Mother Goose Pop-up Challenge

Question

As everyone certainly already knows, May 1st is National Mother Goose Day! And what better way to celebrate than with a surprise Mother Goose Pop-Up Challange!

Here's your task...

Find a family that shares the surname of your favorite Mother Goose nursery rhyme character. You can look for an existing one on WikiTree or add a new one from Family Search, Ancestry, etc. Help the family out by improving their profiles, fleshing out their bios, and adding additional family members. Then report back here and let's known a little bit about these people. Did Old MacDonald really have a farm? Did the Peep's really own sheep? Just how many children did Old Mother Hubbard actually have? It will be fun to find out!

Here's some names to choose from:

Little Boy BLUE

Old King COLE

Humpty DUMPTY

Mother GOOSE

Solomon GRUNDY

Lil' Jack HORNER

Old Mother HUBBARD

Old MacDONALD

Little Miss MUFFETT

Little Bo PEEP

Peter PIPER

Georgie PORGIE

Simple SIMON

Jack SPRAT

Wee Willie WINKLE

Or perhaps you can locate a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker!

Comments

And this got me thinking - who wrote Old MacDonald Had A Farm? - Wikipedia says, "Thomas Durfee" (aka Thomas d'Urfey). But he currently has no page in WikiTree.

Not sure how much information there is on him, but it would be interesting to find out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_d%27Urfey

His song (a very early variant on the modern song of today) appeared in a play in the 1700's by John Gay and Johann Christoph Pepusch, who both do have WikiTree pages.

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And apparently, according to Thomas, cows say "Boo"... not "Moo"...

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Those cows would be great to have around on Halloween.

Many Mother Goose characters are said to be based on real people, although these claims are often dubious at best. I was always told that Mother Goose herself was from Boston, but we now know she exited in Europe as far back as 1590.

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For those working on "Wee Willie WinkLe", maybe also look for the original of the rhyme "Wee Willie Winkie" (as in eye for igloo).  It'd be interesting to see how many of which name there might be.  

Answer 1

Ok went to pick one and thought Horner maybe a Lancashire / Yorkshire Name and found one went to add and guess what I'd already added him back in 2020 it was meant to be lol John (Jack?? ) Horner couldn't find a Jack but since I had already created this profile he's already connected so see what I can add

Comments

What a funny coincidence. Be sure to let us know what you discover about these Horners. Any Christmas pie makers in the family?

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Not yet lol Joiners / Farmers so far

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John was baptised on the same day as the burial of his Mother 

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The most interesting 'character' is actually John's Father William - married three times, children with two and out lived all three wifes  his first wife Isabel Moss also had a son John Horner but he died shortly after Birth along with Isabel. William's Father was also a John (still researching that line). Could only find two marriages for John's children (both female) so no more John/Jack Horners there. Theres a possible marriage for his son John W Horner to Clara Sunderland but could find no trace after marriage possible emigration which I havent located so left that for now.

From having only his wife and one child originally I have added a few more children his Parents, his Maternal Grandparents and two siblings.

Obviously some of the children die within the first year and wifes also die fairly young BUT there is also some longevity in the Family Johns maternal Grandfather Thomas Hutchinson was born in 1788 and was still alive in 1871 think he died in 1873. William Horner (Father to John) was born in 1803 and still alive in 1881.  Possibly death in 1889.

No Pie Makers a flour dealer whos also a shoemaker, two very different professions (Thomas Hutchinson). I wondered if the retire shoemaker could be a bad transciption of retired flourdealer but I have not got access to the original census returns.

Answer 2

Okay, this sounds fun and interesting.

Comments

I have one Cole family on my watch list; so I updated Papa Cole with every intention to update the children and add their spouses and children.

I updated the oldest child and added her family. Real Life events occurred and my WT fun for the day was finished.

I have added this family to my July List for Connect-a-Thon, so they will receive some additional TLC soon.

Answer 3

OK, gonna find myself a Goose.

Comments

Adding sources to Goose-137 and family, but running out of time. Is the challenge just for today or do we have more time?

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Take all the time you need.

Answer 4

I'm taking a look at the Peep family of Outagamie County, Wisconsin. Their profiles were created back in 2015 and include some really cool photographs. They are connected, but their bios are non-existent, so I'll head over to the census records and newspapers to see if I call pull together some stories.

Comments

Just finished working on the profile of George Peep (1802-1884). Developed his bio, added sources, and am working on creating profiles for each of his children. George and his wife, Jane, had ten little Peeps. None were named Bo, but they did own a farm in Wisconsin, so it's possible they had some sheep.  

George was a carpenter from Dodderhill, England, who immigrated to the United States with his entire brood in 1849. They settled on a farm in DePre, Wisconsin. In 1880, after his wife had passed and his children had all moved away, George travelled 200 miles to Chicago in order to become an American citizen. It was a fun profile to work on.

Answer 5

Well MAFFETT is a family name I've been working on, and though my mother didn't like being called Little Miss Muffett, here is a little girl who sadly never grew big enough to develop an aversion to the name: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Maffett-183

Answer 6

Working on the Blue family and all its branches from Scotland.  It is fairly extensive.  Got started on this because of Mary Grantham who married Sam Blue in Taylor county, Florida.  After running off and marrying him her father, Robert Pinkney Grantham, never spoke of her again nor was anyone in the family allowed to.

