Jack Waddell's Heritage
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Jack Waddell’s Heritage Doug Boylan © 2017 To Sandi, with all my love ii iii Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. Jack’s English Ancestors 3 Introduction 3 Taylor Family 5 Kenninghall – Wilthy and Collings Families 22 Elliott Family 43 3. Jack’s Ulster Ancestors 61 Introduction 61 Allen Family 66 Turkington Family 68 Anderson Family 71 Waddell Family 78 4. Jack’s Parents – Robert and Susie 95 5. Robert and Susie’s Children 109 6. Jack Waddell 137 7. Appendix - Family Trees 159 iv v 1. Introduction Jack Waddell was my wife Sandi’s father, and I had wanted to write a memoir about him for my children, his grandkids. Jack had been a relatively quiet man, but he had also been a terrific family man, a war hero, and someone who had pulled himself up from poverty and fatherless roots. It would be an interesting story, and I wanted my kids to know where they had come from. I also wanted to look into his family history. I had already heard intriguing stories of how his father had deserted the family, with rumors that he started one or more other families as well. And I wanted to see what kind of backgrounds his parents had come from, and what family stories had been remembered and retold. Jack didn’t talk much about these things. His father’s family was pretty much a closed subject, but then a terrific break happened, very much by accident. In my software that tracks my family tree, I had added data about Sandi as my spouse and included those relatives of hers that I knew. Later, when I posted my family tree on the internet to seek other family searchers, I didn’t realize that I had included her family history as well. In January 2007, I got an email from a Lynne Erley in Port Elgin, Canada, who said she matched up with the data I had posted. She went on to tell me about her dad, Charles Maurice Waddell, who was born in Cadillac, MI. I looked at my list of Jack’s brothers, and there was a Ken and a Ron and a Bob, but no Charles. And I had never heard of his family being in Michigan. Pat agreed, although she was pretty sure that Bob was Robert Maurice. I wrote Lynne back explaining that Charles didn’t seem to be in the family as we knew it, so sadly she was probably mistaken. Lynne wrote back, “Yes, your wife's family is the same as mine. My Dad's name was Charles Maurice but he went by Bob because Lynne when he was younger his little brother "Jack" couldn't pronounce brother and it turned out more like Bub - hence Bob.” Our “Jack” and her “Bob.” A delightful story to introduce our families. It turned out that Lynne had done extensive research on the lineage of both of her dad’s parents. Much of the information I present in here I either got from her, or else I would not have found without the background information she furnished. Thanks, Lynne. Jack has roots in Northern Ireland and in England. His dad, Robert W. Waddell was a Presbyterian from County Tyrone, his mother Susan Taylor an Anglican from Ipswich, England. Both are from humble roots. Susan’s dad was a tailor, and Robert’s dad started out a farmer. Both Robert and Susan immigrated separately to Canada in the early 1900’s where they met and married soon after. Their story has been difficult to unravel, and there are some unknowns to it, but it is an interesting tale. 2 2. Jack’s English Ancestors Introduction Jack Waddell was truly half Irish and half English. His father was Robert W. Waddell of County Tyrone in Northern Ireland. His mother was Susan Taylor of Ipswich in Suffolk, England. This section will deal with the English side of his heritage. There are many branches on this tree, and most of them are based in farming and in trades. I know of no ties to English royalty at least back into the 1700’s. The earliest Taylors I know of were agricultural laborers in a small Suffolk village, pretty much the poorest of the deserving working poor. The Collings family I think started as land-owning yeomen and agricultural laborers, and our ancestor moved to bricklaying as a family trade. The Elliotts worked as carpenters, but our Elliott branch converted over to the in-laws’ trade of laying bricks. Each of these families originated in a different English county. It is somewhat a story of the migration of these families to converge eventually in the large town of Ipswich. The movements of these families can be followed on the map on the next page. The scale of the migrations is not large by today’s standards. The distance from Kenninghall to Ipswich is only 33 miles. The Taylors had their roots in the village of Worlingworth, in Suffolk County. One of our ancestors, Alfred, after a diversion to