Page 316 - Just another English family (Sep 2019)

years following his birth and his marriage to Dinah?
Joseph’s residence of McHenry, Illinois – given when he enlisted for the Civil War - is powerful circumstantial evidence of being linked with other Soothills living in that area. I will argue later that it seems likely that John H. Soothill (1861-1923) is the son of Joseph.
When Joseph married Dinah in England in 1892, he was still in the travelling mode. On the Passenger Lists there is a ‘Mrs Soothill born about 1844’ who departs from Liverpool and arrives in New York on 13 May 1897. Her residence is shown as Liverpool, England. This is almost certainly Dinah who was perhaps meeting her husband in the United States. Three years later there is a recorded journey involving Joseph and D Soothill who are travelling from Liverpool to Montreal, Canada in 1900. In fact, these passengers will be Joseph and Dinah. Dinah must have returned to England at some point, for she appears in the 1911 census as a widow and so Joseph must have died within the first decade of the twentieth century..
George Soothill is shown in the New York Passenger Lists as arriving in New York on 9 May 1856 from Liverpool on the ship, Constellation. Unlike the other passengers, there is no estimated birth year shown for George. In fact, on the lists he is shown as ‘Geo Soothill’, but I have assumed that this is a shortened version of ‘George’. Although Joseph and George both seem to arrive in New York in the same year, there is currently nothing to connect them directly as they are on different passenger lists. However, Joseph (1832-?) has a younger brother, George (1837-?). While I suppose George is a possible contender for starting a Soothill dynasty in the United States, I think it is more likely that he returned quite quickly to England as I believe he was married in Bradford, England, in 1859.
With more evidence there is also Thomas Soothill to consider. Walter Soothill (1866-1951), writing in 1938, says that his grandfather, Thomas, “was a
312