Mary The Second

I was wondering why there has been some confusion over Mary’s birth date.  I know in my own research I have come across reference to her birth date being in both 1849 and in 1850.  This has puzzled me, so I revisited and cross referenced the various versions we have of her family tree.  I noticed on one that there are two Mary’s marked, one born in 1849 and another born in 1850.  There were two Mary Hope Greg’s!  The first Mary Hope Greg died before the age of one, our Mary Hope Greg being born the following year. I have added my working document of Mary’s family tree so you can see my notes so far on her genealogy (I’ll draw up a better version and repost when I can).

Hope Family Tree (draft)

How tragic for her parents. Even though infant mortality rates were much higher then and the loss of a child more commonplace, it must still have been a terrible event for the family (you’ll see from the family tree that there are other infant deaths in both the preceding and following generations). How curious that they should give their next daughter the same name.  Was this a common occurrence in those days?  And, I wonder if our Mary knew about her namesake.  How did it feel for her to be named after a deceased sibling? Was this naming in remembrance and commemoration or mourning and loss?  Any genealogists out there with any knowledge of these matters?  Sharon

A passport to Royalty?

Held in the OPUA Collection at Platt Hall Museum of Costume

Worn and faded inside

In finding the Rebekah Bateman Hope of the passport, did anyone notice further down in the Hope Family tree document, a marriage between Alexander Faulkner SHAND and Augusta Mary COATES?  They had a son Philip Morton SHAND whose descendants included Camilla Rosemary SHAND who is married to Charles Philip Arthur George Windsor – or Prince Charles as we know him!  Now if that doesn’t add value I don’t know what does!!  Sharon

Thomas Greg’s family tree

Have a look at this link on YouTube to see Thomas Tylson Greg’s family tree.

This ties in beautifully with Melanie’s post about the Hope family tree: the one above was found by Sharon and is of the Greg side of the family. With no women mentioned. As Sharon says,

I had to pencil the women in myself!

I’ll put an image of the family tree on this post later so that you can see it while listening to Sharon talk about it.

The Hope Family

After a morning of visiting perhaps every family history website known to man I eventually made some progress. The photographed obituary mentions Mary Greg’s parents Thomas Arthur Hope and Emily Hird Hope. I simply typed this into google and came across an independent site ‘The Family Tree of Peter A. Brown’. He traces the Hope family back to John De Hope (1626-1674)

I focused on Thomas and Emily and discovered they had 12 children! One of Mary’s sisters is the mysterious Rebekah Bateman (1842-1901), named after her grandmother of the same name. Harriet Selina and Arthur are mentioned as in the passport as well as Caroline mentioned in the letters. The children were born in either Sefton or Liverpool, however I couldn’t find Mary’s birth date and place. None of the Mary Hope’s mentioned were born in 1849 and most had died by 1901.  

I intend to draw up a proper family tree in the next few days as the website is a bit disjointed but feel free to look up all the Hope’s in the meantime. You can also look up Births and Deaths. It’s all rather exciting!

Melanie

Ear trumpets and grannies

I found this picture on a website about Samuel Greg Junior – son of Samuel Greg from Quarry Bank Mill. I loved this photo of Mary Greg (was Mary Priscilla Needham) who was his wife (they married in 1838 and had 2 sons and 6 daughters), and mother of Amy Greg sitting beside her. Is this the grandmother and mother of our Mary? I absolutely love Mary Priscilla’s ear trumpet. Does it survive in our Mary’s collection? I really want to find an ear trumpet now. What a useful tool.
Actually, it reminds me of a seminar we went to last week about mental health and schizophrenia: we did an exercise about hearing voices, and I had to speak through a makeshift ear trumpet.

http://happy-valley.org.uk/history/people-greg.htm