This
blog is a place to share stories of the Atkinson family in Sheffield, England
and across Canada.
Hopefully
I will make contact with other descendants along the way. Names currently being
researched are Atkinson, Morris, Taylor, Seyman and Yare.
In 2012,
I took a course in setting up a blog site from the Ontario Genealogy
Society. The teacher insisted that if we created a blog site to share our
family history, cousins from far and wide would find us online and likely
contact us.I was
skeptical but I was interested in learning more about the internet and blogging
in general so I took the course. Happily she was right.
I started
blogging about my mother’s family shortly thereafter and I am so pleased that a
couple of young distant cousins contacted me. That led me to getting to know
their parents and grandparents who are my first or second cousins. It even
prompted two vacation trips to meet cousins in British Columbia and England.
I have
been writing about my mother’s mother Elizabeth Blaney and her family in a more
or less chronological manner at http://birminghamtocanada.blogspot.ca
 |
| Bill Atkinson & Joan Welch 1937 |
I have now reached the point in the timeline where
my mother Joan Welch met my father William (Bill) Atkinson. It seems a good idea to
begin a separate blog site to tell the stories of my father’s family.I learned
how to link the two blogs together so that I can refer readers back and forth
as needed to continue the stories of both families.
Thomas and Edith Atkinson were my Dad’s parents. When I started researching their story, Dad gave me a list of his family as far back as he knew it. The list was short, including only the names of his parents and grandparents. Most of the information proved to be correct except for a spelling error that made locating records for his maternal grandmother a challenge.
I have my
own memories and photos of my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins from when I was growing up
but unfortunately we lost touch as we became adults and some of our parents
died.
I
remember my grandfather Thomas Richard as a strong, quiet man who seldom had
much to say. He told me he had fought in the Boer War and WWI but never told
any war stories. He told me he got his tattoos in the army and I saw his medals
when he dressed for the Warrior’s Parade or attended Legion events. Little did
I know the length of his military service.
My
grandmother, Edith Hannah Morris was a petite, gentle woman and I have fond
memories of her. I don’t remember her being young – she was sixty-one when I
was born and almost twenty years older than my Mom’s mother, my grandmother
Welch. I never remember Edith being ill until she had some heart problems late
in life. She lived to age ninety-four, having lost her husband fourteen years
earlier.
When I
questioned my parents about my Atkinson family history they told me that Thomas
and Edith didn’t talk about their family back in England. It seems they weren’t
very close and I don't know if my father knew that his mother had a brother and
sister or that his father was an only child
.
I am
pretty confident that I have identified the correct ancestors, confirmed known information and my research has been in agreement with other family histories that have been
published. I began with current family members and traced their ancestors
backwards through public records. In birth and marriage records, parents and
grandparents were named in the documents. I also used census records, passenger
lists and military service records.
In doing
my research I found that Edith had lost her father when she was just 12 years
old and her mother never re-married. Interestingly, she would marry a man who
had lost his father at a very young age as well. Since Edith’s father had a
previous marriage, she had two stepsisters who were at least 15 years older
than her. Edith also had an older sister and a younger brother. I
was able to find them because their names were shown as witnesses on my
grandparent’s marriage certificate.
I was
able to trace the Morris side of her family back to 1799 but I have not yet
done enough research to confirm her Morris great-grandparents. Due to
that spelling error in my father’s notes it took a little longer to track her
maternal grandparents, George (1800-1864) and Mary Ann (1803-1887) Seyman.
Most of
the Atkinson family British story centers on the area of Sheffield England with
Edith and her sister being born in nearby Manchester.
Like all
my other research, this is a work in progress. There are undoubtedly some
errors and omissions. I hope over time, it will be reviewed, discussed,
corrected and added to by any family members who may be interested in reading
it. Any sharing of their knowledge, memories, descriptions and photographs
would be welcomed and greatly appreciated, adding more depth to their story.
