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Post Info TOPIC: Can we piece together the family of welsh born Ambrose Oliver?...


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RE: Can we piece together the family of welsh born Ambrose Oliver?...
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Hi Anne,

Thanks for agreeing to share you're photographs on the website here.

ambrose7.jpg

With them we're able to at least put a face to the name of one of Ambrose' children; the tall gentleman to the right of the picture is William Henry Oliver b.1889 (Anne's Grandfather), his wife Mary is in the centre of the picture, and the other's are currently unknown, though possibly Williams siblings? to be determined.

ambrosefamily1.jpg

This picture of of Williams children William, Victor and Gilbert (Anne's father).

ambrosefamily3.jpg

This picture if from Anne's parents wedding. In the centre is Anne's Grandfather William, to his right (our left as we look) is his son William, and to his right (our left as we look) is .... well, in truth we just don't know, but could this be Ambrose at his Grandson wedding? ... ohhh, tantalising hey!

ambrosefamily2.jpg

Thanks so much for sharing Anne!

Shane



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Hello, I know your posting was made some time ago but I have only just discovered the web site.

I am a direct descendant of Ambrose Oliver and I have put some information on the message board as a new member.

Hope it proves useful.

Anne(nee Oliver)



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Thanks Shane.  I'll try the link you have suggested.  I do know some of the postings.

Linda



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Hi Linda,

Just had a quick look, try this link as a starting place:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/coastguard.htm

If I've understood things correctly the available records run from 1816 to 1947 so you could be in luck, however it does say you'll need to know where your man was posted:

'Coastguard establishment books and registers (1816-1947)Download the Coastguard establishment books and registers in ADM 175 from DocumentsOnlinea collection of documents from The National Archives which are available entirely online (£There may be a charge for accessing this information. Searching indexes may be free.). You will need to know where the person was posted'

Thanks
Shane



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Sorry Shane, I'm going to be a bit cheeky and ask a non Oliver question about these Coastguard records.  Do they go back to the early 19th century.  I have an 'in-law' Gt.Gt.Gt. Grandfather in the Coastguard around 1841.

Thanks - Linda



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Hi Jane,

Once again, thanks for locating and posting these links - I have managed to download the two large files but sadly no trace of Alec in the records before 1947, just two names under 'O'; an Osbourne and an Ovendan - the records themselves are interesting though including various dates and remarks about conduct and abilities, I'm sure the post 1947 records are also out there somewhere.

Thanks
Shane



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Re. Alec and the coastguard

Some coastguard records are available to download free (as very large PDFs) from Documents Online, as part of TNA's 'Digital Microfilm' service. Most of the records are too early for you, but these two files might be of interest:

ADM 175/109
New Coastguard Force: Chief Officers service 1919-1941

ADM 175/110
New Coastguard Force: Chief Officers service 1941-1947

Click on 'View digital image', then 'Add to Shopping' (don't worry, this doesn't mean you have to pay!) and 'Checkout'.  I've no idea what sort of info you get: the files are too huge for me to try downloading. It may be best to start with the second file, since it only covers 6 years and so isn't as big.

It may also be worth contacting the Elie & Earlsferry History Society.



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I now have a copy of Ambrose Oliver's death certificate, registration district of Liskeard, Cornwall, which supports the newspaper article I located in Liskeard Library some both confirm fully that this is 'our' Ambrose.

The death certificate details:
- His date of death was January 6th 1958
- The address is 10 Lower Lux Street, Liskeard
- He was 94 years of age and a retired Ordnance Surveyor
- He died of 1a. Heart Failure and 1.b Old Age

One further interesting piece of information that it provides is that the informant was his son, Alec and that Alec worked for H.M. Coastguard and at the time of Ambrose' death Alec was stationed in Elie, Fife, Scotland.

So now this small family branch has seen residence in all four countries of the United Kingdom!

Thanks for now,
Shane



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Morning Jane,

I couldn't agree more with what you're saying; 'the more we find out, the more questions there seem to be to answer' and 'You'd think that with 7 children there would be some descendants of Ambrose & Emily around to answer some of these questions'.

Across all the online family tree programs I've searched I've not really located anyone who has taken Ambrose and the family any further than 1891, I think the Ireland thing (that you cracked) has probably stumped a few people - it certainly feels like we're researching something new and undiscovered to me.

