As I have started so many of my family stories I again have to mention how fortunate I was to have started my research in the early 70’s. The stories I was told by the many relatives I contacted helped me unravel a particularly tangled family history.
This is mainly about my 2x great grandfather Samuel Oakley. At the age of 23 and shortly after his parents death in 1854, Sam packed up his worldly goods and settled in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. And thank goodness for what he packed – 4 portraits and his parents marriage document. I’m sure there were other treasures as well but 160 years later I tracked down what I could.
Both the Vancouver & the Kamloops Oakleys were very generous in sharing the bits of information they had about the family. I was told Sam’s father was a land surveyor or an architect. I found out Sam was from Manchester, England but was somehow connected to Norfolk, Virginia. I was given a copy of his marriage certificate to his first wife Mary Nobes. Then the story became a bit more confusing – Sam married the widow of a Nobes – the blended family were cousins. Again this took me a while to figure out. After his second wife died Samuel married Anne Young, the aunt of a daughter-in-law (still not sure who). Anne would not move west when Sam decided to move to Vancouver. Not much to go on but more than I had on some of my lines. Thus began the process of discovering Sam’s story.
Where to start…in the middle I suppose with the wedding document Sam brought from England. From this I now had the name of his parents (Robert Oakley & Elizabeth Thomas), their marriage date and place of marriage (Tregynon, Wales). Sam was from Manchester so I began there, searching the 1851 census – Robert was from Bunbury in Norfolk and Elizabeth from Tregynon – I had the right family and a place to search for the Oakleys.
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