From: Info Seeker [mailto:infoseeker1980@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, August 22, 2015 7:47 AM
Subject: Our Ancestry correspondence - another Vosper cousin!
Sent: Saturday, August 22, 2015 7:47 AM
Subject: Our Ancestry correspondence - another Vosper cousin!
Hi Helena! It’s so good to hear about your part of the Vosper tree. Although your Stephen isn’t on any of the Vosper charts, I’m pretty confident he was also a son of the Johanes (aka John) who was the father of all our Vosper family.
Redruth does show up in a number of locations in our family:
Daniel Vosper is my 8th great grandfather, and Thomas Vosper is my 9th great grandfather. Thomas was the son of William Trebursie Vosper – Trebursie or Trebursye is up by Launceston, I believe.
When we were in Plymouth last year we did see cars with an indication they were from the Vosper car dealership…. I’ve never been able to figure out (haven’t tried hard, to tell the truth) which branch of the Vospers went into the shipbuilding industry….my side were shoemakers.
I didn’t try to do much research when we were in Cornwall last year, as we had limited time, and I wanted to visit the hometowns more than sit in a library or records office. I do know, however, that Plymouth has records available, and that some of the Cornwall records for the Launceston area are copied in the Launceston Library, while the rest have all been moved to Truro. I’m not sure if the records in Launceston would include the records for Liskeard – a call to the Launceston Library would probably answer that.
If you do make a visit to the Devon Heritage Centre near Plymouth and have a few extra minutes, there are some records I’d love to get copies of – of my direct descendants, Charles Adam Vosper (born 21 May 1863 in Plymouth), and his father William Nicholls Vosper (died April 1891 in Plymouth). I understand that these records are supposedly on FindMyPast, but my subscription to that was a total disaster, and after all the money I spent on it, I could rarely ever connect to it! I did find some stuff, which you can see on my tree, but not those all-important records! I’ve also not been able to find the record of William Nicholls Vosper’s marriage to Elizabeth Boundy, which I believe took place in Plymouth about 1839, based on son John’s birth date of 1840. (I hope I’m not being too cheeky in asking this – it’s just quite hard to get this stuff otherwise!)
I think the place to go for research in Plymouth is:
Unfortunately, on our last visit to England (we live in California) we didn’t get to Lincolnshire, though we stayed at Sheffield, and went to Matlock, Derbyshire, Bolsover Castle, Sherwood Forest, Burton Joyce and Lyddington (skirting Lincolnshire) on our way to Cherry Hinton as part of our circuit around England and Scotland.
Being from America, we weren’t taught much of Cornwall history (ok, let’s be honest, we only know of ‘Pirates of Penzance’, and Cornwall wasn’t even mentioned! Of course, Doc Martin is a favorite of ours!), so I don’t know much about Redruth. Do you know if there’s an online history that discusses the period around 1600? I found some interesting stuff on Liskeard and mentions of the Vosper family (media on my tree), but haven’t investigated Redruth. How the Vosper family got there might be important to our family history. (I did just google it, and found http://www.localhistories.org/redruth.html which states that the plague hit there in 1591!).
I also just read that ‘Murdoch House was the home of inventor, William Murdoch, and is believed to have been the first house in the world to have been lit by piped coal gas. Today, it houses the Global Migration Project and tourists call there to trace their Cornish ancestors.’ So there is a place to do genealogical research right in Redruth! (http://www.cornwalls.co.uk/Redruth/ ) After reading about the “Global Migration Project”, though, this is something that MIGHT be of more interest to me and some of our other migrant cousins than it would be to you, since your family line did not migrate from England. I don’t know if they would even have my family line, since they migrated from Devon, not Cornwall, though the family ‘origins’ are in Cornwall.
There is this book (out of my price range!)
(not available in my libraries)
Just in case you didn’t know, the Truro collection of records from all of Cornwall is kept not far from Redruth, here:
I have recently been contacted by another Vosper cousin who currently lives in Plymouth. I’ve included a copy of the ‘Vosper Cousin Chart’ and copied the cousins on this email to let them know another kinswoman has been ‘found’. Since we haven’t determined EXACTLY how you’re related, I haven’t updated it yet to include you. Can you copy your lineage from John for me, and I can see how I can include it? I’m thinking that your John (1580-?) may have been a brother of Thomas Vosper (1564-1639)(see link above), son of William Trebursie Vosper….
If you ever decide to do the DNA testing, I’d love to share the results of our testing with you. Several of the people on the cousins chart have been tested, and we have a direct male-to-male lineage that the Y-Chromosome testing has been done on with some interesting results. Your connection would be the farthest back, and it would be interesting to see if there is an autosomal match.
Well, enough for now!
Teri
pastminer01
Aug 21, 2015
Thanks very much, Teri!
I'm amazed that you got back to me so quickly. I hope we are related, albeit very distantly. I don't think that I'm descended from William Vosper but we must have the original Johannes Vosper as a common ancestor. Of course not all the children of these ancient pedigrees get published as quite often the younger members are excluded unless they make advantageous marriages or achieve other great deeds! It looks as though there were quite a lot of them in any case.
I haven't had my DNA done yet but have been considering it and of course my John Vosper may or may not be the same as yours. There are several Ezekiels, more or less related as they progress down the generations - great uncles and cousins to each other and so on, but as you say none of them included in the family chart. The first Ezekiel Vosper I have records for married Elizabeth Moor in Redruth in 1686 and seems to have been the son of another Ezekiel born c1660. I can't be sure of anything further back than this. The fact that both Stephen and John are favoured family names seems to indicate something!
I haven't been to Redruth for several years, in fact since well before I got interested in family history, although I was always told that we had a connection to the town on my mother's side of the family. Although I now live in Lincolnshire, I have a son living in Plymouth and so intend to have a good look round the Cornish records next time I'm down. There is actually a very large motor franchise owned by the Vospers in Plymouth and of course everyone has heard of Vosper Thorneycroft. By the way, my shorthand C17 was intended to stand for 'Seventeenth Century', sorry if it wasn't clear!
If you would like to get in touch with me about any other family research, my email is____ and I'd be very happy to hear from you.
Cheers,
Helena
I'm amazed that you got back to me so quickly. I hope we are related, albeit very distantly. I don't think that I'm descended from William Vosper but we must have the original Johannes Vosper as a common ancestor. Of course not all the children of these ancient pedigrees get published as quite often the younger members are excluded unless they make advantageous marriages or achieve other great deeds! It looks as though there were quite a lot of them in any case.
I haven't had my DNA done yet but have been considering it and of course my John Vosper may or may not be the same as yours. There are several Ezekiels, more or less related as they progress down the generations - great uncles and cousins to each other and so on, but as you say none of them included in the family chart. The first Ezekiel Vosper I have records for married Elizabeth Moor in Redruth in 1686 and seems to have been the son of another Ezekiel born c1660. I can't be sure of anything further back than this. The fact that both Stephen and John are favoured family names seems to indicate something!
I haven't been to Redruth for several years, in fact since well before I got interested in family history, although I was always told that we had a connection to the town on my mother's side of the family. Although I now live in Lincolnshire, I have a son living in Plymouth and so intend to have a good look round the Cornish records next time I'm down. There is actually a very large motor franchise owned by the Vospers in Plymouth and of course everyone has heard of Vosper Thorneycroft. By the way, my shorthand C17 was intended to stand for 'Seventeenth Century', sorry if it wasn't clear!
If you would like to get in touch with me about any other family research, my email is____ and I'd be very happy to hear from you.
Cheers,
Helena
info_seeker
Aug 21, 2015
Hello Cousin! Welcome to the family....but I guess you were there, all along!
The corrected version of the Visitations to Cornwall is at: http://mv.ancestry.com/viewer/6cc992fa-86bf-4d0d-94c0-282b7871396e/47009625/6961584721?_phsrc=HOY83&usePUBJs=true
....it is attached to the "original" Vosper in this line.
Most of the corrections came from the Cornwall Online Parish Records web site, found at: http://www.cornwall-opc-database.org/search-database/
What is the "C17"?
Looking at baptisms in the Cornwall OPR site, the first Ezekial Vosper was in 1683 in Redruth....
I've been in contact with another Vosper whose family came through Canada. He descends from Joseph Vosper (1697-1742) and now lives in Washington state.
We have another Vosper descendant in Perth, Australia, and many Vospers from my line in New York and Florida. If you are interested, send me an email address and I'll send you a "cousin chart" showing you how we're all related.
I don't have Ezekial Vosper on my tree, however, in fact, looking at your tree, I don't have Stephen Vosper! Do you have any proof that he's the son of John? I don't see any on your tree.....or on Cornwall OPR. It's probably correct, I just don't see it.
I was hoping to be able to share some pictures of Redruth with you....it was on my itinerary last year when I went to Cornwall to visit the family homes, but I got bronchitis and didn't make it that far south....darn!
Have you had your DNA tested? Most of the Vospers have, and there are some interesting results!
Teri
The corrected version of the Visitations to Cornwall is at: http://mv.ancestry.com/viewer/6cc992fa-86bf-4d0d-94c0-282b7871396e/47009625/6961584721?_phsrc=HOY83&usePUBJs=true
....it is attached to the "original" Vosper in this line.
Most of the corrections came from the Cornwall Online Parish Records web site, found at: http://www.cornwall-opc-database.org/search-database/
What is the "C17"?
