Have just googled Walter Molton Bevan, born Barnstaple 1835, and was taken to your most informative site. Walter Bevan was my husband's great grandfather. The 1851 Census shows Walter as being a lodger in the house of Phillip Skews and his wife Sally [this info is under the heading Sarah Wingate 1783-1809]. Also in the household was Johanna T [Truscott] Skews, dau of Phillip and Sally. In 1857 Walter and Johanna were married and shortly after the marriage they came to Australia and settled in Clunes, Victoria. Walter and Johanna were accompanied by her parents, Phillip and Sally Skews. Sally died in Clunes 7 Oct 1882. Her death certificate shows that she was born in Horrabridge and her parents were Thomas Rowe, Farm Labourer, and Sarah, formerly Wingate. Sally' father, Phillip Skews died 5 Sept 1871. His occupation at the time was Storekeeper. Both Phillip and Sally are buried in the Clunes cemetery. Both death certificates state that Phillip and Sally had two children, Mary Ann, deceased, and Johanna. Mary Ann is not shown on the 1851 Census - I don't know when she died. Phillip and Sally married abt 1836 in Buckland Monachorum.

Because of the connection to Sarah Wingate [Rowe] I thought you may like this info.

Regards,

Rae Worcester raew@bigpond.com

Hi Sandra,

Have just been adding some info to my Bevan/Skews line and something is not quite right regarding the date of Sarah Rowe's [Wingate] death. You record her marriage and death as 1809. I can't say that is wrong, but I have Sarah's daughter, Sally, as being born abt 1818. Sally's death certificate shows she was 64 when she died in 1882. The other info on the certificate states she was aged 20 when she married Phillip Skews and that she had been in the Colony for 25 years - which takes her back to 1857, the year she came out on the "Ben Nevis" with her husband Phillip Skews and her daughter and son in law Johanna and Walter Bevan. Is it possible for you to check the date of death for Sarah Rowe [Wingate]? Many thanks

Rae Worcester

Thanks very much Rae - I will have another look at this and report back. Sandra

[LATER]
 Hello again Rae,
Yes, the 1809 date on the Sarah WINGATE heading is a typo mistake of mine. Thanks very much for spotting it. Sorry for my mistake. I'm not sure when she died so I have corrected it to a '?'.

How nice to know that Walter and Joanna got married six years later - real 'childhood sweethearts'.

Could I have your permission to add the information you have given me to the web page? I will attribute it to you by name of course - or, if you prefer, identify you as 'a researcher', 'a descendant' or whatever you prefer.

Many thanks, Sandra

Edited by author 21-10-2008 21:51
Another thought . . . this would be too good to be true but I don't suppose your BEVANs have any links with the John and Jane BEVAN who are mentioned in Elizabeth WINGETT's will of 1855? Unlikely as Bridestowe isn't remotely near Barnstaple - but I thought I should ask.

http://www.windeatt.f2s.com/windeatt/wills...ethwingett_1855.htm

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Hi Sandra,

You are more than welcome to use the info, plus my name. Will email you 2 Family Group Records for Walter & Johanna Bevan and Phillip & Sally Skews, feel free to extract whatever info you need for your site.

Don't recognize your Bevan names [what a shame!] - Walter was the son of William Prout Bevan and Mary Ann Darke, all born Barnstaple.

Bye for now,

Rae

Hello again Rae

Thanks for the information received. I have now updated the page:

http://www.windeatt.f2s.com/windeatt/horrabridge/john1.htm#sarah2

As always, please let me know of any errors, omissions etc.

Regards, Sandra

Hi Sandra,

Re possible date of death of Sarah Rowe - Walter & Johanna Bevan, and Phillip & Sally Skews travelled to Australia on the "Ben Nevis", which arrived in Port Phillip Bay [Melbourne, Victoria], 31st Aug 1857. The Sarah Rowe you located in the June quarter for 1857 could well be Sally's mother. I know it is naughty to "assume" anything in genealogy, but you would have to think, given the time frame, that it is our Sarah. Also, it is doubtful the whole family would just up and leave her behind!! I haven't done any research on the Rowe line so can't say for sure.

The Bevans and the Skews all came to Australia as Unassisted Inward Passengers [1852-1923] and have just had another look at the index to see if there were any relatives travelling on the same ship. There was a Richard Rowe, age 24, but don't know whether he was related to Sally. No other Bevans or Wingates. Out of curiosity I put in the name Wingate without specifying a ship and there were 77 listed coming to Victoria! I wonder if any of them are related to you. Google PRO Vic and it will open up the site and you will find the links to Passenger Indexes.

