52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 2 - Origins

My Cornish Roots

    Where did my ancestors come from?  The eternal question.  I was lucky in my genealogy journey to know where all 4 of my Grandparents came from. They were all immigrants, and had left their family and friends behind for a better life in America.  My ancestors were "late-comers", all arriving in the early 1900's from England and Ireland.   Each came to a family member/friend, but none ever returned to see the family they had left behind.  

    My interest in genealogy was spurred on by a hand written family tree my Grandmother's Twin Sister drew out for me. The tree detailed our family's deep roots in Cornwall, England.  If she hadn't drawn the tree, I would have had a very difficult time tracing back to the village of Pendeen in Cornwall.  

    My Gt Grandmother left Pendeen as a teenager to work as a domestic servant in Liskeard, on the Devon border, nearly 70 miles away!  The wife of the family she worked for was from St Just in Penwith, near Pendeen - so possibly there is some connection, but I've yet to find it.

Grace Oats White 1846-1888

    She met and married a local man in 1871, and they moved to Torquay, Devon around 1878, where they raised a family, including my Grandmother and her twin sister, born in 1885. Sadly their Mother died in 1888 at the age of 42, and the family was broken up to live with relatives.

    Despite the early death of my Great Grandmother, the connections to Pendeen remained and there must have been correspondence, as the family tree detailed ancestors and more recent descendants.  Grace even went back to Pendeen to have her first child in 1871. 

    The Cornish naming tradition is such that the Mother or Grandmother's maiden name is often used as the child's middle name. Thus my Great Grandmother was Grace Oats White, as her Grandmother was Elizabeth Oats.

    I've been to visit Pendeen several times, and it always amazes me to see what deep roots I have in the area. It is the southern most part of England, and has a beautiful rocky coast and temperate climate. Fishing, farming and eventually mining sustained the population.  

    I've traced the family back to the mid 1500's.  Being an isolated area, there was lots of inter-marriage of distant cousins, so the DNA signature for West Cornwall is quite strong.  Working on the family tree often involves connecting distant cousins from multiple lines as they marry and their descendants marry other cousins.   

    I have worked with my 3rd cousin in Australia to research the burials at the Pendeen cemetery, and amazingly we are related to over 95% of the people! That shows how interconnected the families in the area are. There are only a few "blow-ins", such as a Teacher or Doctor.  So with certainty, I can say that I have DEEP roots in Pendeen and Western Cornwall.