Revised Minutes of Wagstaff Meeting

Wagstaff Family Meeting


This is to report on the meeting of Utah Wagstaffs on 28 Sep 2009 at the home of Wayne and Clarissa Wagstaff in Bountiful. Wayne Wagstaff presided.

Attendees:

1. Craig Shelley: Descended from John..Isaac...Samuel...Ruth Wagstaff & George Jacklin...Mart (?) & G. F. Shelley
2. D. Jesse Wagstaff E-mail: djwagstaff@msn.com
Address: 276 E 100 N, Pleasant Grove, UT 84062
Phone: 801-785-5660
3. Ann Taft Wagstaff 
4. Yvonne Parkinson 
5. Cindy Pearson
6. Ray Fallows 
7. Kim Jacobson 
8. Naoma W. Sessions 
9. Willis & Elna Petersen 
10. Linda Maxfield 
11. Barbara L. Carlson 
12. Wayne & Clarissa Wagstaff 

Jess Wagstaff gave a poster presentation on the ancestry of the Wagstaffs of Utah. We all descend from three sons of John Wagstaff and Elizabeth Larkins from Northill, Bedfordshire. Thus the thee branches of the family.

Branch I

William Wagstaff, son of John and Elizabeth moved to Derbyshire where his son William joined the LDS church in 185- and later migrated to the Preston, Idaho area but was buried in Ogden. His brother John emigrated to the Evanston area and ranched on the Bear River. He did not join the church until 18–. We do not yet know if all of his family ever joined. Some of the Evanston family got into railroading and later moved to Ogden. No one at the meeting has contact with a member of this branch.

Branch II

Isaac Wagstaff married Mary Bathsheba Gillions in Northill. After Isaac’s death Mary and seven of her children and their spouses and children joined the LDS church and emigrated to the US. Mary and six of the children with their families came to Utah. William and his multiple wives lived in Salt Lake city, as did his brother John and sister Sarah Ann who married a Sears. Mary married a Bone and lived in Lehi, Samuel lived in American Fork, and Rachel Eleanor married a Hayes and lived in Pleasant Grove. Anne married a Juchau and did not get beyond Brooklyn, NY.

Branch III

The great grandson of John Wagstaff, Henry Wagstaff came to Brigham City via Canada. This branch has been documented in a number of publications.

The Wagstaffs were rural agricultural people of northeastern Bedfordshire, “The Wagstaff Belt”. The largest number lived in Wilden. They have been there since the early 1500s. Some of them were property owners and held governmental and parochial positions. Later large numbers appear in Great Barford and Potton. Still later the name appears in Northill. The county seat of Bedford was of some importance but the market town of Biggleswade was of greater importance because here they brought their produce for rail shipment to London, mingled with people of nearby parishes perhaps meeting future spouses, sought employment as servants and agricultural laborers for local farmers and “gentleman” of the manors, and here they walked to register births, marriages and deaths after 1 July 1837.

Much of the discussion centered on the reliability or lack thereof of a series of the 11 or more genealogical research reports dealing with, among other things, the ancestor of John Wagstaff. The research paid for by several Wagstaffs and others organized by Mary Peterson, was conducted by Brian Leese. Years after these reports were issue Leese was accused of fabricating pedigrees. Thus our Leese reports are under a cloud of suspicion although no glaring errors have yet been found. Roger Ward, a Bedfordshire Wagstaff descendant with a reputation as a meticulous researcher, has said our Leese reports are largely correct. Linda Maxfield has voluminous handwritten material from Roger. Cindy Pearson and Kim Jacobson have volunteered to help her organize, computerize and share this information. There are others of us who would be willing to help if need be. Other people in England such as Barbara Kent apparently do not always agree with Roger. Willis has said since the meeting that he has put them on our contact list.

Jess, being confronted with the confusing convoluted Bedfordshire Wagstaff pedigrees in New FamilySearch and being intrigued by broad statements in the Leese reports of wide area radius searches has started to extract all entries for Wagstaffs and some related surnames from the printed parish register transcriptions for all 130 Bedfordshire parishes extant in 1812. Progress reports can be made available to anyone requesting them and they will be put into our website when it is ready.

Discussion then shifted to identifying practical means of communicating amongst ourselves. A simple Email list was first proposed. Then there was some discussion of a blog. From there a website was discussed and Craig has since volunteered to set one up for us.

Jess Wagstaff

Wat's New

Well, I am back in business. I had computer problems that took a few months and then I spent the winter in Yuma, Arizona where the internet access was not the best. I have my excuses but in the meantime readers of my blog really laid some bombshells on me.


1. After thinking that I might never know what happened to Susannah Wagstaff (1866) I received two comments on my blog from John Earl from Portland, Oregon. He told me that she went to the mining district of Western Montana with two of her half sisters, Margaret and May Carlin who had married miners. John Earl is a descendent of Margaret.

Susannah Wagstaff married John Mentrum on 1 Nov 1888 in either Clark or Helena, Montana. She had three sons. John born in 1890 died as a teenager. Leonard born in 1891 married and eventually moved to Portland where his descendents still live. They have been in the sheet metal business. One of the family has put a pedigree and some fabulous photos, certificates and other images in Ancestry.com. Clarence born in 1894 moved to New York City where he was in the US Marines. I have not yet looked for more information about him.

