Latest / Stories That Live In Us / Illinois: Scoundrels and Scandals (with Sue Talbot) | Episode 98

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Illinois: Scoundrels and Scandals (with Sue Talbot) | Episode 98 · Stories That Live In Us

• 0:00
  Sue Talbot: And I've come to the conclusion that um he just liked being in the newspapers.
• 0:05
  Sue Talbot: He liked he liked being center of attention.
• 0:10
  Crista Cowan: Okay.
• 0:10
  Crista Cowan: Stories that live in us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present, and future.
• 0:19
  Crista Cowan: I'm Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist.
• 0:23
  Crista Cowan: Counting down to the upcoming celebration of America's 250th birthday, you'll meet families from each state whose stories are woven into the very fabric of America.
• 0:34
  Crista Cowan: Tales of immigration, migration, courage, and community that remind us that when we tell our stories, we strengthen the bonds that connect us.
• 0:42
  Crista Cowan: So join me for season two as we discover from sea to shining sea, the stories that live in us.
• 0:49
  Crista Cowan: We are deep into our America 250 series, and today we get to go to the state of Illinois.
• 0:57
  Crista Cowan: But the voice you're gonna hear may be a little startling.
• 1:01
  Crista Cowan: When you think about Illinois, you probably think about somebody with a Chicago accent or a deep Midwest accent.
• 1:07
  Crista Cowan: But my guest today has a very British accent.
• 1:10
  Crista Cowan: And our story today starts in England.
• 1:14
  Crista Cowan: Now, when you start climbing your family tree, there are usually two kinds of reactions.
• 1:20
  Crista Cowan: Some people start climbing their family tree hoping that they're going to find a scandal of some sort, because those are the interesting ancestors.
• 1:28
  Crista Cowan: And some people start climbing their family tree dreading that they will find a scandal.
• 1:34
  Crista Cowan: Well, my guest today is Sue Talbot, and she found the scandal of all scandals.
• 1:41
  Crista Cowan: There is crime, there is corruption, there is suicide, there is infidelity, there is a lot happening in this story.
• 1:51
  Crista Cowan: And ultimately it leads from England to Chicago, Illinois.
• 1:56
  Crista Cowan: Enjoy my conversation with my guest, Sue Talbot.
• 1:59
  Crista Cowan: Sue, I'm so excited to have this conversation with you.
• 2:02
  Crista Cowan: Sometimes I invite my friends on the podcast, but sometimes I get to meet new friends.
• 2:06
  Crista Cowan: And so I would just love to know tell me, tell me all about you.
• 2:11
  Sue Talbot: Okay, so um I grew up in the northwest of England, um, on the Wirral, which is near Liverpool.
• 2:19
  Sue Talbot: And um I got into hairdressing and then I um moved to uh London and then moved again to Birmingham, and finally I've settled in Northamptonshire.
• 2:33
  Sue Talbot: Um, and I was a university administrator for about 20 years, and I've recently retired.
• 2:41
  Sue Talbot: Congratulations, that's exciting.
• 2:45
  Crista Cowan: So, for people who aren't familiar with British geography, where it's Northamptonshire.
• 2:49
  Sue Talbot: Northamptonshire is right in the middle of England.
• 2:52
  Sue Talbot: Okay.
• 2:53
  Sue Talbot: It's where Lady Diana, uh, the Princess of Wales, late, um, lived or grew up.
• 3:02
  Crista Cowan: Well, um, how did you first get interested in family history?
• 3:05
  Crista Cowan: What did that look like for you?
• 3:07
  Sue Talbot: Um, I think I first got into family history after um my grandmother died.
• 3:13
  Sue Talbot: Um my mum and her sister had always had this sneaking suspicion that uh their parents weren't married.
• 3:23
  Sue Talbot: Oh, because when my grandfather died um in 1943, which was a long time ago, my mum was quite small, he had quite a good job um on the railways, and he didn't get a pension.
• 3:41
  Sue Talbot: She didn't get his pension.
