My Family

Matters

There is good news for Pafford family researchers - it is a relatively uncommon surname in England. When the 1881 census was analysed, it was ranked the 25,627th most common surname in Britain. There were just 66 examples, two in every million, and even more good news is that 63% of Paffords were living in Hampshire: notably, Portsea (25), Portsmouth (12) and Alverstoke (which is just across the  waters of Portsmouth Harbour) (5). The remaining Paffords were living in the West Country: Somerset (5), Gloucestershire (5) and Herefordshire (2). Add to this, that the International Genealogical Index notes only 227 Pafford marriages in England since 1538 and the researcher might be forgiven for thinking he is on a roll.

 

The euphoria is only pricked by the knowledge that the name, Pafford, has been corrupted by parish clerks and transcribers which poses its own problems. So, the name may be rendered: Pasfoot, Pufford, etc. Nobody said genealogy should be easy.

My greatx4 grandparents were George and Mary Pafford. They had at least five children who were baptised at Alverstoke or Holy Trinity, Gosport. However, although the family was probably living at Alverstoke/Gosport between 1786 -1793, nothing else is known about them.

 

A likely birth-year for George Pafford is around 1760 but the Hampshire Indexes contain no baptism details that relate to him. A note of their marriage has also not been found, but it is likely that Mary Pafford’s maiden name was Mills. This may be deduced because one of their children was given Mills as a second  name and Mills was substituted as the family name instead of Pafford (as we will see). The Hampshire Burial Index does not record George’s burial but a Mary Paffard (aged 56) was laid to rest on 20 December 1818 at St Thomas, Portsmouth. As she would have been born in around 1762, it is possible that she was my ancestor, however no Mary Mills was born in the district around this time.

 

So, George Pafford is my Melchizedek, being ‘without father, without mother...having neither beginning of days, nor end of life’ and with this ephemeral person, my direct maternal ancestral trail ends - for the moment at least.

George and Mary Pafford

George Pafford

Mary (Mills?)

George Pafford bap 1786, Alverstoke. m Mary Terry 15 June 1813, Alverstoke

Lydia bn 1787 Alverstoke

m James May 6 May 1806

St Mary’s, Portsea

Maria Pafford, bap 1793, Holy Trinity, Gosport.

m John Romane 1 Sept 1811 St Mary’s, Portsea

Charlotte Mills Pafford, bap 13 Sept 1790, Alverstoke

m John Antrim 14 April 1816, Holy Trinity, Gosport

James Pafford

bn 6 April 1793

bap 23 June 1793, Holy Trinity, Gosport

A few notes about the family tree shown above: I haven’t  traced more details of George and Mary Pafford after their marriage. James and Lydia May had five children and had probably moved to Brighton by 1826. Charlotte Pafford was privately baptised, instead of a Church ceremony - which is often a sign that there were fears about the survival of mother or daughter when she was born. John and Charlotte Antrim had two sons who were baptised at Brighton. A witness at their marriage was William May - probably a brother of James May who married Lydia. Charlotte signed her marriage document. John and Maria Romane had two children who were baptised at Alverstoke. However, John died before 1839.

James Pafford/ Mills - my greatx3 grandfather

The parish registers provide both birth and baptismal dates for James: born, 6 April 1793; christened at Holy Trinity, Gosport on 23 June 1793.

 

The story of James intrigued and perplexed me for seven years. Early on, I learnt that he had changed his surname to Mills and, like a dog with a bone, I worried at the reason for this from the start of my interest in family history. The following article (which was written before the final denoument) explains my discoveries and thoughts at the time and the research trail that was followed:

Family fables should come with a Genealogists Health Warning. So, it was with smiling scepticism that I listened to my elderly uncle, Patrick, relating a yarn that one of his ancestors had changed his name from Gifford to Mills. To my amazement, I found that there was a seam of truth to be mined from his story. Sorry Uncle, for doubting you.

 

My greatx3 grandfather was James Pafford (not Gifford, but near enough to postpone a visit to Patrick by the men in white coats). James married Mary Hambley and they had several children. Between 1818-27, five were christened, Pafford. But by 1841, James and Mary were known as Mills.

 

Persuasive evidence supports the belief that James Pafford and James Mills were one and the same. The census of 1851 shows James and Mary Mills living with two children, James and Eliza whose ages are consistent with the ages of two of the Pafford’s children. The odds against there being a family with four identical given names must be high.

