FINDING MY ROOTS

by Pam Hakala

This is the story of my great-grandfather, William Atkinson, a man whose life was marked by unanswered questions and a transatlantic journey that forever changed the course of our family.

My dad researched our Atkinson family history, beginning with his grandfather, William. After my dad passed I took over where he left off. With so many unanswered questions, I reached out to the North East Lincolnshire Council Archives in Grimsby, England. I was transferred to Tracey Townsend. Through emails, Tracey and I worked closely together for almost 5 years. She researched databases accessible to her and sent school records, birth certificates, census records, etc.

William was born on July 21, 1851, in the small village of Low Toynton, nestled in the Lincolnshire countryside of England. He was the grandfather of my father, but beyond that simple connection, his life has always been something of a mystery.

At just 16 years old, William made a bold and unexplained decision: he left England behind. He boarded a tramp steamer, working his passage from port to port for over two and a half years before eventually arriving in Galveston, Texas. Why he left his homeland, and why so young is something we may never fully understand.

Though we know much about William’s life after arriving in the United States, where he eventually settled in Hillsboro, Texas, found work, and began a family, the details of his early life in England have always puzzled and intrigued me.

After 5 years in America, William became a naturalized U.S. citizen. He married his first wife, and they had a daughter, tragically his wife died shortly after childbirth. He later married his second wife, my great-grandmother, and together they had three sons. The youngest of those sons was my grandfather.

Despite these milestones, the shadow of William’s early years never faded. We knew that by 1861, at just 9 years old, he was listed in the census as a “scholar,” living not with his mother but with his maternal grandparents in Fulletby, England. His mother was absent, and no mention of a father appeared.

From birth until 1867, William remained with his grandparents. That same year, after the death of his grandmother, he left England.

But why didn’t he live with his mother and her new husband? Why did he leave England at such a formative age? These were the questions that led us, in April of 2025, to travel to England to uncover the truth behind the man we only knew in fragments.

In Lincolnshire I finally met Tracey in person and the events and places only on paper began to come together as Tracey and her husband drove us to the places where William was born and he lived. We learned that William was born out of wedlock, and his mother, my great-great-grandmother, filed a bastardy case against a man named Mark Cade, whom she claimed was William’s father. The case never proceeded, as Cade apparently fled town, working in a traveling circus to avoid being served legal papers. His disappearance left William fatherless and socially marginalized in a time when illegitimacy carried a heavy stigma.

The 1861 census led us to the exact address in Fulletby where William lived with his grandparents. We visited St. Peter’s Church in Low Toynton, where William had been baptized. Though the church is now in disrepair and unsafe to enter, we found the headstones of William’s grandparents, my great-great-great-grandparents, in the overgrown churchyard.

We also visited the old schoolhouse in Fulletby, where young William would have received his early education. Though it’s no longer a school, the building still stands as a private residence, and we were lucky enough to meet the current homeowner, who graciously allowed us a glimpse of William’s past.

We even made our way to Manor House Lane in Fulletby, where the family once lived, though the house itself no longer exists, simply standing on that land brought a strange sense of connection.

William died in 1921, at the age of 70, at the Home for Aged Masons in Arlington, Texas. By that time, his journey had taken him far from the English countryside of his birth.

He left behind a legacy of courage, mystery, and a family line that continues to wonder about the boy who boarded a ship alone and never looked back.

To this day, I can’t help but wonder, did he ever regret leaving England?

Or did he find in America the life he never could have had at home?