52 Ancestors: Week 10: Charles Sharpe, Oldbury Butcher

Another @FindMyPast newspaper discovery.

Gloucester Citizen

Wednesday 20 September 1893

Charles Sharpe, an Oldbury butcher, was on Tuesday fined £10 and costs for having in his shop for sale some beef which was unfit for food. 

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Birmingham Daily Post

Wednesday 20 September 1893

BAD-MEAT PROSECUTION AT OLDBURY

Yesterday, at Oldbury Police Court -before Messrs. J. F. Wilson and H. Heaton -Charles Sharpe, butcher, of Talbot Street, Oldbury, was charged with exposing for sale on premises in Freeth Street, a fore-quarter of beef which was diseased, unsound, and unwholesome, and therefore unfit for human food. Mr. W. F. Vernon appeared to prosecute on behalf of the Local Board.  Mr G H Robbins (sanitary inspector) deposed to visiting the defendant's shop on the 12th of May.  He found a quantity of meat exposed for sale, including a fore quarter of beef, which he considered bad.  The meat was dark in colour, and the membrane from inside of the ribs  had been removed.  This was the usual practice, when an animals had suffered from tuberculosis, in order to destroy the traces of disease.  The carcass was in a state of putrefaction.  Dr. Cunningham (medical officer) gave a certificate to the effect that the animal has suffered from tuberculosis and that the meat was unfit for human food.  Mr Vernon asked the Bench to inflict a heavy penalty, as a defendant must have known the meat was bad. - Defendant denied this and said the case had ruined his business.  The bench considered it a very bad case, and fined defendant £10. and costs, in all £13. 14s. 6d., or in default fourteen days imprisonment, with hard labour.

52 Ancestors: Week 9: Thomas James, leather merchant (c1822 (Manchester) - 1884 (Alcester))

Another lovely find from my one month Find My Past subscription.  Back in 1997, when I spent a lot of time at Birmingham Archives, I found the following will for Thomas James.

This is the last will and testament of me Thomas James of Birmingham in the County of Warwick thereby direct all my just debts, funeral and testamentary expenses be paid and satisfied by my  executrix hereinafter named soon as convenient maybe after my deceased.  I thereby give, devise and bequeath all my household furniture, linen, books ??? and also all and every sum and sums of money which may be in my house, about my person or at my place of business.  Also all stock and book debts owing to me the time my decease and all and everything of my effects whatsoever and wheresoever both real and personal to my dear wife Julia James to and for her sole use.  I benefit absolutely and I nominate, constitute & approve my said wife to be my executrix to this my last will and thereby revoking all my former or other wills heretofore made by me.   I declare this to be my last will and testament.  In witness thereof I the said James Thomas have to this my last will and testament set my hand on this the twenty first day of January in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and eighty two.

Signed Jany 21st 1882 in the presence of us   Thomas James

present at the same time who have hereunto 

subscribed our names witnesses in the         George Rowland

presence of the testator.                     Charles James

Proved at Birmingham 10th October 1884 by oath of Julia James widow

27 Pershore Road, Birmingham - Leather Merchant died 9th September 1884 at Alcester £1363:11:1

Wright & Marshall Solicitors, Birmingham

I knew that Thomas had been born c1822 in Manchester but I hadn't thought about how old he might have been when he died or the circumstances surrounding his death.   Well that all changed when I decided to search for 'Thomas James' and the word 'leather' on Find My Past and found the following news article which adds more meat to the bones (and as usually happens it has left me with even more questions that before).

Birmingham Daily Post 

Wednesday 10 September 1884

SUDDEN DEATH OF A BIRMINGHAM MERCHANT 

Yesterday, about noon, Mr. Thomas James, leather merchant, of 27 Pershore Street. Birmingham, died very suddenly at the Alcester Railway Station. The deceased gentleman, together with Mrs James had been on a visit to Alcester for some days past, staying at the Lord Alcester private hotel. Yesterday morning Mr. and Mrs. James walked to Great Alne, and returned by train to Alcester, immediately on alighting Mr. James was seized with illness. He was taken to the waiting room, and a medical man was sent for, but before his arrival he expired. It seemed deceased had been a great sufferer from heart disease, and had been attended by Mr. Badger, surgeon, Bromsgrove Street. The deceased was 62 years of age. The body was removed to the Lord Nelson Inn to await the decision of the coroner as to the holding of an inquest.

