The nature of studying ancestry is that as you continue searching you find you’ve made mistakes. So in the interest of full disclosure here are a series of corrections. In Episodes 18 and 24 I have the wrong ancestry for dad’s grandfather Thomas Alderson’s grandparents. In episode 19 I had an error in Thomas Alderson’s maternal ancestry. Based on the records I’d found and dad’s information about the family, it was clear that Thomas Alderson’s father was George Alderson and mother Elizabeth Pounder. Our cousin Anne has confirmed that her mom, Winnie [Gramma Laura’s beloved half sister], also thought that George had married a “Pounder.” I subsequently have found a key document that makes it clear that I was wrong about the next earlier generation of Aldersons. The key info was in the marriage record for George Alderson and Elizabeth Pounder dated Dec 1 1849.
As you can see, Elizabeth is listed as a “minor” so presumably needed her father’s permission to marry. She was about 16yrs old when they married. More significantly, note that the document lists George’s father as “William, leadminer” [not a farmer named “John” as I had thought]. This meant that I needed to find a William with a son George of the correct age.
I reviewed the 1841 census data for Muker and for all 52 villages and small towns in Swaledale Yorkshire near Muker. Although the marriage license listed them both as living in Muker, I looked at other nearby villages because people living in a small village near Muker sometimes listed Muker as their home, because neighboring villages were in “Muker Parish” and besides Muker was the Big City [population about 400] that everyone knew. The occupation of every adult male was listed in the 1841 census. The census records lists no William who was a leadminer with a son George of the appropriate age [about 15 yrs old at that time] in either Muker or the closest 52 villages. The confusion relates to the fact that the Census of 1841 [“The First Modern Census”] was done in a way in which everyone was only counted once, but members of a given family although counted, might not be linked to their families. The idea was to list everyone in the whole country at one specific moment in time…and that moment was the evening of June 6, 1841. So if a son was out of the house on that night, he was not listed as a member of the family. Although the 1841 Census does not list George living with the rest of the family, there is an entry for a 15yr old George Alderson staying overnight at an inn about 30 miles south of Muker. This was the only year that George could have been listed in the family of “William leadminer.” The same issue [Where did you sleep on June 6, 1841?] is also relevant to Elizabeth Pounder who was staying with her grandmother that night, so the census did not list her with her parents and sibs. By the second census (1851), George had left home and married Elizabeth Pounder so they were listed together.
In the 52 villages/towns there are a few William Alderson’s who were leadminers; however, there was only one who could have been the father of George based on the ages of all “William leadminers” and ages of all sons named George. This William was born in Muker about 1790; he had married Mary Calvert on 15 April 1810. Coincidentally [or perhaps no coincidence at all], this William Alderson family was living in the city of Muker a few houses away from the house of Philis Whitfield and her 8year old granddaughter Elizabeth Pounder.
Finally, if all of the census data of 1841 and 1851 are compared, it is clear that the Alexander Pounder family [Elizabeth Pounder Alderson’s parents and sibs] moved into the Philis Whitfield’s house in Muker after 1841 and before the census of 1851…this was the house that 8yr old Elizabeth had been staying in on the night of June 6, 1841 with her elderly grandmother. The Pounder family apparently moved there when Alexander left the tavern business at nearby Tan Hill and became a lead miner. After marrying, George Alderson and Elizabeth Pounder moved into a house a few doors from the Whitfield/Pounder home to the house that had been occupied by the above-mentioned William Alderson and Mary Calvert Alderson. So by 1851 George and Elizabeth were living in his parents house and Elizabeth’s family had moved to her grandmother’s house a few doors away.
The generation of Alderson’s before William appears to be James Alderson [1751-1818] who married Catherine Calvert [1755-1829]. James Alderson’s daughter Catharine [b. 1797] also married a Calvert [James Calvert]. It may be that there was some prestige associated with marrying into a family distantly related to the famous statesman George Calvert or it may be that our branch of Alderson’s just keep meeting Calverts at wedding celebrations and liking them a lot.
Alderson generations earlier than these are at present uncertain to me. Records are sparse before the formal census data began to be collected in 1841. I consider the generation of William Alderson [1825-1894] and Elizabeth Pounder [1832-1878] the earliest Aldersons who are definitely our ancestors. The generation of William Alderson and Catherine Calvert Alderson is about 99% certain. The generation of James is based on a limited number of documents, so more data would be helpful. A family bible or some other similar data will be necessary to get at earlier generations.
Cleary Family History 