Anna Gordon Goding (née Sober)

Anna Gordon Goding née Sober, wife of John Cummins Goding, awarded compensation for ownership of enslaved persons in Barbados with Penelope Wentworth Wickham (q.v.)

1. Ann Gordon Sober married John Cummins Goding, 08/05/1821 in St Peters, Barbados. John Gay Goding, son of John Cummins Goding was christened in St Peters, Barbados, 19/08/1822. Mary Prescod Goding, daughter of Jno. Cummins Goding, was baptised in St Peters, Barbados, 07/11/1824.

2. Anna Gordon Sober, christened 15/03/1802 in Thurso, Caithness, Scotland, parents John Sober and Anna Sober. A beneficiary in the will of her aunt Penelope Wentworth Sober, who died in 1833. Another child, John Middleton Sober, was born 13/03/1795 and christened 20/03/1795 in Latheron, Caithness, Scotland, father John Sober. This is very likely to be the John Sober and his wife Ann of “Latheron nr Dunbeath” who are mentioned in the will of Martha Bersheba Sober dated 26/04/1795. This in turn makes Anna Gordon Sober the neice of her co-claimant Penelope Wentworth Wickham.

3. Presumably her children are named after John Gay Goding (q.v.), attorney in Barbados and trustee of William Prescod (q.v.), but the exact relationship is unclear.

4. A monumental inscription in St Peter’s, Speights Town, Barbados, commemorates “John Gay Goding Junior Esquire, who departed this life the 18th December 1845 aged 23 years”.

T71/900 Barbados claim nos. 5004 and 5016.

1. www.familysearch.org batch nos. M51388-1 and C51388-1; see separate entry for Penelope Wentworth Wickham which gives details of her ancestry and the christening of her daughter Anne Gordon Wickham in 1829.

2. For the births of Anna Gordon Sober and John Middleton Sober: www.familysearch.org batch no. C11041-2. For the will of Martha Bersheba Sober: James C. Brandow, Genealogies of Barbados families: from Caribbeana and the Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society (Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc, 1983) p. 512. The will of Penelope Wentworth Sober, Spinster of Upper George Street Bryanstone Square, Middlesex, PROB 11 1818.

3. See separate entry for John Gay Goding.

4. Vere Langford Oliver, The monumental inscriptions in the churches and churchyards of the island of Barbados, British West Indies (London, Mitchell, Hughes and Clarke, 1915) p. 145.

We are grateful to Grahame Taylor for his assistance with compiling this entry.