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Famous family trees: Michael Kitchen

Welcome to the latest blog in our ‘famous family trees’ series. In this blog series, experienced family historian, Roy Stockdill, investigates the family histories of the famous, both living and dead. On-screen detective Michael Kitchen is the subject of Roy’s powers of deduction this month.

Michael Kitchen

Ask 100 people to name their favourite TV detective and I would wager a bet that, somewhere among the votes for Sherlock Holmes, Morse, Lewis, Frost, Barnaby, Wycliffe and their ilk, a sizeable number would plump for Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle. The superb drama series ‘Foyle’s War’, which has been on our screens for over a decade now, has built a regular audience of over six million viewers, not least because of the intelligent scripts by writer Anthony Horowitz, the setting of the programme in wartime Hastings and also the fact that no series has ever lasted beyond four episodes – the most recent series, which saw Foyle joining MI5, only ran to three – leaving fans yearning for more.

However, beyond any doubt whatsoever, the success of the programme is principally due to the almost hypnotic performance of its star, Michael Kitchen, the actor who plays Christopher Foyle. Foyle’s character – moral, courteous, soft-spoken, patient, scrupulously honest and yet determinedly tenacious in his pursuit of criminals – is brilliantly interpreted by Kitchen, who dominates every scene he’s in. So, it was with enthusiasm that I set out to research his family history.

I wish I could report that I found in his ancestry a real mystery worthy of DCS Foyle’s investigative talents – but, sadly, no! Despite the relative commonness of the surname, I was able to trace Michael Kitchen’s direct paternal line fairly quickly back to his great-great-great-grandparents in Lincolnshire about 1800. His forebears were – probably like Foyle’s – working class artisans and tradesmen. I did come across one minor puzzle which I was able to solve with some assiduous detective work, of which more later.I knew from online biographies and from the General Register Office’s birth indexes that he was born in 1948 in Leicester and registered as Michael R. Kitchen. It came as a slight surprise to learn from his birth certificate that his middle name is Roy – probably the only thing we have in common!

He was born in Leicester General Hospital on 31 October 1948, his father being Arthur Ernest Kitchen, a pork butcher’s assistant, and his mother Elsie Betty Kitchen, formerly Allen, both of 102 Wilberforce Road, Leicester.  His parents’ marriage certificate showed they were married at the Church of the Martyrs, Leicester – an Anglican parish church founded relatively late in 1890 – on 10 April 1948. Arthur Ernest Kitchen was 27 and a pork butcher, his father being Thomas Henry Kitchen, with no occupation stated. Elsie Betty Allen, 21, was a hairdresser and her father was shown as Roy Cecil Allen, hosiery operator. Possibly Michael Kitchen’s middle name came from his maternal grandfather. Arthur Ernest Kitchen was born on 17 January 1921 at 18 Wand Street, Leicester, a street of terraced houses not far from the city centre. His father, Thomas Henry Kitchen, was described on the birth certificate as a ‘Hotel Barman, Ex Army’ while his mother was Annie Elizabeth Kitchen, formerly Johnson. Arthur Kitchen, Michael Kitchen’s father, died at Leicester in 2002, aged 80.

The Kitchen family in 1911

Further research showed that Arthur was a latecomer to the family, considerably younger than his siblings, for Thomas Henry Kitchen and Annie Elizabeth Johnson were married at Leicester in the April-June quarter of 1901. By the census of 1911 they had three children and were then living at 18 Wand Street, North West Leicester, where Arthur was born some 10 years later. In 1911 Thomas Henry was aged 32, a hotel cellarman, and his birth place was given as Grantham, Lincolnshire. His wife Annie Elizabeth was 31, a hosiery machinist, born at Leicester. Their children were William Kitchen, 6, Annie Elizabeth, 4, and Edith May 3. There was, thus, a long gap before Arthur came along – not entirely unusual.

Michael Kitchen’s grandfather, Thomas Henry, was found in Leicester in the 1901 census as a single man, living with his parents and half-a-dozen siblings. The family were at 26 Martin Street, Leicester. Head of the household was William Kitchen, aged 51, a plasterer, and his wife was Elizabeth Kitchen, 44, both having been born at Welby, Lincolnshire. It was apparent from the pattern of the children’s birth places that the family must have moved around a bit before arriving in Leicester. The children were: Thomas Henry, 22, plasterer’s labourer, born Grantham, Lincolnshire; William, 14, tailor’s presser, born at Nottingham; Annie S, 12, errand girl; Ada, 10; Arthur E, 6; Edith M, 4; Agnes K, 1 – the five youngest all being

Thomas Henry Kitchen in the 1901 census

born in Leicester. I had to take care when checking the censuses, for there is also a place in Leicestershire called Welby – but it was clear that it was the Lincolnshire Welby, about four miles north-east of Grantham, that was the original home of the Kitchens. In 1891 William and his family were living at the same address as in 1901, 26 Martin Street, Leicester but in this census the surname was spelt KITCHIN. The details of names and birth places were very similar to those given in 1901 but, of course, the ages were 10 years lower and there were only four children, the three youngest having not yet been born.

Next, I looked at the census of 1881 and found William and Elizabeth Kitchen, with son Thomas Henry, not in Leicester but in Grantham, Lincolnshire. It then became clear that William and Elizabeth must have moved to Leicester at some time between the censuses of 1881 and 1891. We can pin it down even more precisely because the 1891 census shows that their son William was born at Nottingham about 1887 and his younger sister Anne was born in Leicester about 1889. In 1881 William and Elizabeth Kitchen were found at 40 Spring Gardens, Spittlegate, Grantham. This couple were the great-grandparents of the actor Michael Kitchen and in 1881 they only had the one child, Thomas Henry, then aged two. The GRO marriage indexes reveal that William Kitchen and Elizabeth Storer were married at Grantham registration district in the January-March quarter of 1877.

William Kitchen in 1861

To trace the ancestry farther back, I went to the censuses of 1871 and 1861. In 1871 William Kitchen was a visitor in the household of a family called Millhouse at Elton Street, Spittlegate, Grantham. He was then aged 21 and a plasterer, born at Welby, Lincolnshire. Ten years earlier in 1861 William was with his parents and four siblings in the village of Welby, Lincolnshire, a few miles north-east of Grantham. The address was shown as 9, Private House, Welby Pasture, Welby.

Richard Kitchen, William’s father, was an agricultural labourer, aged 52, and his wife Elizabeth was 43. Their children were: Thomas, 12, agricultural labourer; William, 11, agricultural labourer; Joseph 7; Richard 3; and Emma 1. The whole family were shown in the census as being born at Welby. Now we go back another 10 years to the census of 1851 when the Kitchen family were also in Welby. No address was given other than the village.

