Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggarman, Thief
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Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggarman, Thief The ancestry of my parents James Sneyd Auckland, 2009 ii iii iv Contents Introduction ix I Mummy Dearest 1 1 McPhersons, Clarks and Peddies 5 Arrival in New Zealand; Robert McPherson and Marion Waugh . 5 Benjamin McPherson and Christina Clark . 8 The Clarks . 14 The early Clarks . 14 Adam Clark . 15 Adam Sprott Clark . 16 The Peddies . 17 Robert Adair McPherson and Freda Neal . 20 2 The Neals and Buschs 33 Arrival in New Zealand; William Neal and Amelia Matthews . 35 Thomas Nelson Neal and Selina Busch . 38 John Frederick Neal and Kate Norgrove . 43 The Busch family . 50 3 The Norgroves 57 Arrival in New Zealand; William Norgrove and Sarah Hall . 57 Oscar Norgrove and Edith Brook . 69 II Daddy Dearest 77 4 Sneyds and Bonds 81 The Sneyds . 81 Alfred Harold Sneyd and Catherine Charity Bond . 85 James Shiner Bond and Ellen Octavia Graham . 92 5 The Grahams of Edmond Castle 101 The Debatable Lands . 102 The Early Grahams of Hayton and Edmond Castle . 105 The Grahams of Edmond Castle from the 1600s to the 1800s . 106 Thomas (v) Graham and Elizabeth Susanna Davenport . 110 John Graham and Caroline Eleanor Curteis . 114 Reginald John Graham and Ellen Leah Boileau . 115 Edmond Castle . 117 The coat-of-arms of the Grahams of Edmond Castle . 122 v vi CONTENTS 6 Kent, Sussex and Yorkshire 125 The Curteis Family . 125 The earliest Curteis’s . 125 The later Curteis’s . 128 The Barretts . 131 The Jacobs . 134 The Beales . 136 The Seamans . 138 The Newingtons and Hepdens . 140 7 The Boileau de Castelnau 143 The earliest Boileau: Etienne and the Crusaders . 146 The earliest historical Boileau . 149 The religious wars in France . 153 The Huguenots: flight from France . 155 The British Boileau . 160 Castelnau . 164 8 The Jessups: the American connection 171 Edward Jessup the pioneer . 171 Edward Jessup the younger . 174 A parcel of rogues; Joseph Jessup and his sons . 175 The War of Independence . 179 Leah Jessup . 183 9 Huguenot and Medieval Families 189 Desbrisay . 189 Connection to the earlier De Brisay family . 193 St. Leger de Boisrond . 194 Vergeze` d’Aubussargues . 195 Collot d’Escury . 196 The early Collot d’Escury . 196 Andre´ Collot d’Escury . 198 Daniel Collot d’Escury . 200 De la Vallette . 205 De Vignolles . 205 De Calviere` . 207 De Montcalm . 209 Other medieval ancestors in brief . 212 III The Five Horrors 215 10 About us Children 217 Mary Jane . 217 Alfred James Robert . 219 Catherine Adair . 224 Elizabeth Sarah Neal . 225 John Graham . 229 CONTENTS vii Appendix I: Maps 237 Appendix II: Things written 247 Lucknow, by Rosalie Sneyd 247 My street that was, by Rosalie Sneyd 251 Ribbons in our hair, by Rosalie Sneyd 255 Medical School reunion 259 Rosalie Sneyd . 259 Sam Sneyd . 260 Memories of ‘Granny’, by Brian Tidmarsh 261 I am my Brother’s Keeper, by Robert Adair McPherson 263 The Despreaux John Boileau letter 267 Appendix III: Borese 279 The ancestry of Louise de Baschi d’Aubais; ten generations 279 Bibliography 301 viii CONTENTS Introduction Genealogy is a somewhat strange beast. Those who love it will spend years trying to find out obscure details of their GGG-grandparents1, or their second, third, or fourth cousins, and count it time well spent. Others, who don’t, think they’re mad. I’m one of the former. If you’re one of the latter, then bite me. It’s a fascinating study, to find out where you came from, how you came to be where you are, and all the many strands that make up your ancestry. I like to know that some of my ancestors were French Huguenots, that others were English minor landed gentry, while yet others were dirt- poor Scottish miners. I’m ridiculously proud of the fact that I’m a fifth-generation New Zealander, and that at least four of my ancestors were first settlers. It’s fascinating that another ancestor was one of the very early settlers to the east coast of North America. I like to visit places where my ancestors lived and worked, I like to know on what boats they came to New Zealand, and when. I’m not entirely sure why I like to know all this, but I do. There seem to me to be two quite different kinds of genealogists. Some like to trace all the descendants of a particular ancestor, keeping track of their multiple cousins, and how exactly