Blog

Ask the Expert – the first wife

Our expert Stephen Rigden, pictured above, answers your questions.

From Sandra Lockwood in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia:

‘My grandmother’s father had two wives – the first is the one we cannot find. Her name was Elizabeth Hunt, born around 1861 – where we are not sure, but we were told it could have been Wilton, Wiltshire. Elizabeth had two sons to Joseph Manning, my great grandfather; we have the two boys’ birth certificates. The first boy was born Joseph Thomas Manning on 4 October 1881 at 10 Helmsley Street, Hackney, to Joseph and Elizabeth Manning, nee Hunt.

The second boy was born William Manning on 23 February 1885 in Alderbury at the Malt House Cottage Salisbury. His mother was Elizabeth Manning, nee Hunt. We know she existed but we cannot find a birth, marriage or death certificate for her – we know Joseph married Elizabeth Freak in 1889 and my grandmother was born 1890. I have been searching for over 12 months – can you help me?’

Steve says:

‘This is an interesting question. Assuming that you are absolutely certain that Elizabeth Hunt and Elizabeth Freak are definitely two different women, I think the most likely explanation for your predicament is that Joseph Manning and Elizabeth Hunt were never legally married.

Of course, this is not to say that they did not live as man and wife for a number of years, and may have presented themselves as married (the births of their children are certainly registered as if the parents were married). If you check the 1889 marriage certificate of Joseph to Elizabeth Freak, you may find that he is described as a bachelor rather than a widower; if you have not obtained a copy already, you should do so.

If they were not married, however, this gives rise to two other possibilities. Firstly, if Elizabeth, nee Hunt, did indeed die before 1889, her death may have been registered under Hunt not Manning. Secondly, perhaps Elizabeth did not die and the couple simply separated, with the sons Joseph and William staying with their father and their mother going her own way (and perhaps marrying another man as Elizabeth Hunt).

Unfortunately, while these possible explanations are worth considering, they do not make your job any easier, as of course Elizabeth Hunt is a very common combination of names. You would also need to bear in mind at least two geographically distinct areas – Greater London and Wiltshire – and possibly all stops in between and elsewhere.

You mention that Elizabeth Hunt may have been from Wilton, Wiltshire. As you may have noticed, on the April 1881 census there is a domestic servant of her name, aged 20 (born circa 1860/61) and born in Wilton, residing at 13 George Street, St Pancras, London. This could conceivably be your Elizabeth Hunt, unmarried and three months pregnant with Joseph Thomas. There is, however, no way of telling from this document in isolation.

Not all problems in family history are soluble. On all lines of all our family trees, sooner or later we come across a brick wall we cannot break down. Of course we all hope that the brick wall is reached later rather than sooner but sometimes we have to have the wisdom to accept that we can go no further. You may not be at that point in your research yet but I worry that there appears to be no straightforward way of advancing your research on this line.

Perhaps some of the family historians on findmypast.co.uk might have some ideas for you?’

If you’d like to send your question to Steve, please register or opt to receive newsletters in My Account.

Ask the Expert – murder mystery

Our expert Stephen Rigden, pictured right, answers your questions.

From Charlotte Paton in King’s Lynn, Norfolk:

‘I am trying to trace the family of Lilian (Lillian) Alexander who was murdered in Edingthorpe in April 1901, aged 8. She was born in 1892. She had a sister Alice who gave evidence at the trial of her murderer who was born in 1890. Dad was the ‘late’ Matthew Alexander on Lilian’s death certificate.

I can find nothing on any of the censuses about the family, who Mum was etc. Can you find them and explain why I can’t please?’

Steve says:

‘Many thanks for your question. I think the best way forward for you is actually the simplest – namely, to purchase the birth certificate of Lilian (which you can do online at the official government website). Her death was registered in June quarter 1901 in Smallburgh registration district; the death index gives her age as 8 years, as you say, which means that she would have been born circa 1892/93.

