John Elston’s Lincolnshire roots

Genealogy is a practice of patience that may never pay off. Chasing the high of the last breakthrough while secretly wondering if you’ve already turned over every possible stone.

In 2017, I put together a possible tree of John’s ancestry based on DNA connections that lead to a particular John Elston, and it remains my strongest lead to his parentage:

This John Elston was baptized on July 9, 1927, in East Halton, Lincolnshire, to Susannah Elston:

Baptism record for John Elston, 9 Jul 1827 at East Halton. Illegitimate son of Susannah Elston, spinster. (Lincolnshire parish registers)

In 1841, he was living with John and Elizabeth Jackson (née Elston) in East Halton:

John Elston in the household of John Jackson, King Street, East Halton, Lincolnshire. (1841 UK census)

While I believe (due to these DNA connections as well as a few more recent ones) that Susannah and Elizabeth are sisters (both daughters of Robert Elston and Johanah Robinson), I have not been able to find birth or other records to prove these relationships so far. Frustratingly, the East Halton parish records are absent for a few years around 1800.

St. Peter’s Church, East Halton. Photo by Keith Havercroft, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9245935

This John Elston does not appear on any further records in the UK as far as I have been able to find (neither with John Jackson and family nor any other East Halton Elston connections, nor with his future wife’s family, nor as a lodger nearby). This could potentially support his move to Canada in 1851/52.

John’s parents: Susannah Elston and… ?

John is noted as having been born illegitimate (so glad we no longer use that term) to Susannah Elston in 1827. I have found no instance of request for support from Susannah Elston or any other key person so far that seems a possible father to John, but it remains a top research goal. Y-DNA is leading me to the surname “Brooks”, but that’s material for another post.

In 1829, Susannah married Robert Stephenson of Barton upon Humber:

Marriage record of Robert Stephenson and Susannah Elston, East Halton. (Lincolnshire parish registers)

They went on to have a daughter, Mary, born in 1832 in Barton-upon-Humber. Mary went on to marry John Judd in 1852, and eventually moved to Doncaster, Yorkshire.

Susannah appears on the censuses from 1841 to 1881 in Barton upon Humber. In 1871 and 1881 her birthplace is noted as East Halton.

Susannah died March 3, 1883, in Doncaster, Yorkshire.

John’s grandparents: Robert Elston and Johanah (Joney) Robinson

Robert Elston married Johanah (spelling varies–Joney? Joan? Joannah?) Robinson in East Halton on May 21, 1793.

Robert was born in about 1766. I believe he was born in East Halton to William Elston and Mary Dannat, who were married in East Halton on September 22, 1761.

Johanah was born in East Halton in 1769 to Francis Robinson (1769 – 1819) and Faith Malkinson or Maukinson (1738 – 1782).

Together, they appear to have had 5 children:

• Mary Robinson, born 1792
• Elizabeth Elston, born 1798*
• Susannah Elston, born 1802*
• Dinah Elston, born 1806
• Sarah Elston, born 1812

^{*–no birth records are available to confirm these parent-child relationships}

Johanah appears to have died before 1822, when a widowed Robert married Hannah Peck.

In 1841, John’s (likely) grandfather was also living on King Street in East Halton, with his second wife Hannah. Robert is listed as 75 years old, Hannah as 55. Their son Robert, 15, is listed as a labourer with farmer John Smithson at Marsh House in East Halton.

Robert Elston (Sr.) died in 1847 in East Halton:

Burial record for Robert Elston from 8 Mar 1847 in East Halton, age 78. (Lincolnshire parish registers)

Related:

• Descendants of John Elston and Mary Martin
• John Elston in Oxford/Brant (ca. 1851 – 1861)
• Who was John Elston?
• Who wasn’t John Elston?

How DNA is (finally) helping me break down brick walls

When I first got my Ancestry DNA match results, the list of people I matched was pretty overwhelming. My two closest matches were estimated third cousins to me. Everyone else was estimated to be a fourth cousin or more distant. Unfortunately, I wasn’t part of any shared ancestor circles either, and am enough of a european mutt that Ancestry couldn’t even link me to a narrowed-down geographic region.

Based on others’ experiences I’d read about, I had this idea that I would be able to scroll through my matches and see a bunch of surnames in common with my tree. Nope! I’m not sure if I am just unlucky but the only common surnames I am able to find without major data analysis are surnames that are TOO common. Jacksons, Robinsons, Stephensons, Bakers, Martins, Smiths, Blacks, Greens, Browns, and Joneses–you get the idea. Even less common names like Thorpe or Saunders seem common enough that just seeing them in a match’s tree doesn’t necessarily mean that surname is your connection point.

So I began the laborious process of building out trees for folks that I shared the most DNA with, in hopes of finding some time/place commonalities.

Do you know how many people came to Ontario from upstate New York between 1790 and 1820?

Anyway.

My first Elston breakthrough came unexpectedly the other day, mostly thanks to coincidence.

I had just created a list of people that match both my grandfather and one of his closest matches, writing down a list of email addresses and kit numbers. One of the people had a gedcom uploaded so I checked it out. There were some Lincolnshire people in it, so I opened up Google and started down that rabbit hole.