• 3:43
  Sue Talbot: So they had always thought that this was very strange.
• 3:47
  Sue Talbot: Um, and after she died, they went through her her documents in the house and found the will, which uh confirmed their thoughts.
• 4:00
  Sue Talbot: And so they started a little bit of research, and that's when I got involved.
• 4:07
  Crista Cowan: Wow.
• 4:07
  Crista Cowan: So did you get to the bottom of why grandma and grandpa never married?
• 4:12
  Crista Cowan: Yes.
• 4:14
  Sue Talbot: Um, so they never married because he was already married to somebody else.
• 4:20
  Crista Cowan: Oh goodness.
• 4:21
  Crista Cowan: So was it just a matter of he hadn't gotten a divorce, or did he actually have two families?
• 4:27
  Sue Talbot: Um, I think it was a matter of he didn't get a divorce.
• 4:31
  Sue Talbot: Um, his wife, uh, because I later, through um a little bit of detective work, um, I later spoke to his granddaughter.
• 4:42
  Sue Talbot: Um and she confirmed that her her grandmother would never have divorced him.
• 4:52
  Sue Talbot: Okay.
• 4:53
  Sue Talbot: And I guess she got she got the pension.
• 4:55
  Crista Cowan: Oh yeah, right.
• 4:56
  Crista Cowan: So she was legally entitled to it.
• 4:59
  Crista Cowan: Um, and so did your mother and her sister ever meet any siblings from that relationship?
• 5:07
  Sue Talbot: No, um, and I only had a I had a very, very good two-hour conversation with this lady who was the same age as my mum, um, because of the difference in the age gap um between my grandmother and my grandfather.
• 5:27
  Sue Talbot: Um and I think it was just all a bit too much for her.
• 5:33
  Sue Talbot: So I've just let it be.
• 5:35
  Sue Talbot: I think it's hard.
• 5:37
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, for sure.
• 5:38
  Crista Cowan: So she would be your mom's half niece, right?
• 5:42
  Sue Talbot: Yeah.
• 5:43
  Sue Talbot: But she but she would be the same age as my mum.
• 5:47
  Sue Talbot: So it's so funny how that happens.
• 5:49
  Sue Talbot: A little bit strange, yes.
• 5:53
  Crista Cowan: So did you grow up um close to your other grandparents at all?
• 5:58
  Sue Talbot: Uh yes.
• 5:59
  Sue Talbot: Um in a way, um, I I was close to my grandmother, um, and she lived nearby.
• 6:07
  Sue Talbot: Um, my dad's parents, um, I was close to them, but they decided to move to Australia um when I was about four.
• 6:18
  Sue Talbot: Um, and my grandfather used to write me letters um about once a month and send me books.
• 6:26
  Sue Talbot: And so I I have that relationship with them.
• 6:29
  Sue Talbot: Um, and in my 20s, I I I went out there and visited them, which was nice.
• 6:36
  Crista Cowan: That's lovely.
• 6:37
  Crista Cowan: I love that.
• 6:38
  Crista Cowan: So as you were growing up, like it sounds like your interest in family history was sparked by a particular event, but you know, this curiosity to solve this mystery about your grandparents.
• 6:49
  Crista Cowan: But were there other family stories you heard growing up that kind of stuck in the back of your brain and and became part of your family history journey?
• 6:57
  Crista Cowan: Uh uh no, not really.
• 7:00
  Sue Talbot: We're a family of um, especially my dad's family, um always talking, always telling stories, um, but nothing about the family.
• 7:13
  Sue Talbot: It was uh a little strange.
• 7:15
  Sue Talbot: Um, however, I did have an experience with my grandmother.
• 7:19
  Sue Talbot: I used to go after school for tea, um, and this occasion with my cousins, um on this occasion I went and I was alone, and she had all these things, um, uh a wooden plane and um some pictures on the sideboard.
• 7:38
  Sue Talbot: And I asked her what they were, and she said, They're Arthur's.
• 7:44
  Sue Talbot: And I said, Who who's Arthur?
