Update on accomplishments on the Vosper line the past two weeks - 9 Feb 2016

On 9 Feb 2016 1:01 am, "Info Seeker" <infoseeker1980@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Vosper Cousins, including David Hillman,

We have added two more Vosper cousins to our chart: 

William E. Williams III, through his wife, Cady Williams, from Delaware, USA

Linda Jones, our second cousin from Plymouth…

I have added the people from Linda Jones lineage to my tree, and in the process saw that one of her ancestors was, interestingly,  born in South Africa:  Florence Ryder – born 1893 in Capetown, South Africa (http://person.ancestry.com/tree/34583261/person/18666344680/facts )  The Vospers certainly get around!

I just wanted to summarize all the accomplishments we have made in the past two weeks:

·        I discovered the tree of Paul Vosper, who had William Trevosper as the father of Johanes Vosper. 
·        Yvonne found the Genealogy.com tree of David Hillman, whose research has taken us back to the 1200s on the Vosper line, and the 900's on the Gifford line.  A HUGE FIND!  I have incorporated these records, and others found, into my tree.
·        David has been working with me to gather the source documentation for some of his research.
·        Francois Velde, the heraldist who wrote about "Jewish Heraldry" responded to my inquiries and let me know that the "Thomas" part of the arms referred to in the Visitations chart referred to the family of the producer of that chart, much later in the  family history, and did not affect our Vosper heritage.
·        I heard back from the proprietor of the Trevosper Barn, who provided me with a lot of information, including the article David Hillman had written for the Cornwall FHS.
·        The research to date points to the Jewish background being significantly earlier than Johanes Vosper.  Given the fact that Johanes is no longer the end point in our Vosper line, I have created a placeholder person entry for the last Jewish Vosper, and put all the research about Jews in England and the DNA results in that person's profile.  His name is "Jewish (PLACEHOLDER) Vosper" and his profile is at http://person.ancestry.com/tree/47009625/person/24454081783/facts
·        I have added a "Fact" to Johanes Vosper to collect information to connect the name Vosper to the name Trevosper:

I plan to add to this as I find things.

·        Cady was able to provide me with some documentation that David Hillman had sent her years ago, which was the pages of Burke's Landed Gentry showing a possible origin of the Vosper family as "Silesia".  This solves the problem of where the source of that information came from.
·        To determine where he/they actually came from we will probably have to rely on Y-DNA testing.  Robert Norris Vosper is upgrading his Y-DNA and we have entered him in a Y-DNA Project on FTDNA that specializes in Jewish ancestry.  We are hoping to get at least another male VOSPER  descendant to Y-DNA test, and have even offered to pay for it.  The goal is to match up these Y test results to others to help us narrow down geographically where the family originated.  I have recently found that the Vosper name is found in Czechoslavakia, which is consistent with the Silesia information.  Stay tuned!

I know you won't be able to read these, but I'm including them as visuals:

This is how much further back in time we've gotten with the Vosper line:

It should be noted that some of this is rather "iffy" as many of the documents we have don't list relationships, just names, and if we're lucky, dates.

David Hillman and I have this portion of the tree slightly different, and I'm hoping he'll be interested in ironing out the details so we can have matching trees.

The Gifford line goes back even further, and I had to make it very tiny:

This portion of the tree is mostly based on David Hillman's research, and I have yet to begin working at earnest to document his findings.  I think there may be a few differences that I've incorporated from other trees.  Yvonne has been helping a great deal, but she's off on vacation in Kuala Lampur (sp?) this week….

Meanwhile, Robert Norris Vosper is off to Bermuda, visiting his son and tracking down another Vosper cousin who lives there.  They discovered him while shopping in the Vosper Furniture Store, and I think they are going to meet with him this week to figure out where his family comes in.  I think Bob said that his son said that the previous owner of the Vosper Furniture Store is of Canadian origin, so he might be from Cousin Jim's line.

David Hillman has not yet responded whether he wants to be part of our little Vosper Cousins group, and I'm including him on this and the cousin chart temporarily.  Cady has sent me an invitation to her private ancestry tree, and I want her permission before I add her line to my tree. 

Work to be done:

1.     I'll be following up on correspondence with potential Y-DNA donors, David Hillman (about sourcing his research) and Cady about making her Vosper line public on my tree.
2.     Adding additional sources and media that I found yesterday but was too busy watching the golf tournament and attending a SuperBowl party to get done.
3.     Beginning the confirmation and documentation of the Gifford line.

That's the update for now!

I'm going on a bit of a vacation next week, myself, and while I will have email, I have to be a good 'guest' and not do too much research….

Have a great day!

Cousin Teri