Beyond Joseph Chicken Sr.

 

The 1841 England Census states that Joseph Chicken Sr. was born in Evenwood, England which is just to the SW of Auckland England. His marriage record at St. Helen Church in Auckland also confirms this. But the biography article in the newspaper in my previous post says he was born in Durham city to the NW of Auckland. I don't know the answer and most likely will never know. 

But while searching the area via armchair, I came across a website with records for Durham county, England, of which both Evenwood and Durham city are a part, and was able to locate a more detailed church record than the index record I had known about previously. Besides the marriage date of 25 Nov 1837, it also says the following:

Joseph Chicken (bachelor, pitman, full age, of Evenwood, son of John Chicken, carrier) married Ann Brittain (spinster, full age, of Evenwood, daughter of John Brittain, joiner) Witnesses: John Wilson and William Teasdale

So now I know the name of the fathers which would be my 5th great grandparents. Unfortunately, Ancestry records are pretty sparse for this area in this time frame so I have no further information other than the listed occupations. I'm assuming a carrier in early 1800's England means someone who drives wagons. This makes sense because the biography for son Joseph Chicken said he woke up nearly every morning at 1 a.m. to harness a team and haul cargo from the port to neighboring towns. It didn't specify which port but from looking at the above map, I would guess it was Seaham Harbor which has been used as a port for many eons and in the 1800's was largely constructed for coal which was found in the nearby geography. The meshes well with Joseph being a pitman, which again I'm assuming relates to someone who went into the pits to dig coal. 

John Brittain's occupation as a joiner is less clear to me. Perhaps it means a furniture maker which might explain my love of building furniture. Like John Chicken, I can't find any information on him or his unknown spouse.

I also looked up the Chicken surname in England which according to records, has the most people named that in Durham county, England. The Brittain surname, oddly enough isn't a British name. It actually came to Britain from Normandy. But both the Chicken and Brittain surname have hotspots in the upper Midwest parts of the United States where my Chicken and Brittain 4th great grandparents settled.  

From my google searching, it sounds like the St. Helen church in Auckland, seen above, is still in business so I wrote a nice email to them asking for further help/guidance since I am not familiar with English genealogy. I got lucky doing that for my German Kuck family so perhaps lightening can strike twice. I don't expect that the family went there regularly as they were either from Evenwood or Durham as records suggest. According to one British based cemetery agregating site, there is a John Chicken buried in northern Durham county in the town of Heworth but the dates don't line up. There are several of John Brittains but none in Durham county either. 

Certainly nothing is easy but then, if it were, everyone would be doing it.

[This was written 10 months ago but has been in draft form until now. I never heard back from St. Helen Church in Auckland.]