D. B. Timmins 15 chemin des Colombettes Nations, Geneva 1202 e-mail 102142.1366@CompuServe.com February 27, 1997 Dear Rosemary (I can hardly call a newly-discovered cousin "Mrs. Wallace"):: How delightful to learn that I have relatives in Australia. I discovered a distant cousin on my mother's side of the family in Canada a few years ago when she ran across my name in the genealogical archives. And we both of us also have relatives still in Cornwall. When visiting them some years ago I learned that one of my grandfather William James Timmins' brothers, Charles, spent some years in South Africa before returning to Cornwall. So we Timmins' have contributed to the settlement of pretty well all of the Commonwealth -- and the United States. First of all let me provide you with a couple of addresses: While my father W. Mont Timmins spent his last years collecting most of the information I later entered in the Genealogical Library's computerized program, my son Mark Timmins is more or less ourside of the family's current genealogist. His address is 926-A Park Hill Road, Laurel, Maryland 20707. A cousin in Cornwall who would be the same relation tot you as I am, i.e. grandson of one of the wandering offspring of Joseph Timmins, was Harry Snell. I first visited Harry, his wife, and his mother in 1951, again in 1956, and Harry, his wife, and son in 1985. Harry died late last year . His son David and his wife, and two daughters, live at. 6 Portland Gardens, King Street, Falmouth, TR11 2QQH, England. David is the same age as my son Mark. The boys first met back in 1956 when they were both toddlers. When I first visited Cornwall, where my father's sister had maintained contact by mail ever since her youth, I found one of my grandfather's brothers Joseph still alive at about 82 years of age. I spent a few days in the home of first-cousin-once-removed Ellen Snell (mother of Harry). We had a nice visit and I met some of the remaining family and learned a good deal about my own grandfather's youth. Seems one of Joseph's sons Charley had gone to South Africa, and then returned where he ran a pub -- very much in the family tradition. Apparently Joseph and his wife also ran what we Americans would consider a small hotel (which I was shown). I was also shown the small church in Budock, just outside Penryn, which is in turn a mile upstream from 'Falmouth, where many Timmins' are buried. My grandfather William James Timmins had five children: William Montana my father, who was born in Montana where grandfather was a mining engineer, before moving to Utah, marrying my grandmother, and spending the rest of his life as engineer at the new Utah/Idaho Sugar factory in Logan, Utah; Annie (who married Lorin Hendricks); Helen (who married Cyrus Skidmore); Robert (who married Carolyn Eames); and (another ) Joseph, who married Myrle ----- a Scandinavian name. I suppose you'll find, as I did, that James' antecedence is still a bit of a mystery. In doing his genealogy, my father linked James up with the established Timmins family in Budock. But my son Mark discovered that this was because James Timmons had married a Johannah whose name was also Timmins and dad had wrongly, but understandably, assumed Johannah's father was James'.. Doing later research in the British archives west of London, I found out that James had served in Captain Pakingham's First Worcestershire Regiment of Foot in the mid 1770s and had taken several leaves to visit Falmouth. The archivist said this almost certainly meant that he had either family, or a girl (or both), in Falmouth or nearby. We know that this is where he eventually married Johannah and settled, linking two Timmins/ons families. But we've never established where James originated. Even later in my own research I ran across quite a clan of Timmins' in two adjoining parishes just outside Birmingham in Worcs. But a pretty careful search showed that while there were several James' shown in the birth registers, none appeared to have been born within the likely time frame for the date of marriage of James and Johannah. So we're still looking for James' place of origin in order to push the family line back beyond the 1770's (on the paternal side that is. We have plenty of Johannah's Timmins ancestors). You'll have noticed that the name is spelled variously Timmons and Timmins -- often in subsequent generations. This I'm told is because spelling was not standardized and parish clerks spelled as the name sounded to them. I've found other variant spelling you might wish to check: Timmings, Timmonds, Tymings (and others which do not occur at the moment). Some books trace the nameTimmons to the Irish Clan O'Temoin. And this is of course possible. My Mark, however, finds Timmins' (in variant spellings) in Holland, and suggests it might be a Dutch name. On the other hand, he also finds it to be a French Huguenot family name and