Answer 7

Ok sounds fun. I'm in. I went through family names and found 5th gr grandmother HUBBARD. I added here and working on her.

Comments

5th gr grandmother Mary A. Hubbard married Isaac Ballinger, SR.  They were both from England. They had a daughter Judith Ballinger-, my 4th gr grandmother and they had a son Isaac Ballinger, JR.

Answer 8

I don’t know if Old Mother Hubbard had a dog or kept bones in her cupboard but I do know that she married Richard Walden. Together they raised 3 sons and 6 daughters, one of whom was one of my maternal ggg grandmothers, Mary Hubbard Walden Whitworth.

Answer 9

John R Winkle married Mary A Parker and together they had a baby Winkle Doris Eileen Winkle. This wee WINKLE family made their home in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

However, they were not related to Willie K. Winkle (a female named after her father William) of Independence, Arkansas. She was truly a wee Willie Winkle at five years of age when she was enumerated for the first time in 1940.

Answer 10

Great challenge.  I took the opportunity to work a notable from my area's history who had a fairly barebones profile this morning.  Not so tonight.  The profile is William Hubbard, Esq

Comments

Terrific job. I have some old Rhode Island Hubbards I haven't looked into recently. I'll have to see if we're connected.

Answer 11

I saw this pop-up on my way to bed and couldn't resist, although it's already May 2nd here - if I lived on the west coast it would still be the 1st, lol.

Anyone remember Bobby Shaftoe who went to sea, silver buckles at his knee?  It's a nursery rhyme/song from Northumberland (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7y3M5TbhKQ)

Since the Robert Shaftoe connected to the rhyme is a WikiTree notable and has a full bio [[Shafto-49|Robert Shaftoe]], I chose another Bobby from Northumberland to see what I could add to his existing profile. He now has a wife and son, and I created a profile for her as well.

Robert:  [[Shafto-104|Robert Shaftoe]] and his wife Anne: [[Chandler-12510|Anne (Chandler) Shaftoe (abt.1815-)]]

This was fun!

Comments

I was wondering if anyone would come up with a rhyme I missed. Thanks for playing along. This was a fun one.

Answer 12

I did one

Ida (Cole) McClain https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Cole-28368

Comments

Have to wonder if she any royal ancestry!

Answer 13

No Georgie Porgie, but this is a Maggie Porgie, an Italian immigrant living in New York City with her Porgie children. [[Porgie-1|Philomena (Porgie) Palmieri (abt.1890-)]]

Answer 14

A little late, but here is Amanda (McDonald) Robinson. She was not an old man or a farmer particularly. Amanda was born in Lubec, Maine into a family that alternated using the name McDonald and McDaniel. They were lumbermen, sometimes living on Campobello Island in New Brunswick. She married a lumberman, Sanford Robinson (who came from a family that switched names between Robinson and Robertson). They moved to Monroe, Adams, Wisconsin where they did do a little farming and Sanford worked in lumber. She died, likely after childbirth, at age 36 and is buried in the Strongs Prairie Cemetery.

Answer 15

I added William Grundy and his wife Nellie May Wenlock-Beeton

Comments

Love to see people still working on this. The theme may be a little silly, but these are real families with real stories that deserve to be told. And each family that's added helps make WikiTree that much better. Thank you to everyone who has contributed.

Answer 16

I am new to WikiTree and despite a busy work schedule in trying to finish up several projects so I can spend more time on genealogy, I was poking around and trying to learn WikiTree and see that I missed Mother Goose Pop-up Challenge. Am I way too late?

I have a real Mother Goose in my family — my 5G-grandmother Elizabeth Goose. She had 7 children before she and Robert Kime finally married in 1791 in Lincolnshire, England. She went on to have two more children with Robert. Her first child she named Johnson Charles Goose (a very unusual name for the time) with the bondsman on the bastardy bond listed as Thomas Johnson. After her second bastardy case with Robert Kime—no more bastardy cases recorded for Elizabeth. In her 1853 will, a niece of Robert’s named and left his “children or purported” children 50 pounds a piece. 

Comments

My nieces and nephew have a grandma they call "Granny Goose". Its so cool that your family actually had a Granny Goose aka Mother Goose.

While our pop-up challenges are often designed to be completed in a single day or over the course of a weekend (usually centered around a holiday or other special event), there's nothing wrong with popping in late. The goal of these pop-ups is to provide a fun motivation to help grow and improve the Tree...what day you do it is really not a concern.

Welcome to wiki tree and thanks for participating.

Answer 17

My grandfather had a 1C who married a guy named "Harry Horner". For the longest time I wondered how somebody named "Harry" got the nickname "Jack". I forget if his granddaughter explained it to me, or whether the nursery rhyme connection finally occurred to me (LOL).

I have no idea about his seating habits, eating habits, or whether he was pleased with himself for helping himself to the potential benefits of corrupt public service.