52 Ancestors: Week 8: Sarah Ann Mottram nee Lea (1840-1894)

Sarah Ann Lea was born on 9 April 1840 in West Bromwich to James Bunce Lea and Ann Davis.  In 1863 she married Peter William Mottram at St Martins, Worcester.  They went on to have two known children.  James George Mottram (1865 -1866) and Elizabeth Ann Mottram (1874-1940) who was known by my Grandad as Granny Woods.

You may have noticed from my posts that I love newspapers and with the Mottram name being rare in Worcester it's a nice name to search.  A while back I came across these newspaper reports.

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Worcestershire Chronicle

Saturday 10 March 1894

SUDDEN DEATH IN WORCESTER.

An inquiry was held by the City Coroner (Mr. W. B. Hulme) at the Guildhall on Tuesday afternoon in the circumstances attending the death of Sarah Ann Mottram, who died rather suddenly at her house in Bridge place, Lowesmoor, on Sunday afternoon. Mr. S. W. Coombs attributed death to fatty degeneration of the heart, due to intemperate habits, Peter William Mottram, Lowesmoor, gave evidence as to finding the deceased, who was a charwoman, 54 years of age, dead on her bed at five o'clock on Sunday evening - as already stated. She was, he admitted, addicted to drink. The Jury returned a verdict in accordance with the medical evidence.

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Worcester Journal

Saturday 10 March 1894

SUDDEN DEATH.— On Tuesday Mr. W. B. Hulme, Coroner, enquired into the circumstances attending the death of Sarah Ann Mottram, the wife of a labourer, living at Bridge-place, Lowesmoor, who died suddenly on Sunday. The evidence was to the effect that the deceased had been of intemperate habits for some time past. On Sunday her husband saw her lying on the bed smoking, and shortly afterwards he found her dead. Dr. Coombs stated that several of the organs of the body were diseased, and death had taken place from affection of the heart. The jury returned a verdict of "Death from natural causes."

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Unfortunately, it would seen that it was not the first time Sarah Ann Mottram had been mentioned in a newspaper.  Given the rarity of the Mottram name in Worcester and the fact that this Sarah Ann is in the same locality as my Sarah Ann.  My Sarah Ann's occupation on the 1881 census...laundress.

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Worcestershire Chronicle

Saturday 08 January 1876

CITY POLICE.

SATURDAY. 

Before J. Wood, J. Coucher, and R. E. Barnett, Esqrs. 

ALLEGED ILLEGAL PAWNING.—-Sarah Ann Mottram, laundress, Lansdowne-terrace, was charged with stealing one blanket, one sheet, two pillow slips, and one table cloth, and with illegally pawning these articles. Mary Lee, Lansdowne-terrace, was the prosecutrix, and as she did not wish to press the charge prisoner was discharged.

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I need to understand who Mary Lee might be as Sarah Ann's maiden name was Lea.

52 Ancestors: Week 6: Michael Alphonsus Cussen 1870 (Ireland) - 1941 (USA)

This blog post is credited to @familystories, @rjseaver and @CarlSAnthony for without their leads and information I may never have found this story. 

It all started Saturday morning when I checked my twitter feed to see what I had missed and saw Caroline Pointer's post 11 Genealogy Things You Need to Know This Morning, Friday, 31 Jan 2014. 

After I had changed my Yahoo passwords (Caroline doesn't just give genealogy advise but technical advise too) I went back to Caroline's post and saw the following:

• On Genea-Musings, Randy lists his top 10 free US genealogy resource sites.

What might I be missing out on? As it turned out I had only heard of 4 of the 10 websites listed and there was one, in particular, that stood out.