Richard & Ann Kitchen in 1841

Richard Kitchen was aged 41 and a farm labourer, while wife Elizabeth was 32. They had six children: Ann 12, John 9, James 7, Mary 5, Thomas 3 and William 1. Adding the three younger ones who appear in the 1861 census, plus another born in 1864, indicates that Richard and Elizabeth Kitchen had at least 10 children. I also found Richard and Elizabeth – Michael Kitchen’s great-great-grandparents – in the 1841 census. They were in Welby and had just the one child, Ann, who was aged two. Also in the household was another Ann Kitchen, aged 70, and, while relationships were not given in 1841, it seems likely that this was Richard’s mother.

A somewhat sad fact emerged when I discovered from the 1871 census that Elizabeth Kitchen was by then a widow, Richard having died and been buried at St. Bartholomew’s Church, Welby, on 10 April 1864, aged 55. This I learned from the parish records collection on the Findmypast website. His death at that time was particularly poignant for, according to the 1871 census entry for Elizabeth Kitchen her youngest child, Sarah J Kitchen, was six years old – so she must have been born around the same time that her father died. Indeed, the death record for Richard Kitchen and the birth of Sarah Jane Kitchen appear in the same April-June quarter of 1864 at Grantham registration district. Elizabeth was then aged 53 and had three other children with her: Joseph, 16, Richard, 13, and Emma, 11.

I mentioned near the beginning of this blog that I was able to solve one problem in the ancestry of Michael Kitchen and this concerned Richard and Elizabeth Kitchen, his great-great-grandparents. It appeared from the 1841 census that they were married by then – though precise relationships are not given in that census – but despite intensive online searching, I was unable to find a marriage, either in the period immediately after civil registration came in on 1 July 1837 or in parish registers before that date.

Then I had a brainwave! I tracked down the church warden of St. Bartholomew’s parish church, Welby, a very kind gentleman called Colonel John Riggall to whom I am extremely grateful, and he popped into the church to look at the marriage register for me. It transpired that the register began in September 1837 and is one of those rare older ones still in use today. There, only the fourth marriage in the book, was the union of Richard Kitchen, bachelor of full age, a labourer, and Elizabeth Exton, a minor of unstated age, on 18 December 1837. Richard’s father was shown as William Kitchen, also a labourer, and Elizabeth’s father was James Exton, publican. Armed with this information, I was able to solve the mystery of why the marriage doesn’t appear in the GRO marriage indexes online. In fact, the names of Richard Kitchen and Elizabeth Exton do both appear in the indexes in the same October-December quarter of 1837 – but the volume number given for Grantham registration district against Richard Kitchen’s name is wrong and therefore the entries don’t match up! The volume number for Grantham at the date in question was 14, whereas in the indexes against the name of Richard Kitchen it is shown as 24. It may be that the page number is wrong, too, for in one of the entries, for Richard Kitchen is shown as being on page 511 and Elizabeth Exton on page 611. These occasional errors in the GRO indexes are familiar to experienced genealogists but may well prove a trap for novice family historians.

I hope Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle would think I have been diligent in my research and followed his meticulous example in tracking down his ancestors, even solving a small mystery along the way!

Roy Stockdill

Roy Stockdill has been a family historian for almost 40 years. A former national newspaper journalist, he edited the Journal of One-Name Studies (for the Guild of One-Name Studies) for 10 years. He is on the Board of Trustees of the Society of Genealogists and is commissioning editor of the ‘My Ancestors…’ series of books. He writes regularly for Family Tree magazine.

Ask the expert – mysterious Scottish ancestor

Our resident expert Stephen Rigden, pictured below, answers your queries.

From Hilary Hillier:

‘I am having difficulty finding the birth record of my great-grandmother Lily Mary Bruce. Her name has been spelt various ways and I have a copy of her marriage certificate for 25 December 1875 in the parish of St Luke, Kentish Town in the county of Middlesex. On this certificate my great-grandmother’s name was spelt ‘Lillie Mary’ when she married Henry Thomas Hill and her age is stated as ‘full’. Her father is Edward Ernest Bruce.

I have found Lily’s residence in the 1901 census when her age is stated to be 48 years and her birth place Scotland. Her address at this time is the parish of Clapham, borough of Battersea. I also have found Lily in the 1911 census aged 59 years in the registration district of Wandsworth.

Her name on both censuses is spelt as ‘Lily Mary Hill’ with birthplace as Edinburgh, Scotland. I have spent many hours searching birth records in Scotland and the UK using Lillie Mary Bruce, and Lily Mary Bruce and even Mary Bruce, with no success.

I did find a Mary Bruce in 1851 Scotland census, however, aged 0 with birthplace as Edinburgh in the county of Fife. This record did not give other household members, however, so I am unsure if this is my great-grandmother.

I’m hoping you can shed some light on this for me.’

Stephen says:

‘Thanks for your email about your great-grandmother. I’ve made some searches myself and can appreciate the difficulties you have experienced and can add only a little to your knowledge of the family.

Firstly, I infer from your email that you have found the family on the 1901 and 1911 censuses, but not the 1881 and 1891 censuses – as Lily married in 1875, one should expect to find those two earlier census returns too.

Here are the references for the two census returns in question:

• 1881: RG11 piece 649 folio 73 page 42
• 1891: RG12 piece 424 folio 34 page 5

You can go straight to the images in question by inputting these citations at findmypast.co.uk’s census reference search page. If you don’t already do so, I would encourage you to keep census references such as these, so you can return to the images easily in future.

In 1891, the surname has seemingly been written as ‘Nill’ but it is clearly the same Hill family – perhaps the enumerator had trouble reading the original householder’s return that he used when compiling his returns, or perhaps what appears to be an N is simply a hastily and badly written H.

In both years, the family was residing in Battersea. Both returns agree with the age data from the 1901 and 1911 censuses, i.e., indicating that Lily was born circa 1851-53 in Scotland. The description ‘full age’ at her marriage in 1875 means she was at least 21 years old and, therefore, born before 1854.

What is interesting about the 1881 census is that your great-grandmother’s name is given not as Lily but as Elizabeth. It is not commonly known that Lily is a hypocoristic, or familiar form, of Elizabeth – and, by the way, Isabella is also a cognate of Elizabeth. This means you should consider not just Lily and its multiple variations, but also Elizabeth and its own body of diminutives and variants.

The other comment I would make is that Edward Ernest Bruce does not sound like a typically Scottish combination of names – to me, the forenames shout out that he was English, or of English parentage, which is not necessarily the same thing. Perhaps the family was from the north-east, or had Scottish connections, and your great-grandmother resided only temporarily in Scotland (or not at all, but thought she was, or liked to think she was), and was not born there.

Remember that all information on census returns is based upon that provided by the individuals concerned, and accepted and recorded in good faith by the census enumerators – evidence was never part of the system. This means that much mistaken information is embedded in every census return – in the case of place of birth, people might not know where they were born, or may have forgotten, or simply given the nearest recognisable place rather than the fine detail.

