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George Smith married Elizabeth Cordelia Tourell in 1864, bringing a few more surnames into our frame. Born in 1840 (registration in Whitechapel, christening at Shoreditch St. Leonard`s), she was the daughter of John James Tourell and Elizabeth Cordelia Dunnage (making life easy for the genealogy tracker). Her father John James, born in Bethnal Green on 26th September 1817, had another John James as his father, also born in Bethnal Green, with a birthday of 29th January 1794. With the help of a website belonging to `Susantuffs` (which I can no longer find), I went further back to John James senior`s father, John Peter Tourell, also possibly known as Jean Pierre Toureille), born in Spitalfields on 14th December 1768; and IGI was then able to add not only several siblings, but also the parents (Great x 6 Grandparents)Jean Toureille and Marguerite Cazaly.
Going back one generation further produced some puzzling data. Almost a dozen Public Tree sources in Ancestry Co. UK referred to a Paul Toureille, born in France, married to Antoinette Leonard. at least 3 of them naming them as the parents of John Tourell who married Marguerite Cazaly.
The International Genealogical Index of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints only records one son to Paul and Antoinette, born in 1759, nearly 30 years after the birth of John. It was registered in the same church as the children of John and Marguerite, and only 4 years before the first of their own children.
The chart I have produced for that period is my own interpretation of the data, and by no means certain to be accurate. I am assuming that Paul and Antoinette came to London at a similar time to their son John, and that Louis was born soon after they arrived. There is an intriguing reference to "The escape of Antoinette Toureille (born Leonard). Catégorie: Document. Attaché(e) à: Paul Toureille (1710-1798)" at search.ancestry.fr/cgi-bin/sse.dll?gl... - a site which unfortunately produces no link.
However, Hilary Wilson has now kindly supplied me with a source concerning this `escape`, which you can find in the appendix to these Notes.
John James senior married Sarah Clark (born 10/8/1791, died in 1878) and they had another son, William Thomas in 1815. He proved more elusive than his brother, whose children Elizabeth, John and Thomas have been relatively easy to follow through census returns; but the chart shows at least some of his descendants as far as the 1881 census, when the family were with their father who was in charge of a "Boys House (Horn Inst)" at 96 Mansell St, Whitechapel, housing 34 males aged from 13 to 32.
Regarding Elizabeth Cordelia(junior)`s two brothers: Thomas married Isabella Harrison in 1870 and produced Isabella, 1871, Ann, 1873, Thomas, 1875, Alfred, 1877 and Florence, 1880. His wife Isabella`s family shows Henry and Mary Ann as parents (born 1811 & 1812) and Henry, 1837, George, 1839, James, 1842, William, 1845, Eliza, 1846, Isabella, 1849, and John, 1852.
Brother John`s family is not so clear. He married Louisa Lacey in 1870, and their children may have had less good fortune than those of Thomas. It seems likely that their eldest born was Thomas Thorn, who was born in 1872 but died the next year. There was another early death of a John, born 1879 and died 1880; but it is not certain that this was to the same family. John James, 1875, was a certain son (certificate held), but it is quite possible that he died in 1878. and Arthur Thomas, born 9th June 1881, completed the family.
Elizabeth`s father John James was a shoe-maker; in 1851 his first wife helped as a shoe-binder. He re-married in 1866, to another Elizabeth (Devonshire), and his daughter Elizabeth Cordelia was a witness, a couple of years after her own marriage.
Tourell is not a common name, and I was often offered similar spellings in my searches; it was particularly confusing to find another shoe-maker John Turrel, also with a wife Elizabeth, living across the river in Greenwich. In 1861, in fact, our family was transcribed as Tourall, from a pretty indecipherable letter in the register.
A greater source of confusion, however, arises from the marriage of Emmiline in 1902. I have enlarged on this mystery in an appendix to these Notes.