• 7:48
  Sue Talbot: And she said, It's your mum's brother.
• 7:50
  Sue Talbot: But I had no idea who Arthur was.
• 7:55
  Sue Talbot: Um and she just said he died when he was young, and and that was that.
• 8:02
  Sue Talbot: So, of course, I went home to my mum and and asked her, and she was surprised that my grandmother had even spoken about it.
• 8:11
  Sue Talbot: Um, because sadly he'd committed suicide at age 14.
• 8:17
  Sue Talbot: Um and so it never been spoken about from that time.
• 8:24
  Sue Talbot: My mum would have only been about three.
• 8:26
  Sue Talbot: Um, but yeah, very sad.
• 8:30
  Crista Cowan: Well, and the fact that your grandmother somehow wanted to connect you to him and to that story, she put those things out intentionally.
• 8:37
  Sue Talbot: Yeah, she did, but she wouldn't discuss the you know, anything else.
• 8:43
  Sue Talbot: Um, and that was the only time she ever spoke to me about it.
• 8:48
  Crista Cowan: Oh wow.
• 8:49
  Crista Cowan: And so uh after that conversation with your mother, did he ever come up again?
• 8:54
  Crista Cowan: Did you look into his life a little more once you became interested in family history?
• 8:59
  Sue Talbot: Yes.
• 9:00
  Sue Talbot: Um sadly, we're sort of at a dead end in that um the records were destroyed um in the 1970s.
• 9:11
  Sue Talbot: Um, because records here uh closed if there's been um a coroner's report for 75 years.
• 9:22
  Sue Talbot: Um the 75 years was up, and so I inquired.
• 9:27
  Sue Talbot: Um, and a very nice lady in the records office told me that somebody high up had decided there wasn't enough room to keep the documents and they had all been burnt.
• 9:39
  Sue Talbot: Um so I I only have a newspaper report.
• 9:45
  Crista Cowan: Um so hard for that family.
• 9:48
  Crista Cowan: Yes.
• 9:49
  Crista Cowan: Now that you know that, that's what happened.
• 9:54
  Crista Cowan: Can you look can you look back at your grandma and your mom and see that how it might have affected them?
• 10:02
  Sue Talbot: Oh yes, definitely, because my mum never had a really good relationship with her mum.
• 10:09
  Sue Talbot: And um it it's quite sad really that um you know we didn't get to talk about it.
• 10:17
  Sue Talbot: Um my my auntie is uh was a social worker, and I think she didn't want to press her brother for that information because obviously it was it it was just very hard.
• 10:33
  Sue Talbot: It must have been very hard, but he was always such a happy person.
• 10:37
  Sue Talbot: Um so I think he perhaps made a piece to to go on and you know live his life um without it sort of affecting him too much.
• 10:54
  Crista Cowan: Yeah.
• 10:54
  Crista Cowan: Yeah.
• 10:55
  Crista Cowan: So on your mom's side of the family, she was one of four children, or were there more?
• 11:00
  Sue Talbot: Um, she was one from my grandfather.
• 11:03
  Sue Talbot: Um, there were three of them.
• 11:05
  Sue Talbot: And then my grandmother had been married before, and her husband died.
• 11:10
  Sue Talbot: And so there were two children from that marriage.
• 11:13
  Sue Talbot: So five, and then obviously Arthur died.
• 11:17
  Sue Talbot: Yeah.
• 11:17
  Sue Talbot: Yeah.
• 11:18
  Crista Cowan: It's interesting because as we dive into family history, sometimes we dive into it like a little bit like you did with a mystery to solve or something curious.
• 11:26
  Crista Cowan: But you know, almost invariably we encounter hard things because, you know, life is hard for people and a lot of times and a lot of places and a lot of circumstances.
• 11:37
  Crista Cowan: And so the fact that you encountered that story at such a young age and then had an opportunity to reconcile it a little bit when you got into family history, I think that that's a necessary thing, especially like hearing stories like that as a child.