Unfortunately, however, this doesn’t seem to open up as many leads as one might hope – I have checked on both findmypast.co.uk and ScotlandsPeople and not found obvious references to your great-grandmother in the 1871 or 1861 censuses for England or Scotland, nor in birth indexes for England or baptisms for Scotland (civil registration in Scotland did not commence until 1855, after she was born).

On ScotlandsPeople it is possible to search for baptisms by name of father, and this shows only one Edward Bruce having children in Scotland in the 1840s and up to 1854 – he appears to have been Edward Wilson Bruce, a hatter from Newcastle upon Tyne who married in Edinburgh in 1837. He had a number of daughters but not, unfortunately, an Elizabeth or Lily at around the right date. This negative outcome may also lean towards your ancestor not having been born in Scotland.

Finally, as I have mentioned in several earlier responses to questions, when you are baffled by not finding a birth/baptism at the expected date and place, you have to consider all the possible permutations – not just whether the person was born at a different location but, for example, perhaps under a different surname. Maybe she was born illegitimately and is registered under her mother’s name, or maybe she was born legitimately but lost her father at a young age and took the name of her step-father after her mother remarried.

Also, even the most casual glimpse at such records as are contained within our Crime, Prisons & Punishment 1770-1934 collection, launched in February this year, shows the astonishing variety of aliases which people used, for all sorts of reasons – including, of course, criminal ones. I’m not suggesting for one second that your great-grandmother was deeply involved in Battersea’s criminal underworld, of course! Remember, however, that the actions of parents are visited on their issue – if an ancestor changes his or her name, that name change most probably will cascade down through the generations of their descendants, and of course this is one of the major blocks which researchers will come across when researching their family trees back in time.

Good luck with your research, Hilary, and do let us know if you make any breakthroughs. Perhaps there is even a reader out there who will see this and recognise that you share a common ancestor.’

If you’d like to send your question to Stephen, please register or opt to receive newsletters in ‘my account’. Stephen only has time to answer a couple of queries each month but if yours wasn’t answered this time, you could be lucky next month!

Famous family trees: Theresa May

Welcome to the latest blog in our ‘famous family trees’ series. In this blog series, experienced family historian, Roy Stockdill, investigates the family histories of the famous, both living and dead. Politician Theresa May is the subject of Roy’s powers of deduction this month.

Theresa May (Image courtesy of the Home Office)

Politics and power often run in families and dynasties, but I could find nothing in the ancestry of Theresa May to suggest that she would become the most powerful female politician in Britain as Home Secretary. Seen by some as a possible successor to David Cameron as Tory leader, she has said she wanted to be an MP ever since she was 12 years old, an ambition in which she was encouraged by her mother. Her father however, was an Anglican clergyman and kept his political views to himself. Some of Cameron’s Cabinet are regarded as ‘posh’ and ‘old school tie’. But there was no silver spoon for Theresa May. After education at a state primary school, convent girls’ school and a state comprehensive, she read geography at Oxford University, graduating in 1977, became a London borough Councillor and got into Parliament for Maidenhead after twice losing in Labour seats.

In researching her family background, I discovered that both of Theresa May’s grandmothers were in domestic service as young women and that she had a great-grandfather who was a butler – so her roots are very much downstairs rather than upstairs. She was born Theresa Mary Brasier on 1 October 1956 in Eastbourne, Sussex, where her father, the Rev Hubert Brasier, was chaplain to a Church of England hospital. Her mother was the exotically-named Zaidee Mary Brasier, formerly Barnes. The name Zaidee is of Middle East origins. The Home Secretary lost both parents just a few years after leaving university and marrying her husband, Philip May, in 1980. The Rev Hubert Brasier, who became vicar of two Oxfordshire parishes, was killed in a car crash in 1981 and his wife Zaidee Brasier, born in 1928, died the following year, aged only 54.

Theresa May’s parents married at St Giles’ Parish Church, Reading, Berkshire, on 16 June 1955, Hubert Brasier being then 37, a bachelor and a Clerk in Holy Orders, his address being the Chaplain’s House, All Saints Hospital, Eastbourne. Zaidee Mary Barnes was 26, a spinster, of 156, Southampton Street, Reading.  The bridegroom’s father was Tom Brasier, deceased, and the bride’s father was Reginald James Barnes, traveller. Hubert Brasier was born on 20 August 1917 at 61 Clonmore Street, Southfields, Wandsworth, London, son of Tom Brasier, then a clerk, and Amy Margaret Brasier, formerly Patterson. They were the paternal grandparents of Theresa May and their marriage certificate shows they were married at The Independent Chapel, West Street, Fareham, Hampshire, on 25 September 1909.

Tom (not Thomas) Brasier, was a bachelor of 29 and a sergeant in the King’s Royal Rifles, based at the Rifle Depot at Winchester. His father was shown as James Brasier, builder. Tom Brasier’s wife was Amy Margaret Patterson, aged 31, spinster – she was two years older than her husband when they married – of Ada Villas, Southampton Road, Fareham, and her father was David Patterson, deceased, a house steward. Tom Brasier, Theresa May’s grandfather, was a professional soldier and in the 1911 census he is found in the Overseas Military section as a sergeant in the 4^th Battalion of the King’s Royal Rifles based in Chakrata, United Provinces, India.  His birth place is shown as Wimbledon, Surrey.

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His wife Amy appears on another page in the same barracks, with the same reference, under ‘Return of wives and children of Officers and Soldiers’, along with a 6-months old son called James, born at Chakrata. However, Amy’s age was either seriously misrecorded or she lied about it, for she appears as being 24 when in fact she was almost 10 years older! Amy’s birth place was shown as Plaistow, Essex. The GRO birth indexes confirm that Amy Margaret Patterson was born in 1878, while her husband was born in 1880. Tom Brasier became a sergeant-major in the King’s Royal Rifles and survived World War I, dying at Wandsworth in 1951, aged 71. Amy Brasier died in 1967 at Oxford, aged 88.

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I couldn’t find Tom in the 1901 census – possibly, as a full-time regular soldier, he was away in South Africa fighting in the Second Boer War. But Amy Patterson, Theresa May’s paternal grandmother, then aged 22 and unmarried, was in domestic service as a parlour maid at 40 Lansdowne Road, Kensington, London, one of four servants in the household of a 65-year-old widow called Caroline Henderson from Liverpool, Lancashire, living on her own means, with two single daughters of 36 and 29.

I also looked at records of the Home Secretary’s maternal grandparents, Reginald James Barnes and Violet Jenny Welland, who were married at Reading in 1917. In 1901 Violet was only seven and with her parents in Reading, but in the census of 1911 she too was in domestic service at 18 Redlands Road, Reading in the household of a university physics professor from Australia called Walter Geoffrey Duffield, aged 31, and his wife Doris, 29. Though only 17, Violet was employed as a nurse and I assume she was looking after the Duffield’s 11-months-old daughter Joan.