Checking the birth index, you can find her birth in 1892 in Smallburgh. The birth of her sister Alice is also there in 1890. The birth certificate of Lilian should confirm the names of her parents. Once you have the certificate, you could look confidently for the marriage of the parents (to get their respective ages at marriage), after which you can search for their births, his death and so on, as well as finding them on earlier census returns.

Of course, you could speculate that her father is the Matthew in the death index who died aged 54 years in September 1893 but it is always best to work systematically and from what you know to be correct and true, rather than guessing or gambling and taking a wrong step.

Smallburgh is a coastal registration district and one reason why you have not been able to find Matthew in the 1891 census is that he may have been at sea, for instance if he was a fisherman or a mariner.’

If you’d like to send your question to Steve, please register or opt to receive newsletters in My Account.

Ask the Expert – paternity ponderings

Our expert Stephen Rigden, pictured right, answers your questions.

From Ruth Monnier in Brisbane, Australia:

‘I’m wondering if you can help me with a paternity query. I have noticed that in some baptismal registers the father’s name is left blank and it sometimes may also state that the baby was illegitimate. Also, on a birth certificate the name of the father may be missing and the baby has the same surname as the mother.

I’m wondering what the laws and norms were for what surname a baby could legally be given and what had to be written on the birth certificate? Did the parents have to be married for the baby to have the father’s surname? Did the parents have to be married for the baby’s father’s name to be written on the birth certificate? Was the father’s permission needed? It’s obviously different to today.’

Steve says:

‘Thanks very much for your question, Ruth. I can only really speak with regard to English and Welsh birth and baptism registers. My understanding is that, in practice if not in law, the birth of a child would be registered with the names of both parents in three different circumstances.

Firstly, of course, if the parents were legally married. There are some variations on this. For example, a legally married couple in, say, their 40s may present the child as their own legitimate offspring when in fact it was the illegitimate child of their unmarried daughter: they are not the actual parents but the child is registered as if they were. Or a married couple may register the birth or baptism of a child as if it were both of theirs whereas the father may have been a different man; naturally, the husband may or may not know that he is not the father. What we family historians have to work with is the evidence of the documentary record of birth or baptism, which may not necessarily correspond to the actual biological parentage of the child in question.

Secondly, if the mother of the child or both parents purported to be legally married and the registrar (by which I mean either the civil registrar or his/her ecclesiastical equivalent) was none the wiser. In the latter regard, if the registrar suspected that the mother or the parents were not married (for example, if the woman was known to him by repute, or the community was small and the personal circumstances of its inhabitants generally known), presumably he would ask for evidence to be provided and, if not produced to his/her satisfaction, the child would be registered under the mother’s name only (subject to the third circumstance below).

Thirdly, if the parents acknowledged that they were not married but the father accepted paternity and was present, with the mother, at the time of registration. You would then have the father given on the certificate as, for example, John Smith and the mother as Mary Brown. The child’s forenames are given in the appropriate field in the register but there is not a separate dedicated field for the child’s surname. Such children are, therefore, often indexed by the General Register Office in their birth indexes under the surnames of both parents. This is also why, when the registrar does include the surname in the child’s forename field, you tend to get doubling up in the index – i.e., such names as William Smith Smith (probably also indexed as William Smith Brown).

I suspect that the norms varied at different times and with different registrars, communities and faiths. Where illegitimate children were concerned, for example, not a few Calvinist Ministers in Scotland habitually filled their baptism registers with such pitiless phrases as ‘begotten in fornication’.

To summarise, if the name of the father is blank on the certificate, all you can reliably read into this is that his identity is (on the basis of this certificate) unknown to you. In reality, the identity of the father may have been unknown to the mother if there were two or more candidates, as it were; or his identity may have been known to the mother but he himself may have been unaware of his paternity; or he may have denied paternity, righteously or otherwise; or he may have been in a long-term stable or periodic relationship with the mother but was not present at registration.

