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James ROBINSON
1829 - 1899 (70 years)
Has 24 ancestors and 126 descendants in this family tree.
Set As Default Person 
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Name James ROBINSON Relationship 
with Teresa Ann GOATHAM Born 31 Mar 1829 Old Buckenham, Norfolk, England 
- From baptism register
Baptised 26 Apr 1829 Old Buckenham, Norfolk, England - From PR entry (seen on microform in Norfolk Record Office, 2004; image on FamilySearch, viewed 15 Oct 2012)
James, son of James and Sarah Robinson, abode Old Buckenham, private bapt, rec'd in the church 21 June 1829. DOB recorded in margin
Gender Male Received into the Church 21 Jun 1829 All Saints’ Church, Old Buckenham, Norfolk, England - From baptism entry
Occupation 1851 Old Buckenham, Norfolk, England Corn merchants porter Occupation From 1861 to 1871 Miner; coal miner - In the 1861 and 1871 censuses, and in 1870
Died 23 Nov 1899 4, James Street, Marsden, Whitburn, Co. Durham, England Cause: Phthisis (5 years) - Died of phthisis (5 years) (i.e. a wasting disease, often TB)
Death certificate for James Robinson (b 1828) Siblings4 brothers and 5 sisters Patriarch & Matriarch 
Ralph ROBINSON, b. Est 1705, d. Jan 1774, Old Buckenham, Norfolk, England (Age ~ 69 years) (2 x Great Grandfather) 
Sarah DAVY, b. Abt Jun 1745, (probably), Norfolk, England, d. May 1790, Larling, Norfolk, England (Age ~ 44 years) (Great Grandmother) Notes - living at 79 New Cottages, Seaham Harbour in 1861 with wife and dau Ruth (Dawdon Parish); Silksworth Colliery in 1871 with wife & 7 children (incl step-son Matthew); 20 Sunniside North, Newbottle in 1881(with JW, Rbt, JJ, D, G, L); 9 Charles St, Marsden, Whitburn in 1891 (with wife, George, Lydia, John & John's wife).
Judging by children's birthplaces as well as censuses, the family lived:
1860: Washington
1861: Seaham Harbour
1862:
1864
1865
1868
1870
1871: Silksworth Colliery
1872
1874
1881: Sunniside North, Newbottle
1891: Marsden, Whitburn.
It seems they may actually have stayed put in Marsden or Whitburn: James' widow Margaret was in Whitburn at the time of the 1901 and 1911 censuses.
Person ID I301 All | Teresa's direct ancestors Last Modified 1 Oct 2022
Father James ROBINSON, b. Abt 1803, Old Buckenham, Norfolk, England , d. 14 Jul 1884, Ford Street, Thetford, Norfolk, England (Age ~ 81 years) Mother Sarah LUDKIN, b. 1804, Larling, Norfolk, England , d. 24 Feb 1877, Old Buckenham, Norfolk, England (Age 73 years) Married 7 Nov 1825 All Saints’ Church, Old Buckenham, Norfolk, England - From FreeReg
Witness William Turner presumably James' brother-in-law (sister Frances' husband); Mary Ludkin Sarah's sister.
I have a number of DNA matches to descendants of James and Sarah, including with descendants of their son William and daughter Lois. Most if not all are a single segment; the segemnt(s) could be from James or Sarah or some from each. Certainly I have matches with descendants of Sarah's parents who don't descend from James. I haven't noticed matches with James' parents but with a common name like Robinson they would be harder to notice. (My Mum's cousin Bill has a lot more and larger matches with this part of the tree - as being a generation closer to them would be expected, though with the randomness of DNA is not always the case)
Family ID F765 Family Group Page | Family Chart
Family Margaret EMMERSON, b. Abt 1837, Benwell, Northumberland, England , d. 1 Feb 1922, 6, Hedworth Terrace, Whitburn, Co. Durham, England (Age ~ 85 years)
Other Partners: [ - ? - ]Married Between 1857 and 1861 Research notes
I have looked hard for the marriage in the index on FreeBMD. TO DO: look at the local indexes in case mistranscribed to the central ones (or to FreeBMD)
Either,
* they may have married but an error in the register or failure to send a copy of the PR entry to the local registration office and GRO means it cannot be found indexes;
* as above but the entry was sent but lost (index-wise) at the GRO (the GRO created slips of paper to make the index - inevitably some will have been lost)
* they married but an error in the PR entry and / or index means the entry cannot be found
* they married but Margaret wasn't an Emmerson at marriage (see consideration of this below - summary: unlikley explanation)
* they did not bother to marry - seems unlikely unless there was a good reason
* they did not marry as one of them was not free to marry. It is worth noting that the likely date of marriage, c. 1859, James would have been aged 30, so there had been plenty of time for him to marry and for the couple to part company. With divorce effectively unavailable some chose to marry bigamously but others to live as though married.
Living in a highly populated area, with many moving in from elsewhere and themselves moving around it would probably have been easy for James and Margaret to live without any but close relations of Margaret knowing they weren't married.
Could Margaret have married and been widowed and then married James?
3 Margaret Em(m)ersons married in the period 1857 - 1860,
one in Southwark RD, very unlikely, one in Guisbro RD, not very likely, one in Sunderland - quite possible (q2 1859).
Latter was to a Joseph Walker or George Baker.
What's more, I haven't found Joseph or George with a wife Margaret in the 1861 census suggesting one of the couple had died (though of course, esp given that the marr was in Sunderland, they could have been at sea, and I haven't searched thoroghly for mis-transcriptions etc.)
Marriages of a James Robinson to a Margaret, 1857 - 1861 include one of a Margaret Baker (but q2 1858 so can't be Margaret widow of Geo as they weren't even marr by then!), one of a Margaret Walker; no surnames matching those in the Guisbro and Southwark marriages.
Marriage to Margaret Walker was q1 1861, Skipton. 2 snags - Skipton abt 90 miles from Washington and after the birth of Ruth, who was registered as a Robinson, not Walker. There were a no. of James and Margarets in or nr Yorkshire in 1861, incl one in Skipton, who could probably have been the couple who married in 1861 - I haven't checked them thoroughly (e.g. children), BUT I haven't found the Skipton couple in the 1851 census and they don't have any children, despite both being shown as aged 39 in the 1861 census, so I suspect it was them who married in Skipton RD, not my James and Margaret.
Children8 children Last Modified 22 Jun 2021 Family ID F213 Family Group Page | Family Chart
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Histories 
Journey to the pits
Ancestors travelled from Norfolk and even further from Devon to become coal miners in Co. Durham - but my grandfather reversed his grandfather's actions by running away from mining to go to sea.