top of page
To DNA or Not DNA- Part 2
The Continued Story of our Spanish Ties
As shared in my previous blog, our family has small ties to the Spanish in the area of Andalucia Spain.
Andalucia is located at the most southern region of Spain. It borders with Portugal on the west side, with the Spanish regions of Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura in the north.
The region of Murcia is located in the east with the English territory of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean Sea in the south.
Andalucia as it looked in Janetta's time around the early 1800's
Again, not much is known as to why the ship Endeavor arrived there- other than exploration or possibly for trade.
Some sites such as Wikipedia describe the HMS Endeavour, also known as HM Bark Endeavour, to be a British Royal Navy research vessel that a Lieutenant James Cook commanded to Australia and New Zealand on his first voyage of discovery from 1768 to 1771.
Whether this Captain James Cook, the English explorer who later became the first European to travel to the Hawaiian Islands ... on January 18, 1778, is related to us remains to be seen. It has always been a rumor in our family and my distant cousins in both Santa Cruz and Texas have to tried do extensive research on this but come up with no definite conclusion.
What is known is that Benjamin and Janetta (also sometimes known as Juanita or Jane) were married prior to 1820 in Gloucestershire, England. It must have been interesting for Janetta to learn English (unless she already knew some) and speak in a Spanish accent while trying to understand what her husband and his family were saying in the Gloucestershire Accent.
To give you an idea of what the Gloucestershire Accent sounds like, I have included a video below called, The EMG Presents: The Gloucestershire Accent.
I have also included a video interview with a wedding planner from Andalucia Spain.
The video below runs about 8 mins but just watching the first two minutes gives you an idea of what Janetta might have sounded like.
A Total of Four Children were born to Benjamin and Janetta
To date, no known pictures of of Susannah, George and Richard Cook exist. BUT.............thanks to my ancestry pal Becky, she was able to locate one of Frederick!! MORE ON THIS STORY AT THE END OF THIS POSTING!!
For those of you not familiar with the Cook family history, Frederick was the father of Great Grandpa Charles Cook who married great grandma Nell!
Frederick was born in/around December of 1828 in Wednesbury, Gloucester England. He arrived in California at the height of the Gold Rush Era in 1849! Below is an 1849 flyer that Frederick and many other prospective gold miners of that time saw!
Frederick gold mined in the areas of Humboldt and Port Wine, Sierra County, CA. After the gold rush ended, he continued to live in Humbolt until 1868 when he returned to San Francisco and would soon meet the lovely Catherine Mary Clarke of Dundalk, Louth, Ireland.
As compared to his children most of whom were between 5'5 to 6 feet fall, Frederick was actually a very short man!
My ancestry pal Becky put it best in the description of him.
"Here is what we know of ANY type of physical description of Frederick
#1 He was old for the time, the oldest in the picture (if he's IN the picture or any other NOW FOUND!).
2#He was 14 years older than Eugene Steele, the Steele girls' dad. He was 64-65 (not saying that's old but it was considered old at the time).
3#He had a very hard life and a very hard job (as a well digger) that would have aged him. The 1849 SF voter registration (as shown below) describes him as "well-sinker by trade, 5'3", blue eyes, missing one finger and one hand".
Frederick and Catherine were married at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, San Francisco on May 23, 1868.
Together they raised a large family of eight children that of course included Great Grandpa Charles who outlived all of his siblings until his passing in 1967.
Once upon a time in my early days of research, I came across a photo that my cook cousins Sandra and Becky referred to as , People On The Porch.
Looking above at this photo, we soon realized that it must be of the Holmes Cook family prior to the 1906 earthquake. Several of these people were showing up together in other photos and had been 85% identified. Yet one wonders why was it taken so far away, these blurry images of certain people cannot become any clearer.
In our modern times of iPhone and digital cameras, 97% of our pictures taken come out clear and sharp. However, it was a different story in the 1800's! Cameras back then told a different story. The very first Kodak camera (called a Field Camera as shown above) first came on the market in 1888. It was loaded with film for 100 exposures and cost $25!
With gracious appreciation and thanks to Becky, we thought that perhaps we had found what may well be the only photo of Frederick in this group picture we called,
The People On The Porch
Sending this photo to my ancestry pal/cousins Becky, Sandra we tried to determine who was whom? The email dialogue between them and myself went on for a couple of weeks in guessing or at least hoping our assumptions might at least 85%-99% correct in comparing other faces in other photos.
