Donald,
Ray and I have been working on this edition for a couple of months and asked for contributions.
We have received emails from our extended family readership: Brian Harrison from Sydney, Dick Weindling from UK, Leonore Neary US, Laurel Gray NSW, AU, Ray Lloyd UK, Helen Mitchell, Melbourne, Mark Healy, California, and Ray’s daughter Caroline with recent pictures of grandchildren.
In the interest of space and saving electrons, we will reprint the letters and submitted pictures in the August edition.
Thanks for the interest, your compliments and pictures. We love them.
Where it All Started. In terms of genealogical research the first entry found by Noel Burns in the IGI (the Mormon’s International Genealogical Index) Church records for Lincolnshire (i.e. the County where the family later lived for several centuries, so he may have only searched back in Lincolnshire records) is the marriage of William Jerom to Cecelia (Cis) Futtit on 29th July 1750 at St. Helen’s Church in Willingham-by-Stow near the city of Gainsborough (pictured above).
Their children had the quite “English” given names of William, Alice, Ann and Mary and, despite the fact that the surname of their parents was listed on their birth records as “Jerom”, the children’s’ surname was shown as “Jerrems”. I have seen minor variations of names (e.g. Jerrams instead of Jerrems) through transcription errors etc but the change from Jerom to Jerrems would appear to have been deliberate.
Noel surmises that William and Cecelia were probably both born in this village in about 1730 but the parents of both people are unknown. Probably he only searched in the locality because in those days people did not usually move far from one generation to the next. They both died in the village and were buried there on 27th December 1796 and 18th October 1798 respectively. (From JJ Sept 2005)
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Introduction – Ray’s Journey |
Ray Jerrems, Our Genealogist, Researcher, Adventurer and Historian
To mark the 100th edition of the Jerrems Journal I have assembled a collection of reminiscences about my research and the journey of the Jerrems Journal.
Relax, dear readers, I do not intend to bore you to tears with a dissertation on genealogy! I was a late starter Although I had been told when I was young that there were Jerrems relatives in Melbourne I had not taken any particular interest in taking the matter further, as one would expect from a boy who was more interested in the Scouts, riding his bicycle and climbing trees.
In fact the first concrete evidence I had was much later, from my wife’s best friend who, by an amazing coincidence, grew up in Melbourne with Carol, Lance and Ken Jerrems as neighbours.
Locating Jerrems relatives in America.
About 12 years ago our son Roger sent my wife Di an email addressed to djerrems@yahoo.com, overlooking the subtlety that my wife’s address was “d(underscore)jerrems”. Normally one would expect an incorrectly addressed email to merely bounce back. Instead we got an excited email from Dan Jerrems (obviously being “djerrems@yahoo.com”) in Baltimore , via Roger, to say that he had got Roger’s email and that we were the first other Jerrems people he had ever heard of.
We exchanged some emails and anecdotes but did not succeed in taking the matter of how we might be related any further. This was the first inkling I had that there was a Jerrems family in the US.
Dan’s coat. One of Dan’s anecdotes was that he had gone to a second hand clothing store in Chicago some years earlier and saw a very nice suede jacket. When he looked at it more closely he saw from the label that it had been made by Jerrems Tailors in Chicago. He made some enquiries about Jerrems Tailors but did not find out anything of use.
Somewhat perplexed that there were Jerrems people in the US, I mentioned this to my Aunty Vi, who lived in Sydney. She said that she remembered an Uncle Arthur and Aunty Mame who had visited her family from the US in the mid 1920s.
Don’s Note: My father, Donald the second, flew cargo planes during WW11 over the pacific to Australia. He told us siblings that he visited some Jerrems folks in Australia…and probably had a few beers at a local pub. Wish I knew more, but I have always known there was an Aussie connection.
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Internet research |
Although I carried out some preliminary research on the internet, with only moderate success because it was my first venture into this arcane area, I discovered that my cousin Doug had already located a number of email addresses of Jerrems people in Australia and the United States.
Subsequently I exchanged information with some of the United States relatives and began to build up a picture of the extent of the family there.
At about the same time I was contacted by a Melbourne relative, who told me that two Melbourne genealogists who were indirectly related to us had carried out extensive research on the Melbourne family and had commissioned a genealogist in England to research the family history there. This genealogist was able to search the parish records in the Gainsborough area and find out far more information than anyone living outside England could have hoped to have done.
Commencement of the Journal.
