There were two things that sparked my interest in family history from an early age. One was that we were a sociable family and often had visitors. On the whole I called older friends and relations Auntie or Uncle and eventually asked how they were related to me. Some of them were quite distantly related though close in other ways, this led to me eventually drawing up a formal family tree.

The second thing was that my Great Grandmother Nellie Willis was born in the USA, to recap earlier blog posts, her English father brought her and her sister back to County Durham after their mother died. But she left behind Aunts and a runaway Uncle from her mother’s side of the family. I hoped to eventually find family in the USA and to maybe go out there and visit them, a childish fantasy, but it got me interested in my American cousins.
I have blogged about her Aunt Eliza in Which Elizabeth Halden? and promised more to follow.
What happened to Eliza, sister Mary and elusive brother Edward? Did they fare well in the states? Was there a large family waiting to hear from me their cousin in England (only child of an only child of an only child)?
My blog about Elizabeth shows that she remained in England when her siblings and parents left for the States. She married a miner called Thomas Hiden, I find this slightly odd as her occupation is given as governess and I do wonder how their paths crossed.
Elizabeth is living with Thomas and daughters Rachel Ann and Eliza in the 1851 census, records show the couple also had a daughter Jemima who was born and died between the 1841 and 1851 censuses. I can find no other record for Eliza, certainly not in the Walsall registration district, but it seems she must have died fairly young.
Elizabeth Halden/Hiden/Twigger
After this census the entire family disappears from England, there are no likely deaths for Thomas and he is not the Thomas deported to Australia nor the Thomas married to Rebecca who emigrates to the states.
Elizabeth is not to be found again until 1870 living in Topeka with husband George Twigger and a Josiah Twigger, you will have to take my word for it that this is her, explanations to follow. However, Topeka is the final place where my Great Grandmother lived in the USA and is the place where her mother Rachel Halden (Elizabeth’s sister) is buried. Elizabeth’s age is given as 40 (she is closer to 50) and George aged 36 is described as a farmer. I’m not sure of Josiah’s connection to George but his occupation is labourer, he is too old at 25 to be George’s son.
In the March 1875 census for Topeka, George Twigger is described as a farmer aged, 40 Elizabeth has apparently aged just two years and is now only 42 (although the age is hard to read).
On 18 December 1881 Elizabeth was mentioned in the Topeka Daily Capital because she had some post that needed collecting, I hope it was a Christmas letter and not a bill.

Ten years later on 1 March 1885, the couple can be found in Topeka, George is now a gardener aged 49 and Elizabeth has the more realistic age of 62.
An exciting event in 1891 for Elizabeth was the receipt of her war pension which received two notices in the paper. I suspect at least one of the items is paid advertising for the services of PH Coney war claim attorney. The second article, paid for or not, gives a flavour of Elizabeth’s personality, she also seems happy with her move to the USA, I wonder if she would have felt the same pride under Donald Trump.


Elizabeth ages at a faster rate again according to the 1895 census and on 1 March 1895 Topeka, she can be found, now widowed, living with daughter Rachel Joyce, her age is given as 74.
We can be thankful for a slow news day in October 1897 when the paper reported that Elizabeth was visited by her niece Minnie from another location in Topeka. More of Minnie to follow.



In 1900 Elizabeth is in Pine Street Topeka, living with Rachel Joice and Great Granddaughter Annetta L Joice, her age is now a reasonable 79 and a birth date of December 1820 is given which fits with her UK census record for 1851.
Elizabeth died on 18th April 1901, she is buried with husband George in Topeka cemetery.
Elizabeth’s story poses almost as many questions as it answers.
What happened to Thomas Hiden her first husband?
When and in what country did she marry George Twigger, if at all?
What happened to Elizabeth between 1851 in the UK and the next record in 1870 in Topeka?
And you are probably wondering how I know that Elizabeth Twigger is Elizabeth Halden.
Let’s go back to her children.
The UK census and the birth marriage and death records show that Elizabeth had three daughters, Rachel, Eliza and Jemima, I am not sure about the death of Eliza but it seems that she died young, I can find no trace of her in the USA. Jemima died in the UK aged two.
Which leaves Rachel
Rachel Hiden
A marriage for a Rachael Hilen can be found in the Daily Inter Ocean newspaper on 5 May 1869, she marries a Henry E. Joyce also from Chicago. It is Hilen not Hiden but it was worth checking out Rachel Joyces (or similar spellings) in the USA.