London, moved to the village of Offton, and from there to Ipswich about 1877 or so. The Elliotts came from Gestingthorpe, a small village in Essex. They moved for a while to Hintlesham and were in Ipswich by 1841. The Collings family was in Kenninghall in Norfolk County, and Rochester Collings moved to Sproughton outside of Ipswich by 1811. There in Sproughton, the name Collings began a transition to Collins and his daughter Susannah married Benjamin Elliott to settle in Ipswich It was Ipswich where Susie Taylor, Jack’s mom, was born and from where she departed to emigrate to Canada. A major portion of the research in the English family section is based on the work of Dr. Janet MacDonald, a cousin in Glasgow, Scotland. Janet, whom I met through Lynne Erley, is the granddaughter of Alice Taylor, Susie Taylor’s sister, and hence Janet is Sandi’s second cousin. She is a scholar in history and Celtic studies at Glasgow University, with a special interest in the island monastery of Iona. Fortunately, Janet has also applied her historical research skills to the history of the family and has been working at it a while. She supplied much of the research for the family tree structure, some going back into the 1600’s. She has Janet MacDonald also preserved some family pictures, some family stories, and a very delightful archive of family postcards. Janet has kindly and very generously made the material available to us. Without her help, this would be a very slim chapter indeed. 3 I also owe special thanks to another cousin, Linda Collings Jensen. Her husband Mike was born in Atlanta and is an engineer and ex-American serviceman. Linda is a retired office manager and active family researcher who has supplied much of the information on the Norfolk branch of the family. She provided the pictures of Kenninghall and some delightful information and clarifications on the Collings family tree and history. She very kindly made her genealogy information available to us and recommended places for further Linda Jensen and husband Mike investigation. Family Locations in England 4 Taylor Family Father Mother John Richards Sarah Taylor James Taylor (2/3/1717) James Taylor (1717) Elizabeth Watling (1718) John Taylor (1747 - 1817) James Taylor (1743/44) Ann Taylor (1742) Elizabeth Taylor (1739) John Taylor (1747 - 1817) Susanna Carver James Taylor (1784) Ann Taylor (1787) James Taylor (1778) Susanna Taylor (1778) John Taylor (1776) James Taylor (1784) Lydia Brows John Taylor (1817 - 1883) Charlotte Taylor (1802) James Taylor (1804) Edmund Taylor (1806) William Taylor (1810) Henry Taylor (1812) Maria Taylor (1815) Susannah Taylor (1822) John Taylor (1817 - 1883) Lydia Laws (1821) Alfred Taylor (1843 - 1908) George Taylor (1847) Henry Taylor (1846) Alfred Taylor (1843 - 1908) Agnes Adelaid Elliott (1853 – 1918) Susan Taylor (1882 - 1964) Alice Mary Taylor (1885 - 1974) Charles Collins Taylor (1888 - 1924) Florence Ellen Taylor (1891 - 1918) Harry Elliott Taylor (1887 - 1941) Kate Agnes Taylor (1884 - 1917) Rose Lottie Taylor (1894 - 1982) Note: All dates before 1800 are baptismal dates 5 Taylor Family The Taylor name has its roots as an occupational surname, as might be expected. It is based on the Norman French word “Tailleur” for Tailor. Taylor is a very common name. It is the tenth most common name in the US and the fifth most common in England. Jack Waddell’s mother was Susan Taylor of Suffolk. The commonness of the name makes family research hard for sorting out Taylor relatives from Taylor strangers. Because it was so common, many Taylors wished to improve their status, using alternate spellings such as Tayleur. Our family, however, was not one to put on airs, and the only alternate spellings result from penmanship or clerical errors. Our Taylor family has its roots in Worlingworth, a small village in Suffolk, England located roughly 18 miles north of Ipswich. In the mid-1800’s, Worlingworth was a village of about seventy houses with a population of about 700 in the local parish. The major landmark in the community is St Mary’s, a lovely church built in the 15th century. James Taylor Worlingworth and St Mary’s today There have been Taylors in the Worlingworth community since the 1500’s, but the first Taylor I can find tied to our family there is Sarah Taylor, who was born in the late 1600’s. About 1716, unmarried Sarah Taylor gave birth to a son she named James and who was baptized in 1717. I think the father was probably John Richards, yeoman, of Worlingworth who, together with Thomas Richards of Bedfield agreed to pay £40 child support for the care of “the bastard child of Sarah Taylor.” Forty-six years later, John Richards remembered James in his will.