Don't rock the boat...find it!

According to the letter in my previous post, John and Mary Ann Porteous emigrated from Lincolnshire, England sailing to America and eventually settling in Lake County, Illinois, April 19, 1870, aboard the mail steam ship SS Malta. 

A drawing of the SS Malta, found on [http://georgemacdonald.info/other.html].
She was a passenger cargo vessel, which was launched 1865 and
was found wrecked in 1889 off Cape Cornwall, near Lands End, England. 
[Shipping Times, Clydebuilt database - www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=6484 ]

Knowing this back in the 1990s when my brother gave me a copy of a copy of that original letter, it wasn't easy to find the passenger list. I was new to genealogy and internet searching. At the time, there wasn't much online or maybe I just didn't know where to go or how to search the limited sites. Today, Ancestry.com and other such sites which carry the census and ships lists make the job ever so easy.

Anyway, I was looking for John PORTUS, then PORTEOUS; Malta; 1870. I didn't realize I could narrow my search. After a few failed searches, I just put it aside in frustration and didn't pick it up again for quite awhile. 

Much later, through some creative search criteria on a more advanced Ancestry.com, I finally found my great grandparents family. I didn't expect the family listing to be so different from what I knew! Even though, they were my family! 

I felt so good finding this document. I just sat back and admired it. I just substantiated the information on the letter! It was tangible. It all added up! Wow!

THE MANIFEST

Even though their surname was written on the manifest as PORTEUS, they were indexed on Ancestry.com as PORSENS – Jno Porteus 28, M.A. 28, Georgina 4, Wm 3, and Jno (Infant).

SS Malta sailed from Liverpool and arrived New York on 3 May 1870. This manifest was delivered by Robert McDowall to the Collector of the Customns of the Collection District of New York.
Ancestry.com Source Citation: Year: 1870; Arrival: New York; Microfilm Serial: M237; Microfilm Roll: M237_326; Line: 57; List Number: 336 

The first page gives general information about the ship, its arrival place and date, where it sailed from, etc. 

The voyage took 16 days – from April 19 to May 3. I’m not sure it was a terrific voyage since the family was booked in steerage. 

My family was found on the second page. They are listed below the center fold about 12 lines where you see four check marks together. I searched the rest of the manifest for any other familiar Lincolnshire families, but none were found.

ONCE IN AMERICA

The family arrived at Port of New York which was Castle Gardens prior to Ellis Island. They probably took a train to Chicago and from there came out to Lake County to settle close to “Hunckle” [ John] and “Aunt” [Matilda] who arranged a place to for them to live until they were “on their feet” and could buy their own land.

John, Mary Ann, and their three children Georgiana, William Dennis (my grandfather), and John Henry made it to Fremont Township just in time for the 1870 census. Finding them in the census was also a task – looking page by page, line for line. Later I found them indexed as PORTOS. I suspect it was the heavy rural Lincolnshire accent that explains the different surname spelling. 

By the end of 1870, infant son John Henry, had died. The1880 census shows four more children were born into the family: Jesse J., Alfred, David, and Lillian. Of these four, only Jesse J. would live to adulthood. There would be two more sons born: Charles D. in 1883 and Benjamin F. in 1885. Ann Elizabeth, John and Mary Ann’s first born, died in 1864, and was buried in St. Michael's churchyard in Coningsby, Lincolnshire six years before the family emigrated.

In 1875, John’s parents William & Elizabeth immigrated to America. With them came John’s sister Jane (Jennie) and nephew William M. They would move on to settle in Garfield, Kansas. Three of Mary Ann’s brothers, John, James, and Henry Vamplew, followed several years later.

John & Mary Ann eventually bought land in Lake County, Ill. west of Diamond Lake and also land in Kansas south of Garfield along the Santa Fe Trail.

THINGS LEARNED
Looking back on the early research, I can say I have learned a couple things. Spellings aren't always what you expect, be conscious of variations. The spelling PORTEOUS was first seen as my surname in Illinois after 1870. In England the most common family surname spelling was PORTAS, John spelled his surname in that letter as PORTUS. 

Expect the unexpected while looking for family history.

I touched the original letter and got goose bumps, too!

I've got to say, I had a thrilling day yesterday. My cousin Sharon and I met and had lunch with a distant cousin (kind of the thread-on-the-shirt-tail cousin) Jim. This was the first time either of us had met Jim. We have been trying for a long time to get all three of us free on the same day. So Friday, May 16 was it.

Sharon and I drove to Jim's place. We talked family connections. We went to lunch and talked family connections. Came back to his cottage at the senior complex to look at pictures, letters, and talk family connections. Yep! We did it all! What a wonderful way to spend a hot, early summer day!

Sharon asked Jim questions about who belonged to who. She brought a giant binder with many pictures we couldn't identify a couple weeks ago. He helped with a few. That was better than none at all. While they did that, I got my digital camera out and took shots of pictures and letters. I spent a good part of today going over those images, cropping, and enhancing for better presentation. I then sent emails off to Sharon with the fixed images attached.

In between the conversation Sharon was having, I asked about Mundelein and Libertyville and the ROUSE family connection to Sharon's SMALL and my PORTEOUS families. Jim knew we were connected somehow, but hadn't done much on collateral families. He had concentrated on the Rouse and RAY families. As much as one tries...one can't do them all. I don't know how much anyone would remember of these conversations, but we will try our best.

SO HOW ARE WE CONNECTED?

My great grandparents John and Mary Ann (Vamplew) Porteous are Sharon's great-great grandparents. Her great grandmother Georgiana is my grandfather William D.'s sister. So how are we connected to the Rouses? Mary Ann's mother is Anne Rouse who married James VAMPLEW in 1838, Kirkby on Bain, Lincolnshire, England. 

Anne is sister to John Rouse who was one of the early settlers in Holcomb, Lake County, Illinois (now Mundelein). He was instrumental in coaxing John and Mary Ann to immigrate to America and settle in the same town. By 1870, John and Mary Ann and their three children: Georgiana, Willie, and John Henry, were listed on the Fremont Township Federal Census. 

Jim is connected through the Gordon Milton Ray family who were also an early family in town, and he married Harriet Elizabeth, one of John Rouse's daughters.

"Hunckle" John and Aunt Matilda (Proctor) Rouse

SO MUCH TO LEARN

I was a newbie at family history in any organized fashion back about 20 years ago. As I was stumbling along trying to make sense of all the information I had, for some reason I didn't know where John and Mary Ann were from. I knew they were from England, but didn't know any more. Of all the things brother John gave me to look over when I started, there was a copy of a copy of a letter that John & Mary Ann had sent to "Hunckle and Aunt." I must not have paid too much attention to it – I was new and some stuff didn't matter. I know better now!

I'd talk some things over with brother John and he would say I should "read the letter" but never said why. Over and over, he'd say "read the letter."  Finally I got the letter out, scanned it and started cleaning it up in photoshop. A copy of a copy needed cleaning. The blotches were covering up some of the words and I couldn't read them properly. As I'm "cleaning" it up, words started popping out at me! More and more words! This letter was the letter great grandfather John wrote to "Hunckle and Aunt" (John and Matilda Rouse) about when they were sailing to America and what ship they would be on; talks about where they were staying since they had been packed up.

I HAD THE ORIGINAL IN MY HANDS AND GOOSE BUMPS ON MY ARMS!

Yesterday, almost 20 years after brother John gave me that letter did I finally get to see the original! It gave me goose bumps and I had a hard time containing my excitement. It tells me where the letter was written; dated April 12, just seven days before they set sail! Another thing this letter tells me – my great grandfather knew how to read and write. He wrote in phonetic spellings which gives me a sense of how they talked. This was rural England talk. Fantastic! Made my day . . .