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I've just put a thread on Tips asking whether anybody can figure out "C M P". After all, William/Charles James/Challenger had to get to SA somehow sometime ... so he's gotta be there somewhere, and that could possibly be him ...

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.asp?wci=thread&tk=1188652


... Of two replies so far, we'll discount "Canadian Mounted Police". ;)

Cape Military Police seems like a possible. Mean anything to you, Peter??

... Peter, do check out that other thread, where I've been pursuing that trail. No reason to think that D James is yours, really, but if he was, the tale could be interesting. ;)

Tell your dad he's very welcome, and welcome to our club! People who aren't who they think they are, you know. My mum has been fascinated by the tale of her grandfather who gave her the fake name, and of course his sister the actress she'd never heard of. (The one whose great-granddaughter born in SA I just found this fall.)

But hey, you don't get the fun I had, once I traced my name-shifter back two more generations, of telling your dad that his greatx2 grandmother was a Hoar!

Do keep us posted once you get all that documentary evidence.

Hi Janey & Viv
Just been for dinner at my folks place and spent about an hour going through all the information that you wonderful angels have retrieved for me.
My dad (74) is the grandson of CWC aka WCJ.
As predicted he was speechless and asked that I get documentary evidence so that we can confirm the links.
He is going to visit his aunt Joyce (87), daughter of CWC aka WCJ early next week and is going to share all this with her.
Hope this information is not going to upset her.
My Dad also asked me to thank you 2 special ladies for all your assistance.
Now I have lots of homework to do.
Keep well and hope to be in touch soon with the info that Viv is looking for.
Regards
Peter x

Google...


List of shipwrecks in 1880
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The list of shipwrecks in 1880 includes all ships sunk, foundered, grounded, or otherwise lost during 1880.

Ah what the heck,Ill look ,now.

Both grooms are coal miners

Hmm.

1901

Name: John Dunsmore
Age: 40
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1861
Relation: Lodger
Where born: Scotland
> Occupation: Labourer in shipyard
Condition as to marriage: Single

Civil parish: Byker
Town: Newcastle Upon Tyne
County/Island: Northumberland


Closest I find!


Worth it for Peter to pay for a view of those marriages at ScotlandsPeople, I'd say. The groom's occupation will be recorded.

www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk

register free, buy cheap credits, search marriages database for surnames, click to view and view image(s).

As I posted before,we have Flora coming in with (native)Selina,in 1889,but it does look as though she left agian in Feb of 1901 before the census.

If we have a possible fathers name for Flora do we not have a possible mothers name?

No overseas biths on FMP for her...

The storey that the children were told is that their mother Flora's father is believed to have been a ships captain (Capt John Dunsmore).
Flora's mother was on the ship while expecting and the ship docked in East London and Flora is supposed to have been born in East London South Africa, but I can't find any information or records to confirm this.
Capt Dunsmore supposedly left his wife and child behind and was supposed to have returned to fetch them the next trip.
Flora told the children that the ship sunk and they never saw Capt Dunsmore again.
She is said to have returned to Scotland with her mother, who later died when Flora was 11.
The children were also told that Flora was raised for a while by an aunt of hers.
Flora's mother had left her some jewels and once the aunt had managed to lay claim to them she ditched Flora and left for the USA.
All this is what my great aunt Joyce, surviving daughter of Flora and CWC/WCJ said they were told as children.

Just chucking it in for good measure,from ,,freebmd,,.

Births Mar 1880 (>99%)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DUNSMORE Flora Grantham 7a 486

I don't know, but somebody on MySpace is one:

http://www.myspace.com/477781977

Ah, an atheist Virgo, but a generation too young ...

Don't know whether that CMP is English or Dutch, though!


Edit - these days it seems to mean COMPUTER. No help there ...

There are only 2 Dunsmore/Cameron marriages on SP in the entire timescale that you can search that could be Floras parents,maybe .

1880 DUNSMORE ROBERT( married )CAMERON JANE CAMBUSNETHAN /LANARK


1863 DUNSMORE ROBERT (married)CAMERON MARY RUTHERGLEN GLASGOW/LANARK


Only Dunsmore birth on Service returns on Sp and not Flora.

1891 DUNSMORE ELIZABETH WILLI F SERVICE AND WAR RETURNS

You have no chance of finding a James on outgoing really if you are realistic,there are MIWYONS of them,but this is the one you are looking at Janey.I think!

Name: Mr D JAMES
Date of departure: 13 April 1901
Port of departure: Southampton
Passenger destination port: East London, South Africa
Passenger destination: East London, South Africa

Date of Birth: 1881 (calculated from age)
Age: 20
Marital status: Single
Sex: Male
Occupation: C M P

What is a CMP?

There are totally no Flora Dunsmore births on Scotlands people at all for the right time.

So now we go to ,,freebmd,,,and overseas on Find my Past.

