by John Slaughter  

In this report I am pleased to welcome three further new members, David Saul, Naomi Coombes and Tom Saul.

David Saul lives in New Zealand but was born in the UK. He can trace his Saul ancestry through several generations in Lancashire/Yorkshire. His father James was born in Clitheroe, Lancashire but moved to Blackburn to work as an electrical engineer. James’s father William was also Clitheroe born, the eldest child of William and Margaret Alice Hanson who had married at Clitheroe in 1902 and it was here that I was able to link the family to one of our existing charts.  The older William had been born in High Bentham, Yorkshire and saw service in World War 1. He was badly injured on the Somme but was luckier than most of his comrades in the East Lancs Regiment (The Accrington Pals), who were killed. The Saul line then goes back several more generations at Bentham, then Tatham and earlier Lancaster.

Naomi Coombes 2 x great grandmother was Priscilla Carason Saul born in Wandsworth in 1872 and who married Charles Simpson in 1890. Her parents are given as Matthias Carason Saul and Mary Elizabeth (nee Tice). The family clearly had a long connection with Wandsworth as both parents died there, apparently on the same day, 4^th December 1923.

On the 1881 census Priscilla is an 8 year old residing in her father’s house in Battersea. Her father’s name is recorded as Matthew and his place of birth as Norwich. The father’s place of birth varies a little between censuses (1891, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk), (1901, Norfolk) and 1911 (Stokesby Ferry, Norfolk). Ages on censuses are fairly consistent suggesting a birth year around 1848/1850. On his marriage certificate in 1871 Matthias gave his father’s name as Carason, a coachman. I think we can take Carason as being a misspelling of Kerrison.

Though, there are some inconsistencies, the above information strongly suggests that Matthias was the Matthias Edward Kerrison Saul born at Acle, Norfolk in 1848 and baptised at Great Yarmouth on 19^th January 1849 to Edward and Elizabeth (nee Kerrsion). The 1851 census finds the family at Stokesby where Edward was the Inn Keeper at the “Ferry”. Edward died young in 1857 at the age of 34 years. Quite why Matthias gave apparently incorrect information on his marriage certificate is a mystery.

Father, Edward was born at Acle and baptised there on 2^nd February 1823 to parents John and Elizabeth (nee Kerrison).

Tom Saul lives in Canada and has been searching for his UK ancestry for a number of years. I first had correspondence with Tom in 2007 and though the family story was that his grandfather, Thomas, had emigrated to Canada around 1920 from Preston I was unable to make a positive connection from the information supplied at that time. The breakthrough was made when Tom contacted me again in April this year and provided his grandfather’s WW1 army details taken from his gravestone in Edmonton, Alberta. He died in 1965 and his gravestone carries a military insignia of the RFA and the inscription “Gunner, Thomas Saul, L/10673”. His army papers have fortunately survived and the details on our website revealed that Thomas was born in Preston in 1897, his father was Charles Saul and his address at the time of enlistment, 1915, was 176 Plinington Road, Preston.

I was able to locate the family on the 1911 census at that address. The household consisted of Charles Saul, his wife Mary and their six children, one of whom was Thomas aged 13 years. The family all later emigrated to Canada. The census revealed that Charles had been born in Liverpool around 1869. This information established that Charles was the son of Jonathon and Henrietta (nee Langton) who had married in Liverpool in 1864. Their first three children were Liverpool born but they had moved to Preston by 1873. Jonathon was himself Preston born the second child of Robert and Ellen (nee Fishwick). One earlier generation is known, another Robert Saul who married Mary Wesley at Preston in 1813.

The only significant enquiry I have received over the last few months came from Lyn Court. She enquired about an Agnes Saul who had married Edward Russell in 1884. I was able to find Edward Russell on the 1891 census at 17 Brewery Road, Ilkley, Yorkshire but his wife’s name was shown as Annie, aged 21 years. Two children were resident Agnes, aged 6 years and Lucy E, aged 1 year. Annie was clearly not old enough to be Agnes’s mother so I suspected that Annie was Edward’s second wife, Agnes having died. This was backed up by finding a death of an Agnes Russell, aged 26 years in the December 1889 quarter and a marriage of an Edwin Russell to a Kesiah Annie Denby in the September 1890 quarter. This left us looking for an Agnes Saul born circa 1863 but with no idea of where born. The GRO indexes provided a few possibilities, the most likely of which was an Agnes Saul in the March 1863 quarter, Doncaster registration district. There is a household on the 1871 census in Doncaster that fits this information well, and which is headed by a James Saul, tailor, aged 39 years, and born Norton, Yorkshire. Certificates need to be obtained to confirm the tentative connections but if correct this links to one of our Yorkshire charts.  

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