[April 2013: believe this resolved – they were brothers.]

Miniature portrait bequeathed by Margaret Rosa Cecil VOSS and inscribed on the back:
Capt. Edward Voss HCS
aged 25, 1830
died April 29th 1875
[HCS: Honourable Company’s Ship – used by the East India Company rather as HMS and RN is used by the Royal Navy]

Margaret R C Voss bequeathed to my parents artifacts pertaining to her grandfather. Capt. Edward VOSS (b. 1805) and his sons.  Further my sister has a child’s tea service presented to Capt. VOSS’ eldest daughter Elizabeth.  Capt. VOSS’ daughter Rosa signed the visitors’ book of my grandmother Mona VOSS when she visited her in Ridge House, Amersham in 1910. We can conclude that Capt. VOSS must be related to ourselves and presumably our paternal grandfather George VOSS (b. 1811), his contemporary.  My expectation was to find that they were brothers.  However, the evidence points to something less direct. Continue reading What was the kinship between George VOSS (d) and Capt. Edward VOSS? →

I felt my search for Margaret Rosa Cecil VOSS concluded when I found this photograph in my cousin Rosemary’s collection. On the reverse is inscribed: Margaret “Daisy” Cecil Voss. She was borne in 1879 in India and the photograph was taken in Dorking, perhaps about 1882, when she must have been in England.

Continue reading Margaret Rosa Cecil VOSS (1879-1957) and her bequests →

Bank House, Melcombe Regis, now part of Weymouth, where George VOSS and his wife kept a boarding house and raised their son Albert, and Albert in turn his son Edward George VOSS

An outline of George’s life can be gleaned from census records.  In 1841 he was residing in Grosvenor Place, Melcome Regis, and present were his wife Frances, their young son (George) Albert and as lodger Ann BULLEN, Frances’ sister.  He describes himself as cabinet maker.  By 1851 he was running Bank House as a boarding house, and he stated his birth place as Weymouth.  In 1861 he was still at Bank House and a boarding house keeper and he stated his place of birth as Melcombe Regis.  In 1871, now widowed, he was with his son Albert again in Bank House and as boarding house keeper.  Again he states he was borne in Melcombe Regis.  By 1881 he had retired, and was living near by at 3 Hardwick Terrace with Ellen Wicksteed, his late wife’s sister.  He died in 1883 and was buried with Frances in Wyke Regis, her home church. Continue reading George Voss (d) (ca 1811-1883) →