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Returning to Theresa May’s direct male line, her paternal ancestors, the Brasiers, lived at Wimbledon for many years but in earlier generations were carpenters and builders in the picturesque Surrey village of Limpsfield, near Oxted, at the foot of the North Downs. I found her grandfather, Tom Brasier, in the 1891 census as a scholar aged 10, living with his parents, James and Sarah J

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Brasier, and five siblings at 6 Strachan Place, Crooked Billett, Wimbledon, on the edge of Wimbledon Common. James Brasier was aged 50, a builder, born at Limpsfield, while his wife Sarah was also 50, born at Rodmell, Sussex. Their children were: Richard, 22, a joiner; Jane, 21, dress milliner; Charles, 17, joiner; Maud, 12, scholar, Tom, 10, scholar; and Anne, 8, scholar. All the children were born at Wimbledon.

James Brasier and Sarah Jane Barnes, Theresa May’s great-grandparents, were married in 1865 at Lewes, Sussex, registration district, probably in the bride’s parish of Rodmell. By the 1871 census they were already in Wimbledon at Belvedere Cottages, St Marys. James was a carpenter and they had two children, Richard E Brasier, 2, and Jane Ann Clara Brasier, 1. in 1881 their family had grown to six and they were at 8 Chesnut Place, Crooked Billet, Wimbledon. The children were: Richard Edward 12; Jane Ann 10; James Charles 9; Charles George 7; Maud Eliza 3; and Tom 1.

James and Sarah Jane Brasier were found at the same address as they had been at in 1891, 6 Strachan Place, Wimbledon,  in the censuses of 1901 and 1911. By the latter they had been married for 45 years and the number of children born to the couple was eight, of whom seven were still living, but only one daughter, Annie Emeline, 28, by then remained with them. As the birth place of James Brasier was consistently given in every census as Limpsfield, Surrey, I looked for him in 1861. I found him quite easily living with his parents, Richard and Ann Brasier, who were the great-great-grandparents of Theresa May. They were found at Limpsfield, with the address given only as ‘Village’.

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Richard Brasier was aged 49 and a master carpenter, his wife Ann being the same age, both shown as being born in 1812. Richard’s birth place, however, was given as Greenwich, Kent, and his wife’s as Walton-upon-Thames, Surrey. They had six children, all born at Limpsfield: James 20, a carpenter journeyman; Maria 17; Charles 15, also a carpenter journeyman; Emmeline 12; John 10; and Emma 8. Ten years earlier in 1851 the family were also in Limpsfield with Richard again shown as a master carpenter and his wife Ann as an infant school mistress. Four of the children were as shown in 1861 but there was an older daughter, Clara Amelia, 12, and Emma had not yet been born.

In the 1841 census I found what were almost certainly two generations of the Brasier family at Limpsfield, living close together and enumerated on the same page. Richard, 30, and Ann Brasier, 25, were there with four children: Richard 8, Charlotte 4, Clara 2 and James 8 months. Remember that in 1841 the ages of adults over 15 were usually – but not always – reduced to the nearest lower multiple of five. Apparently just a couple of doors away were James Brasier, 58, a carpenter, Ann Brasier, 59, and three children, Charlotte 21, Emma 15 and Mary Ann 5. Because of the considerable difference in age, it seems possible that James and Ann Brasier were Richard’s parents, who were said to have been born in 1783 and 1782 respectively. If I surmise correctly, they were the 3x-great-grandparents of Theresa May.

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In online trawling I found a reference to a house called Brasier’s Cottage in Limpsfield, which still stands today, and a mention that the family had been in Limpsfield since about 1690. However, I bore in mind that Richard Brasier had given his birth place not as Limpsfield but as Greenwich, Kent, and I found in the International Genealogical Index (IGI) a marriage at St Mary’s, Lewisham, Kent, on 15 August 1831, of Richard Brasier to Ann Needle. I couldn’t find a baptism for Richard but I found at Walton-on-Thames on 6 July 1809 the birth of Ann Needles [sic], daughter of Thomas and Mary. Also on the IGI is the baptism of James Brasier at Oxted – very close to Limpsfield – on 22 September 1782, son of Richard Brasier and Ann, who could have been the 4x-great-grandparents of Theresa May.

Finally, in the brief space left to me, I’d like to return to my earlier mention that the Home Secretary had a great-grandfather who was a butler in service. He was the father of her paternal grandmother, Amy Margaret Patterson, and he was called David Paterson or Patterson (both versions appear in records). I researched his antecedents at the ScotlandsPeople website and discovered he was born in 1852 in a former mining village called Kennet in Clackmannanshire, on the north bank of the River Forth, the son of Alexander Paterson, labourer, and Margaret Watson. He married Jane Poole, who was from Southwark, London, in Glasgow in 1875 and the couple moved to England, where David was found as a butler at Wimbledon in the censuses of 1881 and 1891, living not far from James Brasier and his family. David Patterson died at only 42 in 1893 and his wife was left a widow. It seems likely it was in Wimbledon that Theresa May’s paternal grandparents, Tom Brasier and Amy Margaret Patterson, first met. Little could Amy, a butler’s daughter and a humble parlour maid, have dreamed in her ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ world, that one day her granddaughter would become the Home Secretary and one of the most powerful women in Britain!

Roy Stockdill

Roy Stockdill has been a family historian for almost 40 years. A former national newspaper journalist, he edited the Journal of One-Name Studies (for the Guild of One-Name Studies) for 10 years. He is on the Board of Trustees of the Society of Genealogists and is commissioning editor of the ‘My Ancestors…’ series of books. He writes regularly for Family Tree magazine.

Famous family trees: Kate Winslet

Welcome to the latest blog in our ‘famous family trees’ series. In this blog series, experienced family historian, Roy Stockdill, investigates the family histories of the famous, both living and dead. Actress Kate Winslet is the subject of Roy’s powers of deduction this month.

Her latest film, Movie 43, released last month, has received a panning from the critics, but I don’t suppose Kate Winslet is all that bothered. Berkshire-born Kate is, after all, one of the most bankable British stars in Hollywood, ever since she sprang to fame with her appearance in Titanic with Leonardo DiCaprio.

Kate Winslet (image courtesy of blogs.villagevoice.com)

She was born Kate Elizabeth Winslet, on 5 October 1975, the second of four children of parents Roger John Winslet and Sally Ann Bridges, who were married at Reading in 1968. She has an older sister Anna, younger sister Beth and a younger brother Joss. Kate’s parents were both ‘jobbing actors’ but had to do a variety of other jobs to survive.

Kate has said in interviews that she didn’t have a privileged upbringing and that the family’s daily life was ‘very hand to mouth’. She has a theatrical background, however, because her maternal grandparents, Oliver and Linda Bridges, founded Reading Repertory Theatre.

Kate’s father Roger was born at Reading in 1939, not long before the outbreak of WWII, the son of Charles John Winslet and Blanche Sims. The couple married at Reading in 1932.

