Jacksons of Radford, Mansfield....


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Just going through family tree and came across the site and pictures. My grandfather emigrated alone to Australia around 1915, a coal miner born in Mansfield. I have family letters and postcards from his mother in Clapham road Radford, a sister in Aspley Gardens and photos before 1932.  I have a lot of family tree, but nothing of younger generations, or stories of his folk back home. Any stories, memories, links would be greatly appreciated.

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I don't know whether there is a connection but some years ago I met a lady named Phyllis Bunn. Her father was a John Thomas Jackson and her mother was born Clara Sparrow, my grandfather's half sister. The Jacksons lived in the area around Clapham Street, indeed Phyllis remembered that among their neighbours was the Sillitoe family.

 

Phyllis didn't know very much about her ancestry but she did mention some chap who emigrated to Australia. Phyllis was born in 1915 and had a sister, Gladys M Jackson born 1912 and two brothers, Frederick Thomas Jackson born in 1913 and Kenneth Vivian Jackson born 1922. There may be no connection and, if there is, it's probably a sideshoot but thought I'd share the information just in case. I was able to copy some photos of her parents and brothers. Phyllis died in 2005 aged almost 90.

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Thank you Jill!

I had seen your name and have this Jackson Sparrow marriage in my tree. John was my grandfathers brother, Phyllis would have been my mother's cousin. So nice to know that the family kept going! My great grandmother died in 1932 and there was not much contact after that. When my mother died last year I came across all the photos etc sent to her father. She went to Nottingham with her sister in the 1980s, but there had been lots of changes, addresses hard to find.

I have a photo of John and Clara with a child but I think it was too big to attach! So nice to hear from you, I have so much to learn!

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Well, isn't it a small world, Jodi? I somehow had a feeling there might be a connection but with a name like Jackson, could have been wrong.

 

Phyllis showed me a couple of photos including possibly the one you mention although I can't be sure. She did have others but by the time I met her she was in very poor health and wasn't able to find them. They may have been destroyed when she died. I will post a photo I took of her when I get a few moments. She was a nice old lady but didn't seem to know much about her family and certainly nothing about William Sparrow. When I met her, she was living at 38 Seaton Crescent in Aspley. She was cared for by her son.

 

If you are able to post the photo you refer to, I'd be interested to see it. Using Postimages.org, as most of us now do, there shouldn't be a problem with the size.

 

Phyllis would also have been my father's cousin which sort of links our families! 

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It is a small world. We are related  through that link. My mother was Joan Jackson, Phyllis Jackson was her cousin, your fathers cousin.  John had a sister Elizabeth who married another Jackson who lived  in Heathcote Drive /Street  Aspley Gardens in the 1930s. In the letter I have she was hoping her daughter Nancy would get a job at the Players factory. 

My grandfather joined the army when he arrived in Australia in 1915/6 and was shipped to Egypt, Gallipoli and France, I think he came back through England. He married in Australia, worked in a coal mine again, had 3 children, enlisted in the army for WW2. He died in 1974 after living for over 50 years in a small town with his wife. I think, like many, he was affected by war, and never talked of the past, so none of us knew much about it. I will try to get some of my photos up. Thanks again Jill, made my day!

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Thank you, Phyllis looks like my recently departed mother!  Amazing.

(Struggling with this postimage stuff, persevering. Can't believe I can't do it. May have to get off iPad and use computer.)

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I finally got a picture up, involved signing into things with the Antarctic time zone! This is John T Jackson, Clara nee Sparrow and one of the children. I am going to put up Marion, Gladys and Fred, back to the ether. These are from original photos that my mother had in a box.  Names were written on the back by her grandmother in the 1920s.

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Jodi, it is great that your family took the time to write on the back of the photos who they are. Alas we have so many old family photos that we have no idea who they are or where they were and anyone that does is now long gone.

We must do the same with our digital images or when we digitise our photographs and not just leave the file numbers.

 

Whereabouts are you in this land down under? If you don't want it public you can just Private Message me or not as you see fit.

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Gippsland Victoria. I saw a doco about the backs of old photos which gave me more info on the family photos on postcards. Lots of those formal pictures have the photography studios' names on the back.Makes you wonder about our digital storage, we should be making hard copies of those things we care about! Enjoying winter?

