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Final Closure
by Val Atkinson
Article ID: 34, First Published: March 2006In a previous article we identified and proved James RAINE with his essential dates
1842 born Pittington
1862 married aged 20 with occupation Mason
1871 census aged 28 born Pittington with occupation Mason
1876 over to Australia
Here the RAINE saga changed to the quest for Dinah RAINE his mother, with the same problems. (No marriage certificate to give her age and father’s name).
The gaps for Dinah were:
• Where/When was she born?
• Where was she after 1842 when James was born?
• Where were they both between 1843 and 1862 when James married?
All the available 1851 census indexes were searched, but no trace of Dinah and James RAINE was ever found.
Clutching at straws and searching church records in a widening circle showed the existence of a huge RAINE family in Romaldkirk on the south borders of Durham.
One had migrated to the area we wanted, and eventually a baptism was found:
HOUGHTON LE SPRING:
7 July 1822 Dianah Daughter of James and Margaret RAIN Labourer of Hetton
This had three points of contact (Correct area/Feasible birth date/The name James).
However, nothing we did could give another point of contact to prove conclusively that Dinah the mother of James and Dianah the daughter of James were the same woman.
When nothing further could be done and the job was long over, always at the back of my mind was the desire to firmly prove that this line was correct.
Each time I went to Durham Archives to search on other matters, I would check for new indexes and search them.
Finally in May of 2005 came the first breakthrough when the 1861 census was indexed.
I had long stopped searching for Dinah under her surname of RAINE. I would just input ‘DINAH’ and check every entry. This is what I eventually found:
1861 CENSUS Haswell Durham at South Hetton
Thomas Atkinson 1810 Shotley Northumberland England Head Occupation Mason
Dinah Atkinson 1818 Houghton-le-Spring Durham England Mason’s wife
James Atkinson 1842 Hallgarth Durham England Son Occupation Mason
Though James’ birthplace was wrong, Hallgarth in only one mile south of Pittington. Also there were more than the necessary three points of contact (Names Dinah/James, Occupation Mason, Correct birthplace for Dinah). VERY PROMISING
I used this 1861 census information and located:
1851 CENSUS Houghton le Spring Pemberton Street
Thomas Atkinson Head married 41 Mason born Shotley Northumberland
Dinah Atkinson Wife 35 born Hetton-le-Hole Durham
James Atkinson son 8 Scholar born Pittington, Durham
If this was our Dinah then some time between 1842 and 1851 she had married Thomas ATKINSON.
Many people think that all indexes are online, but this isn’t so.
A manual search had to be done for this marriage, and fortunately it wasn’t a long one, because on 4 Mar 1844 Diana RAIN married widower Thomas ATKINSON, and made her mark in the marriage register. Her father was listed as James RAIN.
We had finally proved that Dinah the mother of James and Dinah the daughter of James were one and the same woman.
Having come this far, we had to go on to the end.
1871 census showed Thomas ATKINSON as a widower and a further manual search of indexes showed that Dinah had died on 12 December 1868 with her husband at her side.
She had been paralysed for a year after a stroke.
The final chapter was a visit to the churchyard where she was buried.
On our way a blizzard came up, and by the time we arrived, in driving snow and whistling freezing winds, the graves were covered in about six inches of snow, and many stones had to be brushed off to read the inscriptions. My umbrella blew away when I stopped for photo call, and my brother had to race after it.
We had hoped to find a gravestone but it became obvious that in the 1868 burial area, there were spaces where stones should have been with many gaps and large expanses of plain grass, indicating a clearance of eroded stones over the years.
The whiteness of the snow-covered monuments was stark and beautiful.
Dinah RAINE was born, lived out her life, and died in County Durham, Land of the Prince Bishops, while her only child James travelled from one side of the world to the other. Their many descendants are in Australia today.
DINAH OF COUNTY DURHAM: WHOLE COMPLETE AND FINISHED:
7 July 1822 Dianah Daughter of James and Margaret RAIN Houghton Le Spring
22 April 1842 birth of son James RAINE West Rainton
4 Mar 1844 married Thomas ATKINSON at Southwick
12 Dec 1868 died at Haswell Village
15 Dec 1868 buried in Holy Trinity Churchyard at Hetton
7 Oct 1875 Thomas Atkinson Dinah’s husband was buried at Christchurch Seaham
The life history of Dinah RAINE is the story of a job that became a quest.
Somehow, we ourselves are complete when we know those who came before us.