Looking at baptisms in the Cornwall OPR site, the first Ezekial Vosper was in 1683 in Redruth....
I've been in contact with another Vosper whose family came through Canada. He descends from Joseph Vosper (1697-1742) and now lives in Washington state.
We have another Vosper descendant in Perth, Australia, and many Vospers from my line in New York and Florida. If you are interested, send me an email address and I'll send you a "cousin chart" showing you how we're all related.
I don't have Ezekial Vosper on my tree, however, in fact, looking at your tree, I don't have Stephen Vosper! Do you have any proof that he's the son of John? I don't see any on your tree.....or on Cornwall OPR. It's probably correct, I just don't see it.
I was hoping to be able to share some pictures of Redruth with you....it was on my itinerary last year when I went to Cornwall to visit the family homes, but I got bronchitis and didn't make it that far south....darn!
Have you had your DNA tested? Most of the Vospers have, and there are some interesting results!
Teri
pastminer01
Aug 21, 2015
Hi, Teri!
My Vosper connection is a long way back. I had been researching my 4/5xgrandfathers, both Ezekiel Simmons(the surname spelt in a number of ways) from Redruth. The elder Ezekiel was born in 1758 to Stephen Simmons and Joan(also spelt several different ways). On researching Joan, I came upon the marriage of Joan Vospar(sic) to Stephen Simmons as a likely candidate and was further convinced by the fact that her father was also Ezekiel, thus handing on the old custom of calling the first born son by the grandfather's name. I may, of course, be mistaken in this but have been making tentative steps along the Vosper line. I haven't copied anything from the tree I fixed and didn't realise that there was a corrected version of it. Is this available on the ancestry.com site, or is it attached to a private tree?
Whatever the outcome, I'm very interested in finding out where the preference for the name Ezekiel(as opposed to any other prophet) came from in both the Simmons and Vosper lines. I've noticed plenty of Ezekiel Vospers, as well as Johns and Stephens, in the C17 but the choice of Ezekiel as a Simmons name seems contemporary with the rise of Methodism in Cornwall in the 18th and 19th centuries.
My Simmons ancestors left Cornwall in the mid C19, many of them settling in Northern Ireland. My own 3xgrandmother, Elizabeth Pearce, nee Elizabeth Wintle Simmons, having been widowed in Cornwall, remarried and settled in Co Durham, in the North East of England. I have been corresponding with a third cousin x2 in Canada so have found this research quite rewarding.
I'd be very interested in anything you can tell me about the Vospers.
Helena
My Vosper connection is a long way back. I had been researching my 4/5xgrandfathers, both Ezekiel Simmons(the surname spelt in a number of ways) from Redruth. The elder Ezekiel was born in 1758 to Stephen Simmons and Joan(also spelt several different ways). On researching Joan, I came upon the marriage of Joan Vospar(sic) to Stephen Simmons as a likely candidate and was further convinced by the fact that her father was also Ezekiel, thus handing on the old custom of calling the first born son by the grandfather's name. I may, of course, be mistaken in this but have been making tentative steps along the Vosper line. I haven't copied anything from the tree I fixed and didn't realise that there was a corrected version of it. Is this available on the ancestry.com site, or is it attached to a private tree?
Whatever the outcome, I'm very interested in finding out where the preference for the name Ezekiel(as opposed to any other prophet) came from in both the Simmons and Vosper lines. I've noticed plenty of Ezekiel Vospers, as well as Johns and Stephens, in the C17 but the choice of Ezekiel as a Simmons name seems contemporary with the rise of Methodism in Cornwall in the 18th and 19th centuries.
My Simmons ancestors left Cornwall in the mid C19, many of them settling in Northern Ireland. My own 3xgrandmother, Elizabeth Pearce, nee Elizabeth Wintle Simmons, having been widowed in Cornwall, remarried and settled in Co Durham, in the North East of England. I have been corresponding with a third cousin x2 in Canada so have found this research quite rewarding.
I'd be very interested in anything you can tell me about the Vospers.
Helena
info_seeker
Aug 21, 2015
Hi there, pastminer!
I see that you copied down the tree I found on the Vosper family..... did you see that there was a corrected version of it? There were some errors in my family line, so be careful of entering stuff from it....
My mother was a Vosper, and I have been "collecting" Vospers from many different lines, some of whom have had DNA tests to corroborate our relationship and prove some statements on the document.
Do you have any interest?
Teri
I see that you copied down the tree I found on the Vosper family..... did you see that there was a corrected version of it? There were some errors in my family line, so be careful of entering stuff from it....
My mother was a Vosper, and I have been "collecting" Vospers from many different lines, some of whom have had DNA tests to corroborate our relationship and prove some statements on the document.
Do you have any interest?
Teri
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