they are related. I, personally, find this rather dull. I’m not all that interested in knowing about my 6th or 7th cousins around the world. I know I have a lot of them, and that’s quite enough. I’m of the second variety, those who love to trace their ancestry back through the generations, as far as possible2. Unfortunately, I have not collected a great deal of information about brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles; although such information is rather harder to obtain than the direct line, it can add an enormous amount to our understanding of the family. However, for better or worse, a lot of those details are missing from this book. Maybe someone else will fill in the gaps, educating me in my turn. I hope so. At any rate, this book is about my ancestors, or as many of them as I can conveniently include. I say “conveniently” because I am much luckier than the majority of genealogists, in that many other relatives have already found out vast amounts of information about the family. A lot of my work was already done, before I even started. Mostly, I have been merely a collector of information, rather than a discoverer. However, there has been an awful lot to be collected, making the job neverending and nontrivial. Because there is so much information, any interested readers are encouraged to refer early and often (like voting) to the Chart For Dummies on page x, which provides an elegant and beautiful summary of the contents of this book. Approximately, anyway, and possibly not very beautifully or elegantly, but never mind. So, to business. My name is Alfred James Robert Sneyd and I was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, on the 14th of November, 19623. Call me James, please. Not Jim. Or Alfred. My mother is Rosalie Helen McPherson (born in Blenheim, NZ, on the 14th of December, 1935) and my father is John Graham Trevellyan Sneyd (born in Auckland, NZ, on the 18th of February, 1935). He’s always called Sam, except by his mother, who always called him Graham, pronounced the poncy English way as Grem. The reasons for this will become clear. My mother is descended from a number of old New Zealand families. The Neals and Norgroves arrived, respectively, in Nelson and Wellington very early on in New Zealand colonial history, around 1840, and stayed. The Neals were farmers, salt of the earth, very proper. The Norgroves had quite 1This means Great-Great-Great-grandparents. 2I hasten to reassure the sceptical reader that I’m not part of the lunatic fringe that traces their ancestry back to Moses, through the Egyptian Pharaohs. You see a lot of that. It’s highly entertaining, although of less genealogical value. 3Like anybody cares. That’s OK. I shall not reappear until the very end. ix x 2000 AD 1900 1800 1700 1600 1500 1400 1300 1200 AD Norgrove Neal Busch McPherson Sneyd Newington New Zealand (Colonial Peasants) (Colonial New Zealand Bond Beale Curteis of Windmill Hill English Graham of Edmond Castle DesBrisay Collot D’Escury Boileau de Castelnau De Vignolles De Montcalm French Huguenot French Jessup (New England) De Rochemore De Baschi d’Aubais Many well-known French and European Medieval lines, extending back to Charlemagne. Chart For Dummies. Or for those who really don’t care too much. a bit more spark, but a lot less money. I suspect they were mostly mad. In some cases I know they were. The McPhersons arrived in Dunedin around 1860 or so, dirt-poor, and remained that way. I suspect they were mostly scoundrels. They came to the gold fields in Central Otago, but never found any gold1. However, although they might not have had a lot of cash, they did seem to have had a lot of fun. The McPherson sense of humour is well represented by my mother, who does not always behave like a lady. My father, on the other hand, is descended from quite different sorts of rogues. Richer ones, for a start. His maternal grandfather, James Bond, was the mayor of Hamilton, and his maternal grandmother, Octavia Graham of Edmond Castle, came from a rather wealthy English family from Cumberland. His paternal Sneyd grandparents were, on the other hand, just as low class as my mother’s family. You can imagine the marital result. Everybody on Dad’s side came to New Zealand relatively recently, around the turn of the 20th century, so, as far as New Zealand colonial history goes, they are Johnny-come-lately’s. Genealogy, like real life, follows.