• 11:52
  Crista Cowan: Sometimes we don't have the capacity to put it in the right mental framework, right?
• 11:58
  Crista Cowan: Um, but to then think about it through the eyes of a mother uh losing her child.
• 12:03
  Crista Cowan: And, you know, once you're a mother, you're gonna process that very differently than you might have as a child looking at that experience.
• 12:12
  Sue Talbot: Yeah, definitely.
• 12:13
  Sue Talbot: Yeah.
• 12:14
  Crista Cowan: So as you got involved in family history, were there other discoveries that came along or other interesting stories that came out?
• 12:22
  Sue Talbot: Uh the main one has to be my great great grandfather.
• 12:27
  Sue Talbot: Um so having which side which side of your family tree?
• 12:31
  Sue Talbot: So this is mum's um side.
• 12:33
  Sue Talbot: So mum's father's side.
• 12:35
  Sue Talbot: Okay.
• 12:35
  Sue Talbot: Jenkinson's.
• 12:37
  Sue Talbot: Um and mum and her sister went off and did a little bit of research um in Nottingham, where he was uh he grew up.
• 12:49
  Sue Talbot: Um their father grew up.
• 12:51
  Sue Talbot: They found out a little bit, but there was obviously more to find.
• 12:56
  Sue Talbot: And I guess that's where I started my journey.
• 13:01
  Sue Talbot: Um, and I went and tried to find out a little bit more.
• 13:06
  Sue Talbot: Um so I found out that um he was mayor of the town, um, and that he was a Methodist preacher, and that they lived in a nice big fancy house.
• 13:19
  Sue Talbot: Um, and I reported back to mum, and she was pleased.
• 13:24
  Sue Talbot: And where was this?
• 13:26
  Sue Talbot: It's a place called Redford in Nottinghamshire.
• 13:31
  Sue Talbot: Okay.
• 13:31
  Sue Talbot: Um and um this would have been around about 1850.
• 13:38
  Sue Talbot: Okay.
• 13:39
  Sue Talbot: Up until about the 1880s.
• 13:43
  Sue Talbot: Um and he was a jeweler as well, um, and watchmaker.
• 13:50
  Sue Talbot: Um so he was doing pretty well.
• 13:53
  Sue Talbot: Um, he'd gone into the family business, his father was a watchmaker and silversmith, and he had four shops um in different parts of the county.
• 14:05
  Sue Talbot: And the next day I reported back to Mum and she said, Oh, Jean, her sister, would be really pleased because she knew we were from good stock.
• 14:15
  Sue Talbot: Um that came crashing down the next day when I found some documents at the records office that um were a bit shocking.
• 14:31
  Sue Talbot: Um and John Jenkinson had later gone into stockbrokering and had absconded with debts, a lot of money was missing.
• 14:47
  Sue Talbot: Do you know how much?
• 14:48
  Sue Talbot: Well, uh there are different reports, it's between 30 and 50,000 pounds at the time in 1884.
• 14:59
  Sue Talbot: And he was declared bankrupt.
• 15:03
  Sue Talbot: But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if he wasn't bankrupt, he just helped himself quite quite people's mummy.
• 15:19
  Sue Talbot: Um so I then reported back to to my mum, and obviously that was a bit sort of like we'd gone up in the world and then came crashing down.
• 15:36
  Crista Cowan: Isn't it so funny when you're researching family histories?
• 15:39
  Crista Cowan: Sometimes it's like those events are happening right now, not that they happened a hundred years ago, because we're so invested in the story as we uncover it.
• 15:48
  Crista Cowan: Yeah.
• 15:49
  Sue Talbot: Yes.
• 15:50
  Sue Talbot: Um, so it I I I found out quite a bit of information that this is quite a long time ago.
• 15:57
  Sue Talbot: Um, and um, because we were going to have this chat, I started looking a bit more into it, and I found a quite a few documents um recently in the last couple of weeks.
• 16:11
  Sue Talbot: Um and I've come to the conclusion that um he just liked being in the newspapers.
