EUREKA MOMENT
The Isle of Wight Family History Society helped Phil Challis and Frances Abrook solve a tricky conundrum. Jon Bauckham learns more…
Finally solved: a case of mistaken identity
How long have you been doing family history research?
I’ve only been tracing my family tree since 2013, but my friend Frances Abrook has been researching for 35 years using original birth, death and marriage certificates, microfilm and microfiche.
When Frances was visiting from Australia last year, we talked about our shared interest in genealogy and sat down in front of a computer to use ancestry.co.uk and try and break through a brick wall she had hit.
What had you managed to uncover before hitting the brick wall?
On her husband’s side of the family, Frances had managed to get back to his great grandfather Henry John Abrook (1856-1932), who was born on the Isle of Wight and earned a living in Sydney as a bricklayer. He was also known as John Henry and apparently married Alice Wild.
What was stopping you from progressing your research? And how had you tried to solve the mystery previously?
Frances wanted to learn more about Henry’s early life and trace the Abrook line back further. But despite searching genealogical databases and making several trips to the Isle of Wight, she’d been unable to find a suitable candidate.
What was your ‘eureka’ moment?
We came across some enigmatic references on a thread on the Ancestry Message Boards stating that Henry Abrook’s name was actually Henry Angell.
According to the posts, Henry had passed himself off as an Abrook to gain passage to New Zealand, and eventually Australia, with his friend James Fallick. This rang a bell with Frances, as a gentleman in the UK had previously told a relative something similar, but hadn’t offered any proof.
How did it solve the problem?
The message board didn’t provide a definitive answer, but it pointed us in the right direction. Once Frances had returned to Australia, further research revealed that Henry Abrook’s story had been documented by the Isle of Wight Family History Society (IOWFHS).
Both Frances and I joined the IOWFHS for a modest sum and gained access to the society’s historical journals thanks to Keir Foss, who was incredibly helpful. Slowly we started to reveal the story in little steps.
The primary source was a transcription of an oral history interview from 1955 with a man named Fred Fallick (1870-1957), which Keir had obtained and preserved. In the account, Fred explained that his uncle, James Fallick, had emigrated to Australia due to a lack of available work on the Isle of Wight and England in general.
Crucially, Fred also revealed that his uncle had travelled with Henry Angell, who used the ticket of a man that had decided not to travel named William Abrook. In 1998, Keir outlined the tale in an IOWFHS journal article and predicted that it would cause genealogists some problems in the future. How right he was!
He couldn’t tell his future wife that he was travelling under an alias
The story was picked up by another researcher named Arthur Barker, who was carrying out a study of all Abrooks on the Isle of Wight. In 2004, Arthur published a further IOWFHS article, revealing that Henry Abrook (Angell) had married Alice Wild and that James Fallick had married Alice’s sister Elizabeth.
Frances knew that her husband was descended from the marriage between Henry Abrook and Alice Wild, and that the couple’s wedding certificate listed a witness named James Pallick. Although it would be helpful to obtain the original handwritten document, this is undoubtedly a bad transcription of James Fallick.
How did you feel when you discovered Henry’s story?
We felt fantastic. The posts that we had originally come across on the Ancestry Message Boards had some foundation after all, and confirming them allowed us to dig further.
Frances was also pleased because it meant that her beloved grandchildren really were little ‘Angells’ after all!
Did you learn anything else along the way?
In his 2004 article, Arthur Barker had wondered why Henry Abrook didn’t revert back to his original surname once he had settled in Australia.
Through our online searches, we discovered that Henry and James arrived together in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1874, on the Loch
Awe. Also on board for that same journey was Alice Wild (Henry’s future wife) and her family. Alice then made the journey to Sydney from Auckland on board the Hero in July-August 1876, and we assume Henry and James travelled at around the same time due to waning job opportunities in New Zealand.
It seems likely that Henry and Alice first formed a relationship during the long voyage aboard the Loch Awe. As Henry was using the Abrook surname at the time (as per his arrival record), it would have been quite difficult to tell his future wife that he was travelling under an alias. As a result, Henry was stuck with the name forever.
This theory sounded plausible, but we were still puzzled as to how Fred Fallick had come by the story. Although the tale had obviously been passed down the Fallick family to Fred, no stories exist in the Abrook family about this incident and so we can only assume that Henry took the secret to his grave.
Using the Cyclopedia of New South Wales, 1907 (available on ancestry.co.uk), we discovered that James Fallick became a very successful builder and politician in Sydney, before returning to the Isle of Wight to live between 1893 and 1896. It seems likely that James would have told the story to his family during this period, when Fred would have been aged 23-26.
What would your advice be to other family historians who hit an obstacle while researching their family tree?
Explore the journals belonging to local family history societies in the area related to your brick wall, as someone may have already researched the topic in the past. In fact, many societies have a section in their journals where you can ask other members questions.
Researching Henry Abrook/Angell’s story also demonstrated the value of transcribing and preserving oral histories, as they too may become invaluable to genealogists in the future.