Alan Sinclair

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Biography

A Mother Tree

(keep in mind that I wrote this before importing my research into this collaborative world-wide tree, which qualifies the references in the following to MY tree)

This tree confines itself to recording deceased individuals related to me through my maternal line of ancestry (and those born or married into the family before 1940).

In the first place it records the family of William and Harriet Rowntree. My grandmother helped me by collecting information about her family shortly before she died in the 1970's.

In the second place it records the family of William and Sarah Farr who settled in Davenport (later part of Toronto Junction), West Toronto, Canada about 1860. Much attention has been paid to the wider Rowntree family, including The Rowntree Book, Elizabeth McQuillan et al, 1985, but this tree is the first attempt to record all the Farrs, with help from my grandmother long ago, the book Spadunk, Perkins Bull, 1935, but mostly from online sources in the last couple of years. Research in the origins of this family is made more difficult by the name change, as discussed within the tree.

In the third place it records the family of Richard and Sarah Harris of Wootton, Bedfordshire up to the 1861 English census, along with those that emigrated, apart from the Farrs, incuding John Harris to Stryker, Ohio and Thomas Harris to Osnabruck, Ontario. Much attention has been paid to this family online, but research in the origins is made more difficult by erroneous information, as discussed in the tree under John.

In the fourth place it records the family of Thomas and Diana Toms, who crossed the Bedfordshire-Hertfordshire border in the 1760's and 1770's, as I discovered around Labour Day 2007 (a brick wall was breached).

In the fifth place it records the family of George and Elizabeth Camp of Codicote, Hertfordshire, again, up to the 1861 English census. This family is traceable due to the good quality of the St Giles Codicote Parish Registers back to 1700. Earlier research in the East family of Harpenden in the 1670's is made, I think, impossible by the poor condition of the St Nicholas Harpenden Baptismal Register.

In the future I hope to continue tracing more families within the tree forward from the 1861 English census. Statistically there are 2469 individuals in total, 2139 up to 1861, 1369 recorded in 1861 era censuses, and 330 additional individuals from tracing the 10 members of the Farr family forward.

Alan, January 2013

Sources

• First-hand information. Entered by Alan Sinclair at registration.