 

Also, James and Mary had a close relationship with John and Susanna Lemmon - they lived near each other and James’ son married John’s daughter. Susanna (nee Hambley) Lemmon and Mary Pafford/Mills were sisters, born at Devonport. The clincher is that three of John Mill’s children were given the middle name, Pafford.

 

 

There are two reasons offered by members of the Mills for the name change. Patrick Mills thought that a forefather, who was in the navy, jumped ship and altered his name to avoid the consequences.

 

A second version is more detailed. Joan Mills (who married James Pafford’s greatx2 grandson) was told that a Mills ancestor had changed his name because he ‘deserted from the navy. There was trouble on a boat in the Pickman or Pickford Islands (sic). They stayed out there and made their lives there’. She understood that, in the 1920s, a black grandson of this deserter who was seeking his British relatives, visited her husband’s grandfather, Albert Thomas Pafford Mills.

 

 

For me, this story resounds with a timbre of truth and tallies in essential details with Patrick’s account. ‘At the mouth of two witnesses a matter is proven’. Or maybe Joan had been dreaming about Charles Laughton or, more likely, Mel Gibson.

 

To add some flesh to Joan’s story, there was a John Mills who sailed from Portsmouth on HMS bounty in 1787. He was baptised on 24 April 1749 at carnie by Huntley, Scotland. He was thirty-eight years old when the ship began her voyage - old enough to have married and sire children.

 

John was one of the Bounty mutineers who landed on the Pitcairn Islands (not Pickfords, a  removal firm at Portsmouth). He married a native woman, Vahineatua. He called her, ‘Prudence’ - an incongruous name-choice for a renegade.

 

John died at Pitcairn on 20 September 1797, hacked to death by his hosts, but not before fathering two children. Full pedigrees of the mutineers’ progeny are documented on the Internet and they include the descendants of John Mills. Some of these were alive in the 1920s when Joan says the meeting with the Mills/Paffords took place.

 

 

In trying to make sense of the fragments of facts at one’s fingertips, one is hamstrung by the many alternative spellings of Pafford. Being a common problem in genealogy caused by illiteracy does not lessen the researcher’s difficulties which are compounded by the variety of surname renditions - a real ‘nom de grrr’. So, we discover Parfoot and Pasford, Tafford and even Perfett masquerading as possible ancestors.

 

Another feature of the Mills/Pafford conundrum is that there are examples of the two names together:

James Pafford’s sister married as Charlotte Mills Pafford. George Parfoot Mills and Thomas Pafford Mills were buried at Portsea.

 

The prevalence of Pafford as a middle name has been mentioned already. It was a practice that continued well into the twentieth century. One of James and Mary’s greatx2 grandsons, born in 1919, was christened, Albert Thomas Pafford Mills. Indeed Joan Mills recounts the Mills manipulation that was applied to include Pafford on her daughter’s birth certificate. She preferred Rose Marie.

 

As the Pafford name featured so often among the descendants of James and Mary, we must conclude that there was no stigma attached to it - no Pafford had committed a grisly crime.

 

The main reason that surnames are used as middle names is to perpetuate the memory of a loved female ancestor. So, a child might be christened with its mother’s maiden name. Thus, Mary Pafford’s brother, James Hambley incorporated his mother’s maiden name, Manley, in his children’s name : Thomas Manley Hambley, which has a certain rhythm.

 

 

Probably, we will never solve the Mills Mystery of the Pafford Puzzle. But on the basis of what has been mentioned some solutions may be postulated: Did James Mills (b 1793c) join the Navy as a boy and then abscond, changing his name to Pafford (possibly using his mother’s maiden name) to escape detection and rejoining the navy before his marriage? This is unlikely as he remained in the same area and surely he would have been recognised and reported as a deserter.

 

 

 

James Pafford/Mills marriage

James married Mary Hambley at St Mary’s, Portsea on Christmas Day, 1816. The witnesses were Lucy Taylor and William Clemmens. All four signatories marked rather than signed their entries.