Rachel Joyce appears next in the 1880 census in Bridgport, Fairfield, Connecticut she is widowed, living with an Ephraim Doolittle and his wife Emily, she is working in a tannery. So Rachel’s marriage was relatively short, in fact her husband died on 19th January 1875 in Cook County Illinois and he is buried at Oak Woods cemetery in Chicago. It is odd that Rachel is living in Connecticut but that her husband died in Chicago, however the Joyce family were from Bridgport originally. Further investigation proves that Emily Doolittle nee Joyce was Rachel’s sister-in-law so clearly there was no animosity between Rachel and her husband’s family, this is odd as I will reveal later.
Rachel is next found living with Elizabeth Twigger in the 1895 census in Topeka and this is how I tracked down Elizabeth, although the census doesn’t give their relationship. Both are born in England and Rachel has moved to Topeka from Connecticut so that looks likely that it isn’t another Rachel, also distinctively she is Rachel Ann.
Rachel next appears in the newspaper when she holds a badly attended birthday part for her daughter Jenny, this is the first I have heard of Rachel having a child or children. I do feel sympathy that the bad weather put people off going to the party, I hope Rachel and Jenny weren’t too disappointed, perhaps the newspaper article is a quiet dig to those who didn’t make the effort to attend. More of Jenny to follow.

In 1901 Rachel is living with her mother Elizabeth Twigger and her grandchild four year old Annetta, the census records that she has had two children but only one is living, so another mystery child to be found and who is the parent of little Annetta? (It seems most likely that the child was actually called Anita)
A newspaper article in 1902 reveals that Rachel is selling some household items from her home in Pine Street, Rachel is going through a sad time as Annetta died that year and Rachel’s mother Elizabeth had died in 1901. It seems likely that Rachel was preparing for a move.
And indeed by 1910 Rachel has moved. She is back in Connecticut living in the same house as a German mother and son, although both Rachel (spelt Rachelle) and the mother are described as heads of the household, so maybe the house was split into apartments. This record says that she had three children and that one is living.
In 1920 we find Rachel living in Bridgeport Connecticut with her one surviving child Thomas W Joyce, his wife Ida (nee Buckingham) and their two adult children Louis and Helen. Rachel has reached the age of 73.
The final census for Rachel is 1930 still in Bridgeport with Thomas, Ida and Helen, according to this record she is 84 years old.
Rachel died in Bridgeport on 15 May 1931, she outlived her husband, one child (possibly two) and a grandchild, born in Staffordshire, England she lived in Illinois, Connecticut and Kansas in various stages of her life. She had to put her children in an orphanage while she worked in a tannery to make ends meet but she lived with both her daughter and son in her later years and through the stories of Clara Jenni Joyce and Thomas Willis Joyce which follow we can learn a little more about Rachel.
Thomas W Joyce
Thomas W Joyce is the son of Rachel Hiden and Henry E Joyce, he was born, according to census records around 1871 in Connecticut. The first record I can find of his existence is the 1880 census for Bridgeport Connecticut where he and his younger sister Clara Jenni are in the Bridgeport Protestant Orphan Asylum. I find this most odd as at the same time their mother is living with their paternal Aunt and her husband in the same city. You would have thought that between them they could have cared for two school age children, Rachel was working in a tannery but the children’s Aunt was “keeping house”.

This is even more surprising as a newspaper report from 1892 just short of Thomas’s 21st birthday shows that he and Clara Jenni received a very reasonable legacy of $5000 from their aunt, widow of New York millionaire Daniel B Fayerweather. Another beneficiary is Mrs Ephraim Doolittle, the Aunt their mother was living with while Thomas and Clara were in the orphanage. Mrs Ephraim Doolittle was born Emily Louise Joyce, younger sister of Henry Joyce; Lucy Joyce was the eldest sibling in the family and she became Mrs Fayerweather the benefactor. To put things in perspective $5000 dollars would equate to about $151,971.98 today (2021) around £38,000, not a bad start for a 21 year old.

Newspaper records show that on 24th October 1895 Thomas married Ida E Buckingham and by 1900 he is living with Ida and their two children Louis B Joyce and Helen L Joyce, the family are living at 27 Tom Thumb Street, Bridgeport. (PT Barnum was from Connecticut and first met Tom Thumb in Bridgeport).
PT Barnum was actually Mayor of Bridgeport as was Edward T Buckingham Thomas Joyce’s brother in law. His wife Ida was present at her brother’s inauguration.



