The Jade Wall

I received the following e-mail through Ancestry

In 2014 I received an answer to a post I’d put on an Ancestry.com/UK message board.

Ancestry.com/UK Message Board Post, April 2014.The gist of the exchanged messages is as follows:

Subject: Re: William Leyland /Hunter

Author: Antony Marr

Date: 01 April 2014

Classification: Biography

Surnames: COUTES, HUNTER, JOHNSTON

 These posts are getting a bit confusing, but I think your family is pretty straightforward:

 William Leyland HUNTER is baptised in Manchester 15/12/1844 – son of John Hunter a tea merchant and his wife was Alice.  John HUNTER married Alice SOUTHAM in 1839.

 He had at least 2 brothers – Edmund (sometimes recorded as Edward) Southam HUNTER (1842) and Samuel Southam HUNTER (1848)

 The family don’t seem to be on UK census after that, so maybe they are in Hong Kong.

 Tobias Hunter is born in Hong Kong on 18th Sept 1877 – on his death record in British Columbia in 1970, his parents are named as William Leyland HUNTER , a tea dealer born in Manchester and Catherine COUTES, born in Hong Kong.

 There is no marriage record for William and Catherine in the UK, so they may have married in Hong Kong.

 William Leyland HUNTER married Ellen JOHNSTON in London (Holborn) in 1887. Ellen/Helen & Eleanor are often interchangeable names. Ellen was born about 1855 in Carlisle. The marriage certificate will say whether William describes himself as a widower (if he claimed Catherine had died).

 2 more children arrive – Evelyn Ellen HUNTER in 1887, and William Lethbridge HUNTER in 1891.

 In the 1891 census the family (William, Ellen & 2 young children) are living in Bloomsbury, London – he is described as a China Dealer. There is no sign of his other children (did he leave them and their mother? behind in Hong Kong)

 In 1893 William Leyland HUNTER goes bankrupt – with debts of £7,306 and assets of only £40. He is described (in The Times newspaper) as a commission merchant dealing in tea.

 William Leyland HUNTER dies on 8th March 1894 in Tooting , London and leaves his wife Ellen £18.

 In 1901 & 1911 Ellen HUNTER, a widow, is a lodging/boarding house keeper in Bloomsbury. She dies in 1924, and her death is registered (in the name Eleanor) by her son William Lethbridge HUNTER.

 I hope that helps sort things out.

 Antony

 * Note: Up until recently the only mention of a mother to Tobias, George, May and James is on that death certificate of Tobias in 1970. The information was given by his daughter (my mother) Iris Maud Beesley (nee Hunter) the name given under mother of deceased’s maiden name, was: CATHERINE COUTES

Other spellings were also tried but all searches under this name have proven unsuccessful.

The short version

My hunt for “G” began when I found a letter from 1940 referring to the division of “G’s” estate. The letter was from my mother Iris, to her sister Nora Hunter, sharing the news that their father, Tobias Hunter, was about to give them each their shares of what was referred to as “G’s Legacy”

At the same time I found a copy of a statement showing the allotment of funds, and division of the proceeds from the sale of the “4 Moreton Terrace” property. It was typed by Tobias Hunter, a copy of which had previously been sent to his daughter Nora Hunter.

The first division of the estate had taken place in 1937 and listed the cash on hand, and amounts paid out for funeral expenses etc. A second division was made in 1939 following the sale of “G’s” property at  # 4 Moreton Terrace, Hong Kong, with the proceeds going to the beneficiaries in “G’s Legacy”. The split was four ways, with Tobias Hunter and his brother George each getting a quarter share. Another quarter was to be shared equally between Tobias Hunter’s two children, Iris and Nora. The last quarter share’s recipient is unknown but could have been Toby and George’s sister May or their other brother, James who we know virtually nothing about.

But who was this “G”? My initial guess was that maybe “G” referred to Grandmother. I had never heard mention of my mother’s grandparents, other than their grandfather William Leyland Hunter who was Tobias’ father. I knew that “G” was not him as he’d died in England and was bankrupt at the time of his passing. There was never any mention of a “mother”.

Could “G” be the unknown grandmother?  Could it have been someone whose name began with that letter, like Gertrude. What I knew for sure was that “G” had owned “4 Moreton Terrace” and left it to the Hunters.

I began to search land records in Hong Kong to establish who owned # 4 Moreton Terrace. As the location no longer exists finding the records involved a great deal of searching. I first located the lot number from public records and with that I was able to make a search of the “rate books” and discovered that in 1939 the property was in the name of “Tobias Hunter & Ancr”. I took the abbreviation to mean ancestors, although that doesn’t really make sense.

I wanted to find out who owned the property before that, so more searching. Luckily I found a sympathetic employee at the HK public Records Office, who, after stressing to me that this was not the normal procedure, e-mailed images of the pertinent records to me. If I recall, the book from 1938 is missing but 1936 and 1937 books are there.

The 1936 rate book showed #4 Moreton Terrace was owned by Mr. Kot Choy of 11 Shelley Street, Hong Kong.

The Shelley Street address rang a bell, but where had I seen it?

