Marlow Kin in Rimbey, Alberta

There is a Marlow mystery which I believe I was able to solve. Ruth Peacock, of the previous blogpost, told me that she has always been curious about the “Watts” family in Rimbey, Alberta. She said that she was always told that the Watts children were something like fourth cousins of her father Joseph Robert “Tom” Marlow, but she never understood how exactly they were related. She said that Sarah Watts, the mother, had furniture from “Sleights” in Yorkshire, from where the Marlow family had come.

I told her I would investigate. It occurred to me that there should be a local history for Rimbey, Alberta, just as there was for Lougheed. I went to the ourroots.ca website, and found such a book, which indeed included a write up on the Watts family, i.e. Over the years: A history of the Rimbey Area.  (There is a photo of the family there).It stated that Henry and Sarah Watts had come from Springfield, Illinois in 1906, following the death of her father, Robert Appleby. I was able to find the Appleby family in the 1870 and 1880 U.S. Census in Jacksonville, Illinois, which stated that they were born in England (as did the Canadian Census for Sarah). Robert’s wife was “Mary”, and was born about 1835. The U.S. Census Mortality Schedule, gives her initials as “M.A.” and states that she died in July 1879 of “congestive chills” and was a “farmer’s wife”. Her birthdate is estimated as 1838. I set to work to find a marriage for a Thomas Appleby to a Mary A. in Yorkshire at about a time corresponding to before Sarah’s birth (1865). I was able to find that “Robert Wray Appleby” married “Mary Ann Marlow” in the third quarter of 1863 in the registration district of “Scarborough” in “Yorkshire North Riding”. Searching my own family tree for a “Mary Ann Marlow”, I found that Joseph H. Marlow’s father William had a sister Mary Ann, born about 1833. I could find no other candidates for Mary Ann Marlow Appleby on my tree, and since the Watts family were thought to be cousins of ours, and since I could find no evidence of this Mary Ann in England after the family appears in the United States, I am going to say that this is the Mary Ann Marlow who was the mother of Sarah. This would make Sarah Appleby Watts the first cousin of Joseph H. Marlow. Their children would be second cousins, then I believe.

Sarah Jane and Henry Watts’ children were Robert William, born 1894, Frederick, born 1901, and Ruth, born 1905, all born in the U.S. before the family came to Canada. They would have arrived in Alberta about six years before Joseph Marlow and his family immigrated there, and their move may have influenced Joseph to follow suit. I have yet to find passenger lists for Joseph or the Appleby family, but it is possible that they all came from England together, and possibly with more Marlows or Applebys.