Yes, Gilbert in Charlestown & Holmbush is certainly a puzzle to isn't, Charlestown & Holmbush is of course in Cornwall but as you say without knowing the absolute connection between Gilbert and Charlestown & Holmbush you could easily see it as one of those close but not quite right name and detail matches - something else to get to the bottom of!

Thanks
Shane



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I can add another book to the list: Map of a Nation - a biography of the Ordnance Survey by Rachel Hewitt.

Given to me as a Christmas present as I am great fan of Ordnance Survey maps.

Linda



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You have been busy, Shane!  But the more you find out, the more questions there seem to be to answer: why was Edwin on the St Neot's war memorial?  Who is the mysterious Mrs Runnall?  What happened to Ambrose's wife? etc. etc. ...

Here's another question too: why is Gilbert Oliver on the memorial for Charlestown & Holmbush?  At least he is according to the Roll of Honour website. Having looked at a clearer photo of the memorial on Flickr, I see that it just says "Oliver G.", so it's possible this is a case of mistaken identity.

You'd think that with 7 children there would be some descendants of Ambrose & Emily around to answer some of these questions.

 

P.S. thank you for those interesting links about map-making.  I look forward to having the time to read them properly.



-- Edited by jane on Thursday 2nd of June 2011 05:39:08 PM

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For anyone who may be interested in the history of the OS and old maps more generally (I know Jane that you had specifically mentioned your own interest in old maps) the OS have made these two book available to read online or download for free:

A History of the Ordnance Survey

Map-makers to Britain since 1791

Thanks
Shane



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Hello again,

Back on the Cornwall trail of Ambrose himself, well, he is proving a much trickier task to trace.

Both of the CWGC records, Gilbert in 1917 and Edwin in 1939, seem to imply that Ambrose is living in Cornwall, however, looking in the same 1920's and 1930's Kelly's Directories that we found Edwin, Ambrose is not listed at all (in either trade or residential).

Ambrose' wife Emily Jane had died by 1917 and I've no evidence yet that Edwin ever married, so perhaps Ambrose and Edwin lived at the same house - I guess it was the residential home owner rather than the senior member of the household that would be recorded?

The next trace I have of Ambrose is really in 1958 where we find and entry in the Cornish Times with regards to his death.

ambrose8.jpg

This is useful in that it gives us an address and introduces a Mrs Runnells into the equation, but not alot else, no names of family members, where the funeral was held, where he is buried etc - and having now toured the huge church yard of Liskeard Parish Church and the public cemetery in Liskeard and the small churchyard in St Neot I've not found any gravestones in either of these.

In terms of 10 Lower Lux Street, sadly the developers have beat us to the spot and there is no 10 Lower Lux Street anymore, just a relatively new set of apartments as seen to the left of this picture looking up the steep steet.

lowerlux2.jpg

Thanks however to the kind people of the Liskeard and District Museum, possibly one of just a few remaining views of the houses where Ambrose lived at the end of his life can been seen in the following old photograph.

lowerlux1.jpg

The photograph above is copyright of the Liskeard and District Museum and used here with their kind permission.

The photograph below may be of the plot where Ambrose is buried as the graves in Liskeard Parish Churchyard are in quite a strict date order however the church have no plot maps earlier than 1960 so it is difficult to be certain.

ambrose9.jpg

As always, the search goes on - its all a good reason for a day or two in Cornwall at minimum.

Thanks,
Shane



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I also visited the Plymouth Naval Memorial as Edwin's CWGC record tells us that he is remembered there.

For anyone that hasn't visited it on Plymouth Hoe, I personally found it a very impressive memorial and pretty humbling in it's sheer physical size and by the number of men and women that it records and remembers.

It records over 23'000 men and women of the Plymouth Port, 7'000 from WW1 and 16'000 from WW2 and to quote the memorial plaque 'All were buried or lost at sea or were otherwise denied, by the fortunes of war, a known and honoured grave'.

eao7.jpg

eao8.jpg

eao9.jpg

eao10.jpg

eao11.jpg

Thanks,
Shane



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Hi Jane,

Oh wow, great finds there, thank you - I think that last link you posted may have gone a bit sqiffy, I think this may have been the link though uboat.net?

