Hello,
After many searches, over the past 3 years, yesterday I found new
information on the LDS web site which shows a John LEWIS, 79, living in the
"West Derby Workhouse" in Walton on the Hill (Lancashire) in the 1881
Census. This John LEWIS is a possibility for my great-great-grandfather.
The John LEWIS I am looking for was married in Liverpool in June 1841, and
his wife was probably Isabella HUGHES. Their fathers were listed as
William LEWIS and Thomas HUGHES.
That is about all I know about them. Some 18 years later, a John Stanley
LEWIS was born in Liverpool in 1859, and he had listed his parents as:
John and Isabella LEWIS on his marriage certificate in 1879 (in Canada).
In 1873 John Stanley LEWIS went to live in the Liverpool Sheltering Homes in
Liverpool, and in 1874 he was "shipped to Canada." On the same ship with
him was a Josephine LEWIS (same age) and two younger LEWIS girls (whom I
can't trace). I believe that John had a younger brother, William LEWIS,
born 1860's.
Since I have found very little information on this LEWIS family in several
years of on-line searching, I am wondering if John LEWIS and Isabella
HUGHES were from .. Wales.
On the LDS site, yesterday, I did a search for a John LEWIS, with a father,
William LEWIS, and I came up with two possibilities:
John LEWIS, b1805, with parents:
William LEWIS and Margaret JONES (Liverpool)
John LEWIS, b1808, with parents:
William LEWIS and Ann ROBERTS (Liverpool)
and a record of:
William LEWIS and Nancy ROBERTS, marrying 1805
And, wondering why my great-grandfather was given the middle name,
Stanley, I did a search and found a Stanley HUGHES, b1822 in Liverpool,
with parents: John and Jane HUGHES.
And, I found a Stanley LEWIS, 13, living in the home of his sister and her
husband, Charles and Eliza WOODS, in Everton in 1881. All three were born
in Liverpool.
I am told that surnames, LEWIS and HUGHES, etc., are very common names in
the U.K. And, yet, I have only found a few other researchers studying the
families in Liverpool (and Wales) in the 1800's.
I have no idea at all whether my great-grandfather's parents were from
Liverpool families, or whether they were from Wales and went to Liverpool at
the time of their marriage.
My great-grandmother was another "British Home Child" (Child Migrant).
She was the oldest of five siblings who were also "shipped to Canada" in
1874. Their parents were Evan and Elizabeth (QUAYLE ??) CORKILL from the
Isle of Man. They married in Liverpool in 1852, and probably moved there
at the same time. I know the CORKILL family was on the Isle of Man going
back to the 1700's. I'm not sure that QUAYLE was the surname of Evan's
wife before they married. And, if it was, I have been told she could have
come from Wales. I believe she died in 1873. Evan remarried a few
years later, and this wife was from Wales.
(I don't remember her name at this moment, but it was another Elizabeth.)
Last fall, I found a Census record in MA/USA for one of the CORKILL
daughters, and she stated that her mother was born in Wales. That was the
only mention of that fact (?) in my 3+ years of searching.
All of the LEWIS and CORKILL children were shipped to Nova Scotia in 1874.
Of the 7 children I am researching, most remained living in Nova Scotia.
My great-grandparents married there in 1879, and migrated to MA / USA in
1881. They raised 13 children here. (One sister married a man from
Nantucket, MA, and then moved to his home.)
Thank you for your time.
Betty (near Lowell, MA, USA)
"There are two lasting bequests we can give our children;
one is roots, the other is wings."
Hodding Carter, Jr.
"What does Jesus want in his "stocking" on Christmas morning?
Loving kindness, a warm heart, and the stretched out hand of tolerance!"
The Bishop's Wife (1947)