Charles Winslet, Kate’s grandfather, was born in 1908 and he is found aged two in the 1911 census, along with his parents, Charles and Emily Mary Winslet. The family were living at 21 Great Knollys Street, Reading, with Charles senior’s occupation shown as licensed victualler:

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The pub he kept is not named in the census but a 1914 trade directory for Reading reveals that it was called The Lion.

Kate’s great-grandfather Charles Winslet Snr was aged 38, his wife 37 and they had been married four years. Their son, aged 2, appears in the census with his forenames reversed as John Charles Winslet. Also living with them was Charles Snr’s elder sister Sarah Emma, a single woman aged 40. Both she and Emily Mary gave their occupations as ‘Assisting in Business’. All four members of the family gave their birth place as Reading.

I found the marriage at Reading in the General Register Office marriage indexes in the June quarter of 1906 of Charles Winslet and Emily Mary Wells.

A decade earlier in the 1901 census, a then unmarried Charles was aged 23 and helping his father, John Winslet – Kate’s great-great-grandfather – out at another pub in the centre of Reading at 9 High Street:

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Again, the name of the pub was not given in the census but a directory of 1899 shows that it was called the Broad Face.

Charles Winslet Snr’s ages in the censuses of 1901 and 1911 – 23 and 38 respectively – don’t add up. Some re-checking in the GRO birth indexes showed that he was born at Reading in 1877 and his wife, Emily Mary Wells, was born there in 1871.

Could Charles have been embarrassed by the fact that Emily was a few years old than him and decided to make himself older in 1911? It seems the only likely explanation.

In the 1901 census, Charles’ father John Winslet was 58 and gave his occupation as hotel keeper and his birth place as Richmond, Surrey. He was a widower, his wife, Susan or Susannah having died in 1897 aged 60. It was clearly a family-run business since John had two daughters and two sons all helping him.

The elder daughter Sarah, 31, was the house keeper; another daughter Catherine, 29, was a barmaid; son George, 26, was a barman; and the younger son Charles, 23, was the cellarman. All the children had been born at Reading.

The Winslet family were at the Broad Face Hotel (this time it was clearly named) in the census of 1891:

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John, 48, was the hotel keeper, born at Richmond, Surrey, while his wife Susan, two years older than him at 50, gave her birth place as Thorncombe, Dorset.

There were five children in this census: Sarah, 22, barmaid; Kate, 20, barmaid (yes, she is actually named as Kate Winslet); son John, 19, a railway clerk; son George, 17, a butcher; and youngest child Charles, 14, scholar, all born at Reading. Also in the household were a 22-year-old servant, Agnes Dyer, born at Tadley, Hampshire, and a male boarder of 28, Reginald Quayle from Ireland.

In the census of 1881, John and Susan Winslet were at a different pub called the Railway Tavern, 33 Greyfriars Road, Reading. John’s age is incorrectly given as 52, which is either an enumerator’s error or a mistranscription or both – and the image is difficult to read because one of those annoying diagonal, black lines made by the checking clerks has been drawn through it:

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Susan Winslet, his wife, was 40 and again her birth place was given as Thorncombe, Dorset. Daughter Emma was 14, Kate 12 (again she was enumerated as Kate Winslet), and Charles 4. The two older sons John and George were not at home but were found as pupils at a boys’ school at Whitley Park, Whitley Road, Reading:

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John Winslet and Susannah Phillips were married at Reading in 1868 and by the 1871 census they had already taken over the Railway Tavern in Greyfriars Street, where they were found also in 1881. In this census the surname is spelt with a double ‘t’ as Winslett. John was shown as 27 and Susan as 30, while daughters Emma and Kate were aged 2 and 0 respectively. Also in the household was 15-year-old Ellen Winslett, John’s niece:

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With the family was a single female of 27 who was enumerated as Harriett Phelps but I suspect this should have been Phillips and she was Susan’s sister because her birth place was also given as Thorncombe, Dorset.

I also found John Winslet’s parents in the 1871 census, Thomas and Priscilla Winslett (again spelt with a double ‘t’). We will come to them shortly in earlier censuses, but by 1871 they were living in alms houses called Hickey’s alms houses at Richmond, Surrey. Thomas was aged 68 and Priscilla 69 and both gave their birth place as Richmond:

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I was unable to find Thomas and Priscilla in 1861, although I am still looking. I did, however, find a very interesting entry for their son, John Winslett [sic]. He was a servant, aged 18, in a household in Richmond Road, Twickenham, Middlesex and also working as a servant there was his eventual bride, Susan Phillips, aged 23. There seems little doubt that this was the woman who became John’s wife since her birth place was given once more as Thorncombe, Dorset:

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Alberic D Willoughby was head of the household, and was described in the census as ‘The Honourable Gent’ and about whom I found an interesting piece of history! Some extensive internet searching revealed that he was an aristocrat who became Baron Alberic Drummond Willoughby de Eresby. In 1868 he was involved in a scandalous court case in which he cruelly tried to cut himself off from a French countess who had lived with him as his wife for 17 years and by whom he had a daughter, leaving her more or less destitute.

Returning to the Winslets, I found Thomas and Priscilla in the 1851 census at Old Worple Way, Richmond. Thomas was then 49 and a dairy man and Priscila was also aged 49, both being born at Richmond:

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With them were two sons, Charles 14, John 7, and a daughter Ann 6, all also born at Richmond.

In 1841 Thomas and Priscilla were at Marsh Gate, Worple Way, Richmond, and Thomas was a milkman. They had seven children: Samuel 15, Richard 12, Adelaide 10, Thomas 9, William 7, Charles 5 and Sarah 3:

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My research was not yet quite complete, for I found the marriage of Thomas Winslet to Priscilla Tasker on 7 December 1824 at the church of St Mary Magdalen, Richmond. Thomas and Priscilla were the great-great-great-grandparents of Kate Winslet.

I looked for the birth or baptism of Thomas and believe I found his birth on 13 December 1803 at Richmond, the son of Richard Winslett [sic] and Mary. Finally, I found in the online parish registers of St George, Hanover Square, in central London, a marriage for Richard Winslet and Mary Grant on 29 June 1794.

Roy Stockdill

Roy Stockdill has been a family historian for almost 40 years. A former national newspaper journalist, he edited the Journal of One-Name Studies (for the Guild of One-Name Studies) for 10 years. He is on the Board of Trustees of the Society of Genealogists and is commissioning editor of the ‘My Ancestors…’ series of books. He writes regularly for Family Tree magazine.

Famous family trees: Tom Ellis

Welcome to the first ‘famous family trees’ blog of 2013. In this blog series, experienced family historian, Roy Stockdill, investigates the family histories of the famous, both living and dead. This month Roy delves into the family tree of actor Tom Ellis.

