Mary Jane Agar

I've been able to follow Mary Jane Agar a little further. Mary Jane was also known as Polly. There's a whole blog in the offing about names people are known by...why on earth are women called Mary Jane known as Polly?, how does Margaret become Peggy?, Henry become Harry? etc etc

Anyway, knowing that my Gran, Stella was fond of her Aunt Polly (Mary Jane Agar) leads me to think that she must have met up with her at some point and Gran lived in Hartlepool.

As we know, Polly was 'in service' and at one time was in the household of the son of Titus Salt but I've 'lost' her in between the 1891 census and her death in 1926. I'm not sure why I thought to look for  a death in Hartlepool but http://www.durhamrecordsonline.com/ might have helped but I do have a death certificate now.

From thinking a couple of years ago that she might have been pretty much on her own, being an illegitimate child, it cheered me very much to see that when she died, she was living in the household of her half sister Hannah (of whom, much more to come) in Hartlepool and her death was reported by her half brother, Robert. 

The death certificate lists her occupation as: Spinster. Daughter of Elizabeth Agar, the widow of Robert Stonehouse, Innkeeper (deceased). The informant was Robert Stonehouse, halfbrother, In Attendance. She wasn't alone.

I didn't know any of this until I bought the death certificate. How much other family history have I missed?

Agar - not just a jelly

Elizabeth Agar, according to copied notes of the Stonehouse family bible, was born at Wood Top, Carlin How on 22 Feb 1828, the daughter of William Agar

I'd been stuck with this for ages as I couldn't find any records for her at either Loftus or Brotton (the nearest churches) but thanks to Ancestry's links I saw someone had her as being baptised in Liverton. And there she was, baptised on 23 Feb 1829, daughter of William Agar and his wife, Elizabeth. This brings into a little doubt her date of birth as being a year previous, but then, some of my Welsh ancestors were baptised when they were 13.

I'd known Elizabeth had an illegitimate child in 1852 and I somehow had the idea that she was pretty much on her own, but having been able to check the censuses, found that she wasn't very far from her dad and her uncle.

In the 1841 census, Elizabeth is with her grandparents, Robert and Mary Pearson/Peirson (see how hard it is to follow families some times?) in Liverton and in 1851 she's in Danby (at the property next door to her dad) with the Baker family and a couple of farmhands who may well be responsible for the illegitimate child.

That child was Mary Jane Agar; at age 8 (1861 census) she's with the Williamson family in Cobble Hall Danby (next to Box Hall where her mam was) and was still there in the 1871 census. My Mam told me that she'd been 'in service' so I was prepared to look further afield for her. In 1881 she was in the Hall, Flasby, Skipton in the household of John Norcliffe Preston (Capt Hussars retd) as a parlourmaid; in 1891 at Baildon (Otley) in the household of Edward Salt (son of Titus Salt of Saltaire) as a waiting maid.

Elizabeth Agar's father, William Agar was baptised on 31 March 1798 in Danby. He first appears in the census of 1841 at age 40 in the same household as Jane Agar, 70, baker. He married Elizabeth Pearson in Liverton on 6 July 1823. A daughter Jane was born in 1824 and our Elizabeth in 1829. Sadly , his wife Elizabeth died in 1829 and William shows in the 1851 census as a widower with the Sawlor /Sowler family with whom he remained til his death in 1872.

William's father was Jonathan Agar, chairmaker and he married a Jane Ableson in 1796 in Danby. More work to do here to carry the line back a little further but I hadn't thought that we were so connected to Danby.  Or Liverton come to that. All places I know quite well but never thought there was a family connection!