I recently noticed that my brother Jon had a new ThruLine with an old Nicholson Ancestor:
This shows that Jon may be 6th cousin to KW and new match Derek. This is interesting as it goes one generation beyond my current Nicholson DNA/Genealogy Chart:
One question would be whether Hephzibah was the sister of my ancestor John Nicholson born in 1766:
I do have that John’s father John married a Hephzibah.
Hephzibah Nicholson Born About 1761
The main source cited by the ThruLines is a Habershon Tree at Ancestry:
Of special interest to me are the sources. Here is one:
This record says that there was a Hephzibah Nicholson who married a Thomas Habbershon in 1782.
Here is the tree from KW who matches some in my family:
KW also shows Hephzibah Nicholson in his tree. Even though I find no further record other than the transcription of the marriage between Hephzibah Nicholson and Thomas Habbershon, I am tempted to think that the Ancestry connection is correct.
Here is a non-conformist record for a birth:
This is from Attercliffe Zion Chapel for the birth of a Mercy Habershon daughter of Thomas Habershon, butcher and Hephzibah his wife. Here is Attercliffe at the top right of a current map:
I also have this on my Nicholson Web Page:
This has Samuel Wadsworth born in Attercliff in 1756. It looks like there was room for a Hephzibah to be born in 1761 or so. I mention a book also in my web page called Reminiscences of Old Sheffield, 1875. Here is an excerpt on John Nicholson of Darnell:
This John of Darnall married a Wadsworth so would have been arguably the father of Hephzibah. She married a butcher in Attercliffe. Although the reminiscence is sketchy above, it appears that this couple must be Thomas Habbershon and Hephzibah Nicholson.
Expanding My Nicholson DNA/Genealogy Chart
It seems clear to me that Hephzibah Nicholson – named for her mother Hepphzibah Wadsworth was the daughter of John Nicholson of Darnall. Here is Darnall to the South of Attercliffe:
We see in the same 1875 account that John of Darnall moved to Sheffield:
Here is Broad Street in Sheffield today:
Here is the start of my updated Chart:
It now consists of two lines down from John of Darnall. Hephzibah had Joseph according to the ThruLines, but the records for him are sketchy.
Joseph Habershon
There are at least three trees showing Joseph as the son of Thomas Habershon and Hephzibah Nicholson. Here is the main record shown for Joseph:
Here Joseph is a butcher which makes sense as Thomas Habershon was. However, the parents are not mentioned. Here is the 1825 Directory of Sheffield:
This appears to be the same Joseph – a butcher. My feeling is that the tree of DNA match KW is correct:
Derek’s Tree
The other Nicholson match is Derek. His tree only goes back as far as Maria Habershon:
Let’s do a quick tree for Derek. Here is Derek’s grandfather’s marriage record:
Kellington looks closer to Leeds than to Sheffield:
Here is the family in 1861 where we see that the mother Maria was from Sheffield:
This gets us to the level of Derek’s tree:
Here is a clue from Ancestry:
This appears to be Maria in the 1841 Census;
Cudworth is between Sheffield and Leeds:
The 1871 Census shows that Maria was born in Attercliffe:
Maria named her son Joseph Habershon Papworth:
That is a good enough link to the Habershon family foro me.
Here is the connection:
I had previously thought that Nigel had a wildly old connection to our family. KW and Derek have an even older connection. They are 5th cousins once removed to my mother.
Summary and Conclusions
- When I saw that my brother Jon had a match and ThruLines with new match Derek, I thought that would make for an easy Blog
- The Blog was not so easy as the connection was so old – to the 1700’s
- By adding these two new DNA matches, I can see that Hephzibah Nicholson was a real person – liikely named for her mother Hephzibah Wadsworth.
- The genealogy and DNA match was corroborated by an 1875 publication called Reminiscences of Old Sheffield. This publication had a section on the Nicholsons. This reminiscence recalled the beautiful daughters of John Nicholson of Darnell. One of them married a person who became a butcher. This was most likely Thomas Habershon who married Hephzibah Nicholson
- It is great to see that the DNA supports the genealogy which is in turn supported by an 1875 “Reminscence”.