As for the actual law in these matters, I only have immediately to hand a facsimile reprint of the 1901 ‘Suggestions For The Guidance Of The Clergy Relative To The Duties Imposed Upon Them By The Marriage And Registration Acts’. This is silent on the question of questionable paternity at birth registration. For marriages, however, it gives the following advice:

‘Persons of Illegitimate Birth are sometimes unwilling or unable to state the Name and the Rank or Profession of their Fathers. If, on these Particulars being asked for, there be any hesitation or reluctance to state them, no further inquiry need be made, and Columns 7 and 8 may be left blank; lines in ink should then be drawn through the blank spaces.’

Perhaps there are some findmypast.co.uk readers willing to share details of their own experiences of finding illegitimate ancestors?’

If you’d like to send your question to Steve, please register or opt to receive newsletters in My Account.

June’s competition winner

We’ve picked the winner of our June competition in which we asked you to tell us what year convict Michael Taylor arrived in New South Wales.

We’ve picked our winner at random – congratulations go to Clive Pace from Leeds who correctly answered 1822. Clive wins a six month subscription to Your Family History magazine. Congratulations Clive!

Thanks to all of you who entered – you’ll find July’s competition question in our newsletter this Friday.

Battle of Britain commemorative flight – 70 years on

To mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain this year, the Battle of Britain Historical Society has organised a commemorative flight over the Battle of Britain area on 28 August 2010 and you could be a part of it.

Findmypast.co.uk is sponsoring the flight, along with the John Lewis Partnership. British Airways have provided an Airbus A320 which will fly the Battle of Britain veterans over the areas in which they fought in their Hurricanes, Spitfires, Blenheims and Defiants in the summer of 1940.

As well as the veterans and their family members, celebrities and TV and press reporters, there are some seats now on offer to members of the public on a ‘first come, first served’ basis. Ticket holders will meet up with the veterans and celebrities at Heathrow at 1pm on Saturday 28 August 2010 for pre-flight drinks and lunch prior to take off at 2.30pm.

The flight will last around two hours and will fly over the Isle of Wight, Hampshire, Sussex and Kent, before proceeding up the English Channel and across the North Sea to the coast of Holland, returning to Heathrow via Belgium and France. Tickets are £475 each, paid for by cheque, or via Visa, Mastercard, Maestro or Switch.

If you’re interested in being a part of this amazing event, please contact Bill Bond M.B.E., General Manager, Battle of Britain Historical Society, Gunthorpe, Melton Constable NR24 2NS. Tel: 01263 861476 or email: billatbobhs@aol.com

Who Do You Think You Are? – Bruce Forsyth's ancestors in our census records

Following Monday’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are? which featured Bruce Forsyth, we’ve found his ancestors in the census records at findmypast.co.uk. We’re sure you found the programme as fascinating as we did – read on to see Bruce’s controversial great-grandfather in our census records.

Bruce Forsyth

In the 1851 census you can see Bruce’s great-grandfather, Joseph Forsyth Johnson, with his mother and grandfather (a florist/nurseryman – not a gardener as Bruce’s cousin said in the programme). They were living in West Ella, Yorkshire:

Click to enlarge

On the 1861 census you can see Joseph Forsyth Johnson (employed as a gardener) again living with his wife Elizabeth and her parents in Gilling, Yorkshire:

Click to enlarge

The 1881 census shows Elizabeth (working as a housekeeper) with children, living in Wilmslow, Cheshire. Joseph Forsyth Johnson was not with the family:

Click to enlarge

Elizabeth appears again on the 1891 census in Tottenham with her children  John (Bruce’s grandfather) and Christina, who wrote the diary Bruce received in the programme. John was working as a warehouse porter and Christina as a kitchen maid. Joseph Forsyth Johnson was not with the family again - as Bruce discovered, he had hot-footed it over to the USA with a younger woman and was enjoying considerable success and prosperity as a landscape gardener.

Click to enlarge

We’re looking forward to the rest of the series!

Who Do You Think You Are? – Bruce Forsyth’s ancestors in our census records

Following Monday’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are? which featured Bruce Forsyth, we’ve found his ancestors in the census records at findmypast.co.uk. We’re sure you found the programme as fascinating as we did – read on to see Bruce’s controversial great-grandfather in our census records.

