Family Matters - 5. William Thomas Goninan
William Thomas Goninan was born in St Just in Penwith in West Cornwall in 1863. He was the first child of Alfred and Rebecca Goninan. Whilst a great deal is known about his brothers, and in particular Alfred and Ralph (who settled in Australia), William is something of a mystery.
In 1871 he was living in St Just with his parents. In 1881 he was still with his parents in Cape Cornwall Street, St Just together with his brothers, Alfred, Edward and Ralph and his sisters, Janie, Nancy and Mary. William was then a carpenter’s apprentice. However, he is not to be found on the 1891 census.
It’s worth mentioning at this stage that, whilst there are other William Goninans, William Thomas Goninan of St Just is the only one with the second name Thomas. Actually his mother’s maiden name was Thomas and this may have been why the name was used rather than merely as a common christian name. Also he is the only Goninan I have come across who lists his occupation in a census as ‘carpenter’.
The trail went dead until browsing the internet one day, looking for references to Goninans, I came across the marriage of William T Goninan to Mary L Delbridge on the 24th Dec 1904 in Shasta County, California – see http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~shastaca/marriageg.html
So far efforts to trace anything more on William and Mary have failed. Recently however I took advantage of a ‘free period ’ to do some searching via the website http://www.ancestry.co.uk/
and this revealed more on William:-
Firstly, it looks as if his marriage to Mary was his second marriage because a Wm T Goninan married a Lilly Scott in Esmeralda County, Nevada. The date is quoted as 2nd Sept 1899 although I have doubts about this date (see below).
Secondly I found William and Lillie and family on the 1900 California census (Inyo County). This says that they had been married for six years and had three children – John (born Jan 1895), Emma (born March 1897) and Will (born Feb 1899). William gave his year of birth as 1864 (it was actually 1863) and Lillie was born in 1874 (in California). The children were all born in California and William’s occupation was a carpenter. In 1900 he had been in the US for 18 years.
This raises all sorts of intriguing questions –
what happened to the family?
did any of the children survive to adulthood?
did any of them get married and have families?
are there currently descendents of William living in the States?
So I am issuing a call for help – is there a family member in the US reading this item who enjoys a bit of research and could see if anything more can be turned up on William and/or his family
the challenge is on the table………………………