I've actually been off trying to dig up a little extra information myself in the last couple days and took a little jaunt to the South West.

I visited Liskeard Library and interrogated their local studies area.

I'm pleased to report that after a fair bit of hunting through books I was able to locate the village where Edwin is remembered on a war memorial, however, why he is remembered in that village is a little bit of a mystery.

The village is St Neot and I found the information is a book titled 'A Glace over the Shoulder; St Neot from the 18th to the late 20th Century'. The book is written by Jill Thomas who lives in St Neot and is who is also involved in the local history group. I've now spoken to Jill but unfortunately there hasn't been any detailed research on the men named on the memorial, so no pictures or anything like that sadly.

So, here is the war memorial and a couple of pictures from the village:

1. The war memorial is positioned next to the village hall

eao1.jpg

2. Here we see the names of those men lost in WW2

eao2.jpg

3. St Neot Village Hall

eao3.jpg

4. St Neot Parish Church

eao5.jpg 

5. A view across St Neot from the Churchyard

eao4.jpg

Whilst its no great drama in any way I do wonder why Edwin is remembered in St Neot as having looked in three or four Kellys Directories through the 1920's and 1930's, and as late a 1939, I believe that Edwin was Living in Liskeard (6 or 7 miles from St Neot) and at the same address in all directories.

eao6.jpg

Liskeard has its own war memorials both on the parish church and a public one in the town centre with no mention of Edwin, so presumably there is some connection with St Neot yet to be discovered.

Either way, lovely to locate village based memorial to Edwin.

Thanks,
Shane



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RE: Ambrose Oliver and his Family - Where are they in 1901 and 1911??????
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Hi Shane

This isn't really answering your original question at all.  I thought I would just try to fill in a few details of the two sons of Ambrose & Emily who are listed in the CWGC database.

(i) Gilbert Oliver (of HMS Iron Duke when he died in 1917)

Scottish civil registration indexes (online via Scotland's People) show that the death of a 25 year old Gilbert Oliver was registered in the Kilmacolm district, Renfrewshire in 1917.  This all ties in with 'our' Gilbert's age at death, and the place of burial (Kilmacolm) shown on CWGC.

I wonder if maybe he died in an accident, or of illness, rather than as a result of enemy action?  Since there is a death registration you should be able to get a copy of his death certificate, should you wish to find out more.

(ii) Edwin Ambrose Oliver (of HMS Courageous when he died in 1939)

There were 1259 officers and men on board the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous when she was torpedoed by a U-boat (U-29) on 17 September 1939. 'She almost immediately took a heavy list to port and sank after 17 minutes about 190 miles southwest of Dursey Head, Ireland. The commander, 17 officers and 501 ratings were lost, including 36 RAF service crewmen.'  For more detail, including a photograph of the sinking ship, see this page from uboat.net.



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Hi Shane

I've been having a read of Ordnance Survey maps: a concise guide for historians, by Richard Oliver (wonder if he's any relation?!). It gives the dates of survey for the County Series 1:2500 maps.  Here are the dates for the counties where Ambrose & Emily's first four children were born:

Brecon: initial survey partly done in 1874-6 and the remainder in 1884-8
Dorset: initial survey mostly done 1885-8
Lancashire: initial general resurvey mostly done 1888-93
Cumberland: first revision done in 1897-1900

The book doesn't give dates for the mapping of Ireland at this scale, but I believe the initial surveys were done there later than in England/Wales.  I see from Alan Godfrey's map catalogue that some of the County Down maps are dated 1901, which fits nicely with when Ambrose was there.

The survival of staff records doesn't look too good: many records were lost in the bombing of Southampton, I believe.  The National Archives' guide to Ordnance Survey records explains that some of those involved in the surveying were military men (Royal Engineers) while others were 'civil assistants'.  I found one reference to Ambrose in the London Gazette, 3 May 1907 which shows that he came into the latter category:

[Certificates issued] under Clause VII of the Order in Council of 4th June 1870:
Board of Agriculture and Fisheries: Established Civil Assistants on the Ordnance Survey, Edward Hamilton Goddard, Ambrose David Oliver.

(from www.london-gazette.co.uk)

Interestingly, in the 1911 English census transcription for Ambrose's son William, he is shown as a surveyor in the Royal Engineers, so it looks like he followed in his father's footsteps.

