Their father before them, also James Selway, was baptised (1755) and buried (1816) in the same village, although he had married Mary Porch (1781) in her parish church of St Peter North Wootton nearly 10 miles away. These were my great-great-great-great-grandparents.
James Selway, son of James and Mary, was married in 1829 to Eliza Maidment and they were recorded in the 1841 census with seven children living at Double House, East End (note: map drawn in 1884). An eighth child was born the following year. Then the whole of this family disappeared from Chewton Mendip until 26 years later when James was buried there in 1868, noted as age 78. I will not list the unsuccessful approaches which I tried to find them in the intervening years ...
Then I came across the Find A Grave memorial entry for Eliza. The record matches her first name, maiden name and married surname, as well as mentioning Chewton Mendip. It told me that she died only two years after her husband James but more than 4,500 miles away!
Wonderfully, that database includes a biography for Eliza which says, "James and daughter, Mary, went back to England to settle an estate when James became sick and died in Somersetshire." In fact many people have recorded information about this pioneer family, which included another child who was born in the USA. The sources are rather varied, such as:
- an article in a newspaper Centennial Edition, Dillon Tribune-Examiner, Sept 03, 1980, Page 19,
- a 119 page scholarly work with the title "Ranching in Beaverhead County, 1863-1960" from Liza Nicholas, Graduate School, the University of Montana,
- a memoir called "Origin of the Selways" written by Eliza's granddaughter Florence who was born in 1884 and
- an audio memoir by Florence on YouTube!