A couple of years ago, I struck genealogical gold. We all have touchstones: things we would ideally like in our family history. Some people want royalty, but I’m a bit weird. I wanted bigamy. My great-grandfather’s first cousin, Richard Kent, was a bigamist. I wrote about it for Family Tree Magazine, in my first published article for a UK magazine. Look out for another later this summer!
But I’ve now found another multiple marrier. Step forward: Thomas James Walters. He’s the younger brother of my Liverpudlian great-great grandfather, George. Until last week, he just had a birth, baptism and two census returns in my tree.
As a professional genealogist, I don’t spend a lot of time on my own family tree, which I admit is pretty developed. I’m unlikely to make any direct line breakthroughs soon. I was reviewing my 23andMe matches, in case they disappear, and I remembered an exchange with a particular match who I’ll call Fiona. She matches my aunt at approximately 85cM and me to a smaller degree. Fiona had some names in her family tree and one was Walters. Back then, during COVID, I didn’t know that my Walters family were English yet. When I chatted to Fiona, she gave me the name of her grandfather, George, born in Atlanta and his parents, Thomas and Sarah, who were English. She thought the connection must be elsewhere. But I thought the names were too much of a coincidence, and I could tell from the relatives in common feature, that this was the relevant line.
In reviewing that conversation, it struck me that I probably had enough information to find the family in Georgia and see if I could make any concrete connections. So I built a speculative tree on Ancestry. When doing this, it’s always advisable to make it private and unsearchable, so that no one seems the research before you’re ready to share it.
I plugged in the information I had and started searching and soon identified a George Walters who lived in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, but was born in Georgia. Quite quickly, following through his life, I realised there was another DNA match to his line. Let’s call her Eloise. She matches my mother, another aunt and their paternal first cousins (the Walters side) as well as some more distant people on that branch.
After some more research, I figured out that Fiona and Eloise are first cousins through their mothers. Thomas Walters is their great-grandfather.
So let’s go back to my Thomas Walters for a moment. He’s the son of Robert Walters and Mary Cornwall, born on 10th January 1866 in Liverpool and baptised two weeks later. I hadn’t ever explored him before.
He was with his family on the 1871 and 1881 censuses. On the latter, he was a paviour – someone who lays paving stones.
Some trees had him marrying a Martha Pearson in 1890 in St Mary’s Kirkdale but we all know we cannot rely on other people trees. A trip to FamilySearch found me a copy of their marriage which confirmed he was the right guy. I knew because the address he married from was the same as his sister died at the following year, as well as the matching father’s name and occupation. Robert Walters, one of the witnesses, is his brother.
Martha and Thomas had a daughter born the next year. I bought a copy of Georgina Simeon Walters’ birth but the image is cropped wrongly. All you can see is that her mother was called Martha. Her middle name comes from her maternal grandmother. I’ve requested a refund but it takes a few days for the England/Wales GRO to respond.
So the next obvious step is the 1891 census in March. There’s no sign of Thomas, about whom more in a minute, but his wife and daughter are living with Martha’s aunt, Ann Simeon. A point here about using different sites for research. I couldn’t find them on Ancestry so I switched over to FindmyPast, which found them mistranscribed as Wallers.
Meanwhile, over in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, a Thomas J. Walters married Sarah J.Salt on 23rd June 1891. This record is a marriage licence. It doesn’t give parents’ names. However, Thomas does say he’s a paver and his date of birth was 10th January 1869. He’s made himself 3 years younger. He also says he’s not been married before: you big liar, Thomas. Both people were born in England. Sarah’s family had emigrated a couple of decades before and are easily found in the records.
The following year, Thomas and Sarah had a daughter called Antonetta, who sadly died of marasmus when she was just two months old. Her name is another clue. My Thomas had a sister of the same name, named after their Cypriot aunt in law. Antoniette Jones, née Walters, died on 21st February 1891. This must have been a terrible year for the family. My own ancestor, George, now living in Dublin, died later in 1891.
So what happens next? Thomas and Sarah had another child, George, who is the grandfather of my DNA matches. He used the date of birth 9th November 1894 on his US Draft records but his mother said he was only 4 on the 1900 Federal census. I haven’t found a birth cert yet. Sarah was the head of household – with several lodgers, but no husband. She recorded herself as a widow.
But wait, there’s more. Back in Liverpool, Thomas and Martha seem to have had another child! Poor little Thomas didn’t live long either. He was buried on 20th February 1898 in the same parish graveyard.
Now for another twist! Martha remarried the same week as Thomas died, claiming to be a widow. She de-aged herself a little for this marriage, presumably because her husband was younger. Martha went on to have two more children with Martin Burrows, and married again later in 1919 to William Henry Jones.
Back in Pittsburg, another tragedy struck. Sarah Walters, née Salt, was murdered in October 1904 by one of her lodgers. He took a fancy to her, but she wasn’t interested. He shot her while she slept, which was witnessed by her 9 year old servant girl. She must have been traumatised for life. The article is a little graphic so I won’t reproduce it here but this excerpt is very interesting.
George went to live with his aunt. He grew up, married, had children and grandchildren and died an old man. He presumably never knew about his half-siblings in England or what happened to his father.
Thomas’s first wife either thought he was dead or she also knowingly committed bigamy.
I haven’t found a death for Thomas yet. There’s a lot of user-created trees on Ancestry which seem to feature him. Several have him moving to Australia, but a cursory look at actual sources show that’s a different person with the same name. I’ll keep looking though. If you have any ideas, let me know!