A couple of issues back I published the ancestry of the comedienne and actress Miranda Hart, so it seemed appropriate to follow this up with the family tree of Tom Ellis, the actor who plays Gary, the object of her love interest in Miranda.

Tom Ellis (photo courtesy of zimbio.com)

Welsh-born Tom has an ever-burgeoning list of TV credits to his name, including appearances in Midsomer Murders, EastEnders, The Catherine Tate Show, Merlin and a lead role in the creepy ghost series, The Secret of Crickley Hall. He is married to the former EastEnders actress Tamzin Outhwaite and they have two small daughters.

Normally in this series I follow principally the direct male line, but in this case I had to veer from this route because I discovered Tom’s paternal grandfather was born illegitimate – a common occupational hazard, as regular family historians will know.

This doesn’t mean a pedigree comes to an end, however, because it is perfectly acceptable to pursue a female line instead. You are, after all, still following the same surname.

Tom Ellis was born on 17 November 1978 in Cardiff, South Wales, as Thomas John Ellis. He has three sisters, one of them his twin Lucy. His parents, Christopher John Ellis and Marilyn Jean Hooper, were married on 30 December 1972 at Clarence Park Baptist Church, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. That they married in a Baptist church is hardly surprising since Tom’s father, Chris Ellis, was a Baptist minister at 23, while his mother Marilyn was 19 and a student.

The marriage certificate showed that Chris’s father was John Ellis, a police officer, and Marilyn’s father was Arthur Melbourne Hooper, a postal and telegraph officer.

Chris Ellis was also born in Cardiff on 29 June 1949, the son of John Ellis and Joyce Doreen Jones, who were married at Pontyclun, near Bridgend, Glamorgan, on 15 August 1942. Chris’ father John Ellis, the police officer, Tom Ellis’ grandfather, was born on 7 November 1921 in Pontypridd registration district to Emmie Ellis, father unknown. This fact might have made further research impossible, had not Chris and Marilyn Ellis kindly put me right in emails, so I decided to follow the ancestry of Emmie Ellis, Tom’s paternal great-grandmother, for as far back as I could.

Emmie was born on 17 November 1897 at Llanharan, a village in the Rhondda Valley near Bridgend. She seemingly never married and died in 1982 at 85. I found her in the 1911 census, aged 13, living with six siblings aged from 29 to 11, in a household headed by her eldest brother Claude Ellis, a pottery labourer, at 44, Llantrisant Road, Pontyclun:

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Emmie’s name was actually spelt as Emme, which turned out to be the first name of her mother. Her siblings were: Claude 29; Ethel 25; Albert 20; Arthur 18; Ernest 14; Hilda 11. All were shown as being born at Llantrisant. Why were they all living together? Possibly the parents had died, although I was unable to confirm this for certain. I found in the General Register Office death indexes an Emmy (sic) Ellis who died in Pontypridd registration district in 1906, aged 46, who may have been the mother.

In the 1901 census, the family were also in Llantrisant Road, Pontyclun, but with no house number given. Head of the household was Charles Ellis, 45, a bend maker in a pottery works, born at Gloucester. His wife, Emme, 40, was born at Penmark, Glamorgan, and there were eight children from 19 to one, including Emmie aged three. All the children were born at Llantrisant except Emmie whose birth place was given as Llanharan:

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Charles and Emme Ellis were the great-great-grandparents of Tom Ellis. A decade earlier in 1891, Charles Ellis and his family were at Talbot Road, Llantrisant. In this census, however, his wife was called Amy, but clearly it was the same woman since her age and birth place tallied with the details given in 1901:

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Charles’ occupation was a pipe maker and there were five children ranging in age from 9 down to an unnamed baby son whose age was given as nought.

Going back yet another 10 years to the census of 1881 I found Charles and Emmy (sic) Ellis at Danygraig Villas, Llantrisant with Charles’ occupation shown as an iron shearer in a tin works. In this census they had not yet had any children.

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It seems that Charles’ wife spelt her name a number of ways – either that or the enumerators couldn’t agree! I found the likely marriage in the GRO marriage indexes at Pontypridd registration district in the last quarter of 1879 of Charles Ellis and Amy Prosser and I feel sure this was the right couple.

In a bid to trace Charles further back and discover who his parents were, I next went to the 1871 census. I found Charles, aged 14, at an address called Pontclown Fach in Llantrisant with his parents, Henry and Mary Ann Ellis, and seven siblings:

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Henry Ellis was 50, occupation fitter, born at Payhembury, Devon, a place near Honiton, while Mary Ann Ellis, 48, was born at Cullompton, Devon. The children were six sons ranging from 18 to seven and a daughter of 20. Of the sons, three – William Henry, 18, Samuel Robert, 16, and Charles, 14 – were all born at Gloucester, while a son Rowland, 9, was born at Neath, Glamorgan, and two sons called Frank and Alfred, both 7 (and probably twins) were born at Cheltenham. The daughter Jane, 20, was said to have been born at Silverton, Devon, a village between Exeter and Cullompton. It looks as if Henry and Mary Ann had moved around a bit while having their family.

In 1861, Henry and Mary Ann were in Neath at 21 Henry Street. There was something weird about this entry, however, because Henry was shown as being 48 – only two years younger than he was in 1871! Mary Ann’s age was given as 36, making a gap of 12 years between them when in 1871 it was only two years:

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Henry, a labourer, was also shown in this census as being born at Payhembury, Devon, but I had difficulty in making out the birthplace of Mary Ann which appeared to end in ’ford’. Another curious thing was that three of the children, Samuel, 8 (who was shown as a daughter!), William 6, and Charles, 4, were all shown as being born in Bristol, not Gloucester, while the daughter Jane’s birthplace was again given as Silverton, Devon. The youngest son Rowland was aged one and shown as being born at Neath.

I suspect that either Henry had difficulty in filling in the census schedule or possibly there was a dialect barrier between him and the Welsh enumerator! Of course, this was far from rare in the Victorian censuses. Whatever the discrepancies, there was no doubt this was the same family as I had found in 1871 and Henry and Mary Ann Ellis were the great-great-great-grandparents of Tom Ellis.

Next stop was the 1851 census and this time I found Henry and Mary Ann at 22 William Street, St Philip and St Jacob (Without), Bristol. Henry was 28 and a sawyer, birthplace Pehembury (sic), Devon. Mary Ann was born at Cullumptun (sic) and they had just the one child, Jane, who was then aged 10 months:

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Turning again to the GRO marriage indexes, I found the potential marriage at Tiverton registration district (which included Cullompton and Silverton) in the June quarter 1849 of Henry Ellis and Mary Anne Hillier. There was another Mary listed on the same page; however, it seems likely to me that this was the correct marriage.