 

Finding James marriage document was a stroke of luck as it records him being ‘of HMS Prince’ (shown right). Prince  (74-gun, 3rd Rate) had fought at Trafalgar and immediately I wondered whether another family legend was true - that an ancestor had been a powder monkey with Nelson. This information was also potentially helpful as, with a fair wind, if one knows on what ship a man served, it is possible to discover his career details at The National archives, Kew (TNA) But at the time, this was a dead end as TNA apparently did not have the musters or roll call for Prince in and around 1816.

 

Seven years was to elapse before I realised that Prince was no longer in active service but mothballed at Portsmouth Harbour in 1816 and so her records were included in the ledger, ‘Portsmouth Ordinary’.

 

The story of my discovery of the true reason for the name change from Pafford to Mills was told in an article for the magazine, Your Family History. These are three links to the article: Pafford - page 1, page 2, page 3. What follows is the copy submitted before the editor got busy with his blue pencil:

The possible reason for a change of name

John Mills, mutineer

The surname, Pafford

My thoughts and conclusions at the time

A more plausible explanation crosses my fevered mind: John Mills, mutineer, married and had children. After the mutiny, a son, George, changed his name to Pafford (after his mother) and married Mary. Their children, including James were all christened as Pafford. Some time between 1825 and 1841, when time had healed the open sore of the mutiny, James Pafford decided to revert to his correct surname of Mills.

 

I will continue to doggedly pursue the truth - well, fairly doggedly. I have had letters printed in Your Family Tree magazine (right) and the Hampshire Historian outlining the enigma and seeking an answer. A letter was sent to the Norfolk Island Research and Genealogical Centre to enquire whether they had a record of a native searching for his English relatives around 1820 - and received no reply. (Apparently, they eschew modern inventions such as the telephone and e-mail. Perhaps I should have floated my enquiry in a bottle)

 

I will seek a marriage of John Mills between 1769 - 1785. Maybe one day I will discover a marriage between a Mills and Pafford - give or take a few letters. Perhaps other Pafford/Mills descendants know the truth in which case my theories will be corrected and another South Sea Bubble will be pricked.

                                  How Three Words Ended a Seven-year Quest!

 

A change of surname – the scourge of genealogists! This is the tale of a research odyssey that unearthed, by chance, the reason for the alteration.

 

Family fables should come labelled with a Health Warning. I was reminded of this as my ninety-year-old uncle, Patrick Mills, slowly (so slowly) dredged his memories. But he grabbed my attention when he claimed that his family’s surname had been changed after an ancestor ‘jumped ship’. Was this true? Why, the alteration?

 

Another slightly bemused relative by marriage was quizzed and, yes, she thought my greatx3 grandfather, James Pafford, had changed his name to Mills because he ‘deserted from the navy’. Pressed, she added that trouble had brewed on a ship at the Pickford Islands (sic) and that some of the crew ‘stayed and made their lives out there’ – a clear reference to the mutiny on the Bounty. (

 

Then she related a yarn that, for me at the time, gave this legend a ring of truth - a black grandson of a Bounty mutineer, while visiting from Pitcairn, met his Mills relatives at Portsmouth in the 1920s.

 

The next step was to check the plausibility of these details. I discovered that there was a Bounty mutineer, John Mills, who was baptised in 1749. By the time the Bounty sailed from Portsmouth, thirty-eight years later, John might conceivably have married in Britain and had children who could have included James Pafford/Mills (baptized 1793)

 

A search of the internet revealed that John Mills married a native Pitcairn girl he named, ‘Prudence’ (a curious choice for a mutineer). From their two children, born before his hosts hacked John to death, the couple had a crowd of descendents.

 

So far, so good: but although the facts seemed to potentially fit the fable, I cast around for proof of the truth. I wrote a letter to the fledgling YFT, Issue 6 – ‘Was my ancestor an HMS Bounty mutineer’. A similar appeal for information was flagged-up in the Hampshire FHS magazine. Posts were left on internet mailing lists and an ignored letter was sent to the Norfolk Island Genealogy Centre (a message in a bottle might have been more effective, perhaps). No positive news resulted. And so the matter was left, annoyingly, frustratingly unresolved – becalmed in the doldrums.

 

Over the next seven years, I accumulated copper-bottomed evidence that my family’s name had indeed changed from Pafford to Mills. Two of James Pafford/Mills’ sons were buried as George Parfoot (sic) Mills and Thomas Pafford Mills. Birth and death certificates gave up further information – Pafford was inserted before Mills in seven instances.

 

The most compelling corroboration of this name change was found by a stroke of pure luck. Investigating something completely different, I was searching Portsmouth newspapers from the nineteenth century.  Lady Serendipity nodded my way and I stumbled upon the hitherto unknown details of the death of James’ wife. Unusually, the information about her was printed twice: once for Mary Mills and again for Mary Pafford (otherwise the wording was identical - see below)).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the best tradition of family stories, what now follows is a lengthy but necessary interlude.

 

I decided to investigate the naval career of James Pafford/Mills’ son, James Mills junior (born 1819). On what ship(s) had he served? The accepted ‘open sesame’ to naval records is to establish on which ship an ancestor served. This door opened when I ordered the birth certificate of James junior’s son, John Mills (born 1860). It stated that James’ occupation was ‘seaman HMS Asia’. (Third Illustration)

 

Paul Benyon’s comprehensive naval website revealed that in 1860 Asia was moored in Portsmouth Harbour as a guard ship. I then searched the catalogue of The National Archives (TNA) and discovered that they held records for Asia at this time.  

 

TNA at Kew had to be my next port of call, courtesy of an excursion arranged by the enthusiastic Blackwood branch of Gwent FHS. I ordered the Asia ledger. Scouring the lists of names, I found my ancestor, James junior – a thrilling moment! I was touching the original document which outlined the working life of my forefather from 1859 to 1861. More exhilaration followed, as the ledger revealed James’ previous ship – Tribune. Now the paper trail of vessels on which he served could be hunted - Asia, Tribune, Dragon, Tyne, Actaeon and Sapphire.

 

And so the voyage of discovery continued over three further visits to TNA. Musters and pay books for a succession of ships were traced. One noted James’ Certificate of Service number, 30777. This was another reference point and, using it, I located a summary of James’ naval career that included his date of birth and appearance: fresh complexion, dark hair and eyes, 5 feet 6 ½ inches tall.

 

Obsessively, I ordered the log books for each ship on which James had served and photographed every page, my table becoming strewn with the combusted confetti from the weathered ledgers.

 

Incredibly, I now knew exactly where my ancestor had been for every minute over fifteen years, how his ship was engaged and the weather conditions he faced.

 

James’ ships had been part of the campaigns in the Baltic Sea (against Russia, 1854-56) and also the Second Chinese War (1856-59). I accumulated copies of fifteen paintings depicting events in his life. A diary chronicling the voyage of his ship to China was discovered. In short, I was swamped with details – enough to write a book on James’ life. But that’s another story, waiting to be written!

 

Now, to the nub of this digression: I knew that James junior served at Portsmouth Harbour during the mid-1830s. I decided that I wanted more information about his life as a teenager. So, in October 2009, I once more returned to TNA having pre-ordered the documents for Portsmouth Ordinary 1833-35. (Note: ‘Ships in Ordinary’:  In the wake of major naval conflicts, when peace settled, there was no need for so many men o’war. So, ships were moth-balled in harbours until the next alarum. There they wallowed and rotted, stripped of their guns and sails and with their yards crossed. They were manned by a miniscule crew of a gunner, boatswain and seamen who carried out routine maintenance.)        

 

I checked the pay book for the first quarter of 1835 and found James Mills on Pembroke (74-guns), one of a six-strong skeleton crew. But look who was noted above James! None other than a second James Mills, (able-bodied seaman) – James junior’s father.

 

Some quick thinking was needed as research time was short. Here was James senior on board a ship in Portsmouth Harbour in 1835. I knew from his marriage document (dated 1816) that he was earlier stationed in the harbour on Prince. Could it be that my intrepid mariner ancestor had never left the sheltered waters of Portsmouth Harbour? The ledgers would tell me, but how was it best to search them?

 

James senior was baptized in 1793. Had he entered the service in around 1807 when he was aged 14, like his son? The indexes of Portmouth Ordinary for that year were eagerly scanned and, sure enough, there was James Pafford. He joined Blake on 21 July 1814.

 

The clock of my research day was ticking remorselessly. I now wanted to fill the gap in James senior’s career between 1807 and 1833. I decided to look at the records for Portsmouth Ordinary for every second year. Painfully slowly (there was a forty-minute delay between ordering and receipt of documents) a picture emerged.