Thomas clearly recovered from the above bout of pneumonia as he is recorded in two further censuses. In 1920 he is living with both children, his wife and mother, by 1930 son Louis has left home so Thomas is living with three generations of women, he runs a printing company.
This article records very well the life of Thomas Joyce, unfortunately I am unable to find the source. I’m not sure what to make of the masonry connections but my Grandmother had a book about the masons as I understand her grandfather Thomas Willis had been a mason, maybe it was something he took up while in the states.

Thomas Joyce died on 24th April 1937, from an inauspicious beginning he seemed to live a successful and comfortable life and took care of his mother in her older years, whatever her reason for putting him in the orphanage in his early years, he had clearly forgiven her, but perhaps there was nothing to forgive.
Thomas had two children, a son and a daughter Louis Buckingham and Helen L (I don’t know what the L stands for).
Louis served in the Marine Corps during WW1, from the various documents we learn that he was 6ft tall, slim with brown eyes and light brown hair (maybe a bright brunette like his aunt, see article to follow?). He married twice, first to a Madeleine Craddock who died just four years later, then to Catherine Logan, neither marriage appears to have produced children. Louis was a salesman by profession.
Sister Helen had a brief marriage to an Oliver Martin which ended in divorce and Helen reverted to her maiden name. Helen was a primary school teacher like her mother, she died in 1976.
A rather unfortunate event involving Helen must have been upsetting for the family. An extract from the local paper The Bridgeport Times shows that servant Carrie O. Duffy was arrested for stealing from Helen Joyce. It is a little odd that it is specifically Helen’s money and property as she was living with her mother at the time. Perhaps it was Helen who took the case to court.


Clara Jenny Joyce
Clara Jenny Joyce was born on 25 March 1874 in Chicago, her parents were Henry Joyce and Rachel Hiden. Clara or Jenny as she seems to have been called had a short life and I feel a slightly sad one. Like her brother Thomas she was in an orphanage shortly after her father’s death, but later newspaper reports find her living with her mother Rachel. As previously mentioned Jenny had a poorly attended birthday party which was reported in the local paper.
Aged just 19 Clara Jenny married a James Magill of Hennessy Oklahoma, the wedding is described in lavish terms and was attended by “three to four hundred people” am impressive although vague number. This is clearly the number of people at the church as the reception was at the bride’s home. The bride is described as a ”bright brunette”.

The next news of the couple is the birth of their daughter, Anita. The announcement is made on the 14th January just three days after the birth of Anita’s second cousin once removed my Grandma Winifred Willis Airey. I can’t help but wonder if they would have got on had they ever met!
Jenny and Anita are next mentioned in a Topeka paper in the summer after Anita’s birth when they go to Connecticut for a holiday with relatives and friends.
The next we hear of Jenny is her death which is recorded in December 1896 in the Topeka State Journal. Jenny died in Christ Hospital in Topeka and her address is a Topeka address. I wonder if she had separated from her husband.

Jenny’s rather sad story doesn’t end with her early death, she left behind a daughter less than a year old, so what became of her?
You may remember that Jennie’s mother Rachel was living with her granddaughter Annetta (Anita) in the 1900 census, but apparently she had to fight to keep her. Yet another newspaper account shows that James Magill took Rachel to court to gain custody of Anita. I don’t like the way the journalist refers to Anita as ”it”.

As for Anita’s father James E Magill, he remarried a Gertrude Hull in December 1897 and the couple soon had a son Hull Magill, but a year later Gertrude was requesting a divorce from Magill and asking for him not to interfere with her or her son. It seems that Rachel’s concerns were not unfounded.

