William Ellery

I have added a picture of William Ellery to my website at http://www.belton.me.uk/Pages/Galleries_Pages/Ellerygallery/ellery_gallery.htm#williamellery1 At first glance, the framed picture looks like a portrait, but actually it is a very good pencil drawing, possibly with some sort of pastel highlights. The photograph is good, not perfect, as I did not want to risk taking the picture out of its frame.

When was the portrait drawn? Mr Ellery appears to be at about retirement age, so between 1891 and 1901, perhaps? William Ellery was my great great grandfather.

Remembrance Day

I have updated my website at http://www.belton.me.uk/ and corrected a few links to the War Memorial pages - the link on the home page goes to a list of memorial pages, following the links for each serviceman leads to a copy of the Certificate from the CWGC and also gives more personal information about some of the servicemen. The Certificates and photographs are provided by courtesy of the CWGC at http://www.cwgc.com/

If you know of any other relatives of mine who should be included in these pages, please let me know.

Isaac Belton

A few months ago I bought a copy of the will of Isaac Belton. In his Will, Isaac stated that he lived at Waen Fawr in the parish of Hope (Flintshire, North Wales) but, at the time, I was not sure of just who he was, there are several Isaac Beltons in my tree - and wills, as you may have noticed, often give details as to the health of the testator, his address if you are very lucky, but very rarely do they indicate an age or date of birth, and this was no exception.

Tonight I researched a certain George Belton, son of Isaac Belton; George married an Ann Kelly, and I was trying to match the information from the census and from other researchers with the information on our Belton family tree when I had the greatest surprise: Isaac Belton turned out to be none other than my direct ancestor, my great great great grandfather - and this is his Will!

It's nice to know that someone in the family had a bit of money to bequeath - even if it was only £13/2/6d ! (Ps, that £13.12 in new money).

A Belton in British Columbia

I have just received an interesting message from BC, telling me that one of my relatives, Ann Jayne Belton, who once lived in Bwlchgwyn, emigrated to British Columbia just over 100 years ago. I hope to hear more, soon, but in the meantime I am just wondering - why? What would make a young lady travel so far? Did she travel with other relatives?

Ann Jayne's brother, Edward O Belton, emigrated to Pennsylvania a few years later, he had already left Bwlchgwyn to work in the deep mines in South Wales and he and a friend from South Wales travelled together. A couple of years later, after a visit home, Edward returned to America accompanied by his younger brother and a cousin. They went abroad to work in the anthracite and coal mines, the motive is reasonably clear (and, so far as I can tell, Edward O Belton did well for himself in America), but Ann Jayne? That, I think, will be an interesting tale!