Only thing that looks at all like Flora in outbound passenger lists:

DUNSMORE Unknown F 1901 Southampton South Africa East London

Viv?

I'd already had my eye on this one:

JAMES D 1881 M 1901 Southampton South Africa East London

The other James with those ports of departure/arrival in 1901 is:

JAMES 1861 M 1901 Southampton South Africa East London

but they don't seem to have been travelling together.

And of course we have my gr-grfather Ernest Monck who was really a Hill. As no one had known since about 1883, until I discovered it by long searching -- he did it because he deserted rather than be sent to Afghanistan after 5 years in India. I discovered the name change and had no idea why, my mother's elderly cousin knew the desertion story but had no idea he had changed his name as a result. None of us knows why he became Monck specifically, except that it was his youngest sister's middle name, and she also changed her surname to that. And then his sister's husband changed his surname from Coke to McCock, probably, in his case, to escape creditors, also to reclaim his Scottish heritage.

Then we had the four Walls (wife and kids of Roome) who made a Roome family, Madmeg's! Roome had started out as Dallorzo, a unique Northamptonshire name. Why the switch, why the Roome? No one knows.

They dunnit. We discover generations later that we *aren't* who we think we are!

I looked before for Flora and didnt get very far,but didnt know you were were interested,but now I will look again.

More than the Carruthers,(I wasnt in on that one )we also have Boagey/Atkinson and Perkins /Watkins name changes ,and a couple more that escape me at the mo ,but will look into to bring them to the fore,some that I did on my own so Janey wont remember.
It certainly happened.
My own G,Grandad changed his first name and date of birth to join the Navy under age,and I have a rather Uncommon Surname so I am sure of this,and from there on was always known as Thomas,but in fact his name was Henry John.
He married as Thomas ,reged his children as Thomas,died as Thomas and yet was born as Henry John.

Any idea of where Flora was born?

BTW I just got back from our local watering hole so please do excuse me when I ramble,forget things or just clearly look as though I lost me marbles.

All those name changes -- people just dunnit. There's no law against calling yourself whatever you like, as long as you're not doing it to defraud.

In many cases it was likely done before the child was old enough to know they had a 'real' name. Or the child's mother (re)married, and the child just naturally took the stepfather's name, and didn't think twice of it.

Now, one question I had was whether William might have married under the name Challenger in England and so made himself James when he married in SA. No evidence of that, though. What is so odd is that he took his father's real birth surname, when it seems he was estranged from his father in 1891, with him and his mother Clara not being with Charles.

One could speculate all sorts of things. Before dying, Mary James Challenger confided to her son Charles that she had not been married to Edward when Charles was born and Edward was not his father, so Charles may have decided to switch to his real name, and the family followed suit.

One case here not long ago had a man using his mother's/grandparents' surname even though his parents were married when he was born. His mother died, his father remarried, he was reared by his mother's parents. He was known as Clark, his descendant knew his child as Clark -- but he religiously registered every event in the family under his real/father's surname, Carruthers. Once again, it was all the little coincidences that found the Carruthers connection in the censuses - and then the births of all his supposely-Clark children, whose details were known, but as Clark, registered as Carruthers. The children themselves appear to have had not the least idea their real name was Carruthers.

Would Edward Challenger have adopted Charles James? Not remotely possibly. There just was no such thing.

The birth registration for Charles James is back a page I think.

Births Jun 1853 ?
JAMES Charles Hereford 6a 415

The only one I can see that fits. Yes indeed, add it to your cart.

This leaves you with what will almost certainly be an unanswerable question: who was Charles James's father (grandfather of your William)? A huge proportion of us hit that wall at some point in a tree. I seem to have escaped it because I've managed to descend from kids born after marriage, but several of 'em had siblings born before.

There's always DNA matching! You are, I think, a son of a son of a son? You, to your dad, to William, to Charles? You're lucky on that score, because that's what is required. You never know, you might get a match to a surname in one of the family DNA projects. This actually is one situation in which I would quite recommend doing that! Spit on a stick, pay your money and send it in, and see what the database spits out.


Flora?? Hey, I'll let Viv field that one!

If you had any idea where she was born ... I've actually looked in the Scottish census, but to no avail ...

You may ask for assistance and we will give it if possible..
Let me re phrase that...JANE eeeeeeeeeeeeey,help.

Shes the goodun at this ,wait for her.

Hi Janey/Viv
Please could you advise me on the following:
* when Charles William Challenger changed his name to William Charles James, would there be any documentary evidence?
* if Charles Challenger (1852) was born James - there should be a birth cert that reflects that
* was he officially adopted by Edward Challenger
My apologies for all these questions but I know I will be asked them when I present this info to my father (grandson to CW Challenger aka WC James) and the 2 surviving children of (CW Challenger aka WC James).

May I ask for assistance in tracing the thread of Flora Cameron Dunsmore please.
Regards
Peter x