My Family Tree

Very little is known about George James Watts.

According to records at the Alberton Museum, he was a tailor and an emigrant from England. In his diary, the Rev. Dyer said he was a young man at the time of his marriage to Mary Anne Smith and that he was from London England. He married Mary Anne Smith in 1862. Mary Anne was 34 at the time of her marriage. The Rev. Dyer was 54 in 1862 - he would not call a man of 40 a young man, so I am assuming that George Watts was between 25 and 35 years old when he married Mary Anne.

They had two children. The birth record for their last child, Frederick, had Mary Anne's name only, which combined with the statements made by the Rev. Dyer in his diary about her having sinned, leads me to believe that George had died around 1865.

George's name does not appear in Hutchinson's 1865 directory, or in the McAlpine Directory for 1870/71; he was not listed as a tailor in the Cascumpec local history, and he wasn't in 1841, 1861 or 1881 census records for Prince Edward Island.

He does not seem to have been related to the existing Watts families from other areas of the Island, who were mainly of Scottish origins.

There were a number of children baptized as George James Watts in England. If the Rev. Dyer was correct, that he was born in London, England, and that he was a young man in 1862, that does narrow the range of possibilities.

This death notice, from the website PEI Ancestry, looked promising, but another paper said the name was Watson, not Watts:
Watts, John T. Summerside Progress - 1 April 1867, page 3, col. 1 At Summerside, on the 15th ult., after about thirty-six hours of most intense suffering, John T. Watts, in the 46th year of his age. He was a native of Huntingdonshire, England, and leaves a widow and eleven children to mourn their irreparable loss. (John Watts was not in the 1861 census, but there was a John Watson, tailor, with a household of 12 in Lot 26) The Summerside Journal says he was John T. Watson, not Watts.

1861 census:
family of Francis Watts, farmer, Lot 35 - Methodist, from another province (Newfoundland)
family of James Watts, baker, Charlottetown - Kirk of Scotland, all born PEI
Widow Watts, Charlottetown, Kirk of Scotland, born PEI

1881 - Watts in Lot 31 and Charlottetown area were Scots Presbyterian

Omitting the Georges who were married by 1861 or 1881, the men named George Watts in England, born within 5 years of 1825 and working as tailors were narrowed down to these possibilities:

1851 - George Watts, age 30, tailor born Northhampshire 1821, living in lodgings in Northwood, Isle of Wight

George Watts, tailor, age 25, born Leeds, Yorkshire - a visitor

George Watts, age 21, "wife's son" of James and Mary Newman (age 48) Born Westbury, Wiltshire, tailor's apprentice.

It is also possible that George left England before the 1851 and 1861 census records were taken.