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Anyone with Twist and Aston in their FT?

L

LaytonLily

knowlegable brummie
I am a recent registered member to this website / Forum so hope you will make allowance if I do not post correctly / appropriately.

I have been trying to establish where my great grandfather fits into my FT for more than 30years but although I have made huge progress in some areas, I still do not know very much about his beginnings.

He was known as William Aston born about 1839. However some years ago I discovered that he had changed his name in 1868 when he married and had been Twist. (I think it was a case of bigamy !) He is on 1851 census, as 'son' to Joseph and Emma Twist but in fact they were not married and Emma's name was Aston. So I am presuming he was born to Emma but an unknown father and he 'went back' to his birth surname of Aston. I cannot find a birth entry for him, nor can I find him or Emma on 1841 census. He marries for the 1st time in 1861 as Twist.

I just keeping trying everything I know how to establish who his parents were, or at least some confirmation of his mother. I don't think his father was Joseph Twist but if Emma was his mother, he has half- brothers and sister who were Twists.

I have lots and lots of information on the Twist family, so if anyone is a Twist from Birmingham I would be happy to share ! (Also on Birmingham Kettle family, who married into the Twist family).

Just a chance someone out there will know something to help !
 
just looked at the 51 census and i agree with you...i think that sons john 14 and william 12 are not josephs children (but his step children)..then comes emma 4 and joseph 2....by 1861 joseph is a widow with just young joseph at home...

have you found any baptisms for john and william and have you found the death for emma if as you you think she and joseph did not marry then her death would i think be registered under the name of emma aston..

lyn
 
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Did he marry Anne Beards? If so his Father is given as William Aston gunmaker. The address is Essex Street and the witnesses were Emma Edwards and Thomas Hughes.

Janice
 
Thank you for your reply and yes he married Andora Beards in 1868 and for years I was looking for him with those details and never found anything I felt confident in, then some years ago an elderly Aston grand-daughter of William showed us marriage cert for William Twist with a father Joseph Twist, horse dealer marrying in 1861 and the cert I already had a copy of, William Aston marrying Andora in 1868. She said it was well known in the family that he had changed his name in 1868 but she didn't say that he had gone back to using his born surname and that the William Aston, gun maker was his real father. So I have never felt confident in believing any of it, until I get something that gives me confirmation of the details as i discover them !

You will see my reply to Astoness. It is another puzzle if Emma was Aston, her father was William Aston but then it says William's father was William Aston - was it incest ?! I had thought initially that maybe the name of William Aston - Gun maker in 1868 was a made up name for his father but I don't know. He had married in 1861 and that wife was still alive in 1868 so reason enough to change your name!
 
crikey leytonlily what a mystery this one is...to be honest i am nowhere near as good at this as some of our members...later on i will have another go but it would not surprise me if the mystery is sorted out by other members of the forum.

lyn
 
Thank you for trying to help anyway. I keep thinking Iwill give up on it and go and do something useful, like digging the garden, but then some other little 'nugget' of info is discovered, and I get hooked in again ! I did begin to think I might be wasting my time gaining so much info on the Twist family, as it might not be anything to do with William, my g.grandfather, but I feel fairly confident now that he might not be biologically connected to the Twists but he does have half- sister and brothers who are Twists, the children of Joseph and Emma, and that Emma Aston was most likely to be his mother.

Should I also post on the T section of surnames on this website - or would that confuse things more !
 
Did you get my reply to your post about the birth certs for William etc ? I cannot see it here and I posted it before replying to pjmburns post
 
cant see your reply re the birth certs...could you post it again please and oh no you must not give up searching...in the past i have had little mysteries in my family so i have a break from it and go back to it later as you never know what may turn up....you have done the right thing posting on here as its obvious that you have been researching for a long time and i always say many heads are better than one lol...what you may have missed others may find

yes you could post also the T section of surnames if you want to it wont do any harm...

lyn
 
Thank you for your encouragemnt - I appreciate it. It is so fascinating and i have discovered so much about the Twist family (and Kettles who married into the Twist family) over these past months, even though I have been doing researching on William (or trying to) for many years, off and on. Also discovering so much about Birmingham, it's people and their occupations and pastimes etc since 1700's. Not that there is much of old central Birmingham to explore now, most of the streets and places named in my Birmingham FH have gone.

In reply to your earlier post - I have sent for about 8 birth certs for William Aston and about 2 for Wiliam Twist (just in case) of those born around 1839 in Birmingham with a mother Emma - I thought that needed to be the deciding criteria - but nothing. (Birmingham are very good and will not send / charge if the criteria doesn't fit and will often phone me to check if they are unsure).

Emma Aston / Twist died in 1859 and her death cert said 'Emma Aston - daughter of William Aston'. Joseph Twist died in 1883 and in his Will he left money to his 'four reputed named children born to Emma Aston, my housekeeper' ! William was not one of them! Neither was John named. But it did confirm William and John were not his children.

This search has been / still is a real conundrum, a twisting puzzle ! Nothing straight-forward or as it seems initially.
I know I have to accept that I might never find anything more on William and I might have to give up on him for his earlier years.

I have been helped by someone who runs a Family History Group which I have started attending, run by U3a, and, like you say, others can at least help you to think differently, look at the information in a different light, be more objective even if they cannot give you any actual answers.
 