• 16:18
  Sue Talbot: He liked he liked being center of attention.
• 16:23
  Crista Cowan: Okay.
• 16:24
  Crista Cowan: Well, he was he the mayor at the time this all went down, or had he just been mayor before?
• 16:29
  Sue Talbot: He had just been mayor.
• 16:31
  Sue Talbot: Um, he put his business up for sale.
• 16:34
  Sue Talbot: Um, although I'm not sure if they actually sold because two of his sons were still running the businesses at the time he went missing.
• 16:45
  Sue Talbot: So there's a lot of ambiguous comments in the press and so he's he's what uh like he's what in his 50s at this time, his 60s?
• 16:56
  Sue Talbot: How old is that?
• 16:57
  Sue Talbot: Um so he would have been in his 50s, late 50s.
• 17:03
  Sue Talbot: Okay, and did he just have the two sons or did he have more children?
• 17:06
  Sue Talbot: He had more children.
• 17:08
  Sue Talbot: In fact, his last child was born in 1880.
• 17:12
  Sue Talbot: Oh, goodness.
• 17:13
  Sue Talbot: And he absconded in 1884.
• 17:18
  Crista Cowan: And so did he disappear with his wife and younger child, or did he leave them all behind?
• 17:23
  Crista Cowan: He left them all behind.
• 17:25
  Crista Cowan: Oh my goodness.
• 17:26
  Crista Cowan: Okay, tell me everything you know about what happened to him.
• 17:30
  Sue Talbot: So he he leaves and they believe he's gone to Spain.
• 17:35
  Sue Talbot: Um, so he's gone, and the whole town is in uproar because everybody's lost their money.
• 17:43
  Sue Talbot: And you know, they're not happy, and my great-grandfather, John's son, uh, who was also John, um he resigned his position as um treasurer of the town council.
• 18:00
  Sue Talbot: Guilt by association.
• 18:02
  Sue Talbot: And um they didn't want him to go, but he felt he had to under the circumstances.
• 18:10
  Sue Talbot: So he sort of lost that position in society.
• 18:14
  Sue Talbot: Um my great-great-grandmother Anne, she uh went to live with her son in um Newark, which is nearby.
• 18:26
  Sue Talbot: And um sadly, in the June, the following it it so he would have left in February 1884.
• 18:36
  Sue Talbot: In June 1884, she got herself dressed early in the morning and went out and walked into the river and committed suicide.
• 18:49
  Sue Talbot: I can only think that it was suicide.
• 18:53
  Sue Talbot: And later that day she was found.
• 18:57
  Crista Cowan: Oh, that's heartbreaking, but the shame that she must have the guilt she must have felt and the shame that must have been heaped on her by that community.
• 19:04
  Crista Cowan: Like, I can't imagine having to endure that.
• 19:07
  Crista Cowan: And she's still got at least one young child.
• 19:10
  Crista Cowan: And yeah, that's so heartbreaking.
• 19:13
  Sue Talbot: Yes, and I was lucky enough to actually go in the house that she was living in.
• 19:19
  Sue Talbot: So he had bought this big house at the sort of entrance to um the town.
• 19:26
  Sue Talbot: It had been turned into flats, but I decided I would knock on the door and ask, um, being a bit cheeky.
• 19:33
  Sue Talbot: But uh so I went in and saw the ground floor of the building, and it was a six-bedroom villa with four acres of pleasure grounds.
• 19:42
  Sue Talbot: So um the shame of rising so high and then falling because he'd left her to face the music.
• 19:52
  Crista Cowan: And so what happened to the younger child or children?
• 19:56
  Sue Talbot: Um I found him living with my great-grandfather, who I feel must have been a a good person, you know.
• 20:05
  Sue Talbot: He he resigned, he looked after his sibling.
• 20:09
  Sue Talbot: Um so the the the links between the family and the and the people of the town continued because he was John Jenkinson was friends with uh practically everybody that lived there.
• 20:27
  Sue Talbot: It was a small market town.
