Written by Ian Davis. Last updated 6 April 2026.

Background

After a close relative “BRAL” took a DNA test we noticed a cluster of fairly DNA matches that appeared to be related via the Haddenham surname. We found 7 that we could connect directly together on a tree and at least 5 more that appear to be closely related to the rest but did not have enough information to place on a tree in relation to the others. 

Further investigation showed that several of the Haddenham matches were also matching with other known Alcock relatives that we have already traced through DNA and genealogical evidence. We couldn’t find any trace of matches with other relatives on branches that married into the Alcocks such as Dunmore or Sharp where we have known DNA matches. 

This strongly suggested that there was a historical connection between the Alcock family and the Haddenham family.

Discussion

The seven DNA matches we could trace were all descended from Henry Harold Haddenham (1868-1938) and his wife Catherine Charlotte Simpson (1870-1945). They married in 1895 in Utah, USA but both had been born on the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border in England. The matches have been assigned codenames to preserve privacy.

The Alcock DNA matches that showed some connection to the Haddenhams all appear to descend from William Alcock (1798-1864) and Ann Lawson (1796-1862)

William Alcock and Ann Lawson married on 2 Aug 1818 in Newark on Trent, Nottinghamshire. They had eight surviving children:

1. George (1819), no further information known
2. Elizabeth (1821), no further information known
3. Ann Elizabeth (1822), married Samuel Morton in 1841, died 1860
4. William Michael (1826), died 1848
5. Maria (1829), married Joseph White in 1849, died 1875
6. Henry Richard (1831), married Millicent Mary Sharp in 1859. Our ancestor
7. Alfred (1833), married Elizabeth Turner in 1854, died 1904
8. Emma (1837), married Edward Brown in 1856, died 1918.

Ann died in 1862 in Newark, William died in 1864 in Nottingham.

Relationship Analysis using BanyanDNA

BanyanDNA is an online tool that enables the user to create a tree, assign centimorgan values to pairs of people on the tree and then analyse how statistically likely the relationships in the tree. 

The number of centimorgans of DNA shared between two individuals isn’t enough to pinpoint their precise relationship since there are many possible relationships that could result in the same centimorgan value. However when a group of people who are all interrelated are analysed as a whole then it reduces the number of relationships that are possible or statistically likely. 

The BanyanDNA tool can perform this analysis. We knew the Alcock relationships accurately and felt we had built a good tree for the Haddenham group and the primary unknown was where these two groups of people became related.

This matrix shows the centimorgans of DNA shared between the DNA test takers in the three groups. The Haddenham descendants are highlighted in purple. As can be seen the amount of shared cM is not high and on their own it would be difficult to infer any particular common ancestor. However, given the interconnected groups it gives more credence to their being a common ancestor for all the people tested.

That the two groups are densely connected can be seen in this diagram. Each purple arc links two DNA test takers who have been found to share some quantity of DNA.

We attempted to validate different scenarios by altering specific relationships and asking BanyanDNA to verify the relationships. BanyanDNA provides an estimate of how plausible a scenario is via a chi-square value which ranges from 0 to 1, with higher values indicating a greater degree of consistency. We used a setting of 5000 trials which is labelled as very high precision but to the statistical nature of the verification the chi-square value might change by 0.1 or so in repeated runs.

The following table shows the results, with the most plausible first:

Hypotheses

As shown above the most likely scenario from the DNA matches is that either Henry Harold Haddenham or Catherine Charlotte Simpson was the child of Henry Richard Alcock.

It’s not possible from the current set of matches to determine whether it was Henry or Catherine that was Henry Richard Alcock’s child. To do so we would need to know if any descendants of Henry Harold Haddenham and Catherine Charlotte Simpson match descendants of Henry or Catherine’s siblings or aunts/uncles: 

• if someone in the Haddenham group has DNA matches with other Simpsons then it’s probable that Henry Harold Haddenham was the son of Henry Richard Alcock 
• Otherwise if they have matches with other Haddenhams then Catherine Charlotte Simpson was probably the daughter of Henry Richard Alcock instead.

It might be obvious to people in the Haddenham group if they only have DNA matches with descendants of Henry Harold Haddenham and not with any of his ten siblings.  Catherine Charlotte Simpson only had one surviving full sibling, Anne (and several half siblings).

There doesn’t appear to be any documentary evidence for either Henry or Catherine that would suggest a different parentage, and it’s hard to imagine what form that would take. They were brought up with their siblings and probably themselves believed that they all shared the same father. Possibly the only people who knew the truth were Mary Ann Burton or Frances Johnson and Henry Richard Alcock.