It is interesting that on the two certificates of marriage the occupation for William is the same but the signature (William part) is very different. Did he disguise his writing?

Janice
 
Well yes ! That is one thing that, for many years, made me unsure of the tale about William Twist and William Aston being one and the same person. Though I have different copies of the certs with different signatures. But someone on Roots website very kindly checked the original copies of the cert in London and it appears they are very different. But if he was trying to avoid detection - his wife Mary Ann Baker who he married in 1861 was still alive - then maybe he thought he had better do something different with his signature ! In fact he committed bigamy twice, as when he married Mary Ann Baker her husband was still alive. (does the other party commit bigamy or only the married one ?!)

But it is just one of many discrepancies and puzzles in this search ! Nothing seems to fit together with him.
 
My Nan's maiden name is Twist and her family come from the Bordesley Green area of Birmingham. I don't know much about my Great Grandad or his family roots in Birmingham as he died in the 70's and not many people in the family seem to know anything about the family history either.

However some years back now, my nan and her siblings found out about another Twist family that lived near them in the same area. They got talking and it turns out that they had been compiling a family tree, and my Nan and her siblings were actually on it! They told my nan that they had traced the family back a few generations to the Netherlands!

Not sure if this is of any help, but it's something worth investigating.
 
Hi Dean
Have you got any idea of where they was born meaning your grand dad and grannie was she granny Emma
was they from aston birmingham or where from if you can tell me any abode that you think or know of such an adress
And is it Aston being her surname i will await your reply if any only i have a book written by a man named twist
and is life being brought up in the bck streets of birmingham
best wishes Astonian;;;;
 
My Nan was born in Bordesley Green, but I have no idea where my Great Grandad was born. All I know is that his name was Albert Twist. From what I can gather they lived in Bordesley Green around maybe 10 years before my nan was born.

I haven't heard of anything related to Aston mind, if ever I find anything else out i'll be sure to let you know on here.

I also know that one of my Nans cousins who is a Twist moved out of Birmingham to Staffordshire and opened a family business, but I know nothing much about them either if there is any significance there.

Sorry I couldn't have been more help! It could be that her Twist side of the family did live elsewhere in Birmingham as I only know about my Great Nans side who were, from what I can tell, always on the East side of Birmingham.
 
Also, regarding the Twist family that my Nan discovered with the family tree going back to the Netherlands, since that my Nan has no idea where they disappeared to.

There seems to be a lot of mystery surrounding the Twists it seems aha
 
LaytonLily said:
I am a recent registered member to this website / Forum so hope you will make allowance if I do not post correctly / appropriately.

I have been trying to establish where my great grandfather fits into my FT for more than 30years but although I have made huge progress in some areas, I still do not know very much about his beginnings.

He was known as William Aston born about 1839. However some years ago I discovered that he had changed his name in 1868 when he married and had been Twist. (I think it was a case of bigamy !) He is on 1851 census, as 'son' to Joseph and Emma Twist but in fact they were not married and Emma's name was Aston. So I am presuming he was born to Emma but an unknown father and he 'went back' to his birth surname of Aston. I cannot find a birth entry for him, nor can I find him or Emma on 1841 census. He marries for the 1st time in 1861 as Twist.

I just keeping trying everything I know how to establish who his parents were, or at least some confirmation of his mother. I don't think his father was Joseph Twist but if Emma was his mother, he has half- brothers and sister who were Twists.

I have lots and lots of information on the Twist family, so if anyone is a Twist from Birmingham I would be happy to share ! (Also on Birmingham Kettle family, who married into the Twist family).

Just a chance someone out there will know something to help !
Click to expand...
LaytonLily said:
I am a recent registered member to this website / Forum so hope you will make allowance if I do not post correctly / appropriately.

I have been trying to establish where my great grandfather fits into my FT for more than 30years but although I have made huge progress in some areas, I still do not know very much about his beginnings.

He was known as William Aston born about 1839. However some years ago I discovered that he had changed his name in 1868 when he married and had been Twist. (I think it was a case of bigamy !) He is on 1851 census, as 'son' to Joseph and Emma Twist but in fact they were not married and Emma's name was Aston. So I am presuming he was born to Emma but an unknown father and he 'went back' to his birth surname of Aston. I cannot find a birth entry for him, nor can I find him or Emma on 1841 census. He marries for the 1st time in 1861 as Twist.

I just keeping trying everything I know how to establish who his parents were, or at least some confirmation of his mother. I don't think his father was Joseph Twist but if Emma was his mother, he has half- brothers and sister who were Twists.

I have lots and lots of information on the Twist family, so if anyone is a Twist from Birmingham I would be happy to share ! (Also on Birmingham Kettle family, who married into the Twist family).

Just a chance someone out there will know something to help !
Click to expand...

My mother often used to talk of an "Uncle Bill Twist" who, whilst not a relative, was a close family friend. I have found a William TWISS (age 32 at the time) with whom my great grandmother Ann Ray (and my great-aunt Clarissa) was boarding at the time of the 1911 census, together with his wife Clara (23) and daughter Cissie (3 months), in Vicarage Road Aston. The address is given as House 14 1c Vicarage Road so I'd guess it was a back-to-back.

Jonny
 
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