• 20:29
  Sue Talbot: Um and so all these names keep cropping up in documents.
• 20:35
  Sue Talbot: Um and in the meantime, we think he went to America.
• 20:44
  Crista Cowan: So did the family ever know what happened to him, or is this all now gonna be, is the rest of the story all just gonna be things you discovered since then?
• 20:53
  Crista Cowan: No.
• 20:55
  Sue Talbot: But it sort of continues, so he he's gone to America and in 1885 um it's reported in the paper um that um he had written a letter to his wife's housekeeper and invited her to America.
• 21:16
  Sue Talbot: The housekeeper.
• 21:17
  Sue Talbot: The younger house housekeeper.
• 21:23
  Crista Cowan: Did he know his wife had died at this point?
• 21:26
  Crista Cowan: Like was there communication?
• 21:28
  Crista Cowan: Okay.
• 21:29
  Sue Talbot: I think there would have been.
• 21:31
  Sue Talbot: This is what makes me think there's a bit more to the story.
• 21:35
  Sue Talbot: Right.
• 21:36
  Sue Talbot: Um and he goes to America, he asks her to go over, and she goes over, and they marry in Manhattan in 1885.
• 21:48
  Sue Talbot: Okay.
• 21:49
  Sue Talbot: And her cousin, who was his head apprentice, also goes over.
• 21:58
  Crista Cowan: Okay.
• 22:00
  Sue Talbot: And then they all go to Chicago and they set up in business in um West Madison Street.
• 22:11
  Crista Cowan: And does he go back into the jewelry into the jewelry business or the watchmaking business?
• 22:15
  Crista Cowan: Yes.
• 22:17
  Crista Cowan: Okay.
• 22:18
  Sue Talbot: So that to me means there must have been quite a bit of money around for him to do that.
• 22:26
  Sue Talbot: Yeah.
• 22:27
  Sue Talbot: And he just keeps on popping up in the press um for various things, you know, a robbery in the jewelry store.
• 22:38
  Sue Talbot: Um and then it takes a twist.
• 22:44
  Sue Talbot: Because there haven't been enough tests already.
• 22:48
  Sue Talbot: I'm going to backtrack because his one of his sons goes out to um to visit him.
• 22:57
  Sue Talbot: In Chicago?
• 22:58
  Sue Talbot: In Chicago with his wife in 1885, and his daughter is born there.
• 23:07
  Crista Cowan: So so Jon has a granddaughter born in Chicago.
• 23:12
  Crista Cowan: So he's staying in touch with his children, and there's still family relationships, in spite of what he's done.
• 23:19
  Crista Cowan: Yes.
• 23:20
  Crista Cowan: Okay.
• 23:21
  Sue Talbot: So I've found quite a lot of documents or newspaper reports about him going into politics and um having been the benefactor of uh people's wills.
• 23:36
  Sue Talbot: Um I've also uh I I knew about this quite a while ago, but um in 1902 he assaulted a man outside the Tacoma building in Chicago and um had been sending him letters because he believed this man to be having uh relationships with his wife.
• 24:01
  Sue Talbot: Oh goodness.
• 24:02
  Sue Talbot: And so he's back in court again.
• 24:07
  Sue Talbot: Um and that's when I found quite an interesting uh newspaper document um which stated that the Frederick Shelley, who was his head apprentice and cousin to Annie Thompson, who was the housekeeper, I'm with you.
• 24:31
  Sue Talbot: Yeah, they they persuaded John Jenkinson to sign over the jewelry store.
• 24:40
  Sue Talbot: Okay.
• 24:41
  Sue Talbot: And at this point he's in his 70s.
• 24:44
  Sue Talbot: About 69.
• 24:46
  Sue Talbot: Okay.
• 24:46
  Sue Talbot: Um and then he gets arrested.
• 24:52
  Sue Talbot: I haven't found out what the outcome of that case was.
• 24:56
  Sue Talbot: Um, but I think that was the end of the three of them being together.
