Having managed to catch up on this year’s 52 Ancestors Challenge, I’m once again weeks behind. At least it was for a good reason, as I’ve spent much of the last three weeks learning about my Great x4 Grandmother, Frances “Fanny” Robinson. While I did not find much more in the way of sources, I have managed to form a somewhat better understanding about what little I know about her.
A large part of that time was spent trying to learn more about when and where she was born and died. Nothing major!
Fanny was born sometime around 1783. Many of the secondary sources I have say she was born in Fewston, Yorkshire, England. Few of those sources provide much supporting information, if any, and what they relied upon is tenuous. A newspaper record regarding her marriage indicated that her father was “J. Robinson” of Cornwallis, Nova Scotia. Some of the researchers relied on a baptism registration for a Frances Robinson for August 19, 1783, naming Jonathan Robinson as her father. Other records show Jonathan Robinson was married to a woman named Susannah Snell.
I have found some poll and census records of a John Robinson and a Jonathan Robinson from Cornwallis from around the relevant time, but they don’t show a connection to Fanny. They also don’t show a clear connection to Fewston. Moreover, the Jonathan Robinson shown in the baptism record appears to have spent his whole life in Fewston, without ever having emigrated.
Even if Fanny was born in England, I cannot find any indication as to when she left that country. The one thing I do know is that Fanny and her husband are on the only branch of my family tree that goes into the Maritimes.
The first reliable records I can find for Fanny are the records of her marriage to William Turple, which took place on September 12, 1814 in Halifax, Nova Scotia in St. Paul’s Church.
Completed on September 2, 1750, St. Paul’s Church is a Halifax landmark. It’s the oldest building in the city and the oldest surviving Protestant church in Canada. My wife has much deeper and more recent Haligonian roots and many of her family have connections to St. Paul’s. Her grandmother, aunts, and uncles were all baptized at St. Paul’s. Her great grandparents, Edmund MacDonald and Beatrice Dimock, were also married at St. Paul’s.
St. Paul’s also bears some interesting scars from the Halifax Explosion of December 6, 1917. It was the largest man-made explosion at the time, resulting from the collision of two ships in Halifax harbour during World War I. One is a piece of wood blown from another building into the interior of St. Paul’s, where it wedged into the wall and has remained there ever since. The other is the Explosion Window. A shattered window on the side of the building bears an eerie human-shaped silhouette. The legend is that it’s the outline of a Deacon who was standing beside the window at the time of the explosion. Of course, that makes no sense, since the force of the explosion came from the outside and the Deacon was standing on the inside.
But I digress. Very much.
Returning to Fanny, she and William had at least seven children, although some of my secondary sources list eight. The wrinkle likely involves a William. Fanny and William’s third child and first son was named William, who lived to be 80. Fanny’s fifth pregnancy may have been twins – boys named Stephen and William. It is this William that isn’t included in some lists I’ve seen. The second William is also not mentioned in his father’s will, although it is as likely that he predeceased his father as much as he never existed. Then there’s the next born, who was named Edmund William. Fanny must have really liked the name William.
In 1838, Mormon missionaries appeared in Halifax. By 1843, the Latter Day Saints had established a church there. Fanny and some of her children all joined. Fanny was baptized on November 16, 1844. This was only five months after church founder Joseph Smith died, which had resulted in a succession crisis with several claimants to the leadership of the church.
Fanny and her children found themselves aligned with James Strang, who himself had only joined the Mormon church four months before Smith’s death. However, like many Halifax Mormons, it appears this largely occurred by default rather than any actual theological position or political choice. Strang had risen quickly through the church’s ranks and claimed that a week before his death Smith had given him a letter naming him as his successor. The “Strangites” were one of the smallest factions and Strang’s claim failed quickly.
Brigham Young, who was the successful claimant to Smith’s mantle, sent a delegation to Halifax in 1851 to establish his control of the church in the city. Upon arrival, the delegation excommunicated Strang’s followers, including Fanny and her children. Over time, many of those followers were re-admitted into the church and re-baptized. It seems that Fanny and her children recanted and rejoined the church, but eventually they all left the church other than Fanny’s daughter Susan, my 3x Great Grandmother.
Susan had been married to a man named Charles Brady, who she left sometime after giving birth to a daughter, Amelia. Susan moved in with her parents, who helped raise Amelia. Late in life after moving to Utah with her mother, Amelia wrote about Fanny:
“My dear gramar that raised me (her) name was Fanny Turpel. My grandfather’s name was William Turpel…I love to sit and think of her.”
Just as mysterious as Fanny’s birth was her death. I have not been able to find any record or mention of her death. At most, I assume she died before her husband, because there is no mention of her in William’s will, which was written in 1861 and proved in 1862.
A Deck of Ancestors 