Messervy Stories

 New Zealand and the Women's Suffrage Petition This post is about one of the March themes for #12ancestors, that of "Joining Together".   In New Zealand, in 1893, approximately one quarter of adult women (21 years and above) gave support to the petition for women's suffrage that was submitted to Parliament on 28 July.  There was a total of 13 petitions, not all of which survived.  However, the largest, containing about 24,000 names has been digitised.   One Messervy name appears in the index, that of Charlotte G. Messervy, found on page 532 of the petition [1] .  Information provided is address, Lawrence Street North, Opawa in the suburb of Opawa in the city of Christchurch.  When you click on the sheet number, you are taken to a digital version of the actual sheet where Charlotte's name appeared. Charlotte was part of a movement of women that led to New Zealand being the first country to grant the vote to women.  Today we are astonished that this was as late as 1

  Branching out to a One-Name Study   #12ancestors  blog challenge means selecting one of the weekly themes for the monthly blog post.  For February 2022, the theme that called out to me is " branching out ".  Moving from your direct family lines to a project encompassing all of a surname is a very big leap in branching out.  This is essentially how I ended up with the beginnings of a one-name study for Messervy/Messervey.  I have previously mentioned how I was attracted to my maternal grandmother's Messerveys both for my own direct line genealogy and the history, chronological and social, that brought the Messervey name to life.     Delving into the Newfoundland history and discovering the Jersey presence going back to the late 1600s and early 1700s was enticing.  A bonus to the Newfoundland story was the discovery that the Messerveys, for the most part, settled in St George's Bay in the community of Sandy Point. And adding to the story is that Sandy Point no longer

 What Can a Photo Tell You? #52ancestors Week 3 and I can't believe I am still managing to make the weekly deadline. The theme for this week is "Favourite Photo".  I don't have a large collection of Messervy photos and to be truthful, some of my favourite ancestral photos are from other lines of my personal heritage.  Having said that, I have always been drawn to this photo* of Herbert Louis Messervy and his brother Albert Frederick.  Albert Frederick Messervey(L) & Herbert Louis Messervey (R) Albert is on the left and Herbert Louis on the right, sitting on a very rickety looking handmade bench.  I do not know the location as it seems to be rural and the brothers were urban residents for the most part.  I think that they both look a bit dapper and Louis betrays his hairdresser occupation with his very well-groomed hair - I'm afraid that Albert has less hair to style!  Albert is looking away from the camera, and may suggest he is not happy to have his picture

Jure-Justiciers and more in the Island of Jersey   Week 2 of   #52ancestors   and the theme for the blog post is "Favourite Find", which can be interpreted in many ways.     It can be finding a mystery ancestor, coming across a great resource, discovering interesting moments of an ancestor's life.     So many choices, but I have to pick one.   Messervy is one of the oldest recorded surnames in Jersey.  Jersey has a long history, being part of the Duchy of Normandy from 933 to 1066, then in 1066 part of the Anglo-Norman world.  Jersey was ruled by Normandy until 1204, when it established its unique relationship with the United Kingdom as the Bailiwick of Jersey, a British crown dependency. [1]   Much of the structure of its governance emerged from Norman traditions, but today it is a mix of modern and traditional.  Why have I provided this little bit of history?  It is essential to introduce one favourite find : the contributions that many Messervys made to the governance

  The Messervy Settlement in New Hampshire I made a commitment to follow the  #52ancestors  program of  Amy Johnson Crow  for 2022 and crossing fingers, this will result in a weekly blog post about a Messervy ancestor.  I am hoping that ancestor by ancestor, I can update research and tell a story simultaneously.  We shall see!  The #52ancestors has a weekly theme and this one is  foundations.   I have previously blogged about the foundation Messervy for Newfoundland and for New Zealand.  Having done some work on the US lines this past week, I decided to post about Clément Messervy, who very early on emigrated to New Hampshire, specific date unknown but was paying taxes by 1673.   Of course, at that time, New Hampshire was one of the 13 British colonies that were part of the American revolution many years later, and became the United States. Gorey in Jersey today, with Mont Orgueil Castle on the right.  The church on the left was only built in 1832. The castle's existence is noted a

Some Messervy Statistics My genealogy software, MAC Family Tree, has a lot of bells and whistles including the capacity to produce statistical reports from the data in a particular tree. Of course, as with any software it is only as good as the data that is input. As my website data is a work in progress, there are some empty spots in the data. Thus,for those of you who are excited by statistics and patterns in data, what follows are some select charts. Enjoy or not..... Colours are traditional pink for women and blue for men (default). Some observations based on my familiarity with the Messervy content: ·        The spike for children 0 – 4 years of age likely reflects that most information is from times past when infants and toddlers were subject to a range of challenges to survival. In particular, the Messervys in Jersey go back to 1400s and earlier when families endured the deaths of many of their children.    ·        Another sp