We have to look at whether it is possible and likely for Henry Richard Alcock to meet either Henry Harold’s mother Mary Ann Burton or Catherine Charlotte’s mother, Frances Johnson.

Henry Richard Alcock

Henry Richard Alcock was baptised on 11 January 1831 in Newark, Nottinghamshire, the son of William Alcock and Ann Lawson. As an adult he worked in the plaster pits and in August 1859 he married Mary Sharpe (born Millicent Mary Sharp) in Newark. 

In 1860 they had a son William, followed in 1862 by another son Henry. Both were baptised in February 1862. Henry Richard had by this time had found work as a maltster, a thriving industry in Newark at the time. Their abode was given as Tenter Buildings, where Henry Richard was recorded as living in the 1861 and 1851 censuses.

In April 1866 they had a daughter Susannah Eliza, born in Hill Side in Lenton, near the city of Nottingham. This is the last record we have of Henry Richard Alcock. The whereabouts of Henry Richard Alcock after this time have long been a mystery¹.  His wife, Millicent, survived until 1901 and in every census (1871, 1881, 1891) she is shown as still married but not with her husband. Her son William was the informant at her death in 1901 where her occupation is recorded as “Wife of Richard Alcock, maltster master”. Hill Side was adjacent to the Nottingham canal and was the site of a large maltings, where Henry Richard was probably employed at the time.

The maltings had grown up as a direct consequence of the canal itself. When the Nottingham Canal opened in 1796 it prompted a number of industrial developments along its banks in the lower Leen Valley, and the Hill Side maltings was among the earliest of these. It was a substantial operation, some 140 yards long, running parallel to the water, and for much of the nineteenth century it was owned by Samuel Hole of Caunton, whose family firm was better known for its brewing and malting interests at Newark. The main business of S & J Hole remained at Northgate, Newark,

This is the last record we have of Henry Richard Alcock and so his last known location is therefore Lenton to the west of Nottingham in 1866. Lenton is six miles south of Hucknall Torkard and fourteen miles south of Stanton Hill.

Hypothesis 1: Henry Harold Haddenham’s father was Henry Richard Alcock

Henry Harold Haddenham was born on 13 March 1868 at Cunnery in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire (now a street called The Connery in Hucknall Torkard). He was named just Henry at birth which was registered by his father William Haddenham, a journeyman lace maker. His mother was Mary Ann Haddenham, formerly Burton. He was the second child, their first being Martha who had also been born in Hucknall on 26 Aug 1866. 

Henry was probably conceived in June 1867 and his mother Mary Ann Burton was presumably resident in Hucknall at that time. 

Connections between Lenton and Hucknall Torkard

A railway line along the Leen Valley from Nottingham via Bulwell, Hucknall and Annesley was constructed in 1848 and extended to Mansfield in 1849. This was a Midland Railway route, and it ran up through the valley that connects both places leaving Nottingham in the direction of Lenton and Radford before heading north through Bulwell to Hucknall.

A later map of Hucknall Torkard shows a malthouse almost adjacent to the Connery where Henry Harold Haddenham was born.

The malthouse was probably owned by William Granger who was recorded as a maltster in the 1871 census.

Perhaps by June 1867 Henry Richard Alcock was working at this malthouse, or had cause to visit it?

There are also two pieces of evidence that suggests that the marriage between Henry Harold Haddenham’s parents was in difficulties.

The Nottinghamshire Guardian of 24 May 1867 reported that William Haddenham senior had been charged with assaulting his daughter-in-law Mary.

We can speculate that a relationship between Mary and Henry Richard Alcock had been discovered.  William James went to his parents to take advice when Mary arrived to persuade him to return home. Then William’s father, in anger at what he had learned, threatened her and punched her.

The second piece of evidence comes from the book Branches and Twigs edited by Wanda Sims Vasey and Dorise Marx Housley² which contains an account of the lives of the Haddenham family in America. The Haddenhams and Burtons had converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints earlier in the nineteenth century and in 1878 William James left England for America. Two years later he returned to England and made preparations to move his entire family to Wyoming. He returned to America and then in 1882:

William James sent for the rest of his family who were still in England. His wife Mary Ann Burton, with the rest of the children and her parents, Henry Burton and Sarah Sanderson, boarded a ship and started for America.

The account goes on to say:

In the process of crossing the ocean, Mary Ann Burton fell in love with another man named Tom Palin. When she got to America she divorced William James because she wanted it that way. She deserted him with the 10 little children who had been born to them. She married Tom Palin and she lived a helter-skelter life.

Mary Ann Burton travelled to the USA on the Abyssinia with her children Henry Harold, John William, James Edward, George Franklin, David Charles and Mary Louisa. They arrived in New York on 4 Nov 1883. Her other children Martha, Sarah Ann and Joseph Hyrum also emigrated but did so at a different time.