Of course! On the property registration rolls of 1939 for the 4 Moreton Terrace property! It showed the owner as Tobias Hunter & Ancr with his address listed as 11 Shelley Street. These weren’t the only times I’d seen this address, so I scanned through the Hong Kong Jurors Lists which are reproduced in their entirety at www.gwulo.com 

I began looking back at the late 1890s lists and worked my way forward. I found George first and then Tobias, both living at 1 Old Bailey Street, then in about 1903 I found James Hunter, working for S J David & Co, and living at 11 Shelley Street. It’s just around the corner from 1 Old Bailey Street.

Through Gwulo.com I met Annelise lives who lives in California and does genealogy as a hobby. For whatever reasons, she’s chosen some prominent Hong Kong families as the subject of her studies. We ended up chatting on Skype and she was kind enough to walk me through the on-line land registry search process. She showed me how to use the maps and find addresses and from there to getting the legal lot number of record. There’s a small fee for each on-line search, HK$25 or about US$3.50. I think I did about 7 that first night.

One thing we noticed during these searches was that 1 Old Bailey Street was on the corner of Hollywood Road and Old Bailey Street.

This could make the Hollywood Road entrance #20.  Another search revealed the owner of 20 Hollywood Road was none other than our Kot Choy! It seems every time I find a solution to one of these family mysteries, two more pop up!

Back at 11 Shelley Street, Kot Choy is on record as the sole owner since May of 1899 but on March 31, 1903 the property changed title from Kot Choy, sole owner to Kot Choy and May Hunter, Trustees. This change took place just 2 weeks prior to May Hunter’s April 15th, 1903 marriage to Tom Cock in Hong Kong.

Note: The Hong Kong Jurors lists show James Hunter still living at Shelley Street in 1905, two years after the property became a joint trusteeship.

Up to this point we still have no idea who Kot Choy is? The name has been on land registries since 1887 so assuming that one would need to be at least the legal age of 21 years to own land, that would mean a birth date of no later than 1867. This meant that Kot Choy was 10 years older than Tobias and 12 years older than May.

Could it have been a friend of the family, or maybe a relative? Kot Choy did, after all, leave a considerable sum of money to the Hunter clan.

A painting of WLH that was acquired in England from relatives about 1970. It hung on the wall at the family home in West Vancouver, Canada and is now in my possession. It is painted on canvas but was reframed and glued to a fiberboard backing. The painting has no value other than as a family heirloom, so it was probably the least expensive way to assure it’s continued structural integrity.

I will try to lay out the basis for this effort as best as I can here. There’s no real starting point, and I’ve tended to jump around some I my attempt to fill in the blanks about our family. I know a lot more now than a few years back and I continue to find new information almost daily. So keeping that in mind I’m going to just jump in. What I write is from what I know. The other two descendents may have further supporting documentation, but for now this is what I have.

There are three of us.

Brian, Vancouver, Canada;

Miranda, Laguna Woods, California

Diana, England.

As far as we know, we are all directly descended from the same Hunter family who were born in China in the latter part of the 19th century.

Brian: (that’s me) is the grandson of Tobias Hunter who was born Sept 18, 1877

Miranda: is the great granddaughter of May Hunter who was born June 8, 1879

Diana: is the granddaughter of George Hunter who was born Mar 10, 1876

Tobias, May, George and another older brother, James, are the children of William Leyland Hunter, a tea merchant from Manchester England, referred to from this point as “WLH”

WLH had taken a position with WR Adamson in 1865. He was sent out to China as a tea inspector and settled in Foochow, in Fukien Province. Foochow is located approximately half way between Hong Kong and Shanghai on the eastern coast of China and at that time, was the major port for the export of tea.

 There are no birth records for Tobias, May, George or James Hunter.

 All were supposedly born in the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong with possible exception of May, who’s British Passport is said to have shown her place of birth as “Foochow, China”, which had “British Treaty Port” status.

Hong Kong was a “British Crown Colony” which was higher up the ladder than a treaty port.

 WLH’s relationship to the Hunter children has been drawn from various other documents, which I will expand on here.

 WLH is listed on the marriage certificate of Tobias Hunter as father of groom and also on his death certificate as father of deceased.

 WLH is listed on the marriage certificate of George Hunter as father of groom, deceased.

 Tobias is the brother of George Hunter and maintained a close relationship.

 WLH is listed on the marriage certificate of May Hunter, as father of bride.

 James Hunter is connected to WLH by relationship to the other children, by childhood residence, by Hong Kong juror’s lists and by work history.

 Finally, with the exception of James, I have photographs and letters in my possession, and in some cases, firsthand knowledge of the relatives in question.

 The three of us have each done a DNA test with Ancestry.com which we all agreed could be questionable as to its findings, but interestingly, the three of us all had a common clue. It turns out we all carry an East Asian factor ( 3%-6% ) in our sequence.

