Robinson news

A Slippery Fish

The earlier teaser post included this image taken from the medal rolls of the Kimberley Horse.

Intriguing

Note the numbers 868 and 199, the apparent numbers assigned to PJ Robinson while serving in the Cape Police.

The full entry shows how any medal supposedly earned for his service in the Anglo-Boer War was not issued (note the crossed out entry):

Exhibita

(and what does “H.O.” mean?)

The initials “P.J.” could be Patrick John for instance, so how do we know that this refers to Philip Joseph Robinson?

Take a look at this close-up of Philip’s attestation paper for the Kimberley Horse;

Exhibit1

The important details are; his name (obviously), his regimental number (318, matching the record above) and that he previously served in I.L.H and C.P. vis the Imperial Light Horse and Cape Police.

So far, so good.

I couldn’t find any mention of him in the ILH rolls but did find mention of PJ Robinson in the Cape Police medal rolls (Anglo-Boer War): Here is the name:

exhibit3Again, the number 199 matches that on the Kimberley Horse record, and at the other end of that line is this:
exhibit2
So the two match. 199 Sergeant PJ Robinson of the Cape Police was also 318 Corporal PJ Robinson of the Kimberley Horse.

So who’s this?
exhibit4

And what did he do?
exhibit5
This is the only other PJ Robinson I have so far found in the Cape Police rolls; Peter Joseph Robinson, but matching number 868 and also discharged for misconduct. Typo? Perhaps a mix up of two different people’s records? Could it even be that the misconduct was giving a false name? At this stage, who knows?

But we do know Philip was prone to a name change…

Phillip Joseph here, Philip Joseph Hercules on his marriage certificate, just Joseph on his wife’s estate papers, no wonder he’s proving difficult to pin down!

Worms

Sometimes it seems that tracing your ancestors is like picking your way through a minefield populated by explosive cans of worms. When you know there are people out there still believing outdated and disproved relationships, it’s hard to keep track of what’s right and any help you get has to be weaned off the error-strewn trees of others. You try so very hard to accept the basic facts you have without further embellishment, trying not to care that you don’t know the exact date of someone’s death, or even birth, but you can’t. You have to pull at the thread.

So it was when once again I turned to the yawning gap in the family tree; my only incomplete great grandparents, Philip Joseph Robinson and Louisa Johanna Anderson. Pick, pick, pick. I know one day that Philip’s death record will come to light as it must have happened in the latter third of the twentieth century, and also that sooner or later someone will find and digitise his baptism record if it still exists. But, regardless, we know the basics. He was born in Kimberley in 1878 to Andrew Joseph Robinson and Sarah Vercuil, married Louisa Anderson in Harrismith in 1903 and had six children before she died in 1920. Despite the odd missing document, the Robinson line is there.

Louisa on the other hand, remains a mystery. We know from her death notice that her parents were Ralph and Pauline and from her marriage that she was born around October 1884 in Harrismith. And that’s about it. Widening the search proves fruitless. There are no Ralph and Pauline Andersons to be found anywhere, no sibling Andersons with the same or similar sounding parents, no baptismal record for Louisa.

The trouble is, in searching for Louisa again, other long-forgotten leads are brought once more into the light. And these snippets of information, however vague, can set off those worm bombs. For instance there is a report of a Will that in one version indicates a bequest from Philip to son Philip and Louisa and also to grandson Philip Benjamin – South Africa records seem plagued by inconsistent record-keeping, bad handwriting and poor transcriptions so I suspect mistakes and assumptions have been made and that this applies to a different Philip altogether, but the actual Will now needs checking. And the worms are loose.

Then, just to get things clear in my head once again, I summarise the knowns and discover that Andrew Joseph, having only recently become a person of interest (see this page), does not appear on either of his parent’s death notices. Panic ensues for several hours until I realise that he pre-deceased both of them and that only live offspring are listed. However, it does shine a light on the missing detail of a birth record for Andrew. More worms. What if this carefully constructed edifice is nothing more than a house of cards?

Interesting aside

It’s now almost certain that my dad’s grandfather and my mum’s grandfather were both involved in the Relief of Ladysmith during the Boer War. It’s also true that mum’s same grandfather and dad’s other grandfather were both involved in South Africa’s WW1 campaign in what is now Namibia.

We know they never met in a family setting, perhaps they did in wartime.

James Robinson – further news

Twenty years on from his aborted emigration and the death of his wife Charlotte, the 1841 census shows James farming in Minster at Little Harps Farm with his second wife Ann (née Coveney – James had married Ann on 16 July 1821 at Minster in Sheppey) and their now five children; Adelaide, Ann, James, Sarah and Robert. Life seems to be progressing as one might expect.

The 1851 census makes interesting reading however. James (now 64) and Ann are by this time living at 4 Wandsworth Row, Lambeth with their daughter, Adelaide and her husband Henry Havill (listed as Head of household) and one-year-old child, his parents, his sister, his widowed sister and her child.
James’ occupation is still listed as ‘farmer’ while his son-in-law Henry is a butcher, carrying on the family trade. Quite what James is farming in Lambeth is unclear! Of course, they could all just have been visiting Henry and Adelaide when the census was taken (the 1851 census was taken on 30 March).

The Havills however are back in Minster by 1861 though, where Henry is a butcher on North Street, but it looks like James has by now died – the most likely dates are either 1852 or 1859 if his death is assumed to have taken place in Sheppey.

Robinson update – another Adelaide

While I was away for a few days an email has dropped into my inbox. We’ve had a contact from a descendent of James Robinson, brother of Robert and the one who didn’t go to South Africa at the last minute. I had conjectured that the death of their father just prior to the scheduled departure date had prompted James to remain behind. However, there appears to have been an even more compelling reason not to go in that James’ wife, Charlotte (née Leathes) was seriously ill and died in March 1820.
James remarried and had another child, Adelaide, from whom my new contact is descended. More details when I have them.

Great Aunt Connie
Connie

Constance Sweigers née Robinson

This is nearly all we have about Constance Robinson; born about 1910 she married, we believe, Tien Sweigers and had a daughter, Louisa. Finding out more about her would be interesting in itself, but it might also lead to more information about her father, the elusive Philip Joseph. Please get in touch if you know anything!

A philandering great uncle

Although most people realise that we’re not all related to someone famous, it’s also true that not all your ancestors will be nice.

In January 2013 I was contacted by Robbie who, despite being about my age, turned out to be dad’s cousin. He is a son of Andrew, my grandfather’s brother who would have been about 50 when Robbie was born. Unfortunately his information was sketchy, he had nothing further to add regarding his father’s siblings and it seems that his father as well as my grandfather had fallen out with their father; Philip Joseph (yes, him). He was able to add that he remembered his father mentioning that PJ was living in Pretoria at a ripe old age. So, despite not gaining much from the exchange, having known next to nothing about the other siblings this was at least a step forward; a small one but forwards.

Then, as part of the search detailed here, I received information that an Andrew Joseph Robinson was cited in a divorce case versus Rhoda Robinson, born Wise in 1953*. Now, I know I’ve been burned more than once by pencilling in unproven relationships but sometimes they bear fruit.

Last month I was contacted by Nick who turns out to be my second cousin by marriage. He has been looking into his wife’s family for some time and being curious about someone he had not come across before, he sent me a message. Nick’s wife is a grand-daughter of Andrew who it transpired had been married before, to Maria De Kok, and was very unpopular with the seven children he fathered with her and then abandoned. Those children’s birth dates, ranging from 1930 – 1941, made it perfectly feasible that he could also be getting divorced from Rhoda in 1953 with two further children aged three and five. Not to mention Robbie born in 1962.

Nick is going to try and talk to his mother-in-law again but her attitude is clear: Andrew was a “womaniser and useless thing” who “lived in Joburg and had girlfriends” – the remaining family are not keen on talking about him.

*TAB/WLD/0/974/1953