How is this for a theory ! In the 1851 Census I think the "U", as shown against Sarah Rowe's name, should have been in the line above, against Johanna's name.

The Skews name and all its variants, of which there are many, comes from Cornwall. I have a book, "Cornish Heritage", written by Keith Skues, and he explains the origins of the name. I didn't realize that there were so many Skews etc. in the world! It must have taken Keith Skues forever to collate all the names.

 I will let you know if I come across anything else that may be of
interest to your research.

Regards,

Rae

Thanks Rae for all this information. Gosh, 77 Wingates to Australia! That does seem like a lot. Of course there are Scottish and Northern English WINGATEs who are more numerous than the few from Devon. Most of the Devon lot called themselves WINDEATT or WINGETT as the nineteenth century wore on. My husband is descended from Sarah's brother and they have been spelling themselves WINDEATT since about 1820 . . . lots of variants of course - like SCUES/SKEWS.

Just wanted to mention the WINGATES from Battersea, my husband's ancestors. They were Thames watermen from 1700 (possibly earlier).
They were a big family so I've been surprised that I haven't seen them mentioned on this forum!
Regards, Jan Hill
>
< replied-to message removed by QT >

Edited by author 28-10-2008 19:55
Yes, apologies Jan. I neglected to mention the large numbers of WINGATEs in Kent (south bank of the Thames) which Jan is researching. The Kent family is probably of separate origin to the Devon lot but there is a record of a (legally historic) will from 1581 which demonstrates that a George WINDIT of Exeter was living in Southwark at the time and so the possibility of a connection is there.

A century or so later there are five wills available for WINGATEs living by the Thames. Has anybody looked at these to see if there is anything of interest to family historians?

Another possible connection is the Ann WINGATE researched by Jon McKenzie He speculates that she may be the daughter of Joseph and Hanah WINGATE who was baptised in 1752 at St. Michael Queenhithe (also on the bank of the Thames). Was Joseph a member of the Thames watermmen family?

Some other WINGATE mysteries where we don't know which family they belong to are:

Joseph WINGATE who was one of the Queen's coachman in London in 1832.

Francis WINGATE: a solicitor in Plymouth, Devon in the 1830s and 40s.

John WINGATE of Modbury, Devon, who signed a book about American converts in 1877.

Further information about all these people can be found by going to my HOME page and typing their names into the SEARCH BOX. Any further information gratefully received . . .

Sandra

Hello all! I thought I would bring up the Wingates in Virginia/W. Virginia that were mentioned on the site. From what my great-great grandma Wingate told my Dad as a youngster, a sizeable chunk of the family moved from the VA area and headed west late in the 1800's. As for the Wingates in the VA area prior to then, they immigrated from southern Wales... so Ive been told, My G-G grandma did speak Welsh from what I know.

Its creepy looking at some of the old portraits, they are very close (looks wise) to some of the people in my immediate family!

Good work on the site, this is cool!

Cheers,
~Mike Wingate~

Thanks Mike for this information.

I don't think there are any indigenous WINGATEs in Wales, although there are a lot of WINNIATES in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire which are nearby English counties. But there are also quite a few Devon folk that moved out that way - I believe a branch of the Staverton tree moved out to Merthyr Tydfil and a branch of the Ughborough tree to Wrexham.

So you could be related to the Devonshire people. However, as you will know from this site and others, there were WINGATEs/WINGETTs in Virginia from the earliest days and no-one knows where they originated.

Thanks for getting in touch, Sandra

Edited by author 06-11-2008 12:36
I have started a 'What's New?' log page on the site so, as well as a notice on the Home page about recent additions, there is also a log page now too:

http://www.windeatt.f2s.com/windeatt/whatsnewlog.htm

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I have been quite pleased with this Message Board - it's simple to use and in the six years that it has been operational on this site, we have not suffered from the spam or unsuitable messages that bedevil most open to use message boards (although I can't say I am too happy with the Google Ads that have more recently appeared - not within my control I hasten to add).

However today, we received our first seriously 'off topic' message. I have deleted it but if you are a subscriber to this Windeatt board then you will have received it in your email inbox. Please just ignore/delete it and, like all spam, etc, don't reply to the message.

I hope this is not the beginning of being targetted by spam to the board. I will keep an eye on things and make changes if necessary.

Sandra

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