*Update: Feb 15, 2017 

We now have the DNA results for Miranda’s mother and not surprisingly, her East Asian ethnic factor is 12%. When I say that this figure was expected, I should clarify, that we based it on the assumption that we could just work backwards. If Miranda was 6%, then her mother would be 12%, her mother, 25% etc, which would make May Hunter 50%. Looking at my own results of 4-6% Asian would mean my mother was 12% and her father, Tobias, May’s brother, would have been 25%, which is what the rumors implied. The glitch in this method is, why would May and Toby be different? Well, apparently, DNA doesn’t always pass down in nice neat increments. In fact, it can vary quite radically.

Another possibility is that Toby and May are only half siblings, and don’t share the same mother. The fact that they were raised by the one woman and shared in her assets when she passed away does not mean they are maternally blood related.

But we are making all our guesses based on our own DNA results, not theirs.

One further theory is that Miranda and her mother Jill’s higher Asian fraction could come from May’s husband Tom Cock, whose father Alexander came to Shanghai about the same time as WLH. He was of Scottish descent but was born in India. He died in Shanghai the same year his son Tom was born (1873) His widow is said to have survived him until 1926 (76 years of age) According to family, her name was Mary Lee and she was born in Scotland. 

My problem with this version is that it would make her 35 at the time she was widowed, with a newborn and another 2 year old child, in Shanghai, unable to speak the language, and needing to fend for herself and the children. Would she have been able to do this and remain alone for the next 40 years?

How did she and Alexander Cock come together? Did hay meet and marry in Calcutta, then come to Shanghai? Did he return from India to Scotland to take a wife? Did they then travel back to India or straight to Shanghai.

If so, she would have had very little time to familiarize herself with the customs of a new and strange land.

“DNA” – Hunter Family in China” read the subject line.

From: Chr155

Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2015 11:27 AM

To: seemex

Subject: DNA – Hunters in China

Hello, Brian; how are you?

My wife, Diana, and I have both done the Ancestry DNA test and Diana’s results, received yesterday, are the most surprising – only 17% Great Britain but more than that, 5% (3% – 6%) East Asian!

Have you considered doing the Ancestry DNA test, too?  This would help in confirming the possibility of the Chinese element in both yours and Diana’s lineage.

All the best,

C.

It was in January, 2014 that I came across a Public Tree on Ancestry.com regarding the Hunter Family. Thinking that it looked like a good possibility, I contacted the tree owner. 

Our initial contact went as follows:

 seemex

Jan 22, 2014

I am trying to get info regarding George Hunter who was my great uncle. Born in Hong Kong/Kowloon, lived in Shanghai, possibly interned during the Japanese occupation.
May have lived in Seattle, USA and returned to Shanghai.
I believe this is the correct George Hunter. If you could contact me it would be good to exchange data.
Brian Hunter Beesley

About two weeks later he answered me via the Ancestry.com message function. 

chr155

Feb 07, 2014

Hi Brian.

George Hunter was my wife’s natural paternal grandfather (her father was adopted after George’s “disappearance”). I am not in her tree at the moment, so the following is from memory. We are not aware of any internment but review of shipping info using international data did in fact show he went to Canada and then to USA. Maude Amelia heard no more from him and did go once more to China, just before she died in Somerset, perhaps still looking for him. Very sad. “Birth on the China seas” was the key to finding George’s home in Scotland, where his grandmother lived in Benholm. We have not been able to trace his father, William Letts Hunter, who may have lived in China, too. Hope this helps and look forward to hearing from you.

Chris.

Well, to say I was excited would be a serious understatement. There were discrepancies in his information but at last I’d made a live contact with someone who was related, not just someone who’d been “plucked off someone else’s tree” That type of thing is all too common on genealogy sites. I immediately sent off another message in hopes of instigating an exchange that would benefit us both. I hoped it would answer a long list of questions that up until now I’d had little hope of getting answers to.

Sadly this was not to be the case, at least not right away. I did get an answer but Chris was involved in other matters and didn’t have the time to devote to “his wife’s” family tree. He told me he’d get back to me when he had more free time but for now, that was the end of it. 

“You don’t look like a Chinaman!” the kids would say, when I told them my family was born in Hong Kong. I was about five years old and we’d just moved into our home on Inverness Street in Vancouver. 

“I’m not!” I’d answer, indignantly “I’m English!”

“Where were you born?” was their usual next question.

“California.” I’d say, “Los Angeles, California.”

“Then you’re a Yankee!” they’d taunt.

“I am not!”

“Well you’re not a Canadian”, they’d say, and they were right about that! At least back then I wasn’t.

I was born in Los Angeles in 1945.  We lived with my mother’s sister Nora, in a small top-floor apartment in the hills of Hollywood until March of 1947.  My mother and her sister had come to the states in 1941 and became marooned when the US entered WW2 following the Japanese bombing of the US Navy base in Honolulu. They both obtained work permits due to the extreme shortages of workforce, and these permits were renewed each 3 months until the end of the war but once it was over, my mother was unable to obtain permanent resident status in the US. This left her little choice as the US Immigration Office said she needed to leave before April so a hasty departure was arranged. There were friends and family in the UK so after a trip across the country to New York by train we boarded the Cunard Lines, “Queen Elizabeth” bound for England.

Leaving Glendale, CA train station for New York. My grandfather Tobias Hunter at was visiting at the time so he came to the station to see us off.