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Brilliant, Jodi! The first photo is the same one that I copied when I met Phyllis in 1997 and shows John Thomas Jackson along with his wife Clara and their son Frederick Thomas. The photograph of the three children was mentioned but Phyllis didn't know where it was. Phyllis wrote three letters to me, both before and after I met her. She was housebound at the time and not able to do very much but she did say she was hoping to sort out a box of documents such as birth and death certificates and other photographs. Unfortunately, I never heard from her again, presumably because of her health. What happened to that box of documents I don't know but it may have come to grief although she did have children and I understand that she was actually married twice - first of all to a Thomas Shaw and then to a man named Alfred Bunn. Given the dates involved, I suspect her first husband may have been killed in the second world war but I don't know that for certain.

 

As I mentioned earlier, Clara was the half-brother of my grandfather Ernest Edwin Sparrow and I know for a fact that Clara stayed in touch with their father after he had emigrated to Canada. My father remembered Clara from his childhood days and I find it strange that he didn't remember Phyllis because on Clara's visits to Beeston to see my father's family, she would probably have taken one or more of her children with her.

 

Many thanks for posting the photographs and, as Michael Booth so rightly says, that is the magic of this site because it brings information into one place which helps so many people who may be looking for details of their family tree.

 

I rather suspected that you might say Phyllis reminded you of your mother. It's  amazing how many photographs I've seen of my mother's relatives who look very much like her - after all they are family.

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P_20170708_141303_002.jpg

 

This is Ted Sparrow, my paternal grandfather and Clara Jackson's half brother. He was born in 1891. Clara was one of 5 children born to William Sparrow and his first wife, Ruth Smith. Phyllis told me that her mother's maternal relatives were buried in Kirk Hallam churchyard. She got that slightly wrong. It's Kirk Ireton. I found them when I was researching a completely different family!

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Thanks Jodi, Soon be enough Nottstalgians downunder to organise a meet up even though we are all a bit spread out

Not much of a winter here yet, below average rainfall and not particularly cold to say it is "half past winter" already.

 

Reading your posts it is amazing the commonality of many families posts on here. We had/have family that worked at Players and in the coal mines in Notts and in Australia

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Really enjoying these posts, although when I was young having a reputation was not a good thing!

It is now good to go back to my Ancestry delving knowing more about people. I came across Jill's grandfather in my searching earlier today! 

Before these postings and my solo research I knew more about Robin Hood ( the tv show of the 60s that is) than I knew about my grandfathers life before emigration!

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Still learning this photo stuff! L-R 1. Gladys Jackson, John's daughter; 2. my great-grandmother Annie Jackson with daughter Nellie, and according to the back, Jack.  Is that John T? On the back Annie wrote that she was upset  with thoughts about Dad. Some mysteries and second marriages in this story I think. 3. My grandfather James (Jim) Jackson with his wife Annie in Australia early 70s, the next, cousins of Phyllis! Siblings, children of James and Annie, James (Jimmy), Joan and Connie Jackson around 1940 Australia.  Joan was my mother, predeceased by her brother and sister.  Each married and had 4 children.

One of Mum's cousins did come to Australia.  I remember meeting him in 1959 as a young one.  He had been a POW in Italy.  Served in RASC and captured in Egypt.  I have letters he wrote to my grandmother from the POW camp  expressing a long held desire to live out here.  His wife, Ginette, was lovely, I believe she may have been Swiss.  I have some records through the family tree, but I know they did not settle in Australia.  This bit of research had me reading about POWs for quite a while. Sorry about the overload of information here, but I never get to share much about it.  There is always one crazy auntie up the family tree who gets excited about the past!

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All interesting stuff, Jodi! Don't worry about being the crazy family member who's obsessed by family history. I've been that for decades! Once the bug has bitten, there's no cure.

 

I was intrigued that Clara and John named their daughter Marian. Clara's paternal grandma was Maryann Sparrow and Clara had a sister named Mary Hannah but who was always known as Maryann!

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  • 9 months later...

Just spent too much time looking through the 1939 Register. Filled a few gaps in my Jackson search. Confirmed some second marriages and married names of my mother’s cousins. Some of the married names were Radford, Somerfield, Bayliss, Comery and Ball. Still a few mysteries to solve. Anyone recognise any names from family trees?

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Some of the above posts may be difficult to understand.

 

Unfortunately, they've been hit by the 'Photobucket-Postimage' problem, so we are left with references to photos which no longer exist.

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My my PP' how the other half live. I'm 73 and  recently bought a suit - it's only my fourth!  slywink

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