Looking for Henry Ellis in the 1841 census, I think I found him at Payhembury, Devon, which was given as his birth place in subsequent censuses. His age was given as 20, though this is not entirely reliable – we have seen how his age differed in other censuses. If it was the right man, he was an agricultural servant working for a farmer called Joseph Cleman at a place called Lower Tale, Payhembury:

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A Google search reveals that Lower Tale Farm or Cottage, Payhembury still stands today as a listed building with a thatched roof. So if Tom Ellis happens to read this, he should be able to see the place where his probable great-great-great-grandfather Henry Ellis once lived and worked.

I hope this exercise has shown that family history research doesn’t have to end if you run into an illegitimacy problem!

Roy Stockdill

Roy Stockdill has been a family historian for almost 40 years. A former national newspaper journalist, he edited the Journal of One-Name Studies (for the Guild of One-Name Studies) for 10 years. He is on the Board of Trustees of the Society of Genealogists and is commissioning editor of the ‘My Ancestors…’ series of books. He writes regularly for Family Tree magazine.

Ask the expert – tricky surname spellings

Our resident expert Stephen Rigden, pictured below, answers your queries.

From Carole Buck in Hampshire:

‘I have come up against a block. My grandfather’s (Arthur Henry Willsher born in 1887 in Neath, Glamorgan) parents are listed on the birth records as Henry Willsher and Elizabeth Ann Richards both from Kilkhampton, Devon. This makes sense as he married Madeline Mary Pedlar of Ilfracombe. I have found John Willsher born in 1858 in Kilkhampton and wife Elizabeth Ann born in 1863 in Kilkhampton in the 1901 census. I haven’t found any marriage record and can find no further information on them, despite having searched various census and birth records. Where do I go from here?’

Stephen says:

‘Thanks for writing in with your family puzzle.

My first thought when looking at the problem is about the surname Willsher. There are a whole cluster of phonetically identical or similar names and, when searching online databases or, for that matter, original paper sources, you must consider spelling variants (and clerical misspellings). Online this is usually easy enough – for example, on findmypast.co.uk, you just tick ‘include variants’ under the name boxes on the search screen.

If we do this for the 1891 census, for example, searching for Arthur Willsher born 1887 +/- 3 years, we get 26 results to consider. Scrolling down through the list, there is an Arthur Henry in Neath registration district, which is clearly your grandfather’s entry. The spelling is Willshire not Willsher. He’s in Aberavon with parents John Harry, a stone mason, and Elizabeth Ann, plus siblings Mary Elizabeth, Thomas John, Albert Lewis and Annie Maude. His parents are both from Kilkhampton, as you say, but all their children are born in Glamorganshire.

The eldest child shown, Mary, was eight in 1891 and, therefore, was born after the 1881 census. One would expect to find her parents’ – your great grandparents’ – marriage within the years 1880 to 1883. Going to the civil registration indexes of marriage and conducting a search for John Willsher marrying an Elizabeth and using the ‘include variants’ option brings up a handful of entries, including your grandparents – John Henry Willshire married Elizabeth Ann Richards in December quarter 1881 in Neath registration district. This means that we may expect to find them living apart in the 1881 census return which was taken on 3 April 1881.

Again, your great grandfather appears as John H Willshire, not Willsher, so it appears that his name was fairly constant at this time. He is in Kilkhampton, a journeyman mason, living with his parents Thomas and Ann. His mother is also Kilkhampton-born, while his father is from ‘Finsbury, Kent’. This is almost certainly Frindsbury (near Rochester), which I have often seen corrupted in census returns. Thomas’ occupation is noted as ‘Pensioner, Woolwich’ – a second hand (that of the census clerk, rather than enumerator) has written against this the word ‘Army’. Other evidence (see below) suggests, however, that he was actually a Navy pensioner. He was 69 in 1881 and, therefore, born circa 1811/12. This opens up all sorts of new possibilities.

Firstly, we can search for Thomas Willshire in parish registers. On findmypast.co.uk we have a collection called Thames and Medway parish registers, which covers the interesting strips of land extending out from London on either side of the Thames Estuary into Essex and Kent. This collection includes Frindsbury and, sure enough, there is a Thomas Wiltshire (sic) baptised on 25 April 1813 in Frindsbury All Saints to parents William and Mary.

It’s then possible to try to find Thomas and Ann Wiltshire in the other census returns and find details of their various children. This is a little tricky – for example, in the 1871 census, Thomas Wiltshire is a 55-year old agricultural labourer born in Maidstone, Kent, while in 1861 he was a 48-year old Greenwich pensioner born in Woolwich, Kent. In both years, they are living in Kilkhampton, Cornwall, so I believe we can be sure it’s the right couple.

It looks like they married in March quarter 1853 in St German’s registration district, Cornwall – if so, it was under the names Thomas Wilshire and Ann Furze. Thomas was quite old by that time, and he may well have been widowed and had a previous wife – you need to buy the marriage certificate to find out.

In any event, there is much you should be able to investigate, using the above information, and remembering to consider all possible spelling variations – already we have Willsher, Willshire, Wilshire and Wiltshire and it is likely that you will discover others! Good luck.’

If you’d like to send your question to Stephen, please register or opt to receive newsletters in ‘my account’. Stephen only has time to answer a couple of queries each month but if yours wasn’t answered this time, you could be lucky next month!

Famous family trees: Tess Daly

Welcome to December’s ‘famous family trees’ blog! In this blog series, experienced family historian, Roy Stockdill, investigates the family histories of the famous, both living and dead. This month Roy explores the ancestry of Strictly Come Dancing presenter Tess Daly.

When I set out to research the ancestry of Tess Daly I thought it inevitable that, because of her surname, sooner or later I would run into the ‘Irish problem’.

Tess Daly (image courtesy of listal.com)

Sure enough, I was right! The glamorous TV presenter who co-hosts Strictly Come Dancing with Bruce Forsyth had an Irish great-great-grandfather who probably came over to England with his family some time in the 1870s.

Most family historians will be familiar with the difficulties associated with tracing Irish ancestry because of the large-scale destruction of records in a fire at Dublin’s Public Record Office in 1922.

I managed, however, to get Tess’ family tree back to her great-great-grandfather who was born in Ireland about 1826 or 1827. Tess’ ancestors settled first in Salford, Lancashire, then moved to the Stockport area of Cheshire. Her parents lived in the beautiful Derbyshire Peak District, where Tess was born and brought up.

She was born Helen Elizabeth Daly on 27 April 1969 to Vivian Daly and Sylvia Bradley, who were married at Chapel En Le Frith registration district in the July-September quarter of 1965. Tess’ working class parents both worked lengthy shifts in factories to support the family while she was growing up and she spoke of her sorrow when her father, Vivian, died in 2003, of emphysema, just 18 days after her marriage to fellow TV presenter Vernon Kay.

I initially had a tiny problem finding Vivian’s birth, though the General Register Office death indexes gave his birth date as 19 December 1932. I did eventually find him in the GRO birth indexes – but his forenames were reversed. The death record named him as Vivian James F Daly but he was registered in the March quarter of 1933 at Stockport as Felix J V Daly, which was the name he also married in.