• 25:03
  Sue Talbot: Oh goodness.
• 25:04
  Sue Talbot: Um my thoughts are that perhaps Frederick Shelley and Annie Thompson, well, an idol.
• 25:15
  Crista Cowan: Even though they were cousins, yeah, that they might have been romantically involved.
• 25:18
  Crista Cowan: Yeah.
• 25:19
  Crista Cowan: Yes.
• 25:20
  Crista Cowan: Well, either way, they're scheming to take advantage of him, but probably feeling completely justified in doing it because he's taken advantage of so many people over the years, and they basically apprenticed under him, not just for not just for jewelry making.
• 25:36
  Sue Talbot: He's an interesting character.
• 25:37
  Sue Talbot: Absolutely.
• 25:38
  Sue Talbot: And of course, his son died very young.
• 25:44
  Sue Talbot: Um I believe John might have died in Chicago around about 1907.
• 25:50
  Sue Talbot: Um, and Frederick and Annie, um, perhaps in the 1930s.
• 25:58
  Sue Talbot: Um I found them on the 1920s census.
• 26:03
  Sue Talbot: And I think for the family, my great-grandfather, John, um he died in 1912.
• 26:11
  Sue Talbot: So he was relatively young, I think about 54.
• 26:14
  Sue Talbot: Um and then the other son, William, um sort of took on a little bit of John's uh genes, and I find him being arrested by his cousin in Kent for um steal some jewelry, and um I found his prison record, um, which solved uh little bit of uh um an issue for me because my parents both have very blue eyes, I have green eyes, and that's where I found um John Jenkinson's son William arrested with dark hair and one one green eye.
• 27:07
  Crista Cowan: Well, there you go.
• 27:09
  Crista Cowan: My goodness.
• 27:11
  Crista Cowan: So his son that came to Chicago to visit him, did he stay in Chicago or did he go back to England?
• 27:17
  Sue Talbot: No, that that was William, and um he I think um found life quite difficult.
• 27:27
  Sue Talbot: His marriage broke up, and um, of course, he's he's been arrested.
• 27:32
  Sue Talbot: So he's obviously not um you know, sort of continuing in the lifestyle, and he's a bit of a a a sort of uh traveler, um, traveling around the country, just getting into trouble.
• 27:48
  Sue Talbot: Um, but I haven't been able to find a death for him.
• 27:52
  Sue Talbot: Um so yes.
• 27:55
  Crista Cowan: Okay.
• 27:55
  Crista Cowan: And so then did John and Annie have any children together?
• 28:01
  Sue Talbot: No.
• 28:01
  Sue Talbot: No, they didn't.
• 28:03
  Crista Cowan: Okay, so John comes to America, brings the housekeeper and his apprentice, eventually dies here, and that is the connection, like that is the only people that end up in Chicago.
• 28:14
  Crista Cowan: Everybody else is either stays in England or goes back to England.
• 28:18
  Crista Cowan: Wow.
• 28:19
  Crista Cowan: Yeah.
• 28:19
  Crista Cowan: So as you've done this research, obviously into these let's call them colorful characters in your family tree.
• 28:27
  Crista Cowan: Um, did you do any research into the history of Chicago?
• 28:32
  Crista Cowan: Like, why do you think he chose Chicago?
• 28:35
  Sue Talbot: So I I think for me, the only thing that I really know is sort of like the Al Capone stories and um but I don't know why he would have chosen um Chicago.
• 28:49
  Crista Cowan: For an English immigrant who's essentially fleeing the accountability from his choices uh to end up there is super curious.
• 28:58
  Crista Cowan: And there is a criminal element in that city and has, you know, was for a long time.
• 29:04
  Crista Cowan: And so maybe that had something to do with it.
• 29:07
  Crista Cowan: Maybe he thought he could, you know, reinvent himself there or and knowing his um his proclivity to not be faithful to a wife, it's still very possible, I guess, that you could have some cousins out there.
• 29:22
  Crista Cowan: Possibly.