4. Chronicling America (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov)

There are almost 7 million searchable digitized newspaper pages from 39 states between 1836 and 1922.

Newspapers :-) I like newspapers as they can give you so much information that you might never have found out about otherwise.  So I went and took a look.  As I still hadn't made it out of bed by this time having been distracted by checking Twitter all this was happening via my phone and the only name I could think of to check was Cussen.  Michael Cussen to be precise. There were four hits. 

The sun. (New York [N.Y.]), July 21, 1894, Page 7, Image 7

The San Francisco call. (San Francisco [Calif.]), January 06, 1901, Image 32

The sun. (New York [N.Y.]), August 19, 1917, Section 6, Page 14, Image 50

Der deutsche Correspondent. (Baltimore, Md.), June 10, 1880, Image 4

Now I knew from early research that some members of the Cussen family had moved from Kerry, Ireland to San Francisco.  So The San Francisco call was the first link I went to and here is what I found.

ACCUSED OF FORGING HIS BROTHER'S NAME

Warrant Out for Arrest of Michael A.

Cussen Who Has Left the

City.

A. Foster of the International Security 

Company, 503 California street, swore to 

a complaint in Judge Fritz's court yes- 

terday for the arrest of Michael A Cus- 

sen, 452 Page street, on a charge of for-

gery. He is accused of forging the name

of his brother, J. Cussen to a promissory 

note for $125 on October 31 last. The note 

was made payable two months after date. 

Cussen was until January 1 employed

in the White House, where his brother

is also employed. Foster says that Cus-

sen called upon him on the date men-

tioned and said he was hard up for ready

money and wanted a loan of $125. He was 

told that he must get some one to join

him in the note, and he returned with the

note signed by himself and by J. Cussen,"

who he said was his brother.

When the note became due it was not

honored and Foster called upon Cussen

who informed him he was unable to pay

the amount. J. Cussen was then called

upon, but he declared that his signature

had been forged and declined to be re-

sponsible for the amount. Hence the

warrant. It is said the defendant has left

the city. 

I do believe this is a reference to 'our' Michael Cussen whose full name was Michael Alphonsus Cussen.  He had four brothers two of which would have the initials J. Cussen.  John Aloysius Cussen and James Stanislaus Cussen both of whom were living in San Francisco at that time. 

According to the 1900 United States Federal Census Michael A. Cussen was the head of the family living with his brothers, John A. and James S., and sisters, Alice and Dora (census page is damaged so it is a little difficult to read but it does look like his sister Dora and not his sister Nora).  The census page is also ripped where the name of the road might have been but the other road names on the page include Fell Street and Oak Street both of which are close to Page Street although the house number appears to be 450 rather than 452.

I had a quick look at the information on my Ancestry tree for Michael and the next reference for him after the 1900 census was a marriage in Kansas in 1908, a US city directories entry for him in 1914 in Tulsa, Oklahoma and then his death in 1941 in Omaha, Nebraska so this would be consistent with the newspaper report that Michael had 'left the city'.  I did end up going back to Caroline's post as I had noticed that Kansas records had also been mentioned but I couldn't find a reference to the marriage on the website.  I went back to Ancestry and realised that the source the information on the marriage (rather worryingly) was OneWorldTree so I must have had a lapse allowing that information onto my tree without gathering evidence that it actually happened.  Which reminds me I need to work through the following post!

And here are 10 steps to fix that online family tree you started.

As I have said in a previous post - For Ancestry to be really effective you need the option to distinguish between confirmed facts and leads.

The newspaper article sent me googling 'white house, San Francisco, 1901' with the fourth hit being The White House in San Francisco by @CarlAnthonyOnline.  What a lovely article, lots of information and wonderful photographs too.  Be sure to have a good read.

As with any genealogical finding - you get one answer and then have a million more questions. Did J Cussen work at the White House in San Francisco?  If so, what did he do? And more importantly did he wait on the US President and First Lady?....