Reader case study
Sorting out a ‘can of worms’!
Q: I am writing to you in the hope that you may be able to shed some light onto a ‘can of worms’!
I am helping a friend to research one WILSON SALKELD. He was born around 1805-1808. He variously gives his birthplace as Alson, Wigton, Hexham etc! I can find his marriage to a MARY COOPER on 6 October 1829 in All Saints Church,
Newcastle upon Tyne.
However, the person I’m doing research for had a grandfather ANDREW SALKELD born 3 January 1843 in Prestwick. On the certificate the surname is given as SAVELL but the family have confirmed that it was SALKELD and the documents were checked at Somerset House (in the BMD register indexes). Also on the birth certificate for Andrew his mother is stated as MARY SAVELL/SALKELD formerly ALLEN!
I don’t normally refer to online family trees as they are sometimes misleading. However in this case I did and certainly wished I hadn’t!
Throughout it does seem as though Wilson Salkeld is the same person, however I found four sets of parents:
1. Levi Salkeld & Nancy Ann Walton
2. Thomas Salkeld & Jane Miller
3. Thomas Salkeld & Jane Moses
4. Wilson Salkeld & unknown mother
I have also four different spouses:
1. mostly Mary Cooper but also
2. Mary Allen
3. Mary Macguire
4. Barbara Wouldhave The strange thing is that throughout the
children of Wilson &.... are all the same.
I also have two deaths for Wilson both in 1884:
• One in Gilesgate Durham (he was living in Co Durham around 1851).
• The second is in Hexham. I believe this is the right one as in 1881 he was back in Hexham living with his daughter and sonin-law Thomas Mcguire & Able (Mabel).
I have never been so confused in all my life. I would really appreciate ANY help you could give me.
Thank you so much.
Family Tree Academy tutor David Annal writes: Considering the variant surname spellings
Jan
This case illustrates a number of important points.
For a start, it’s clear that the family surname was spelt in a number of different ways in the earlier documents.
Wilson and Mary seem to have had at least 10 children.
The first child doesn’t seem to have been registered but she was baptised as Mary Sawkeld and her death was registered a few months later as Mary Saffle. Then came Jane Safell, your friend’s ancestor Andrew Savell, followed by Jacob Salkeld, Robert Sokeld and Mable Saffield. The four youngest children were all registered under the spelling Salkeld.
The GRO’S own online birth index confirms that, in each case, the mother’s maiden surname was Allen (or Allan).
When it comes to the censuses there’s more consistency; the family are recorded as Salkeld in each year except 1861 when the name was entered as Saffell.
The spelling of the surname is only of academic interest; its only real significance is that it makes the relevant documents quite hard to trace and, possibly, that it gives us an idea of how the name might have been pronounced. We know from the copy of Andrew’s birth certificate that his mother, Mary (née Allen) was unable to sign her name, while Andrew’s inability to sign his own name when he married in 1862 also suggests that he was illiterate. This, then, is the explanation for the variance in spelling; the clerks were simply writing down what they heard. Having said that, it’s not easy to understand how the name Salkeld could so often sound like Savell/saffle etc.
About the couple
It’s clear then, that we’re dealing with just one couple here; Wilson Salkeld and Mary (née Allen). The census returns between 1851 and 1881 give us quite a clear indication of when Wilson and Mary were born. There’s some inconsistency but generally, we’re looking at a date of birth for Wilson of sometime within a year or so of 1806, while Mary was probably about 11 years younger and born sometime around 1817.
When we combine the evidence of age with the information from the GRO birth indexes, we can quickly see that the marriage of Wilson Salkeld and Mary Cooper at All Saints, Newcastle on 6 October 1828 (same date and month as Jan
states, but one year different) cannot relate to this couple. Our Mary would only have been about 11 at the time and her maiden surname was Allen, not Cooper.
What can the baptismal records reveal?
A search for baptismal records for Wilson and Mary’s children turns up some interesting results. I have only been able to find baptisms for six of the ten children; the first two and the last four. And the baptism of the second daughter, Jane, provides us with a fascinating clue. Jane was baptised at Hexham on 5 February 1841. The entry in the register gives her parents’ names as Wilson and Mary Salkeld (note that her birth was registered under the spelling Safell) but no ‘abode’ is recorded and, most significantly, Wilson’s ‘occupation’ is given as ‘Vagrant’.
This suggests that the family were itinerant travellers and almost certainly explains why it has not been possible to track them down in the 1841 Census.
What can we do about the lack of marriage record?
No record has been found of Wilson and Mary’s marriage and there are a number of possible explanations for this, the most likely of which is that they never went through a formal marriage ceremony. There is however, the distinct possibility that the record of the marriage is quite simply not available online. Coverage of parish registers on Ancestry, Findmypast, Thegenealogist, Freereg and Familysearch is now very good but it is still some way from being comprehensive. Lots of registers are only available on microfilm or as original documents in County and Local Record Offices and before ‘adopting’ a record that we find online which doesn’t quite fit, we need to investigate the possibility that we might need to go somewhere to find the record we’re looking for.
Always remember…
Even if we ever get to the stage when online coverage of parish registers is at least close to being comprehensive, there are still all manner of reasons why an entry might be missing, ranging from damage to part or all of the register, through accidental loss or theft, all the way to deliberate disposal/ destruction! The last of these is extremely unlikely but not entirely unheard of.
