A right Frosdick family for the Barnard bunch Some quite interesting Ancestry hints

Since August I have been slowly clearing a backlog of ‘hints’ generated by the Ancestry site for the HowesWatkinsNealScott tree. These can be useful in pointing up records previously overlooked in researching an individual, but there are also plenty of duff leads and repeats of info already collected. New hints tend to appear in batches and it can be hard to keep up – with an accumulated total of just shy of 16,000 it was getting out of hand!

A hard look at the Barnard book

There have been a number of useful additions and updates coming through from the hints processing, but nothing quite interesting enough to prompt a Cutlock article. Until, after having cleared some 90 per cent, the slightly backwards trawl by surname reached ‘Barnard’.

To start with, the three Barnards hardly seemed significant enough to spend much time on, being only married to a brother- or sister-in-law of a first cousin once removed, Sidney Watts. The two women, Ida and May, had separate notes that they might be siblings of the other one, Bert/Burt/Bertie, but this hadn’t been pursued further. But here were Ida’s hints, which included 1910, 1920 and 1930 US census records – so why not have a quick look at the earliest of these as, with a birth year of 1903, she should be with her parents.

Click on this crop from the census for the full household, and what do we find? Last in the list is “Syndey Watts” (not Walts as some might read), hired man age 20 and arriving in the USA from England in 1910. Our cousin would have been older than that, but he appears to have lost several years overboard in his crossings of the Atlantic, for instance the 1914 passenger lists has him as 25 {2}. Ignoring the misspelling, otherwise he is a match.

Watts a Barnard to do?

This surely is our Sidney, who only arrived in America for the first time on 21st April 1910, and clearly quickly made his way to the place he would call home for the rest of his life, Carlton, Orleans county, New York. The census is dated 3 May 1910.

Three of the children from the family Barnard married three siblings of the Frosdick clan – Sidney married another Frosdick sibling, Violet {3}. Is there a term for such a number of inter-family connections?

Notes

1. Thanks to Muriel for prompting the thinking behind this piece by asking “Have you found anything interesting in the Ancestry hints?”.
2. The Cutlock & Co current preferred date of birth for Sidney George Watts is 23 November 1884 in Happisburgh, Norfolk, as this date appears in his WW1 draft card. However, English and US censuses suggest 1885/86, and the likely birth registration is in October/December quarter of 1885. His baptism took place alongside 3 siblings in March 1889 – two have dates of birth shown, one of which is Rosa, born 20 Sep 1885 but 1 year older than him in the census. Oh dear, we’re confused and perhaps Sidney was too!
3. The marriages:
   1. Sydney Watts marries Violet Shepard nee Frosdick (born 20 Aug 1882?), 21 Mar 1925 Orleans county.
   2. Ida Barnard (b 1902/03) marries Walter Frosdick (b 87/88), about 1922.
   3. Sarah (or May) Elizabeth Barnard (b 27 May 1898) marries Dennis William Frosdick (b 2 Jun 1890?), between 1915 and 1920. Birth registration and baptism as Sarah Elizabeth, changed to May between 1905 and 1910, although Mary on passenger list into New York?
   4. Bert W Barnard (b 6 Apr 1888) marries Mary Frosdick (b 27 Oct 1886), about 1907.
4. The Frosdick family is also from Norfolk. Their stated US arrival dates vary. The Barnard family was in a similar area of Norfolk to the Watts crew before the former left for the States, arriving 13 Mar 1904.