Becky, however went one step further and began to put numbers on each of the people, in order to better identify who is who in the above photo.
A POSSIBLE PHOTO OF
FREDERICK HOLMES COOK
Over a 2-4 day period these were the were the a few of the conclusions between, Sandra, Becky and myself.
The man known as #12 is 99% confirmed as Gustavus David Harper who married Jeannette Holmes Cook 99% confirmed as #11 Gustavus shows up in the Holmes Cook Family and other photos with Jeanette.
The lady known as #1 was thought to be Catherine Clarke who was married to Frederick Thomas Holmes Cook. All three of us went back and forth on this one but in the end realized it was not her as a photo taken on the same day shows a closer up shot of her face ruling that possibility out.
The man in the back row known as#16 is 99% confirmed as Corp Frederick Holmes Cook by his granddaughter Sandra who wrote in the email, "At that time, Frederick would have been working for the Union Railroad, which was the cable car company. He was an electrician according to phone directories.
YET IN THAT SAME BACK ROW WHO IS THIS LITTLE MAN #17?!?!
(What I had originally posted in this blog below was the following)
This my dear relatives maybe (BUT NOT 100% CONFIRMED) the one and only photo of Frederick Thomas Holmes Cook. The conclusions from Sandra & Becky were as follows:
SANDRA
Your observations of #17, wearing a derby, having a beard, and being much shorter than the others, not to mention older, IMHO is spot on for FTHC. I’m all in for #17 being FTHC. He’s always been my candidate. The two Freds are standing in the very back in shadow. It fits the profile. The two of them must be a bit camera shy. Why else aren’t there more photos. I have only 2 photos of FHC. Both are official police photos in his uniform. If there were any others, his daughters must have had them, and neither of them had children.
BECKY:
The tendency is to assume that this is FTHC. A part of me leans that way. Family shot, right? Has to be him? However, another part says maybe no because of something that Sandra said to me once. Charles and Harry look a lot like each other, very strong sibling resemblance. Jack (Leslie V) Cook and his son, Dan Cook, have this strong resemblance to them.
Who is does this come from? The assumption is from FTHC because we KNOW what Catherine looked like. I think that most of the kids, including Frederick Holmes Cook, seem to favor their mom. The other things we've talked about before is that FTHC is clearly listed as being only 5'3" and I agree that the hat mustache guy in the Cook family photo is too tall. But more importantly, HE DOESN'T LOOK ANYTHING LIKE CHARLES AND HARRY.
Back to the Porch People shot. IF the guy in the Cook family shot is indeed Gus, then I think FTHC MIGHT be on the porch, in the back row of guys. There is no doubt that this is a "Cook Day". As I have mentioned before, it is unfortunate that the camera decided to focus on the bushes on the right. Even today, sometimes a camera will see something MORE in light and will focus there. If you watch any news videos, you can see that still happens when the background is in stronger light that the subject.
So, while no definite conclusions the photo is as close as we will get for the moment!
In July of 2024 I turned to a page in the 1800's album and came across the photo below. Yup same group of people, but wait-could it be-is it- can it?!?!?
Finally and at long last we had found Frederick Thomas Holmes Cook, a much better close up photo as shown below
On December 1 in 1952, Charles older sister,Catherine also affectionately known as Kitty put a piece of very thin rice paper into her typewriter and began typing out family history as shown in the document below!! I think she would be most proud of the work that I continued on with!
Frederick Thomas Holmes Cook
Thankfully she was the one member of the family who felt that some sort of history had to be typed out, lest the information be lost forever.
What puzzles me is that among the family members of the Cooks -meaning Nell and Charles and their siblings/relations no one really passed down any memories or shared stories to the next generation of what it was like back in their day. According to Uncle Bill, the conversation among the adults was, "How is so and so? What do you think about the crops this year" "The weather predicts rain" etc.......
I have been able to do family video interviews with Aunts Barbara & Shirley also with my mom and Uncle Bill. I have also had memories written or typed out by them and Uncle John.
I only wish that I had been into this more after I did that report on Great Grandma.
bottom of page