John Alice of Falmouth, Cornwall

John Alice from Cornwall is seen in a number of census entries with his wife and children, but does not appear to have any connections to other Allis families.

Looking at him further uncovers an unusual story.

 

John Alice appears in the census of 1861 at Falmouth, Cornwall for the first time as a labourer from Guinea in Africa. He was then married to Elizabeth and they had a son, John. The marriage was in Falmouth in 1857. They were still in Falmouth in 1871 but moved to London sometime before 1881. They are seen in the census for 1891 and 1901 as a family with son John and daughter Clara.

It is believed that John senior died in 1902 and Elizabeth in 1906.

He was from Guinea in Africa, and taken as a slave to Brazil. He then stowed aboard a ship taking coffee from Rio de Janeiro to Falmouth and presented himself to the captain when a few days out at sea. On arriving in England (around 1855 or 1856) he had one more voyage on the ship before settling as a labourer in Falmouth.

The ship’s captain had to give him a name to enter him onto the ship’s books , so John came from his own forename and the ship was the “Alice”, so John Alice was created.

He appears to have entered normal life in Cornwall and participated in a swimming contest one year where his unusual swimming style caused some amusement. However, he was given an award, along with some others, for his bravery in saving a shipwrecked crew outside of Falmouth harbour in 1867.

Why they moved to London is not known.

A notice in a Cornish newspaper (Royal Cornwall Gazette ) reported John’s death due to an accident on board a ship in London. It also gave the details of how he came to England as above. The only problem is that it was published on the 10th June 1876.

Francis Charles Bannister Allis and his mother Emma

Francis Charles Bannister Allis 

Francis was born at Wisbech, Cambs in 1872 (Qtr-Sep, Wisbeach, vol 3b page 615) and died during 1912 in Shropshire where he was a publican. He seemed a bit out on his own with no obvious links to other Allis families, so where did he come from?

The records

He has an army record as he joined the 4^th Hussars in 1889 and was discharged as a sergeant in 1902. His army record shows his mother to be Emma Johnson living in Bath Street, Abingdon, Berks. He is also shown to have a brother Robert.

Francis married Alice Gregory, a widow, nee Bevan at St Saviour’s, Manchester on 14 November 1905 giving his father’s name as Robert (deceased).

An Emma Allis married George Frederick Johnson in 1880 Qtr-Mar, vol 2c, 431 and in the 1881 census Emma Johnson’s birthplace is shown to be Wragby, Lincs in 1851 (actually she has taken a few years off her age). A link to the Lincolnshire Allis family was made!

Francis’ birth certificate and Emma’s marriage certificate were ordered and it was seen that no father was given for his birth, however his middle name of Bannister may be something to work with.

Emma’s marriage certificate shows her father as William Mawer, a farmer and she was a widow. William was shown as her father at the time of her first marriage to George Allis in 1865 at Hull, as reported in a newspaper announcement.

Conclusion

Emma Allis marrying George Johnson is clearly the Emma Mawer that married George Allis (1844- ) in 1865 at Hull, although both were from Wragby, Lincolnshire. They did not appear to have had a happy marriage. In 1871 she was alone, living and working at Langtoft, Lincolnshire and her first son, Robert Willie (1866-1940), was living with the in-laws back at Panton (near Wragby). 

In August 1872 she gave birth to Francis by an unknown father at Wisbech (Leverington).

In 1875 George Allis was charged by his father for breaking some windows at the family home at Panton and sentenced to 14 days hard labour, after which nothing more is known about him. By 1880 Emma has moved to Abingdon, Berkshire and was said to be a widow when marrying for a second time.

It is interesting that on his marriage to Alice, Francis gave his father's name as Robert Allis. When his brother Robert married he also gave his father's name as Robert which was actually his grandfather's name. Robert Willie Allis moved to Coventry, so he and Francis did not live that far apart.

Thus the origins of Francis Allis have been tied back into the Lincolnshire Allis family.

The Mansfield-Alliss family of London

The family of William Henry Mansfield and Harriette Bentley Austin

Yes, where does Alliss come into that?

 

Looking through the GRO birth index are seven children registered as Alliss all with the Mansfield middle name, and all with their mothers maiden name as Austin, between 1858 and 1875. These haven't been linked to any other Allis family so we made a start to see where they came from.

Harriet and Louisa were twins born in 1858 (who both died in 1860), Mary Ann in 1860, John 1862, Eliza 1868, George 1870 and Albert in 1875.

A quick look at the census returns showed them to be using only MANSFIELD but with children registered as ALLISS. Where, how or why did this family acquire the Alliss name?

Some records viewed:

The parents of the above children were Henry William Mansfield who married Harriette Bentley Austin on 24 December 1850 at St Giles, Cripplegate, Middlesex. His father was William Mansfield, a brush maker.

In the 1851 census at St Lukes (9 Clarence Road) in the household of William Mansfield are:

William age 50 a brushmaker, born Clerkenwell

Esther age 56, born New York but a British subject

Henry age 21 a gold cutter

Harriet age 21 his wife

William their son age 1 month

There are very few marriages of Mansfields to an Esther, but one at about the right time is Esther Ann Mumford in 1821. An Esther Mansfield died age 70 in 1861.

