Posting Member: Jenn
Topic: Bentley and Bewery Parish and Pateley Bridge
Family Name Associations: Bentley, Blincoe
Location: Not in my bed where I should be!
Mood: Tired…
Music:
Well, we’ve finally done it. In an effort to preserve everyone’s sanity, we left the Hopkins, Newby families alone… With promises of linking the Crocketts and the Hopkins all to where they should be, and focused on England.
When last we worked on our Bentley’s, and it has been ages, we were missing vital Census, records, and any direction what so ever. We had vague notions of looking into ‘Low Fold Brewerly’ whatever that was… Not not a clue what Pateley Bridge was, or where to find it.
We’ve since explored Yorkshire via google maps, and studied the Bentley line until our eyes have fogged over and our brains have dulled.
My apologies for leaving blogging until last 🙂
Our first attempt at linking Stephen Bentley to England ended up with him being the impoverished son of a rope maker. But it wasn’t working… Dates wouldn’t gel, family names were off. Everyone was getting frustrated. We discovered Bewerly was spelled wrong (Doh!) and figured out what we thought should be the right family… But there were so many holes and few records.
We regrouped.
And tonight we remade history.
I almost feel a little guilty, because it appears Arthur was right again in the concept of one of his odd stories. The only story I remember about the Bentley line was that someone was illegitimate and royalty (Ha! Okay, to the royalty part is probably still hogwash, but the concept was there, somewhere!) and that the family had moved here, away from the past.
Alice Bentely was the daughter of Selina Caletta Prescilla Young. Selina had a hard time with her name, and often was recorded as Elina. What I had trouble with right away was the lack of a match up for parents… But later it became obvious that was because I was looking for a mother with a maiden name and a father.
It appears that young Mary Ann Young was a servant of the Jarratt household. Daughter of Ann and John, Mary Ann doesn’t marry until almost her 40s, when she marries into the King family. Selina never has a father or a father’s name… Indeed even her Grandfather John Young seems to pass away leaving Ann and her children to cope.
Was Selina an illegitimate Jarratt? Were there Princes in the wings? We’ll likely never know, but it’s fun to see that this has all gone somewhere… Even if it’s taken 20 years to get to the bottom of it.
Stephen Bentely is the son of Mary Ann Calver and Matthew Bentley. They came to Quebec in about 1885, Stephen’s immediate family was on a ship called the ‘Sardinian’. Thankfully, they didn’t get it into their heads to name any other children after the ship.
There’s a lovely cemetery in Wolfe County that has a number of family graves in it. I’m thrilled with the success in Quebec, and of course, we’re already discussing road trips. But what is really, really exciting was Markus’ luck even further back in England around Pateley Bridge in Yorkshire.
Matthew was the son of Mary Longster and Nathan Bentley. Son of Sarah and Francis. Son of Elizabeth Winder and Chambers Bentley…. And there are stones, records and a whole line that goes right on back to the early 1700s.
Not too bad for a week’s work!
And finally… I’ve been able to place the Blincoe line into the Bentley family. Mary Ann is indeed a daughter of Selina and Stephen, born in 1882 in Pateley Bridge with her sisters Alice, Rose and Emma, she made the voyage here.
Just a little more, before my eyes fall completely closed!
Matthew’s sons left a legacy, a tree we’re just beginning to add branches to… And there’s so much to come. We’ll be publishing this line over the next few days. But one of the really emotional finds was that of Francis Joseph, or Frank as he liked to be called, Bentley.
Frank was born in July of 1890, and he and his brother William John were brave enough, and generous enough to enlist for the First World War.
Frank was married to a young french woman who may have been named Zepherine or Maxime. We’ve found 4 different names now. He had a son named Joseph Frank Gordon (Gordon was hard to read, so we might be wrong there).
On the 22 of June in 1918, Frank gave his life for our freedom.
We’re working on making sure his sacrifice is well recorded and we’ve put together his FindAGrave memorial.
William came home and married… The line of Matthew’s son John and his wife Jane Cockshire will live on. Both sons have stones among those of their family in Lakeshore Cemetery. We’re going to try and update our soldier memorial soon… It’s high on our list.
And with that update, I’m going to go find some sweet dreams without any of Annie Lennox’s crazy masks or cows… Hope you’re all getting a good night sleep!
