Embedded Files
Created; 2001, Changed; 08/01/2025, 11/01/2025
Some information given to me in email communication received from;
Kerry Brailsford from Australia (2009) http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brailsford/ Name is traceable back to the 1500s as mum expected [Genealogist I think was her source possibly in the 1980s]. Kerry tells me that it is commonly believed amongst genealogists that all the people who bear the name BRAILSFORD are descendants of the one man, Elfin, who was a landowner in 1066.
Bill & Jenny DEVERELL (2002)
Brian Sirett of Ashbourne, Derbyshire gave me some links to Brailsford, a nearby village to his home (2005)
Jean Lohmann (my mum)
Lynne Young emailed in January 2025 a picture of Flossie Brailsford taken before 1920. The photograph, probably taken by my grandfather's business in Edinburgh, E.F Parken before the name of the business changed to E.F. and D.W. Parken when my granny became a partner.
Told to my mum by her Grannies;
Brailsford is also the name of the village in Derbyshire that had a post office, and one of the postmasters' name was Brailsford. There is no male line from my Granny's siblings', mum believes.
Granny was born in Bangor, North Wales and moved to Canada when she was 18 but returned during the first world war but to Orpington, Kent, England when she was 20 in 1914-1915 with her father. Dorothy Francis Brailsford worked in Owen-Sound, Ontario, for a Canadian photographer, where she learned to develop and print photographs. Mum says her granny lived in Green-Street-Green, Orpington and mum's grandfather worked at the large Canadian hospital in Orpington, Kent (VAD nurse). Mum's dad met mum's mum when working at his shop in Haymarket, Edinburgh (as I say elsewhere). They were married in 1916. They moved to Leven, Scotland after Florence was born in 1922 but before Arthur's birth in 1923.
[My Mum somewhat models herself on her mum. But not in all ways, Granny would speak as one continuous sentence and smoke cigarettes (mum does not smoke) switching conversation threads and who she was speaking to.]
Some time about the end of WW1, the family went to live in Edinburgh, Scotland. From there the family went to Berwick where granny went to work for my grandfather who was a photographer artist, she taught him some more on how to print his photographs. At some point, soon after this, my grandparents married and later moved to Leven, St. near Andrews, Scotland. They bought the shop for about £1000. [check this again?]
(I need to recheck some of the above again).
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Family Tree - Brailsford - ancestors.pdfPicture Family Tree - Brailsford - ancestors
Picture Family Tree - Brailsford - ancestors
Postmaster;
Unknown details; Postmaster of Post Office in Brailsford, Derbyshire - uncle or cousin, not direct line (mum says her grandfather told mum just before he died}
Brother;
George BRAILSFORD, 5 June 1835 – ?
Baptised; 19 July 1835, St James, Westminster[IGI batch C147505.]
I am advised in email from Bill and Jenny Deverell comment on an earlier version of this page that; We have no record of him in the village of Brailsford. In 1863, he was in Marylebone, London for the birth of son John. Based on the 1871 census of Wirksworth and baptisms of his children, he was in Cromford from 1868 until 1873. In 1881, he was back in London at Putney. We believe he was probably in Marylebone until at least 1865. The child Alfred buried age 4 in 1869 in Cromford was not baptised there like his later siblings. There is a suitable birth in Marylebone Dec 1864 Vol 1a Page 463
Sydney Archibald Brailsford (Archie)
1870(Cromford, Derbyshire) - ?
A piano tuner and like his family and sons had a beautiful singing voice was my Granny's father lived in Canada and returned but to Orpington, Kent to work in the large Canadian Hospital as a Voluntary Aided Detachment Nurse (VAD) in that town during the first world war. Mum recalls that when her Granny was 80 she told mum that they lived in Orpington.
Sidney A Brailsford’s uncle was the postmaster in the village of Brailsford, near Derby. - Sidney was my mum's grandfather, gave this information on his death. There is a reference to Sydney on Ancestry, Post Office employees March 1918 - no other reference.
Married (1893 Chester District?) to; Florence Geake Phillips’s [Flory] 1871 (Goonearl, Cornwall) - ? Stepfather’s name was Philips. Her birth mother's maiden name was Geake (CHECK THIS), who she chose to call her father. Mr Geake owned a sweet shop in the village Merstham, Surrey (mum also told me this as well as receiving feedback from this page).
Sydney lived in Owen-Sound, Ontario, Canada till 1914. Sydney came to Britain to serve in WW1 as a nurse. At one time they resided in Orpington Kent, and the hospital in Orpington was built during WW1 for Canadian Servicemen and there are Canadian servicemen’s graves in the Orpington cemetery from WW1. Ancestry says his Regiment was No. 1568, puts his date of birth 1870, and his relation was; Florence Geatis (this must be a spelling mistake)
Sidney was a piano tuner there used to be a large green tool box with various Victorian pliers and a piano tuning key. In a census entry for Sidney Charles, a Piano Tuner, boarding with the Mackenzie family in 16 Union St., Inverness in 1891. (The recorded date of birth on this document is different, though 1866). Mum says of Sydney that he had itchy feet and moved around a lot getting work. Sidney had an excellent singing voice.
Ancestry.com - Recorded as Sidney Charles on Census & Birth certificates etc.
- the Only other place where Sidney's middle name is recorded as Archibald is as a post office employee.
