I’ve recently undertaken quite a lot of work on the family of my 2 x great-grandparents, John Gale Hellier and Mary Ann Congdon including adding detailed notes for my great-grandmother, Sarah May Hellyer. Several of John and Mary Ann’s children died in infancy including both twins. The youngest son, John, died at the age of nine, most probably of polio. The youngest daughter, Jane, died in the 1918 flu epidemic at the age of 29. All of the children were below the age of 18 by the time they were orphaned which meant that many of them were separated from each other, being sent to live in orphanages or with relatives.
Mary Ann Congdon had long been a mystery to me but I have finally made some progress on her family line which has also been verified by DNA. I wasn’t sure whether her name was Congdon or Burgoyne but it turns out that William Burgoyne was her stepfather. Her parents were James Condon and Louisa Reed. Very little is known about James but he probably died before Mary Ann was 4 years old.
Her mother, Louisa, went on to marry William George Henry Burgoyne in 1857 but it seems the marriage was not a happy one according to a court case in 1883 where Louisa was accused of repeatedly assaulting her husband and of being a drunk. On this particular occasion she collared her husband in the street on his way to work as a fireman in a mill. She shook her fist at him and used bad language. Apparently William “had lived a dreadful life with her for many years” so it’s not surprising the couple separated.
AI Generated image depicting a drunk and angry Louisa confronting her husband
Louisa Reed’s parents were George Reed and Bridget Ellis although, for some unknown reason, Bridget also went by the name of Catherine or Kate. Bridget’s father was John and it’s believed she was from Cork in Ireland but she subsequently moved to Plymouth in Devon where she married her second husband.
You will find detailed footnotes for the Reed and Ellis families on their particular family web pages, including newspaper articles outlining the dispute between Louisa Reed and her husband, William Burgoyne.