Sadly, despite the care of her Grandmother little Anita died when she was just six years old, I imagine Rachel would have been distraught to lose both her daughter and granddaughter at such early ages.
Frances Hiden
The 1900 census records that Elizabeth had five children and that two are still living, so who is the other child besides Rachel still alive in 1900?
Given that the surname Hiden seems to fall foul of transcription errors, a marriage of a Frances Elizabeth Haten to a Robert J Smith in Cook County, Illinois seemed a possibility. This possibility turned to probability when a scan of the census showed Frances (Fanny) and Robert living next door to Rachel and Elizabeth in Pine Street, Topeka in 1900. Interestingly Frances was born in the USA in 1855 according to this census and as her maiden name was Hiden not Twigger, does this mean her father Thomas travelled to the USA as well?
Frances and Robert had no family but lived to a good age. This is Frances’s rather sad little obituary.
Topeka State Journal, Thursday Evening, February 28, 1935, page 7:
Mrs. Robert Smith Dead
Came to Topeka From Chicago Sixty Years Ago
Blind, penniless, widowed and without known relatives, Mrs. Robert Smith, 80, died this morning at the Methodist Home for the Aged.
She was born in Chicago September 14, 1854, and came to Topeka in 1875, following her marriage to Robert Smith. Mrs. Smith entered the Methodist Home in January 1932, following the death of her husband. She had been befriended by several welfare organizations thru the efforts of Tom Fullerton, for whom Mr. Smith had worked for many years.
Funeral services will be at the Sanders-McMichael funeral home Friday afternoon at 2:30 o’clock. Burial will be in Mount Auburn cemetery.
Mary Halden
Mary Ann Halden is the second daughter of Edward Halden and Jemima Eaton, this is unclear from the rounding to the nearest five years of the 1841 census which puts her and sister Eliza as both aged 20. I had wondered if they may have been twins but subsequent censuses in the USA show Mary Ann to be the younger sibling.
Mary seems to have travelled to the USA with her parents as she is present on the 1851 census with her mother Jemima, brother Edward (occupation butcher) and sister Rachel.
To find out what happened to Mary, I had to backtrack. Remember the earlier newspaper cutting about Minnie West visiting her Aunt, Mrs Twigger? Further investigation showed that Minnie was the daughter of Mary West and that she went on to marry a Luther Lee Allen. Mary West was of English birth and the right age to be Mary Halden.
A marriage of a Mary Holden to John M West in Chicago 6th September 1853 is that of Mary. The only census where I have found Mary, John and daughter Minnie together is Topeka 1875. John was twenty years older than Mary, also born in England and a cattle merchant. In 1879 he met a horrible death, gored to death by a bull.

In 1880 we next find Mary aged 50, described as a wife rather than a widow and living with 18 year old Minnie who is “at school”.
The 1888 Topeka City Directory lists Mary as a widow, Minnie is also listed, living at the same address.
The most significant address for Mary is in the 1900 census where she is living with Minnie and Minnie’s husband Luther Lee Allen (who is much closer to Mary in age), they are living on Pine Street, Topeka, on the same census page and presumably only several doors down from the houses of sister Elizabeth and her daughter Frances. Sadly this record shows that Mary had four children but that only one survived, it also says she came to the USA in 1855 which doesn’t fit with her record in the 1850 census. Mary seemed to lose five years from her age as time progressed whether this was deliberate or accidental, I have no idea. Minnie aged 28, has been married for five years but has had no children.
Mary died aged 85 in 1911 (although her baptism implies she was 91), there was clearly some strength in those Halden genes.
Mary A. West, aged 85, died yesterday at her home at 1512 [North] Quincy street of old age. The funeral will be held Friday morning from Conwell’s undertaking rooms at 10 o’clock. Burial in Topeka cemetery.
—Topeka State Journal (Topeka, KS), April 13, 1911, 7:3. Newspapers.com
So what became of Mary’s daughter Minnie? The answer is that I don’t know, her husband Luther Lee Allen died in 1911 although there is some controversy over where he is buried, Minnie may have married again but I can find no record of it and she would be unlikely to have children by this age, so it seems the line dies out, unless runaway brother Edward Halden wasn’t eaten by wolves and had some descendants.
Edward Halden junior – the runaway
The tale of Edward Halden I have been aware of for as long as I can remember. The story is that he ran away in annoyance when his sister Rachel got married and that he was never seen again.
Researching the family I could find no evidence of the family having a son as he doesn’t appear at home in the 1841 census and due to a mistranscription I couldn’t find the family in the USA.
Research and help from other family historians led me to Edward’s grandmother Elizabeth Halden as described on my post about Anthony Eaton. Elizabeth married her cousin Richard, a butcher, after the death of Anthony Eaton and the couple can be found living with an Edward Halden aged 15 in the 1841 census.
After some searching I found Edward in the 1850 census in Chicago USA, he is living with mother Jemima and sisters Mary and Rachel, but the name Halden was mistranscribed as Holder. Edward’s occupation is butcher which would fit with him living with his grandmother and her butcher husband, maybe Edward had been serving an apprenticeship.
That is the last record of Edward that I am at all sure about, this would tie in with his disappearance after Rachel’s marriage in 1852.
What are the possibilities?
There is an Edward Holden, a gamester living in Lyons, Cook, Illinois in 1870, born in England, again he disappears from view.
Another Edward Halden/Holden is in and out of the workhouse in Stepney during the late 1870s/early 1880s, date of birth is about right and he varies between being single and a widower. I can find no record of this Edward on the censuses, could it be because he was in the USA? Maybe time will tell.
With enormous thanks to Nina Reauveau who helped me so much with the research in the USA.