- lived in Merstham, Surrey in 1901 census (G for Geak is used as a middle name)
Siblings;
George ~1863 - ? Married 1890 to Minnie Jane Middleton 1863 – ? Had * 12 Children? One of them was Dorothy, 1897 - ?
Alfred 1864 - 1869 OR 1871 - ~1873?
Frederick, 1868 - ?
Sidney's wife; Florence Geake-Philips (Flory);
One of my great-grandmothers;
My Granny as a child had to walk miles across town (Leaven in Scotland) to save a farthing on Gin and other alcohol for her mum, Flory. Flory was always drunk and was a super cook turning anything Rabbit, pigeon which Sydney had killed and skinned into wonderful food, mum says. Flory also used herbs and spices to achieve this, mum particularly remembers her granny using cloves and a cube of sugar in some things she cooked. But Flory was frightening and mum did not want to see this Granny.
Her Aunty Florence (her mother was also Florence, and she was the grandmothers who drank and got her mum's mother, as a child, to walk a long way to buy the cheapest drink) travelled from Canada before the Titanic sailed probably to Edinburgh then went to live in Farnborough, Kent. The part of Canada she was living was dry, and Florence liked alcohol. Mum also mentioned that Florence's (which granny, I think?) husband work on the railways.
Sidney's Children;
Margery 1926 -, married to; Peter Atkin - had one son; Allen and two grandchildren.
Jim 1924? – Dec. 2001 (CHECK?), married 1953 to Thelma LEISHMAN GUESSED CHECK? Three sons; Neil Brailsford Q.C. 1954 - married to Elaine ROBBIE has three grandsons (mum says in Who's Who President of Edinburgh Club}
Neil's children are; Nathaniel Oliver Robbie 1994 - , Sidney Joshua Lawrence 1996 -, Samuel James Liberty 1999 -
Dorothy Francis [Queenie],
My Granny; 1894 (Bangor, Wales) - 1971 (Cobourg, Ontario), married 1916, to Edgar F. Parken
Dorothy Francis Brailsford – businesswoman paid £500 for first house. Went to Canada in the 1920s to learn roll film from Kodak. She took 1000s of pounds in to Canada by sowing the money into the clothing she wore. At the time, you were only allowed to take £25 out UK. As a child she had to walk across town in Scotland to buy Gin for her granny, this was to save a farthing. My granny was born in Wales.
My Granny immigrating to Canada when her husband died, she followed him two years later as he had told her, through a fortune-teller in Brighton told her. (I was with my mum when she visited the same fortune-teller in Brighton later). Her house sale completed 3 weeks after she sailed from England. Dorothy had learnt photography in Canada and returned to work in Edinburgh for my Grandfather when she was about 20 but not connected with her photographic training came later, possibly after they married.
Ancestry.com - Born; Bangor, Anglesey, Wales
Siblings;
(Archie) Sidney Archibald 1902 (Merstham, Surrey) - 1972 (Edinburgh, Scotland), married 1923 to; Mary Hammond
Flossie Brailsford, photograph taken before 1920.
This photograph could have been taken before they left for Canada or when the family came back to perhaps Berwick or Edinburgh but before Granny (Dorothy) married grandad (Edgar). I don't know if they lived in Wales before the left for Canada?
Florence G (~1896 – ?), married to John Kirk. Their son Jack died before his mother and has no descendants.
Ancestry.com possibly has granny as a passenger ship the Greenspan, company; Allan, Glasgow to Quebec and Montreal, passenger lists Wife; F S, siblings; Dorothy J, and Sydney A, Florence H - in 1911 (May 1912 departure) which is about when mum (Jean) told me her granny had sailed to Canada, but mum made a point but not on the Titanic (there is a theory in a YouTube video that the sinking was an insurance fraud, which was common at that time, and it was the Titanic's sister ship the Olympic had been damaged and patched up that had been sunk and the name of the ships swapped, but theory is fairly widely discounted) The middle initials are not correct. (I have inherited like my mum the ability to tune in to bits of gossip or fact and recall it or a feeling that has a tendency to have given us a better chance - such as in my case electronic design that does particularly well what is required rather than precisely what is specified)
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Additional early information was given to me by Kerrie Brailsford in an email. She gave me the following hyperlinks:-
BRAILSFORD Mailing List at http://archiver.rootsweb.com/BRAILSFORD-L/
It is commonly believed amongst genealogists that all the people who bear the name BRAILSFORD are a descendant from the one man, Elfin, who was a landowner in 1066. Find out more about medieval BRAILSFORDs here:-
http://newsarch.rootsweb.com/th/read/BRAILSFORD/2001-05/0989435866
http://newsarch.rootsweb.com/th/read/BRAILSFORD/2001-05/0989435868
Newly created BRAILSFORD web page at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~bsfd
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Contents
I have not included the references in the tree above, but some of the information was given to me by Kerrie Brailsford. She said; "We have earlier generations if you are interested as well as more detail".
1. “IGI batch C035248.”
2.
3. “Vital Records Index FHL 1537869.”
4. Marylebone 1a 463 Dec 1864.
5. “Wirksworth Website Parish Records.”
6. “IGI batch C049793.”
7. “Further to Sidney, 29 Nov 2002 from Kerrie Brailsford.”
Information originally from Andrew Lohmann
8. “Brailsfords of London, 29 Nov 2002.”
9. “Andrew Lohmann’s website.”
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