The Vaughan Genealogy Page

Part of the Jackson Family History Research

Updated 19 May 2008

Charles Vaughan = Charlotte Speight (nee Watson)

My great great grandparents

Surfing the Internet, I found a website focussing on Sheffield Genealogy and Family History with a page for Sheffield related surname interests.  Browsing the list I found an entry for Charles Vaughan giving the information that he was born in Sheffield in 1793 and married to Charlotte Speight in 1825 in Wath upon Dearne; and that Charles had died in Thorpe Hesley in 1839. A contact name of G Neal was given, linked to an email address.

I followed this up as this did seem to be my Charles Vaughan and Charlotte.  My email was answered by Gordon Neal and he very kindly supplied me with further information.  Gordon and his wife are from Wath upon Dearne, now living in British Columbia, Canada; and it is Gordon's wife who is a descendant of Charles and Charlotte. 

Charles and Charlotte Vaughan are the parents of my great grandmother Mary Hickling (nee Speight formerly Vaughan).  As detailed on the Hickling Family page, I received some of my information regarding Charles and Charlotte from Gordon Neal.

Gordon had listed their children and included a few details:

Charles and Charlotte Vaughan's children were:

Doncaster Archives hold the ecclesiastical records for our area and I visited there in 2004.  On subsequent visits, I followed up the information supplied by Gordon and I was able to add to this record -

My first search was for the baptism of Charlotte Watson - this was in the Wentworth baptism index records and read:

Searching through the pages to the back of the register, I could find no other record relating to Charlotte's parents.  I decided to work back through the book from Charlotte's entry and found -

On this visit I had found my three times great grandparents and also my four times great grandparents!! I realise, though that this was only a transcribed index and I need to locate their entries in the actual Parish Records.

Edward Watson = Susanna Nettleton

My great great great grandparents

and

John Watson = Elizabeth of Thorpe Hesley

My great great great great grandparents

and

John & Elizabeth Nettleton = of Hoyland

My great great great great grandparents

Obviously this task was made easier as Gordon had supplied me with some of the dates, but it still causes a tingling down the spine to find their details plus even more information.

Searching the Wath Parish Church marriage records for Charlotte Watson's marriages was my next task after finding them in the record book, was to search the microfiche records for Wath and these stated -

And in the Wentworth Baptisms index books, I found the following entries:

Searching the Wentworth Burial index at Doncaster Archives, I found an entry for the death of John Speight.  This Burial register is a transcription from the registers and shows:

14 March 1817; John Speight of Barley Hole; Age 26; and looking at Rotherham Archives in the actual burial register there is not much more information:

The following entry was from the Wentworth Baptisms showing that Charlotte's son George was born well after John Speight's death and before her eventual 2nd marriage to Charles Vaughan. There might be clues in the Parish Chest regarding the father of George.

Another entry showed the burial of Edward WATSON of Thorpe - this is probably Charlotte's father, I then found the actual register entry:

The above entry reveals Edward's date of birth to be about 1752.

and here's Charlotte's second marriage to Charles Vaughan -

Page 129

Charles Vaughan = Charlotte Speight (nee Watson)

My great great grandparents - from Thorpe Hesley

At Rotherham Archives and Local Studies Centre I was told that the Church records for Wath and other records which I wanted to see were held at Doncaster Archives (Doncaster were designated in 1979 as the Diocesan Record Office for the Archdeaconry of Doncaster).  But Rotherham had some Transcripts including the Transcripts for Wentworth Holy Trinity.  These were on  Microfilm and I was able to look for the birth of Mary Vaughan (my great grandmother Hickling).  I found an entry in the baptisms for 17 September 1826 -

Mary Vaughan baptized 17 Sep 1826

my great grandmother

An entry in the Wentworth registers supplied me with the burial of my 3 x Great Grandmother Susanna Watson, giving her age as 79 showing that Susanna Nettleton was born about 1752 -

Charlotte Watson died in 1839 - this entry is from the Wentworth Burial Registers:

And here's the information on her death certificate:

Column 5 was completely empty - usually it states "wife of/widow of" and names the husband and his occupation.

1841 Census

Charles now a widower, living with his children and step-children, Charlotte's children Susanna and George:

* Entry - Wentworth Baptism index: Charles Speight 12 August 1838 - Parent Susan Speight. 

I found Charlotte's son George in the National Burial Index - he was buried 3 October 1841, age 18, abode Thorpe, buried at Holy Trinity, Wentworth.

Mary Vaughan was living with the Loy Family also in Thorpe, in the township of Wentworth -

I have obtained the marriage certificate for Mary Vaughan's first marriage and the death certificate for the untimely death of her first husband, Abraham Thompson (details appear below after the 1841 Census table.

I found Abraham in the 1841 Census, living at Upper Haugh, Rawmarsh with his father, widower, Godfrey Thompson -

Godfrey and Elizabeth Thompson (formerly Hall) were the parents of Abraham Thompson.

The details on Abraham Thomason and Mary Vaughans' marriage certificate showed -

1851 Census - Rotherham, South Yorkshire

Township of Wentworth, Ecclesiastical District of Thorpe Hesley

Notice the anomalies when comparing the 1841 to the 1851 for Charles Vaughan's household.  For instance, the age for Charles was given as 39 in 1841 and 53 in 1851.  Page down for Burial record and Death Certificate - age given as 60 on burial record and 50 on certificate! 

Charles, George and Charlotte Speight were the children of Susanna Speight - in the National Burial Index, I found the death of a Charles Speight, age 14, buried at Wentworth Holy Trinity on 23 Feb 1853, the abode was shown as Thorpe. 