I was looking at a 25" map earlier today.  They're extremely detailed.  I've no idea at all about how the surveys were done, so am looking forward to discovering more about it.  You never know where the family history trail is going to lead, do you?



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Jane was definitely right about Ambrose moving around. Look at the locations for the birth places of his children!

It looks as if this is going to be an interesting family to follow. Good luck with the research. I'll definitely be watching this sapce!

Barb



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So, with this fabulous new 1901 and 1911 information I think the outline tree now looks something like this:

ambrose7.jpg

Thanks Jane, the three Ireland born children did all appear nice and efficiently in the Irish Civil Registrations Database.

I also have a possibly lead for further information re: Alec Oliver - someone has an Alec Oliver in thier online tree with a daughter named 'Emily Jane Greenway Oliver' - must be him surely!

If the facts are to be belived, and there are not that many about Alec in the persons tree, he emigrated to the US in the mid 1940s - more digging required.

Thanks,
Shane



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Oh wow, thank you Jane - I had scoured the England and Wales census for transcription errors; nothing, scoured the emigration records; nothing - and there are of course options in the space between those two, Ireland and Scotland, I just hadn't thought of it! - blimey Jane, you're just too clever for words sometimes.

So, how very very interesting, yes, widen that family tree, great, more chance of descendants you would think, and also, this is what I believe to be our very first connection with Ireland, fabulous stuff.

It probably worth just pointing out the front door link to the 1901 and 1911 census records http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/ .

You're a superstar Jane, thank you!
Shane



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You might find it productive to search the Irish civil registration indexes on the new version of the FamilySearch website, for birth registrations of the younger children.smile



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And here's Ambrose on the 1901 census.  Looking at the accompanying enumerator's abstract book, he appears to be in in the parish of Kilmore, County Down.

I wonder if the Ordnance Survey have records of staff?  Also, it would be worth checking whether surveyors' names are mentioned on the printed maps themselves.  What an interesting job!  I just love old maps so would love to find an ancestor who had made them.



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With a job like surveyor for the O.S., Ambrose would have moved around a great deal. On a hunch I tried the 1911 Irish census . . .

. . . and found this.  Looks like you need to make room for some more children in the family tree!smile

 

Jane

 

P.S. here is the other side of the form, showing a partial address



-- Edited by jane on Wednesday 25th of May 2011 08:07:27 PM

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Can we piece together the family of welsh born Ambrose Oliver?...
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Hello All,

When jotting up the roots of the Welsh Connection it struck me that of the three surviving son's of Edwin and Elizabeth, two branches (George and John Mark) are well researched and we know of many descendants, however, the third of the three son's (Ambrose David) seems to be less researched and I wondered if there are any surviving descendants of that branch today.

So, I've taken a little look and found some interesting information but I'm also having a few issues locating the family at certain points in time.

ambrose0_1.jpg

So, the last census that I currently have the family on is 1891 and Ambrose is working as a Ordnance Survey Surveyor and there are two sons:

ambrose1_1.jpg

ambrose0_2.jpg

However, then, for 1901 and 1911 I have nothing for Ambrose and Elizabeth, they simply seem to dissappear, I can't locate them at all.

The two sons William and Edwin can be found though, one in the Army and one in the Navy:

ambrose2.jpg

ambrose1.jpg

Moving forward past 1911 I have located some further records, one tells us that Ambrose had atleast one other son, Gilbert, though sadly he and his brother Edwin were casualties of war.

ambrose3.jpg

ambrose4.jpg

So, currently the family looks like this:

ambrose0_3.jpg

The above war casualty record for Gilbert show that the family were in Cornwall in 1917 and were also there in 1939. The 'family' appears to be just Ambrose however as the record for Gilbert also say 'the late Emily Jane Oliver'.

Its quite possible that Ambrose continued to live there until his death, which if the record below is correct for him, was in 1958.

ambrose5.jpg

So, where were they in 1901 and 1911, are they in the census somewhere just mistranscribed or were they overseas perhaps?

Then, were there more than the 3 children? did William Henry marry and have children or was also a casualty of war?

Questions, questions ..... the serach continues
Thanks,
Shane



-- Edited by Shane Bywaters on Thursday 2nd of June 2011 07:44:52 AM

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