John Button - Mary Button Coles

Started by John Ernest Beadle on Tuesday, November 29, 2022
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The above-named, my great great grandmother Mary Button Coles, was the wife of one Charles Jeffs, from Hillesden in Buckinghamshire. I have a copy of their wedding certificate from 24 March 1846 from their marriage at nearby Beachampton but in spite of inquiries, I have been unable to locate any other details of their marriage (e.g. the name of the Church). Or for that matter, why they chose to marry in that location instead of Hillesden, Charles' hometown. I presume he simply deferred to his wife out of courtesy. Or possibly, she had family in Beachampton, which is a nine hour walk away, not unheard of in those days when most people walked everywhere.

So Charles and Mary made that long, fateful journey all the way from England to Canterbury in 1850 aboard the Charlotte Jane. Which must have been tough for a young mother with two children, and giving birth on arrival in December 1850 to my g-g grandmother, Elizabeth Jeffs, according to family history 'the first pakeha born of the First Four Ships on the Canterbury Province'

So they would have stepped ashore (or been rowed around to the comparative safety of the Heathcote landing). That's Charles, (24) their son John (4), their daughter Sarah ( ) and of course Elizabeth, born in the new land in which they they would be raised.

Something of an enigma, in spite of having a copy of her death certificate, I have absolutely no idea of what caused Mary's demise. Births death and marriages was in its infancy when Mary died in 1860 so that line of inquiry was unproductive.

A snippet I do have is that Mary, when the young couple first settled in Templeton on their farm, had to walk a long way to get water from a place called "The Waterholes" and carry it all the way back to the farm.Obviously, at times, the Canterbury Plains would be quite dry.

Has anyone else investigated this family or does anyone know anything about their early life in Templeton? Hard to know who to ask, where to start.

There is a project you may be interested in - New Zealand Pioneers. 'This project aims to catalog the first generation of European immigrants to Aotearoa New Zealand during the 1800s.' I hope that helps. I found it under the Research tab.

Hi Lea. Yes- I would be interested.

Can you possibly give me the location of the ‘Research tab’? (I did a search but couldn’t find it).

Many thanks- John

Hi John. I hope I can describe this well, but it was just on that Geni page.
I presume you will get an email like the one I did that shows this reply. I clicked on the 'green tick view this discussion'. It took me to the Geni page with your discussion as the page title 'John Button - Mary Button Coles'. At the very top of that page is the Geni logo, then beside that are the Tabs; Home, Tree, Family, and Research. There is an arrow pointing down beside Research. Click on 'Research'. It expands down to all the Research subjects available. Go down the list to Projects. Click on 'Projects'. When I open that up, there are thumbnails across the top where you can go into different projects and below that are buttons labelled My Projects and All Projects and under that is the Australian Portal on my page. I presume your country will come up on your page. Click on 'All Projects'. There is a Search function on this page. I just looked down the list to find the subject but I found it easily again. I think if you Search for it would be best. There is a New Zealand Portal and lots of sites in the list you might be interested in. Simply type in New Zealand or New Zealand Pioneer in the Search bar and you will find sites like I did. The one I thought might be suitable was New Zealand Pioneer Families 1900-1899. The ship Charlotte Jane is listed in that site. In the profiles there are quite a few pioneers with the surname Button - Alfred, Frederick, George, Harriet, James and Thomas. I think there's a lot of information you may be interested in. My advice is just to look around on those sites and see what other people have contributed and contribute your ancestors to the site as well. There are discussion threads on that site too.
I hope this helps you. I have only been to that Geni site once. I had no idea it existed. It seems like there is a lot of information already on the Geni site. Good luck with your research.

Woops, I need to correct my typing. It was 'New Zealand Pioneer Families 1800-1899'

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