Charlotte Marsden was the daughter of John and Hannah Marsden; Charlotte and Charles's daughter, Hannah Vaughan, married John in 1849.  I can't trace them on any Census records, nor can I find their death.  I have yet to search the parish records - they don't appear in the Rotherham FHS's National Burial Index listings.

John Vaughan - Charles and Charlotte's son was lodging with the Speight family - William was the son of John and Charlotte Speight and step brother of John Vaughan.  William had married Sarah Sykes in 1838 - they were living in Occupation Road, Brampton, Derbyshire:

Strangely, in 1851, Abraham Thompson was living and presumably working in Doncaster - lodging at the home/hostel? of Brown White (a strange choice of 1st name) in Frenchgate, Doncaster:

And Mary was living in Upper Haugh, Rawmarsh with their young son, George:

Tragically Abraham Thompson died in the Warren Vale Colliery disaster of 1851 and his death certificate revealed that he had died in an explosion - the death certificate was not issued until 1852 presumably because of the inquest:

Abraham appears in the National Burial Index as being buried on 23 December 1851 age 26 years (sic); abode Upper Haugh.

I now need to find the Coroner's report of this tragic event.  There were 52 other people killed in this accident.  More on the unnecessary death of Abraham Thompson's can be found by following this link.

To date I have found two children born to Abraham and Mary Thompson - George, shown above in the 1851 Census, age one, and Frederick shown in the 1861 Census living at Upper Haugh, Rawmarsh with his mother Mary, by then the wife of Francis Thomas Hickling.  Tragically

I found both their deaths in the National Burial Index: I have not yet found the burial entries in the parish records and I also need to send for their death certificates to find out their cause of death:

* Shown on FreeBMD as "Fredis Thompson" age 17 registered at Rotherham Sept 1868 9c 403.

Here is the entry for Charles Vaughan's burial in the Wentworth Registers:

Age discrepancy continues on Charles Vaughan's death certificate - perhaps no one knew Charles's date of birth?

1861 Census - Rawmarsh, Rotherham, South Yorkshire

John Vaughan had married Fanny Portman on 12 April 1852 but Fanny died on 3 February 1861.  In the 1861 census, John was shown living in Rawmarsh, at Levitt Hagg -

Levitt Hagg was in the area now known as 'Manor Farm' - he probably lived in Green Piece Cottages.  John later married Sarah, shown above as his housekeeper on 13 Oct 1861 in Sheffield at St Peter & St Paul - my Great Grandfather, Francis Thomas Hickling, together with Ann Finney appeared as witnesses at their marriage ceremony.  Sarah was formerly Sarah Finney before her marriage to John Waddams.

Charlotte and John Speight's daughter, Susanna was in Thorpe Hesley with three of her children:

Susanna married George Hoyland in 1866 and they are shown, living in Thorpe Hesley in the 1871 Census:

John Vaughan now married to his former housekeeper, Sarah Waddams (formerly Finney) had moved to Greasbrough and in the 1871 Census are shown living in Fitzwilliam Square:

John and Sarah Vaughan's daughter Anna Maria Vaughan later married Oswald Stables - information about Oswald and Anna Maria can be found on the following link to an excellent website jointly hosted by Michael Chance and Andy Stables: http://www.stableshistory.co.uk/oswald_stables.htm - this page contains photographs of Oswald and Anna Maria and details of their life together.

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What a wonderful resource the Internet is for Family History Research, I have been in contact with other people who have carried out research into the Vaughan Family, Michael Chance has put me on the right track supplying me with several generations of the Vaughan family who originated in Dronfield, Derbyshire, moving to Sheffield, where they became Cutlers.  I knew that Charles Vaughan was born in Sheffield and had started to search the Sheffield registers at the Family History Centre at Grenoside.  Locating the connections now will be much easier thanks to the work done by Michael.  I wanted to look at the registers for Sheffield Cathedral not only for my Vaughan connections but also to try and establish if my 2 x Great Grandfather Christopher Braithwaite and his son Robert were in the records so I began searching the film for St Peter's and St Paul's Sheffield from 1789. 

The information in these registers is extremely sparse and its the busiest register that I've seen to date. The Marriage Register was many pages after the heading and each marriage record consisted of only one line, the first extract shown here is the marriage of my 3 x Great Grandparents: 

The next entry showed the baptism of Mary Vaughan on 5th November 1790:

In 1793 Thomas and Mary baptised a second child:

In 1793, though, there were two Vaughan burials, however, the first one gave no indication of a relationship but might be the Mother of Thomas Vaughan:

Thos and Mary baptised another child in 1795:

Then in 1796 yet another child burial:

According to Michael Chance three more children were baptized  - Samuel in 1797, my 2 x Great Grandfather, Charles Vaughan in 1799 and Sarah in 1802 but to date, I have only found the baptism of Charles and Samuel and a burial for Samuel in 1799.  I need to look for Sarah  in Sheffield St Peter Cathedral registers - I have only reached the year 1801 so I have not yet found Sarah's entry.  Here's the entries I found:

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Following up Michael Chance's research - Michael had found that the Vaughan family had moved from Dronfield to Sheffield and became cutlers, I found that Sheffield Local Studies hold lists of former cutlers and Freemen.  Sheffield FHS reminded me about Eric Youle's website.  Eric has a wonderful website packed with information on Old Sheffield.  http://history.youle.info/ is the link to this wealth of information I am very grateful to him for allowing me to use the small portion shown below. 

I extracted the following from pages 380 and 381 of History of the Cutlers Company: