Family Matters
Family Matters - 13.Catherine Frances Goninan
Catherine was born in 1855 and baptised at Gwithian Parish Church on the 12th Oct. 1859. She was one of ten daughters born to William Goninan and Grace Hosking. Of these daughters, nine achieved adulthood and over the years marriages have been traced for all nine except for Catherine. All we had was that she was living with her parents in Connor Downs in Gwithian Parish as per the 1871 census. After that nothing.
There are several possibilities – she either married or died and for some reason the event cannot be found in the official records, or she migrated. Migration was a distinct possibility. Certainly her sister Martha did, finally settling in Pennsylvania via Cleater Moor in the North West of England and the Upper Michigan in the States.
Recently I have started to try and update and organise the information collected over the years for this branch of the family and which has become something of shambles. As part of this I thought I would have another attempt to trace more on Catherine. Initially this was unsuccessful until I worked on the assumption that she did get married and, living in Connor Downs, the marriage would have been registered in the Redruth District. Any such marriage probably would have taken place between 1871 and 1881 because there is no trace of her on the 1881 census. Thus thinking there were probably not many people called Catherine Frances married in the Redruth District during this period I did a search without a surname using the excellent free-to-view site at http://www.freebmd.org.uk/
This turned up trumps because there is an entry registered quarter ended June 1876 for a Catherine Frances Conninon and since there was nobody in Gwithian called Conninon this was almost certainly her. I send away for a copy of the marriage certificate and this shows that Catherine married Joseph Grose at the Weslyan Chapel at Wall near Gwinear on the
29th April 1876. Gwinear is next door to Gwithian. Joseph was a farm labourer living at Herland in Gwinear Parish and his father’s name was also Joseph. We must blame the Minister rather than any indexing for the error with Catherine because her name does appear as Conninon. Her father is shown as William and he was a miner. I am 100% sure this is our Catherine.
I was delighted with this because now I would be able to trace her on the 1881 and subsequent censuses and could expect to find another raft of children to add to the ever growing family tree. Not just yet though because Catherine was not ready to share all.
I could not find any trace of Joseph and Catherine after the marriage – not such much as a whisper. It was very frustrating and put me back where I started. The most likely explanation was they had migrated but I could not find any evidence for this. After many hours of fruitless searching I thought what if they were living happily in Gwinear or Gwithian Parish but there name has been recorded incorrectly in the census particularly as my faith in official records is fading by the minute. How I wish I had spoken to my grandmother about the family because Catherine was one of her many Aunts.
I decided to search the 1881 Census looking for anyone called Joseph and in particular a Joseph married to a Catherine. To do this I used another excellent free-to-view site at
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kayhin/ukocp.html
I found the following entry:-
Herland Cottage
Joseph Crewse – head – married – age 27 – farm labourer – born Truro
Kathrine Crewse – wife – age 26 – born Gwithian
Annie Jane Crewse – daughter – age 5 – born Phillack
Kate Crewse – daughter – age 2 – born Phillack
I admit that Crewse does not look anything like Grose but I was convinced this was our Catherine because everything fits – their ages and the ages of their children relative to their marriage and of course Catherine was born in Gwithian Parish. It is worth noting also that on the 1911 census the entry for Catherine shows her full name, Catherine Frances.
To double check though I needed to show that there is no Joseph Grose that could have married Catherine. He was 22 at the time of the marriage so would have been born around 1854. I cannot find anyone that fits the bill. The next thing is to confirm that Joseph Crewse’s father was also Joseph and to do this I needed to find the family on the 1871 census when Joseph junior would probably have been living at home. This I did using yet another free-to-view site:- census
This found a Joseph Crewes, age 17 and a farm labourer, living in the Parish of St Keverne but born in Kenwyn (Truro) and in the home of his parents, Joseph and Mary Crewes. The birth index shows a Joseph Crews registered quarter ended Dec 1854 in the District of Truro.
It is stretching things a bit to say that Crewse got recorded as Grose but all the evidence points in that direction and I guess that with a strong Cornish accent Crewse could sound a bit like Grose. Whatever, following the trail has been good exercise for the brain. I have found eight children for Joseph and Catherine.