Susannah Wagstaff was buried as Susan Mentrum in 1897 in the Forestdale Cemetery in Helena, Montana.

Oh Susannah, you are found at last!

2. Roger Ward contacted me to tell me that he had read my blog. He is one of our distant cousins who resides in Upper Caldicote, Bedfordshire. I have been hearing about him for decades. He probably knows more about Wagstaff Family History that any of the rest of us. He volunteered to help in any way he could. He has a pedigree in Ancestry.com but it is still private. We have been thinking about the best way to share what we have. One possibility is through Ancestry.com. I have an international subscription (it actually belongs to my wife but she lets me use it). With the recent announcement that Ancestry will be in all Family History Centers, there is the possibility that anyone even without a subscription could see the pedigree at any Family History Center. Ancestry's capablity of showing sources, images and stories is quite exciting.

Let me know if you have any ideas or would like to see some of the materials that we are accumulating.

Provo Edwin

It is likely that the Edwin Wagstaff who migrated from Scotland to Provo, Utah is not related to other Wagstaffs of the region. Therefore this is a new branch.

Ogden Elizabeth

Elizabeth Wagstaff Shupe joined the LDS Church in Cambridge, England and migrated to Ogden, Utah. It is likely that all of the Wagstaffs of Northern Bedfordshire and adjacent Cambridgeshire are related.

Please let know if you have further information.

Two families in Evanston, Wyoming in 1900 (1900 Census) were headed by a John Wagstaff. Both men were coal miners. One was from Derbeyshire, England. The other, Croydon John, was from Lancashire.

The latter bought a house in Croydon and married Sarah  Ann Molyneux (first husband was Willliam Shaw) in 1909. Morgan County probate and property records need to be checked.

Please let me know if you have further information.

1. This blog was started in May 2010.

2. Addition branches of the family have been found.
    a.  Mary Ann Bullock Wagstaff had a sister, Elizabeth Wagstaff Shupe, who migrated before her and settled in the area of Ogden, Utah.
    b.  Marie Loveridge who married James Sheen was the daughter of Sarah Wagstaff and grandaughter of John Wagstaff and Elizabeth Larkins. The Sheens settled in Smithfield, Utah and their descendents spread out, e. g., Kaysville and Salem.
   c. John Wagstaff married Sarah Ann Molyneux (previously married to Willam Shaw) of Evanston Wyoming in 1909 in Croydon. He was born in Lancashire, England in 1839. He seems to be another branch.

3. We have made several trips to local cemeteries in Utah and Wyoming. We have photographed several hundred headstones. Eventually they will be put up on Find a Grave.

4. I am trying to follow up on info from Willis Peterson about the Bedforshire Wagstaff descendant who was a sculpture and moved to China. He had two sons who died in WWII in the Orient. Anyone have more info? I got a little further info that his son was killed in the British defense of Hong Kong against the Japanese.

5. I am putting hundreds of images into my RootsMagic and hope to have post them here in this blog.

This is the record of the death of William Wagstaff, the father of Mary Ann Wagstaff Millington, Henry Wagstaff, etal.


XVIII. Death of William Wagstaff

STRANGE DEATH

On Wednesday night between ten and eleven, William Wagstaff, market gardener of Lower Caldecote, and his two sons went to the Grange to clear out a closet. When they had loaded the cart with the first load they went away to empty it and were absent about a quarter of an hour. On their return hey found their father at the bottom of the closet quite dead.

How he got in they were not able to say as he was left all alone. The hold is about three feet deep.

The Bedford Mercury, Sat. 19th January 1878 under Northill.

DEATH FROM SUFFOCATION

On Friday last, January 18th an inquest was held at the King's head public house before M. Piper, Deputy Coroner, on view of the body of William Wagstaff, aged 52 years, a notice of whose death appeared in our last. Arthur Wagstaff on being sworn said, "I live at Lower Caldecote in the parish of Northill. My father was a Market Gardener. On Wednesday night my father and my brother went to clean a cesspool out at the grange. We started at five minutes to ten. When we got there we began to fill two tubs. When we had filled them my brother and I went away to empty them in a field about a quarter of a mile off. When we got back we missed father. My brother called out to him but could not make him hear. We looked into the cesspool and found him with his head under the stuff. We could see his back; we lifted him out. He was quite dead. The stuff was four feet deep after we had taken a load away. My father was perfectly sober when we left him."

Francis Young said, "I am a surgeon practicing at Biggleswade. I was called to the deceased on Wednesday night last. I got to the Grange about ten minutes past eleven. I found him quite dead. He had evidently been suffocated."
The jury recorded a verdict of Accidentally suffocated by falling into a cesspool.

The Bedford Mercury, Sat. 2nd Jan. 1878, under Lower Caldecote.

Here are two newspaper reports on the death of William Wagstaff. The "other brother" was my grandfather Henry. Somewhere I have another article that show him by name.

Henry's children didn't know anything about this. They sensed that there was something unusual about him and my mother thought that he had probably committed suicide.

It must have made such an impact on Grandpa that he never would talk about it.