My second great grandfather, Francis Ellis (1839-1925), married Elizabeth Small Brown (1844-1901), on 12 December 1867 in St Mary’s Church, Portsea, Hampshire. Francis had served in the Royal Navy before joining the coastguard service as a boatman. Elizabeth was living with her family at no 39 Princes Sr, Portsea Island in 1861; her father George (1811-1879) was recorded as a sawyer. This was a change of occupation; in the 1851 census he was described as a ropemaker and in 1871 a ropemaker pensioner. However, the family originally came from Cornwall. George was baptised on 24 February 1812 in Maker, Cornwall and Elizabeth’s mother, Elizabeth Small Burt (1812-1876), was baptised on 23 February 1812 in Torpoint, Cornwall. Maker was described by Lewis in his 1848 topographical directory as follows:

When Elizabeth was born on 30 December 1844 her father George was a ropemaker in the Devonpoint dockyard. The following OS map, Cornwall sheet XLVI.SW dated, 1888 shows the relative locations of Torpoint and Devonport. Morice town is also circled as it too played a role in this family, and in particular, its Wesleyan chapel.

Devonport was part of the parish of Stoke Damerel which was described in Lewis’ 1848 topographical directory as follows:

The Brown and Burt families do seem to have had a long-standing tradition of working in a number of different trades for the Royal Navy, so it is perhaps not surprising that Elizabeth married Francis Ellis. An outline chart for Elizabeth and her family is as follows:

I hadn’t carried out much research on this branch of my family as Brown is a common surname. However, they do seem to use unusual combinations of forenames so I intend to write more about both the Brown and Burt families. Do let me know if you have any stories about them which you are willing to share with me.

Note: the map used in this blog has been reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland under the following creative commons licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ and sourced from the NLS maps site https://maps.nls.uk/.

Bibliography:

Births, marriages and deaths. https://www.ancestry.co.uk/ : accessed May 2023.

Census records. https://www.ancestry.co.uk/ : accessed May 2023.

Lewis, Samuel ed. (1848) A Topological Directory of England. London: Lewis. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/topographical-dict/england : accessed May 2023.

Maker. https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/CON/Maker : accessed May 2023.

OS Map. https://maps.nls.uk/ : accessed May 2023.

Probate records. https://www.ancestry.co.uk/ : accessed May 2023.

Rame. https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/CON/Rame : accessed May 2023.

Stoke Damerel. https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/DEV/StokeDamerel : accessed May 2023.