprising match. A descendant of Rev. William Golding Stedman of Colchester, Essex, England and a descendant of the Pakenham/Thruston, Suffolk family turned up as a close DNA match. The Suffolk descendant has a large ancestry.com tree of the two families, but we have still not found a provable link between the families.

We decided to take on a long term project to update those families. With this update, I am posting a major update the Essex side of the family. We have now proven that Rev. William was a son of Thomas Stedman and Olave/Olive Golding of Mount Bures and Colchester, Essex. I have posted a transcription of his Will. Thomas was a son of Thomas Stedman and Mary Cole of Mount Bures and that Thomas Sr. was a son of James Stedman of Bures Hamlet whose 1779 Will (also found and transcribed) proves part of a large part of the early family. I believe that James was born in the early 1700s and is the link into the Suffolk family.

In doing the research, we found the records and especially the Parish Records available on-line (for a subscription fee) at the Essex Ancestors site to be invaluable. If only all of the English Counties could provide similar information! We learned a bit of geography in doing this. The river Stour splits the town of Bures with part of it (Bures St. Mary) in Suffolk and Bures Hamlet in Essex. The Parish for Bures Hamlet is St. Mary in Bures St. Mary so the records are only available in the Suffolk records office. Consequently, there are details and clues that have not yet been looked at.

Based on my analysis, at least two Stedmans – brothers – were in the Parish. The other had two children who did not marry. James had three documented sons: Thomas, John, and James. We have only a sketchy understanding of James’s family. If anyone has details, please advise.

Lastly, on this extended family, I moved the family of Barnard Stedman from the American family tree to the UK family tree as we now have evidence – but not proof!! – that Barnard was a son of John Stedman and Bridget Booty of the Suffolk family and who was known as Barnett in the parish baptismal record. Barnard married Charlotte Watson in Ixworth, Suffolk, in 1822 and about 1830, he and his family seems to have immigrated to Prince Edward Island, Canada. They subsequently went to Boston in 1851, and thence to Illinois where they died. I have just received an extensive genealogy of Barnard’s family that needs to be reviewed.

Let me say a few words about the Suffolk family as there is a raging controversy about its origins. David Stedman, my colleague in Wales and our expert on DNA and the early Stedmans, points out, quite rightly, that Stedmans have been recorded in Suffolk for hundreds of years; however, it would seem that most of the families seen there in the last two hundred years descend from two (or more) brothers who seem to have shown up in the 1600s, and they have been documented in various sources – including the 1858 Barton-Stedman Genealogy – as originating in Kinross, Scotland. Dave makes the point that the 2 DNA samples we have do not match the DNA of any suspected Barton-Stedman descendant. However, Some of the naming suggests a connection to the Barton-Stedmans, and one researcher has seen a letter that talks about the Scottish brothers who came to Bury St. Edmunds. Stay tuned…

Now, lest you think I spend all of my time researching in England, I did one project among the Nova Scotia Steadmans. I have completely re-worked the family of Joseph Steadman, son of William Angus Stedman and Mary Emaline Trueman of Moncton, New Brunswick. I have had family papers and photographs, shared by descendants of this family, that tell a wonderful story for this family.

I did another side project on Dorothy M Stedman that I will describe in a separate post.

These are just the highlights. Please check out your family and see if I have made any updates. Or check out the “What’s New” Page to see the detailed changes.

john.
Nashua, New Hampshire USA
13 February 2013

Dec 242012
 

I have been busy over the past several months working on US families, both with updates and additions. However, the bulk of my time has been to enhance my documentation of English families, mostly from London/Middlesex, Kent, Surrey, and Essex. Many of the updates document families that I have not found published previously at all.

It should be obvious to my regular readers and correspondents that I am intentionally focusing my research on the Stedman families from London area, east and south: Surrey, Kent, Sussex, and Essex. This seems to be a seminal area and, if I can get these families well documented, then I can move on to other counties one by one until I get all of the counties documented, hopefully in my lifetime.

If you are descended from one of these families, please get in touch as personal contact with family members makes the research more productive.

john.

Jul 102012
 

For July, I have made updates both for the software and the genealogies.

For the software, I have updated WordPress to new version 3.4.1. I have also updated TNG to the the update version 9.0.3. The WordPress update requires adding a mod to TNG to handle paging pages.

I will be updating the WordPress-TNG plugin over the next few weeks to handle better the integrated login feature. This feature will allow you to register with WordPress and be automatically registered with TNG. While I am testing the changes, you may see short interruptions in site access.

Please note that I have been adding several Stedman history pages to this blog. This will be an on-going activity as I attempt to consolidate the information on my old Stedman family sites onto this one. In most cases, the move requires major updates to the old pages.

I have updated both the American and UK genealogies.  Along with numerous updates and corrections that you have sent in, I have begin adding some Scottish content thanks to some great help from an excellent researcher in Scotland. I will likely be adding some histories to the site dealing with Scottish families over the coming months. If you have anything to add to this discussion, this would be a good time to get in touch.

Between this Scottish researcher and David Stedman in Wales who works with me on the DNA project and is becoming fluent in the ancient family references, it is very likely that the early history of the Stedmans in England and Scotland and the Bartons in Scotland will be seriously re-written. David is beginning to think that the history written in the John Stedman of Bath (1857) “Memoir of the Barton and Stedman Families” may not be very solid.