After I had exchanged information with Donald for a while about his arm of the family he suggested that we could use his existing website to continue a newsletter which he had started many years earlier. I had had quite a lot of experience in writing for newsletters and magazines of sporting clubs, so I quickly agreed. The first edition came out in June 2005 to a muted fanfare.
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Donald’s contribution |
Donald’s major contribution has of course been formatting and publishing the Journal, and inserting small items under (for instance) the category of “Administrivia”. However he has also invented the humorous characters of Angie the Guardian Angel and Old Ray (aka Old Rascal Ray). Old Ray first appeared in the April 2006 JJ as a former convict, introducing himself as follows:
I am the black sheep of the family. I didn’t even make the modern Ray’s family genealogy tree. Maybe it was because I was sort of disowned and abandoned by the Jerrems family back in the early 1800’s.
Old Ray then described the offences for which he had been convicted (cow tipping). Later he became notorious for gatecrashing major events like Nicole Kidman’s wedding (September 2006), a G8 Conference (August 2008), a President Obama conference (March 09), a Royal Wedding (Dec 11) and the Australian Golf Open (Nov 11).
A remarkable statistic is that in 99 editions Donald has not missed a single monthly deadline!
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Contributors to my research |
At the outset I was fortunate to receive assistance from two researchers who were distantly related to me, being Ian Harrison from Melbourne and Leila Menzies from America.
Since then I have received assistance from a large number of people, some of whom I located myself, but many of whom located me by googling the newsletter’s website or, later, by finding me on Facebook. These people (some of whom were serious genealogical researchers) included Georgia Stewart, Ray Lloyd, Adam Marshall, Dick Weindling, Alexa, Graham Harmer and Alan Fitz-Patrick.
It was indicative of the style of the Journal that these people liked my rather unusual concept of going beyond strict genealogical information to paint a picture of the subject’s lives, whilst accepting that at times I used a certain amount of literary license.
However my biggest contributor by far was Sandra Walcyk (see photo) from New York State, who is a descendant of another Jerrems family which originated in England which I have dubbed “The Wappenham Connection”. Over a period of time she supplied me with sufficient information about her ancestors for me to write 10 major articles, and I still have three more articles up my sleeve!
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Sue’s Visited Gainsborough … |
… and found a friend
A number of readers have contributed photos, with the most notable being Sue Jerrems, who took a number of photos while visiting the Gainsborough area in 2006.
These included photos of the gravestones of Mary and Jane Jerrems which she found in deep grass in the St Helens churchyard in Willingham.
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Mystery photos |
Some photos have led to much debate and surmise, one of the most notable being the photo of the little old lady rugged up against the cold in her wheelchair in the JJ of January 2012, located by our resourceful editor Donald from South Australian archives.
Fortunately a definitive answer was kindly provided by Doug Hogg, a descendant of the lady. We were not so lucky with the large photo provided by Laurel (February 2007) where we were hard put to even decide whether it depicted a wedding or a christening
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Most popular photo |
Probably the most popular photo amongst our American readers is the very touching photograph of the imposingly bearded Nicoll the Tailor and his little grandchildren Donald (the grandfather of our editor Donald) and Annie (the mother of readers Mark and Vincent Healy).
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Most dramatic story |
Weddings and Elopements
Who can forget the following 1837 newspaper account of the elopement of the great great grandparents of Donald and myself:
On Tuesday night, Mr T. Jerrems, the eldest son of the burgess constable of Gainsborough, having a chaise in readiness outside the town, eloped with the daughter of Geo. Jepson, Esq. a young lady of great personal charms. They galloped through Brigg, crossed the Humber at New Holland ferry, having first locked up all the oars and sculls to baffle pursuit, and at nine o’clock in the morning they were married at Sculcoates. A brother and uncle of the lady traced her, but arrived too late to prevent the nuptial knot from being tied.
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Research back to the 1700s |
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There have been a number of instances where articles describe people living in the 1700s. The most obvious ones have been Big Bill and his parents William and Cecilia Jerom.
Less obvious have been Nicoll the Tailor’s ancestors, my ancestors the Jepsons, Sandra’s ancestor General Nicholas Herkeimer, and David Jerrems who served in the American Revolutionary War.
The photo of a painting of the wounded General Herkeimer in his last Battle at Oriskany, during the American Revolutionary War is probably our most dramatic photo.