Bruce Forsyth

In the 1851 census you can see Bruce’s great-grandfather, Joseph Forsyth Johnson, with his mother and grandfather (a florist/nurseryman – not a gardener as Bruce’s cousin said in the programme). They were living in West Ella, Yorkshire:

Click to enlarge

On the 1861 census you can see Joseph Forsyth Johnson (employed as a gardener) again living with his wife Elizabeth and her parents in Gilling, Yorkshire:

Click to enlarge

The 1881 census shows Elizabeth (working as a housekeeper) with children, living in Wilmslow, Cheshire. Joseph Forsyth Johnson was not with the family:

Click to enlarge

Elizabeth appears again on the 1891 census in Tottenham with her children  John (Bruce’s grandfather) and Christina, who wrote the diary Bruce received in the programme. John was working as a warehouse porter and Christina as a kitchen maid. Joseph Forsyth Johnson was not with the family again - as Bruce discovered, he had hot-footed it over to the USA with a younger woman and was enjoying considerable success and prosperity as a landscape gardener.

Click to enlarge

We’re looking forward to the rest of the series!

Weird and wonderful discoveries in the fully indexed birth records

Following the launch of our fully indexed birth records last week, we’ve uncovered some interesting finds within the records:

• 10 babies named Fish Fish were born between 1840 and 1883, bizarrely, all in Lancashire. The list even includes one Fish Fish Fish born in Blackburn in 1864:

Click to enlarge

• 340 Adolfs have been registered – with the last birth listed in the UK in 2005.
• Just five Ringos were registered in 1964 and 1965, compared with 2,414 Georges, 36,877 Johns and 56,170 Pauls.
• Six Dick Turpins were registered between 1854 and 1916 – a highwayman from the 1700s:

Click to enlarge

• Four Maradonas were registered in 1986, the year of the infamous ‘Hand of God’ goal. Eight more were registered between 1999 and 2006, including two Diego Maradonas and two Ronaldo Maradonas.
• Eight Peles were registered between 1970 and 1972, following the footballer’s 1000th goal in 1969.
• Eight babies have been given the forename Hercules, with a further 51 bearing it as a middle name.

We also did some research into the birth patterns over the past century and found that the trend for births at certain times of the year has changed. In 1907 and 1908, the peak time of year for births was in quarter two during April, May and June, compared with 2007 and 2008 when July, August and September saw the most births. It’s possible that 21st century parents are more mindful of the school year than they were 100 years ago.

Search our fully indexed birth records today to see who you can find.

New series of Who Do You Think You Are?

Don’t miss the start of a brand new series of Who Do You Think You Are? on BBC1 at 9pm tomorrow (Monday 19 July). The first celebrity to have his tree researched by the programme’s experts is Bruce Forsyth. The research centres around Bruce’s great-grandfather, a prominent 19th century landscape gardener, who may have been a bigamist. Watch the programme to find out more.

Over 40,000 new parish records now on findmypast.co.uk

We’ve been busy this week adding over 40,000 new parish baptism and burial records to findmypast.co.uk

New City of London Burial Index records

We’ve just added 30,596 records for the Spa Fields Burial Ground from the City of London Burial Index to findmypast.co.uk

These records cover the period from March 1778 to March 1810 and takes findmypast.co.uk’s coverage of this site from 1778 up to 1849.

Search these records in our parish burial records collection.

More information about the City of London Burial Index can be found in our knowledge base.

New London docklands parish baptism records

Also this week, we’ve added 10,625 new London docklands parish baptism records to the site. The details of these records are as follows:

St Mary Stratford – 1771-1813 – 1,966 baptisms
St Mary Stratford – 1813-1831 – 1,534 baptisms
St John Wapping – 1707-1734 – 7,125 baptisms

Search our parish baptisms for your London docklands ancestors.

These records were provided by Docklands Ancestors. You can read more about the London docklands records in our knowledge base.