Will Power….or the Power of a Will

Eliza Thirkill, nee Turner, and daughter Emmeline, c1878

One of the first “genealogical brick walls” I encountered involved my great-great-grandmother, Eliza. Family tradition had it that Eliza’s maiden name was Turner and that she had married her husband, Walter Thirkill, in England before emigrating to Australia around 1860.

This was in the early days of my research (pre-internet), and it took many months to find the relevant birth, death, and marriage certificates that would provide me with confirmation of names and dates. But rather than confirmation and clarity, all I found was confusion. The seven certificates that recorded Eliza’s maiden name offered me five alternatives – Turner, Stephens, Stevenson, Jepson, and Jackson.[1] Despairing of ever figuring this out, I wrote an article about it for Ancestor magazine in 1991 and moved on to other ancestors. You can read the article here.

Fast forward 25 years, and I decided to have another crack at Eliza and her elusive maiden name. In the intervening years, I had identified Eliza’s parents (Jonathon and Hannah Turner), which suggested to me that Turner was, in fact, her maiden name. Hannah’s maiden name was Stephenson, which could explain why Eliza sometimes gave her maiden name as Stephens or Stevenson. But something still didn’t feel right.

With the internet now part of the fabric of all our lives and Ancestry.com giving us instant access to millions of records, I hoped that hitherto unexplored documents might help.

Although I had an approximate birth year and location for Eliza, the relevant parish records were not available to search, so that avenue was closed to me. My next step was to focus on Eliza’s parents – Jonathon and Hannah Turner – and I started a systematic review of all the records I had for them on the off chance that something would jump out at me. And it did!

In 1871, Jonathon and Hannah were living in Huddersfield in Yorkshire, and the census of that year lists one Mary Ann Amelia Jipson as living with them. She was their niece.[2]

Jispon rang a bell. A very loud bell. One of the alternative maiden names for Eliza had been Jepson, and this Mary Ann Amelia Jipson was apparently Eliza’s cousin. Here was the link I had been looking for. Either Jonathon or Hannah must have a sibling who married a Jepson. Or so I thought.

 I managed to identify Jonathon’s parents – Jonathon Turner had married Mary Battye in 1792 – and his six siblings. None of them had married a Jepson.

I could find no baptism record or parents for Hannah. Another brick wall!

BUT…..If you can’t go through a brick wall, go around it!

The 1871 census provided me with the age (15) and birthplace (Aldershot) of Mary Ann Amelia Jispon, so I began tracing her family.

I found her parents – Samuel Jepson and Caroline Teeling.

I found Samuel Jepson’s parents – Samuel Jepson and Amelia Charlesworth – and his five siblings, but no link to Jonathon and Hannah Turner.

It was time to think outside the box.

I wondered whether any of the Jepson family had left a Will – these documents can be a gold mine of information if you’re lucky.

And I absolutely struck gold in Samuel Jepson senior’s Will.[3]

Samuel died in 1864. In his Will of 1858, he explicitly mentions his daughter “Hannah, the wife of Jonathon Turner of Huddersfield”.

Hannah did not have a sibling who married a Jepson; she WAS a Jepson! Mary Ann Amelia Jipson’s father, Samuel, was Hannah’s brother.

I am still unable to find a baptism record for Hannah Jepson, and it is not clear why, in all other records, her maiden name is given as Stephenson.

But through determination, willpower, and the power of a Will, I can finally explain why great-great-grandmother Eliza was a little confused about her maiden name!

Will of Samuel Jepson, died 6 May 1864, National Archives, Kew, Surrey, England.

References

[1] Marriage certificate of Eliza Stephens and Walter Thirkill, married 28 February 1853, General Register Office, Home Office, London, England, Vol 9a, Page 300; Birth certificate of Harriet Ellen Thirkill, born 2 June 1856, General Register Office, Home Office, London, England, 41; Birth certificate of Hannah Thirkill, born 3 February 1859, General Register Office, Home Office, London, England, 39; Birth certificate of Clara Thirkill, born 2 April 1862, Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages Victoria, Department of Justice, Victoria, Australia, 7100/1862; Birth certificate of Elizabeth Thirkill, born 31 March 1869, Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages Victoria, Department of Justice, Victoria, Australia, 7191/1869; Birth certificate of Emmeline Thirkill, 14 October 1873, Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages Victoria, Department of Justice, Victoria, Australia, 6018/1873; Death certificate of Eliza Thirkill, 12 November 1885, Registrar of Births, Deaths & Marriages Victoria, Department of Justice, Victoria, Australia, 13206/1885.

[2] Census record for Turner household, Wells St, Huddersfield, Yorkshire, 1871 England and Wales Census, The National Archives, RG10/4366/27, UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com.

[3] Will of Samuel Jepson, died 6 May 1864, National Archives, Kew, Surrey, England.

Bibliography

Ancestry.com

Findmypast.com

Collis, Teresa, ‘What Did You Say Your Name Was?’, Ancestor, Autumn 1991, p. 12.