♀Nancy Wilkinson

Nancy Wilkinson (10 October 1807 – 8 February 1866) was a Yorkshire-born wife and mother who married at Sedbergh in 1827, raised her family there and was living in Illinois by 1860. She was the second great-grand-aunt of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), the sister of William Robert Wilkinson (1816–1886), a second great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard.

Marriage and family

She married John Birkett, born about 1796, on 29 October 1827 at Sedbergh; an index of English marriages prints the place as Sedbergh, York, England. FamilySearch’s index of Sedbergh christenings gives eight children of the marriage between 1828 and 1843, with Nanny named as the mother each time, and the same index records the death of their son Thomas on 19 November 1840, at the age of ten.

At the census of 1841 the household was at Smithy, in Sedbergh, and she was entered as Nanny Birket. It held John, her sons William, John, Robert and Jeremiah, the youngest only seven months old, and a girl named Ann, about two. A daughter Agnes was christened in February 1843, and a son Mathew was born in England about 1850.

Illinois

By 1860 the family was in Illinois. The census of that year lists John Birkert, Anna Birkert and Mathew, about ten, at Freindsville Precinct, Wabash County. Mathew’s birth in England puts the crossing between 1850 and 1860; the voyage itself is not documented. The older children are not in the 1860 household. Friendsville was the village where her brother William Robert Wilkinson had been postmaster since 1841.

A Find a Grave index gives her death on 8 February 1866, at the age of 59, and her burial at Friendsville Cemetery. It states no place of death.

Notes

The Birkett household

Neither census states relationships. Ann, born about 1839, and Mathew, born about 1850, are counted as children of John and Nanny because they share the surname and the household, their ages fit, and the marriage is documented with eight christenings in the same parish. James, about thirteen in 1841, and Anthony, about nine, are not in the 1841 household, and the records do not say where they were.

Her age

The 1860 census gives Anna Birkert’s birth about 1809, two years after the 10 October 1807 of the Find a Grave index. The 1841 census gives a range of 1807 to 1811, with Yorkshire as the county.

Her parentage

The county history lists a daughter Nanny, fourth of the fourteen children of Thomas W. Wilkinson (1767–1840) and Ann Rah/Rae (1784–1858). The tree identifies her with the Nancy Wilkinson who married John Birkett. Her own christening is not among the Sedbergh christenings indexed for the family, and her mother’s name is given elsewhere as Nanny with different dates.