At some point I searched for the names of all of the people in the family one of my possible John Elstons was living with at the time of the 1841 UK census. I turned up an old post on rootsweb, asking if anyone had any information on this family. I looked at the user name, and it seemed familiar.

I had just written down an email address that started the same way. It was one of the other matches in the group I had just created.

Two emails later and I have my first real John Elston lead in England. My grandfather and I are related by DNA to someone who is descended from the family a John Elston was living with in 1841, when he was an adolescent. Further research showed me that Elizabeth Jackson, the wife, was born Elizabeth Elston.

Within a day I had penciled in a theoretical tree that placed three other matches from that group:

I don’t think DNA alone is enough to conclude anything–but tell me this isn’t a great way of finding new leads.

John Elston in Morris Township

Views from Browntown, courtesy of Google Maps (2013).

Let’s start from the very beginning. And by “the very beginning”, I mean the very end. Nothing summarizes things quite so well as an obituary, after all.

John Elston died in Morris Township, Huron County, Ontario, Canada, of ‘cerebral apoplexy’ on September 10th, 1912. The Wingham Times remembered him like this:

Death of a Morris Pioneer

This week the Times again chronicles the death of another of the pioneers of this section in the person of John Elston who passed away at his home on the 2nd line of Morris on Tuesday evening. The deceased gentleman had not been in robust health for some time. He was born in Lincolnshire, England, and came to Canada in 1850. In 1853 he purchased the homestead on the 2nd line of Morris and moved up to this country in 1860. Mr. Elston was a good neighbor and he made a large circle of friends during his long residence in Morris. He had always taken an active interest in the Wingham fall fair and had for many years been a director of the Society and at the time of his death was Honorary President. In religion he was a Methodist and in politics a Liberal. His wife died in 1877 and three children died some few years ago. He is survived by four sons and four daughters, viz:–John Elston, Prince Albert, Sask; Mrs. Hubbard, Wayne, Mich; Mrs. McKague, Coulter, Man; Robt Elston, West Hope, North Dakota; Jas. Elston, Austin, Man; Wm Elston and Misses Annie and Nellie Elston, at home. The funeral will take place this (Thursday) afternoon to the Bluevale cemetery.

– Wingham Times, 12 September, 1912

This summary more or less agrees with the local history books: In A Harvest of Memories¹, John is said to have immigrated to Canada in 1852 and settled in Morris in 1861. The 1861 Census of Canada (taken early in the year) places John in Blandford, Oxford County, with his wife Mary and their three oldest children, living next door to Mary’s brother Robert and his family. John and Mary’s fourth child, Susannah, was born in about 1863 in Morris (according to her death record a mere 23 years later).

By 1871 John and Mary were firmly established on their farm with 100 acres of land and two barns on Concession 2. According to A Harvest of Memories, the farm grew “fall and spring wheat, oats, peas, potatoes and hay, as well as producing maple sugar” (I knew I liked this guy). In terms of animals, they had “two colts and fillies, two working oxen, five milking cows, five other horned cattle, nine sheep, and eight pigs.” With that many animals and nine children, at least things wouldn’t have been lonely. Or quiet.

The family lived in a log home, which stayed on the property until 1944. I wonder if John imagined that more than 100 years after his death his great-great-grandchildren would live in the brick home he and his sons built on the property in 1895?

John himself, like his wife and many of his children, found his “forever home” in the Bluevale cemetery, which I will write about in another post.

Related:

• Descendants of John Elston and Mary Martin
• John Elston in Oxford/Brant (ca. 1851 – 1861)
• John Elston’s Lincolnshire roots
• Who was John Elston?
• Elstons in the Bluevale cemetery

This page is a work in progress.

Who was John Elston?

John Elston at the Wingham Fall Fair in approximately 1891.

Here is what we know so far: John Elston was born in England in about 1830, and immigrated to Canada in about 1851. In Canada, he first lived near Galt (now Cambridge), Ontario, where he married Mary Martin. By 1865, they had moved to Morris Township in Huron County, where John started a farm as they continued building their family. John died in Morris in 1912. We know he was involved with the Wingham fall fair, and was a good neighbour. We also know he could grow a mean fluffy neckbeard.

Things begin to get foggy when we look at John’s life before he came to Huron County. In most records his birth location is listed as Lincolnshire. There were lots of Elstons living in Lincolnshire at the time. His wife Mary and her family had also immigrated from Lincolnshire (Glanford Brigg and the south part of Yorkshire, just across the Humber). Whether John and Mary became acquainted with each other before, during, or after their big boat ride west is a mystery, as is the date and location of their marriage. I’ll be looking at their early life together in more depth in the near future.

Related:

• John Elston’s Lincolnshire roots
• John Elston in Morris Township (ca. 1861 – 1912)
• John Elston in Brant/Oxford (ca. 1851 – 1861)
• Mary Martin and her family
• Descendants of John and Mary Elston
• Who wasn’t John Elston?

This page is a work in progress.