I am continuing to re-work and extend the genealogy of the Stedman family that Mick Jagger is not part of. This is an on-going project to try to bring most of those lines to at least 1911. I have a new contact on a branch of this family that went to Australia who hopefully shall bring that line up to date.

Lilly Tennessee (Steadman) Parris (1845-1930)

One of the largest projects that I have been involved with takes me back to the Spartanburg, South Carolina Steadman family. A contact connected me with the family line of Lilly Tennessee Steadman. She was a daughter of Bryson Henry Steadman and his first wife Nancy Nelson. She married William Henry Parris and had 14 children! I have begun to document this family which has added so far hundreds of new members to this already large family. I have images of the Bible pages and some photographs that will be catnip for the many researchers of the Bryson Steadman family. Most of the pictures will be coming later this week.

Good Searching!

John Lisle
Nashua, New Hampshire

Jun 232012
 

I have been revising my Stedman History pages that had been posted on my original stedmanfamily.org site and moving them to this site. Please feel free to check them out and leave comments here with updates or corrections.

The focus of the pages will be the History of the Surname, History of the Families in the UK to 1800, and History of the Stedman Families in Colonial America. These pages will be a work in progress for a while so I really am interested in your comments…

When I have moved all of the existing pages over from the old site that still have value, I will be shutting the old site down and moving the stedmanfamily.org domain to this site.

Thanks,
john.

Jun 152012
 

In May 2003, an email was sent to the Stedman email list documenting the Stedman lineage of Sir Michael Phillip “Mick” Jagger. The lineage seemed good and, based on the records easily available at that time, it could be mostly well proved.

There was one step in the lineage which was vague. Oops… Florence Mary Ann Ensley Pearson supposedly married an Alfred Scutts about 1910 and had daughter Eva Ensley Scutts who married Sir Mick’s father in 1940. Eva supposedly was born in Australia. The fact that his mother was a Scutts and the family name Ensley flowed through the family seemed to make it safe even though we could not find a marriage record for Alfred and Florence nor a birth record for Eva.

Let us skip ahead to 2012…

I can now say that the genealogy I have published for almost ten years showing Mick Jagger as a Stedman descendant was WRONG!

I have been reviewing and updating a lot of the UK genealogies that I worked on years ago to add in all of the newly available census, BMD, etc. records now available. You will see from the genealogies the result of this effort. I have not had to correct too many of my genealogies, but I have to make a public statement and apology about this one. This one stands out because it is such a public line that gets mentioned a lot. I would guess that at least 100 RootsWeb and Ancestry trees must also have this mistake. I fear that many of them got this from me.

I have now updated this genealogy on-line. Below is a summary of what I now believe to be the correct genealogy to be.

Eva Mary Ensley Scutts was born 6 April 1913, and her birth was registered at Marrickville in New South Wales, Australia. Her parents were reported to be Alfred Henry and Gertrude Jessie Scutts. Eva Ensley M Jagger died in May 2000 near London. Her death registration index gives her birth date.

Alfred Henry Scutts (1879-1963, s/o Alfred Charles Scutts and Mary Louisa Gardiner) married Gertrude Jessie Archer in Kent in 1901. They had 4 sons before departing for Australia in July 1912, arriving Sydney in September 1912. One of the sons, Percy died in 1936 in Sydney. Percy’s death notice in a Sydney newspaper made note that Alfred and Gertrude must have been estranged because she was back living in Kent. Eva married in Kent in 1940, and Gertrude and the other three sons died in Kent between 1964 and 2004.

Gertrude Jessie (Archer) Scutts (1879-1964) was the last child of John Archer (1836-1882) and Ensley Bailey (1841-1907). Gertrude’s oldest sister was Mary Ann Ensley Archer (1860-1923) who married Harry Steadman Pearson (1858-1917). Their youngest daughter, Florence Mary Ann Ensley Pearson (1889-1951), did not marry Alfred Scutts but married Ernest E. Page in 1917.

So you know how the Stedman connection comes in… Harry Steadman Pearson is a grandson of Capt. James Stedman and Mary Catherine Edgecombe and great-grandson of Phillip Stedman (of Sevenoaks, Kent) and Susannah Tarbut.

In laying this correction out, I may have made the discovery process seem simple. It wasn’t. I first needed to work up Alfred Scutts’ genealogy in England. It was my good fortune that Alfred Scutts is not a common name! I also had to review all of the details I had for Florence’s family, including finding people in the 1911 census. From this, I discovered that Florence had married in 1917 in England so I was fairly certain she had not gone to Australia. I needed to find when Alfred went to Australia and what was going on with his family there.

I had to prove that Gertrude Jessie Archer and Mary Ann Ensley Archer were related. They were born so far apart that Mary Ann was married about the time Gertrude was born.

Then I had two great contacts in Australia locate the birth registration for Eva (1913 NSW births are not yet released on the web site but are available from some old CDs) and other details of the family in Australia, including evidence that at least part of the family had returned to England before Eva was married.

I stress, when I am teaching genealogy techniques, to find the names of spouse parents. All too often when understanding a spouse’s family, you will learn about hidden cousins.

This example also teaches that family legends might have a grain of truth in them, and, when researching family legends, it is important both to find the correct genealogy and to find out what might be the basis for the legend.

Let me give a shout out to Warwick Anderson and John Graham in Australia and Nick Stedman, David Stedman, and Carl Russ in the UK for their help with this analysis. And help with other issues that I will report from time to time.

John Lisle
Nashua, New Hampshire