Now to the main question!
And this brings us round to your question. Namely, when and where was Wilson Salkeld born (baptised) and who were his parents? The apparent absence of a record of a birth/baptism for Wilson can be explained in one of the same ways; either he was never baptised or the record of his baptism (if it survives) is not available online. In this case, I would lean slightly more towards the latter but given the evidence we have about the family’s itinerant lifestyle, the actual absence of a baptismal record is not at all unlikely.
Where can you look & what can you search for?
As a county, Cumberland is among the poorest in its online coverage, and given Wilson’s apparent uncertainty about where he was born (was it Wigton as he claimed in 1851 or Alston as stated in 1881?) the search for a baptismal record isn’t going to be easy. (I think we can safely ignore the data from 1871 which suggests that he was born in Hexham; I’m quite sure that he was born somewhere in Cumberland). And of course, any search for this family is going to be complicated by the fact that we can’t be at all sure how the surname is going to be spelt in the records.
Wildcard search tip
I soon learned, while searching for these people, that the most effective wildcard search was Sa*l*e* which picks us most variant spellings without producing too many non-relevant hits.
Looking for evidence, not a specific record
Sometimes we need to let go of the idea of looking for a record of birth (or baptism) and look instead for evidence of birth. We know from the later censuses that Wilson was born sometime around 1806, almost certainly somewhere in Cumberland. We don’t have any evidence of parentage but we do have the names of his 10 children and the likelihood is that the names of his parents are to be found amongst the names of his children.
Finding & using the clues about relatives
• Looking at lodgers There are some big clues to be had from the 1851 Census. Along with Wilson and Mary and their five children, we have no fewer than eight lodgers, all of whom seem to be relatives! It’s impossible to be sure, as precise relationships aren’t given but I suspect that we have four family groups here; David and Mary Williamson, husband and wife (with the possibility that Mary was Wilson’s sister), the unmarried Jane Salkeld (also Wilson’s sister?), Jacob ( Wilson’s brother?) and Mable Salkeld and their two children Mary Ann and Stewart (the GRO birth index tells us that her maiden surname was also Allen – could she be our Mary’s younger sister?) and finally, the 9-yearold David Williamson. This David was apparently born in Dunbar, Scotland and may have been the older David’s nephew; a David Williamson was baptised at Dunbar in 1842, the son of Thomas and Amelia Williamson.
• Siblings’ birthplaces If, as I believe is likely, we’re looking at four siblings here – Mary, Wilson, Jane and Jacob – we’re also looking at four different birthplaces; Bewcastle, Wigton, Crogland (Croglin) and Longtown respectively. And this, of course would be entirely consistent with an itinerant family.
Whether they’re siblings or not, the only one of the four for whom I can find a possible baptism is Jane. A Jane Salkeld was baptised at Renwick, Cumberland on 31 March 1811, the daughter of Thomas Salkeld and Jane (née Miller). Thomas and Jane had married in Wigton in 1802 (remember that Wilson claimed, in 1851, to have been born in Wigton) and I can find one other baptism which definitely relates to this couple.
On 14 May 1809, Stewart Salkeld was baptised at Lanercost, the daughter of Thomas Salkeld and Jane (née Millar). There can be no doubt that this Stewart is the sister of the Jane who was baptised at Renwick in March 1811 and the name Stewart provides a direct link with the 1851
Census entry in Hexham. If my theory is correct, Jacob was naming his daughter after his sister.
• Other irrelevant & relevant entries There are a number of other contemporary Salkeld baptisms at Renwick but these relate to another family – coincidentally also Thomas and Jane, who are, shall we say, of a very different social class; this other Thomas was a well-to-do farmer.
The only other possibly relevant baptism is of a John Salkeld, son of Thomas and Mary [sic] at Croglin on 19 March 1815 (as below). The 1851 Census gave our Jane’s place of birth as ‘Crogland’, so there may be a connection here. Croglin is immediately to the north of Renwick.
More evidence to consider
I’m already quite convinced that this Thomas and Jane were the parents of our Wilson but there’s more evidence to consider.
Thomas & Jane's marriage When Thomas and Jane married in 1802, the parish register appears (from the transcript) to have given their ages as 32 which, if it’s true, means that they were both born around 1769 or 1770. And there’s a baptism of a Thomas Salkeld, son of John in the parish of Alston with Garrigill on 11 June 1769. And this Thomas seems to have had a younger brother called … Wilson! In fact,
Wilson seems to have been his mother’s maiden surname. John Sokeld married Agnes (Ann) Willson at Alston in 1768.
And another mystery marriage couple There’s still another mystery to explain. Who was the Wilson Salkeld who married Mary Cooper in Newcastle in 1828? My theory is that this is our Wilson and that the marriage didn’t last, either due to Mary’s death or their separation. I was intrigued to notice that another couple married at All Saints, Newcastle on the same day; William Cooper and Jane Allan. Could this Jane be Wilson’s future wife’s sister?
In conclusion
Researching families before 1837 is often complicated by a combination of the lack of available online resources and the paucity of information in the records themselves. But I think that, in this case, we can tentatively conclude that Wilson was the son of Thomas Salkeld and Jane (née Miller) and that he was born sometime around 1806, probably in or around Wigton.
It would be worth contacting the Salkeld One-name Study, run by a former colleague of mine, Ingrid Salkeld. https://one-name. org/name_profile/salkeld/