• 29:24
  Crista Cowan: DNA might reveal DNA might reveal that, right?
• 29:28
  Crista Cowan: Possibly.
• 29:30
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, it's it's so interesting to me.
• 29:33
  Crista Cowan: So I have um an ancestor who came from England.
• 29:38
  Crista Cowan: Uh, she came in the 1700s, but she came because she had been convicted of theft in London, and her sentence was transportation to the Americas.
• 29:49
  Crista Cowan: And so I think sometimes we think about you know the criminal element that became, in some ways, the founding of this country, the founding of Australia, from people leaving England.
• 30:00
  Crista Cowan: That that is part of the fabric of the American story.
• 30:04
  Crista Cowan: And I think we see that pop up in some of the Wild West towns of you know, St.
• 30:09
  Crista Cowan: Louis and and uh out in Arizona and up in Wyoming, and then certainly in the way that Chicago grew up as a city as well.
• 30:19
  Crista Cowan: One of the things that happens when you start doing family history is you realize how how both how vast and how small the world really is.
• 30:27
  Crista Cowan: Yeah.
• 30:28
  Crista Cowan: I love that.
• 30:29
  Crista Cowan: Well, as you think about um this story and this connection to the United States and to Chicago specifically, like um have you ever visited Chicago?
• 30:40
  Crista Cowan: Have you ever been to the US?
• 30:42
  Sue Talbot: I've never been to the US.
• 30:44
  Sue Talbot: Um, I am going to Alaska in June next year.
• 30:49
  Sue Talbot: Um I still I think um I definitely want to go and visit Chicago.
• 30:57
  Sue Talbot: Um I think to really connect to the story, you have to go and visit the places where the people lived.
• 31:08
  Sue Talbot: Um I recently had a trip to Scotland, where my um paternal um grandmother had lived, and and that really I I feel like there was something there.
• 31:24
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, it's so important.
• 31:26
  Crista Cowan: So you haven't yet found when exactly when John died, or you do know when he died?
• 31:31
  Sue Talbot: No, I don't know when he died.
• 31:33
  Sue Talbot: I think it was about 1907.
• 31:36
  Crista Cowan: Okay.
• 31:36
  Crista Cowan: So you have no idea where he's buried, or well, well, then then there's a little more research, it sounds like to do.
• 31:44
  Crista Cowan: And maybe maybe you can do that uh on the ground in Chicago, or maybe you can make that discovery before you come to Chicago so you can pay your respects.
• 31:53
  Crista Cowan: Yes.
• 31:54
  Crista Cowan: As you, you know, think back to when you very first started your family history journey, wanting to like explore the mystery of your grandparents, and knowing that you, you know, most people in England have very deep English roots.
• 32:07
  Crista Cowan: Sometimes they, you know, their tree branches a little into England or into Ireland or up into Scotland.
• 32:13
  Crista Cowan: Did you ever think you would have a connection to the States?
• 32:16
  Crista Cowan: Uh no.
• 32:19
  Sue Talbot: No, definitely not.
• 32:20
  Sue Talbot: But I should add, and I guess this ties in with your celebrations of the 250 years.
• 32:27
  Sue Talbot: Um, one of John's descendants, my my cousin, my um first cousin, has become an American citizen recently.
• 32:37
  Sue Talbot: And he's been in America for 20 years.
• 32:40
  Sue Talbot: So it's a bit full circle.
• 32:44
  Crista Cowan: Absolutely it is.
• 32:45
  Crista Cowan: That's lovely.
• 32:45
  Crista Cowan: Well, Sue, thank you so much.
• 32:47
  Crista Cowan: Thank you for staying up late in the UK to talk to us tonight.
• 32:51
  Crista Cowan: Um, and thank you for sharing your story.
• 32:53
  Crista Cowan: I've it's such an interesting connection to Illinois and to Chicago in particular, and uh super certainly an insight into the lives of some of the characters that are in our family trees.
• 33:08
  Crista Cowan: Studio sponsored by Ancestry.