wonders whether the first settlers in Cornwall (and Holland) might have arrived from the Pyrenees region -- a center of Huguenot, and earlier still, Cathar, influence -- at the time of the expulsion of the Huguenots following the Revocation of the Edict of Nante in 1685. When my wife and I were living in Paris a few years ago (actually being there during the commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the Revocation, seeing both the original Edict and the Revocation in the Biblioteque National) we met a Sister Timmons who was a mmber of the LDS Church who told us the name was very common in the Bas Pyrenees and that the ending "mons" signifies "mountain" -- so the name actually means Tim's Mountain -- or Timmons . This derivation was also recently put forward by a friend who is bilingual in both Spanish and French and who is well acquainted with this region. So, at present, I tend towards the Huguenot origin of the family name. This is supported by the fact that Huguenot expellees settled in several locations around the cost of England, in the Netherlands, and in South Carolina in the United States shortly after 1685. We have never linked up with the South Carolina Timmons' -- though I succeeded, as Deputy Director (with a few months gap), Lane Timmons who had been Director of the State Department Office of European Political/Economic Affairs -- which led to some mail mixups Regrettably, the English Huguenot records were centralized in London and were destroyed by fire. So even if we confirmed that either James' of Johannah's branches were indeed Huguenot, we couldn't push our research any further back into France. You do not say in your letter, Rosemary, whether you are a member of the LDS Church or were merely availing yourself of the genealogical library facilities. We are, by the way, having an Open House for our local Ward this weekend and I will be giving a twenty minute presentation in our local geneealogical library (which is in part of our church facility) on why Mormons put so much effort into genealogical work. I have for years been trying to interest David Snell, who is an active member of the Anglican church, in the LDS Church. If you happen to be a member, you might mention this in any letters to him to show how the Restoration has appealed. To Timmins family members not only in the U.S., but in Australia. In conclusion, you ask whether Joseph went to America. No, both Joseph, son of James, and his own son Joseph, died and are buried in Penryn, Cornwall. But another son, William James (my grandfather) did go to America. Why? Sense of adventure, search for employment as the mines in Corrnwall were worked out. William James sailed to New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi River -- the biggest in the United States. He sailed up the river to St. Louis where he worked for a time before continuing on to the newly opened up mines in Montana, on the Canadian border. He was an engineer, and soon found work running and maintaining the engines which ran the pumps to keep the mines free of water. While in Butte, he stayed at a rooming house which had been opened by two of my great uncles on my father's maternal side of the family. My great grandfather Robert Thornley, from Lancashire (the Thornleys originated in County Durham) had been among the early Mormon pioneers and had been first settlers of Cache Valley -- about 175 miles directly south of Butte, Montana. The Thornleys began trucking Cache Valley produce to the Montana mines, and opened the boarding house as a "value added" element of their food trucking business. It also provided employment for the two young Thornley daughters. William James Timmins met Ellen Thornley at the boarding house and the two found they enjoyed eacch other'c company. But Ellen was a devout Mormon and wouldn't marry Will until he traveled to Utah and met her father Robert -- who had served two missions to Great Britain and had much experience explaining the Restored Gospel to investigators. Will soon joined the LDS Church and he and Ellen were married in the Logan Temple. As I've already said, he worked the rest of his life as engineer at the Logan sugar factory and he and Ellen reared five children. His descendants number several hundreds. My own father William Mont had twenty-five grandchildren, eighty (so far) great grandchilren and (again, so far) one great great grandchild. I have four children and fifteen grandchildren. So genealogical work goes on, and on. You'll note from my return address tthat my wife and I are currently in Switzerland. I've spent my life as an American diplomat. We maintain our permanent address in Salt Lake City. And mail to our SL address is regularly forwarded here. So we receive mail at both addresses. Hoping the foregoing information will be of some help in your work, I remain, Sincerely yours, David Brighton Timmins