John Bellamy, mariner

The Bellamy side of the family has been my greatest challenge in the family tree.  My grandfather, John Samuel Bellamy aka John Stanhope Bellamy was an enigma and parts of his life are still unknown to me.  See John Bellamy - A research challenge. I still wonder about the circumstances of my great-grandparents, John Henry Bellamy and Elizabeth Rason's emigration to Canada; but my brick wall has been John Henry Bellamy's father, John Bellamy.

John Bellamy married Mary Frances Parker in Boston, Lincolnshire 25 December 1951.  On the marriage entry John was listed as a mariner of full age, son of John Bellamy a labourer.  The marriage took place after the 1851 census and Mary Frances Bellamy was listed as a widow with three children aged 8, 5, and John Henry Bellamy aged 3.  John Henry Bellamy was born in Boston 31 March 1858, his father was John Bellamy, a mariner in the coasting trade. The mother, Mary Frances Bellamy, formerly Parker, registered the birth 7 May 1858.  Mary Frances could write, John Bellamy could not and signed his marriage with an X.  Those were the only facts I could go on until last week when Find My Past finally offered the Merchant Navy records.

I believe my g.g.grandfather is:
John Bellamy born at Hareby, Lincolnshire 11 December 1824.  Ticket number 131076 was issued at Boston, Lincolnshire 10 January 1845, his capacity or rank was "boy". He was 5' 5" tall with fair complexion, light hair, and blue eyes.  He first went to sea as boy in 1843 (aged 19).  He could not write and when not at sea, he was resident of Boston.

Knowing that, I looked for John Bellamy from Hareby and found the following at Family Search:

name: John Bellamy
gender: Male
baptism/christening date: 12 Dec 1824
baptism/christening place: HAREBY,LINCOLN,ENGLAND
father's name: John Bellamy
mother's name: Sarah
indexing project (batch) number: C02893-1
system origin: England-ODM
source film number: 507824

 Two other children were listed on the same batch born to John and Sarah: William christened 1 Oct 1820 and Mary christened 15 Sep 1822.

Unfortunately, the 1841 census for England does not provide relationships, marital status, or place of birth and the ages of people over 15 are rounded down to the nearest 5.  I found the following family living on George Street in Boston, Lincolnshire:

Name Age
Sarah Bellamy 40
Mary Bellamy 15
Thomas Bellamy 14
Samuel Bellamy 12
George Bellamy 10
Sarah Bellamy 8
Elizabeth Bellamy 6

It appears that the father, John Bellamy has died before the census was taken in March 1841 and the son, John, had left the family to go to work by this time.  There are a number of John Bellamys working as labourers or servants aged 15 in and around Lincolnshire in 1841 but I cannot prove any of them are my John Bellamy.

Family Search is a free genealogy site with a lot of information and another free site specifically for Lincolnshire is Lincs to the Past.  When I typed Bellamy Hareby into the search box, I got the following result:

Removal Order
Reference Name BOLINGBROKE PAR CO/6/7/23
John Bellamy, labourer, Sarah his wife and their child Susanna aged about 1½, from Bolingbroke to Hareby.
Date: 15 November1819
Repository: Lincolnshire Archives [057]

Removal orders and Settlement Orders were sometimes required to move from one Poor Laws Union to another.  From this little tidbit I found that the father, John Bellamy, was a labourer and that the lived in Bolingbroke before November 1819.  I went back to Family Search and found Susannah who was christened 15 January 1818 in Bolingbroke.  She was the only child of John and Sarah listed.  I then searched for a marriage in Bolingbroke and there were none for John and Sarah.

Now I have lots to work on, but at least I have a starting place with more branches to my ever-increasing family tree.