Massive Shock re Sunters

May 28, 2009, Tim Sunter, Uncategorized, , 2

Rick McGarry has just replied to an enquiry I sent to him. It makes fantastic reading. Maybe we don’t know who we are after all!

Many thanks for your email and for giving me access to your tree on GR. Of course, I have reciprocated.

I have also had a look at your blog and I see that your SUNTER data agrees very closely with mine, except in one respect, which, if I am right, may come as a shock to you. I think your Charles SUNTER (b.1882) adopted the SUNTER surname in tribute to his STEP-FATHER, Joseph SUNTER (1849-1901). I think your Charles was born to Jane Ann SNOWBALL (1863-1947) over a year before she married Joseph SUNTER. Jane registered the birth of her son with the name Charles Hall SNOWBALL, thus indicating (1) that he was born out-of-wedlock and (2) that the father was probably a man by the name of HALL.

The well-known website, www.FreeBMD.org.uk, (which has transcribed the National Births, Marriages & Deaths indexes from the GRO), made a mistake when transcribing and indexing this birth registration – they transcribed SNOWBALL as SNOWDALL. If you search on FreeBMD for his birth under the name Charles SNOWDALL, you will find it in the June quarter of 1882, — with a middle-name — Hall.

 

Jane married Joseph SUNTER in the third quarter of 1883, when your Charles would have been little more than one year old. So I would guess, he grew up thinking that Joseph SUNTER was his true father, and thinking that his own surname was SUNTER. I doubt if Charles learnt any of this from seeing his birth certificate — there was almost no reason to have one in those days, before National Insurance and Passports made them essential. Of course, his parents may have told him the truth, and if so, he appears to have decided to adhere to the SUNTER name.
 

I have it that Joseph died in the first quarter of 1901, shortly before the census.

Sadly, I don’t know the answer to your query about how or when Charles died. My first thought would be that perhaps he was killed-in-action, in WW1. I think your father was born in the last quarter of 1917, by which time HMS Mars was reduced to a depot ship at Invergordon, so it is unlikely that Charles was killed whilst serving on her. Perhaps he was transferred to another ship, and was killed in action during 1918. Have you searched for his record of service in the Navy?

Do you know when his wife Emma (Marsh) died? If she died in the terrible Influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, which killed more people world-wide, than the Great War, then that would have left your father an orphan and, if no close relative volunteered to raise him, then the authorities had no option, but to place him in an orphanage.

 Have you obtained his records from the Children’s Home?

I think your father had three older siblings — Jane E. b.1911, Charles W. b.1913 and Amy b.1915. I presume they were also placed in a Children’s Home. Was it the same home that your father was placed in? Did your father know of their existence? If so, did he keep in touch with them in later life? Perhaps one of them, or their descendants knows what happened to your grandfather, Charles SUNTER?
 

My mother was a SUNTER, so I have been researching her ancestors for several years now, and have traced them back to a Richard SUNTER who baptised his sons at Grinton, as far back as the Baptism register goes – 1640. I think all the SUNTERs in Swaledale were probably descended from him., including your Thomas SUNTER, mentioned above.

The SUNTERs were tenant farmers and lead miners in Swaledale for at least 200 years, with some migrating to Wensleydale about 1770. As the fortunes of the lead mines declined from about 1830, many of them were forced to migrate away from the Dales. Some went to the coal mines in Durham, others to the lead, iron & coal mining areas in Yorkshire, and Lancashire, and others sought employment in the cotton industry. Several emigrated to America, Canada & Australia.

On your SUNTER branch, all of my data has come from the GRO indexes (FreeBMD), and the censuses. I have no certificates or intimate family knowledge, so I would be obliged if you would check my data and let me know of any errors.

You should find over 400 SUNTERs on my tree, including the ancestors of your Joseph SUNTER , as far back as Thomas SUNTER who married Elizabeth Wharton, at Grinton on 26 Apr 1718. Sadly there is a large gap in Grinton’s parish registers which is preventing me from taking this line further back, at the moment.

It would be easier to communicate directly, rather than through GR, so I am attaching my email address below.

I look forward to hearing ftom you. However, I wil be out of the country for two weeks from to-morrow, so I will not be able to reply to you until I return.

 

Best wishes and BFN.

 

Richard McGarry @ Eccles, Manchester.

 

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