updated April 2016

John Joseph (or Sam) Charleston History

DNA Match

Descendants of both Ellen Charleston and John Joseph Charlston have had their DNA analysed by ancestry.com and gedmatch.com which revealed a close match (4th cousin level) between the two family lines.

I believe that this DNA path must have been from John Charleston through his son John Joseph(or Sam) and Daughter Ellen.

I believe that the person known as John Joseph Charleston by his USA family was known as Sam Charlston by his birth family in India.

This belief is validited by the DNA results, letters and photographs handed down through his USA family which identify his brother Charles and sister Ellen in India.

John's first name is a bit of a puzzle, his family in USA knew him as John Joseph or sometimes Joseph John but his family in India knew him as Sam. In 1877 when John was 5, his parents had another son who they called John David Charleston, he died after only 3 months. I don't think John and Mary Ann would give two of their sons the same first name, but I have settled on a first name of John because that is the name he seems to have used in USA where he spent most of his life.

Florence D'Silva nèe Simmonds recollection

Florence was the daughter of Leonard Simmonds and Ellen Charleston, she was born in Calcutta in 1900.

According to Florence: Ellen Charleston had a brother called Sam. Sam was married to Lillian and they had 13 children.

Sam's Birth

I can find no baptism record for either Sam or John Joseph Charleston. John's family know his date of birth as 26th September 1872. This is the date given in most documents handed down through the family in USA.

Brief history

John was born in 1872 in Calcutta, his father was a clerk in the high court.

In 1881 when John was 8 his father died of T.B. John's mother Mary Ann remarried in 1881 a few months after the death of John senior.

It is believed that John was sent to an orphanage after the death of his father, I wonder if this could have been a boarding school? John supposedly left the orphanage when he was 14 and stowed away on a ship travelling to Liverpool and from there he journeyed on to USA arriving in 1887.

John served in the U.S. army at different times between the ages of 21 and 33.

Some time around 1903 John married Ruby Ethel Wiltz and they had 2 children, this marriage did not last and John married again in 1908 to Lillian Maud McClay. John and Lillian had 13 children.

John died in 1940 in Chicago USA.

John's occupation seems to have been: Soldier, Clerk and Preacher.

Close Note

www.mcskimming.org.uk/simmonds/JohnJosephCharleston.html