The family of Henry and Harriet Mansfield are seen in the 1881 census.  Walter age 16 is a son not shown in the GRO index as Alliss

Mary Ann Mansfield Alliss married William Samuel Storrar in 1877 and her father’s name is shown as William Henry Mansfield Alliss and one of the witnesses was Harriette Mansfield Alliss.

Walter married Selina Pickering in 1890 with his mother as a witness and just using the Mansfield surname.

In May 1898 George Mansfield Ellis married Elizabeth Cannings (?) nee Smale and he gives his father’s name as Harry Ellis, a jeweler. A George Mansfield Alliss born in 1900, as shown in the GRO index, has his mother’s maiden name as Smale.

George and Elizabeth are seen in the 1911 census with Alma aged 12 (registered as Alma Louisa Ellis in 1899), George age 10 (registered in 1900), and Albert William age 4 (as Mansfield-Alliss in 1907).

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Going back to the 1841 census for Holborn (HO107/670/3) we see

William Mansfield age 40, a toothbrush maker

Ether Mansfield age 45, his wife, born in foreign parts

Henry Allis age 10

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This would appear to be the start of the Mansfield-Allis line. Was a Henry Allis adopted by the Mansfields who did not seem to have any other children? There doesn't seem to be any candidates in parish baptisms for Henry (except one in Loughton, Essex but he is accounted for). Adding the Alliss name into the children's births was then a throwback to Henry's origins.

Thus it seems that this family were Mansfields except when it came to registering children's births (some of them anyway). The later generation sometimes included Alliss in marriages too.

An interesting tangle of a family line!

Update: Thanks to Mike, one of that family line for generously providing much more information, although Henry Alliss is still something of a mystery.

Handwriting course

After transcribing some old wills it occurred to me to recommend this free on-line course which I worked through some time back.
It is  "English Handwriting Online 1500-1700"

which can be found here
https://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc/

I found it to be well structured, starting with relatively easy examples and getting progressively harder, and was suitable for reading documents found in family history research. It really helped my ability to read older documents. However as with all these things you do have put the time in and work through all the examples,  but it was well worth it.

An Allis family in India

One family that caught my attention recently was from India.
William Allis, a private with the 74th Highlanders, had a child with Katheriamal (there are a number of spellings) who he married shortly afterwards in Bellary, Karnataka, India. Katheriamal anglicised her name to Catherine.
They married in 1859 when William was said to be 24 and Catherine 20 years old. When he died in January 1882 William’s age was given as a precise 51 years and 10 months which suggests he was about 29 when he married.
Catherine died in 1887, age 47.

They had seven known children with one not surviving infancy.
The family continued to live in India and their descendants are probably still there today.

The origins of William are unknown except that his father was also William. There do not seem to be suitable candidates for William’s baptism in various records for Scotland or England.
The 74th Highlanders have their origins in Scotland and, from Wikipedia, were in Bermuda from 1828 until December 1829 when they returned home. There followed a tour from 1834 in the West Indies and Canada returning home in 1845. They then sailed for the Cape in 1851 moving to India in 1854.
The highlanders left India around 1864 but William had transferred to the Royal Artillery and stayed on taking an army pension.
It therefore seems likely that if his father was in the army he was born at home.

Any other angles on his origins would be appreciated.

Thomas Alys of Heckington ( -1539)

An early Allis (and Ellis) family in the south of Lincolnshire

Thomas Alys of Heckington, Lincolnshire left a will dated 8th December 1539 in which he left to his children William, Elizabeth and Thomysyn. His wife Margery was also named.

It is not clear whether his mother and father were alive at the time as they are also mentioned.

The children were all under the age of 20.

It is presumed that he was taken ill when he made the will as the subsequent inventory made after his death was dated the 20th December 1539. In this he appeared to be quite well off with a value of over £54 of which most was agricultural stock.

The origins of Thomas are unknown as are the details of what happened to the children. However while most families appeared around Nettleham this is one of the few to be seen elsewhere in Lincolnshire at a very early date.

Update:  The son william died in 1551 and his heirs were his two sisters but the family were now Ellis (from "the notice of the Ellises").
It is also believed that Thomasyn married George Allen in 1577 (From the visitation of the county of Lincoln in 1562-4)

This somewhat mirrors a family from Belton at about the same time of which more later.

Allice, Alice, Alles, Allis families in Scotland

There are several families in Scotland which may or may not be related.
The spelling used is predominately Alice or Allice but with other assorted versions of the name including one quite large family from Kinross that was Alles.

The parish records found go back to the early 1600s and civil registration started in 1855. Although scattered, the centre of activity appears around Auchterarder in Perthshire, with families in Kinross, Alloa and other nearby towns and villages.

There are also immigrants from England and Ireland.

There are several cases of Alles and Allice becoming Ellis to add to the difficulties of following the branches.
The Alles family from Kinross in particular often became Ellis at times. This line has also solved the mystery of the Liverpool and Cheshire Alles family

These families will be added to the tribalpages family trees in due course.