Most distant relatives. Although I have located quite a few third cousins in America and Australia, I have also located a sixth or even seventh cousin (Clive Henly, a fellow descendant of William Jepson b1718) and a fifth cousins (Sue Bingham in Willingham, a fellow descendant of Big Bill). Also, Adam Marshall, a Nicoll descendant, would be approximately a fifth cousin of Donald.
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Most scenic photo |
In recent years I have made a concerted effort to locate photos to illustrate aspects of my articles, even to the extent of modifying an article to accommodate the photo. I look particularly for a good photo to be placed at the top of an article, one of my favourites (in fact located by Donald) being the photo of Durham at the top of the article about John Jerrems, an ancestor of prolific researcher Alan Fitz-Patrick.
The Huguenot debate. Early editions contained research about the topical question of the origins of the Jerrems family, featuring research by Doug’s son Ari, from which I concluded that:
It seems to be highly likely that our Jerrems forbears were Huguenots who came from France in the late 17th Century, and that “Jerrems” came from “Jerom” which in turn came from the French “Jerome” or “Gerome”.(Sept 2005)
Don’s Note:
We like to remind you from time to time, Ray’s wonderful advice from September 2005:
On a light note, in future when someone asks you where the name “Jerrems” comes from, don’t shuffle your feet and look embarrassedly at the floor, or scratch your ear and look at the ceiling for inspiration.
No way! Look the person straight in the eye and say in a firm authoritative voice: “The name Jerrems comes from the old French family, Jerome, which dates back to medieval times” (medieval times are very fashionable at the moment).”
If you feel sufficiently confident that you can pronounce “Huguenot” correctly, you could add that a part of the Jerome family were Huguenots who migrated to England in the late 17th Century. Practice it in front of the mirror, it works wonders.
At least we have traced our family back to the 1700s, which is not a bad result in itself.
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Family reunions |
Pleasingly, there have been several reunions arising from my research. The first was in 2005 between William Jerrems lV (inevitably known as “Jerry lV) and some of his children by earlier marriages. The other took place in early 2010. After I had received letters from Anita Veale and Helen Mitchell and compared their addresses on the backs of the envelopes, I realised that they lived in virtually the same suburb of Melbourne.
This was amazing enough, when one realizes that their ancestors probably lost touch with each other about 80 years ago. But added to this is a further coincidence. When I told Helen where Anita lived she said that her youngest daughter Kelli went to school with a Kate Veale. Anita Veale confirmed that Kate is her grand daughter. When Anita and Helen arranged to meet for the first time they recognised each other.
Melbourne has a population of over 3 million people, making these coincidences even more remarkable.
Don’s Note: Ray forgot about the great gathering (nine in all) of Jerrems on Anna Maria Island, Florida for Vanessa’s wedding in May 2009. Pictured above.
(Probably one of the biggest Jerrems clan get togethers since Big Bill’s family sat down for dinner in the early 1800’s.)
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The most famous person in the journal |
Over the years we have had a number of people with claims to being the most famous person in the Journal, each with their own special area:
- Carol Jerrems, the Melbourne photographer
- Nicoll the Tailor, the famous tailor
- Alexander Jerrems, the gridiron player
- Jeanne Jerrems, movie actress
- Little Alice Jerrems, stage actress
- Doug Jerrems, YouTube Rock Star
- General Nicholas Herkeimer, Army General
- Patrick Healy, one of the founders of the musical instrument makers Lyon & Healy
- Warren Jerrems, marathoner
- Chick Keller’s grandfather, William, image on large bronze medal commemorating the Diamond Anniversary of the American Numismatic Association
Areas of future research. I must admit that I no longer have the “blank canvas” (a term beloved of budding home decorators in television shows who are confronted with a complete muddle of existing styles of decoration) that I had when I began researching the Jerrems ancestry. However there are still several comparatively untapped areas I have identified, with of course the continuing possibility that something will pop up unexpectedly.
Recent cases in point are the Fitz-Patrick family, of which I was previously completely unaware, and the Small family, which I thought was very small (ha ha!) but is showing ominous signs of being very large.
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Future topics for articles |
Although this may alarm some readers, I have drafted articles, or have at least earmarked topics for articles, to fill the journal for the next three years.
However, to make sure that I continue my supply (as astute readers may have observed) I have occasionally over the years strayed from the straight and narrow “ancestry research” path by including items of my own personal interest. In doing this I sometimes uncover some pearls, like the unique photo of the baby wombat in my recent article on Mountain Huts. Look for baby wombat and grand-baby pictures next month.