 

After Blake, James was on board Edinburgh. Then, in the final quarter of 1815 beside James’ name were recorded three little words which made my head spin.  After seven long, frustrating years, here in a decomposing ledger was recorded the long-sought reason for my family’s change of name! The angels sang and the archivists danced.

 

Along with two others, on 11 December 1815, James Pafford had been dismissed from Edinburgh for ‘neglect of duty’!

 

After this reprimand, there was no further mention of James Pafford in the books of Portsmouth Ordinary. But six months later, in the second quarter of 1816, James Mills suddenly appeared in the books of Prince. He then served on Lacedemonin before transferring to Pembroke from 1827 to 1836.

 

In the cold light of dawn, I assessed my treasure. James Pafford had done or had not done something (perhaps he had indeed ‘jumped ship’ as Uncle Pat had said) and had been discovered and dismissed. Faced with no work and an impending marriage, he had simply resurrected his naval career as James Mills.

 

The remaining question is perhaps easily answered – why did James senior choose Mills for his altered ego? When his sister married, she gave her name as Charlotte Mills Pafford – likely a nod towards a favourite relative, probably her mother. Although I have yet to find a record of James’ parents’ marriage, the odds are short that his mother’s maiden name was Mills.

 

So, the romantic tale of a Bounty mutineer in my family was fanciful. I have no such ancestor. My genealogical conversation-stopper has been stopped and my South Sea bubble, popped. The truth of the reason for the name change in my family is mundane and unremarkable.

 

However, I hug closely to my chest the warm satisfaction of having finally found the truth of why my uncle was named not Patrick Pafford, but Patrick Mills.

 

The lesson of this Case Study is clear – faced with a seemingly impenetrable sea-fog around an ancestor that obscures vital information, stay on course! Someday, a sudden shaft of serendipitous sunlight may pick out the solution one seeks.

James Pafford’s teenaged years

As you will have noticed, I am not following a chronological sequence with this story - because I wanted to show the research path that was followed. Now, a look at James’ life as a teenager:

 

He was fourteen years old when he joined the Royal Navy on around 28 August 1807 as a Standing Ordinary Seaman attached to Robust (3rd Rate, 74-guns) which was moored ‘in ordinary’ at Portsmouth Harbour. He was part of a twelve-man skeleton crew who were maintaining the fifty-year-old ship. He was paid £1 8s 6d for the first month and two days work, which is about 5/3d a week (26p). James (now an Able-bodied Seaman) was transferred to Blake (3rd Rate, 74-guns) in the harbour on 21 July 1814 as part of a ten-man crew. He received £5 10/- for thirteen weeks work - about 8/- a week - which was on a par with agricultural workers earnings in the countryside. Then, James was assigned to Edinburgh (74 guns) on 1 January 1815.

 

It was while he was on Edinburgh that he and two other able-bodied seamen, John Buttin (sic) and John Akins, were dismissed from the Navy on 11 December 1815 for ‘neglect of duty’. What they did, or didn’t do to deserve this penalty is not known. However, if their duties are considered, a clue may emerge. The small crew checked the level of water in the ship’s well; inspected the mooring ropes; ensured that the magazine was clean and dry; prevented unauthorised entry on board ship as watch keepers and stayed awake at night, answering the shouts of the Duty Officer as he rowed his rounds.

 

What was James to do? He was twenty-two and knew only a life at sea (if only in Portsmouth Harbour). As he married a year later, there may have been additional pressure on him to secure employment. His response to his predicament was simply to enlist in the navy again, using a different name - arise, James Mills. He probably chose Mills because it was a surname in his family tree. His sister was Charlotte Mills Pafford which prompts the thought that her and James’ mother’s maiden name was Mills.

 

To sign on again under these circumstances was not unusual. John Crump of Portsmouth Dockyard Museum writes, ‘...I am in no doubt that a man could have re-enlisted under another assumed name; this probably happened frequently’. Naval historian, Paul Benyon adds, ‘it wouldn’t surprise me...as long as the offence wasn’t too serious. The Navy appears to have been surprisingly forgiving’.

 

So, James joined Prince on 22 June 1816 retaining his rating as an able-bodied seaman. When he married later in the year, on Christmas Day, he was earning £5 8s 10d for thirteen week’s work.

 

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Pafford - part two

James Mills III

Hulks laid-up in Portsmouth Harbour c1836

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