These pieces of evidence show that Mary Burton and William James Haddenham had argued with subsequent violence in 1867 and then by 1883 they had divorced.

It’s worth noting that there is an Allcock family in Hucknall Torkard at this time. A Henry Allcock, age 22 was living with his mother Ann in the house of sister Sarah Holland in North Street. Henry was married to Elizabeth and they had a young child. All were born in Hucknall. We haven’t been able to determine a connection between these Alcocks and ours. It seems they were originally from Eastwood, a village to the west of Hucknall

Summary of Hypothesis 1

Evidence in favour

• Lenton and Hucknall Torkard were connected by a direct train line
• Henry Richard Alcock worked as a maltster and there is a Malthouse very close to where Henry Harold Haddenham was born
• Around the time of Henry Harold’s conception Mary Burton was assaulted by her father-in-law.
• The marriage between Mary Burton and William James Haddenham broke down and they divorced shortly around 1883.
• Henry Harold Haddenham shares a given name with Henry Richard Alcock, possibly given to him by Mary Ann Burton.

Evidence against

• There is no documentary evidence placing Henry Richard Alcock in Hucknall Torkard

Hypothesis 2: Catherine Charlotte Simpson’s father was Henry Richard Alcock

Catherine Charlotte Simpson’s birth is harder to pin down and we haven’t located her birth registration. 

Her mother Frances Johnson and father, Henry Simpson, a coal miner, married in 1867 in the Mansfield registration district which covers the border between Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Their first two children Anne and George were born in Kirkstead in the parish of Pinxston in 1867 and 1870. By the 1871 census the four of them were living in Somercotes, two miles to the west in Derbyshire.  However in July 1873 Henry died from Phthisis (Tuberculosis) a common disease then among coal miners. He died in Stanton Hill near Skegby, about 5 miles northeast of Somercotes.

After Henry’s death Frances Johnson married James Smith in February 1875, probably in Stanton Hill since their first daughter, Mary, was born there in June 1875. Confusingly on Mary’s birth registration Frances’ name is given as Ann Smith late Simpson formerly Johnson.

At the moment the best we can say for Catherine’s birth is that it was between April 1871 and August 1874 and could have been in Somercotes or Stanton Hill, both in the Mansfield registration district. Since Frances gave birth to another daughter in June 1875 it seems extremely unlikely that Catherine was born less than a year before that date so a later date of May 1874 is probably more appropriate. (Note there is a birth registration of a Catherine Simpson in the Mansfield district in 1870 but the father and mother were George Simpson and Sarah Slack).

Catherine could have been conceived between August 1870 and August 1873 and her mother, Frances, was probably in Somercotes or Stanton Hill at the time either married to Henry Simpson or immediately after his death. 

It’s worth noting that Frances was not the informant to her husband’s death, instead it was someone called Eliza Moakes. It’s possible that Frances and Henry were estranged at the time although it’s just as likely that Frances was ill herself or grieving. If they were estranged then perhaps it was because Frances was pregnant with another man’s child.

Summary of Hypothesis 2

Evidence in favour

• The lack of birth registration suggests something unusual happened with Catherine’s birth, possibly in another place or under a different name.

Evidence against

• There is no documentary evidence placing Henry Richard Alcock in Stanton Hill
• There is no circumstantial evidence connecting Henry Richard Alcock to Stanton Hill or Somercotes
• No obvious connection between Lenton and Stanton Hill or Somercotes

Other Notes

Tom Palin

Tom Palin was the man Mary Ann Burton supposedly took up with on her journey to America. There is a record of a marriage between a Mr Thomas M. Palin and Marian Burton in Uinta, Wyoming, USA on 17 Feb 1883³ which suggests Mary Ann reverted to her maiden name after divorcing Henry Harold. There is no mention of a Palin in the passenger manifest of the Abyssinia’s arrival in New York on the 4 Nov 1882⁴.

So far we haven’t found his birth record or even any evidence of his age.

We did wonder whether Tom Palin was an assumed name of Henry Richard Alcock but probably the only way to determine this would be through DNA tests taken by his known descendants Emma and Samuel.

Possible research avenues

• Make contact with the descendants of Henry Harold Haddenham and Catherine Charlotte Simpson to see if they have DNA matches connected with the Haddenham family line or the Simpson family line. Any missing connections will tell us which side the NPE event happened on.
• Continue looking for evidence of the whereabouts of Henry Richard Alcock. Finding him in the 1871 census would be key.
• Look for DNA connections descended from Tom Palin to evaluate the possibility that he was Henry Richard Alcock under a different name,