The mother’s maiden name in the birth indexes was given as Perry and I found the marriage at Stockport in the first quarter of 1915 of Tess’ grandparents. Her grandfather was Felix M Daly and her grandmother was Ruth B Perry, whose middle name I subsequently discovered was Bailey, after her mother Clara.

I could find no other children for Felix and Ruth, so it seems that they waited some 18 years for a son, unless Ruth had lost children previously. The death indexes show that Ruth died in 1945, aged 51, and Felix in 1957, aged 70. It seems likely Felix married again after his wife’s death, for the GRO marriage indexes have the marriage at Manchester in the last quarter of 1945 of Felix M Daly to Mary Cunningham.

Tess’ grandfather, Felix Matthew Daly, was born on 19 October 1886 at Salford, the son of William Joseph Daly and Elizabeth Mann. Tess’ great-grandfather William Joseph is shown on the birth certificate as a hat manufacturer’s salesman. Felix’s middle name of Matthew subsequently turned out to be the name of his grandfather. In the 1911 census the family were living at 38 Heaton Road, Heaton Norris, Stockport:

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William Daly was 50, described as a ‘hat traveller’, and his birth place was given as Cavan, Ireland. Whether the name Cavan referred to County Cavan or the town which is its capital was not stated. William’s wife Elizabeth was also 50 and her birth place was given as Navestock, Essex.

With them were three sons and two daughters ranging in age from eight to 24, Felix being the eldest. Felix had been born in Manchester and the other children at Stockport. Also in the household were two boarders, Frank and Gertrude Quigley, aged 25 and 23, who were probably brother and sister since both were shown as single.

An entry in the column for married women revealed that William and Elizabeth had been married 25 years and had had six children, one of whom had died.

A small curiosity of the census entry was that the schedule was apparently completed and signed by Felix and not his father William.

Next I went to the 1901 census where I found the Daly family at 20 Parsonage Road, Stockport. In this census William and Elizabeth were both shown as 40, while William’s birth place was shown simply as Ireland and Elizabeth’s just as Essex:

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Felix, the eldest child, was 14 and an office boy. Then came William 12, Elizabeth 10 and Katherine 2. Also living with the family was William’s brother, John Daly, a wood carter (or possibly carver), 37, also born in Ireland.

Ten years earlier, in 1891, the Dalys were at 36 Christ Church Terrace, Heaton Norris:

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William, 30, was shown as a hatter’s salesman, birth place Ireland. There was a surprise, however, when the birth place of his wife Elizabeth was shown in this census as Camberwell, London! I am unable to explain this apparent error, since my researches indicate that she was definitely born at Navestock, Essex, which was given as her birth place in the census of 1911.

William and Elizabeth had three children with them in 1891: Felix aged 4, born at Salford and William, 2 and May Elsie, 4 months, both born at Heaton Norris.

To try and ascertain who William’s father was I obtained a copy of the marriage certificate of William Joseph Daly and Elizabeth Mann, which took place not at Stockport, Salford or Manchester, but on 24 August 1885 at St Catherine’s Roman Catholic Church, Sheffield – across the county border in Yorkshire.

This revealed that both parties were aged 23 and William gave his occupation as a salesman. His address was 6 Ducie Place, Salford, while Elizabeth gave her address as 25 Montfort Street, Brightside Bierlow, Sheffield. The most important piece of information was that William’s father was Matthew Daly, a draper, who was deceased at the time of the marriage. Elizabeth’s father was James Mann, described as an engineer.

Now I was able to find the whole family in the 1881 census. They were living at 6 West Street, Broughton, Salford, with Matthew Daly being then aged 55 and not a draper but a rent collector. His wife Mary was 45 and they had five children: Catherine 21, a waitress; Felix 19, also a rent collector; William 17, a commercial clerk; John 16, an apprentice joiner; and Francis 14, an errand boy.

Also in the household was a niece called Rose A McCann, 16, a waitress. The entire family gave their birth place as Ireland:

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I noted again the Christian name, Felix. Clearly this was a family name since he was William’s elder brother, then William had a son who was called Felix and he, in turn, named William’s grandson – Tess Daly’s father – Felix as well.

So where did the name Vivian, which Tess’ father was presumably mostly known by, come from? I found the possible solution when I returned to the 1911 census and found Tess’ grandmother, Ruth Bailey Perry, with her parents John Thomas and Clara Perry (nee Bailey) at 220 London Road, Hazel Grove, Stockport:

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John and Clara were both 42 and John Perry was in the hatting business, like William Daly, being an overlooker. Their children were: Ruth Bailey Perry, 17, a felt hat trimmer; John Thomas Perry, 15, a cotton warehouse worker; and Wilfred Vivian Perry, 13. So it seems likely that Ruth bestowed the middle name of her younger brother upon her son.

Despite much searching, I couldn’t find the Daly family in the 1871 census, so I came to the conclusion that they must have come to England some time in the decade up to 1881.

Searching various online sources, I found a Matthew Daly and Mary Smith who baptised three children in the 1860s at a town called Cootehill in County Cavan, but they didn’t include a William, so I cannot say whether they were the family who migrated to Salford or not without more detailed research.

Matthew’s age in the 1881 census, and his given age of 57 when he died at Salford in 1884, suggests he must have been born about 1826-7. Though I cannot be 100 per cent certain, his son William’s death may have occurred in Manchester because the death indexes have a William J Daly who died there in 1941, aged 79, which accords with his birth year of about 1861/2 and his age of 50 in the 1911 census.

Being unable to get any further with the Dalys, I looked to research William’s wife, Elizabeth Mann. I found her in the 1871 census as Lizzie Mann, aged 10, living with her parents James and Ellen Mann at Navestock, Essex, which was given as her birth place in the 1911 census. Navestock is a village and parish north-west of Brentwood. They were living at Pratt’s Cottage, Navestock, in Ongar registration district:

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James Mann was aged 41, born at Navestock about 1830. His wife was Ellen, also 41, born in Ireland – which meant that Tess Daly had a second Irish great-great-grandmother on another line. Their children were: Mary 13; Lizzie 10; Ellen 7; Daniel 5; and George 1. All the children were born at Navestock.

The only thing which didn’t quite fit was that on her marriage certificate Elizabeth Mann said her father James was an engineer, whereas in the censuses he is shown as an agricultural labourer. It is, however, well known that people did often embellish details to enhance their social status!

In the GRO marriage indexes I found the marriage at Ongar registration district in the third quarter of 1855 of James Mann and Ellen Driscoll, while Elizabeth’s birth is recorded also at Ongar in the last quarter of 1860. The family also appear in the 1861 census at Mewtherin Lane, Navestock:

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James was then 32 and an ‘ag lab’, while Ellen’s age was shown as 25, which doesn’t accord with her age in 1871 – but we all know how ages can vary in the censuses. I feel sure it was the same woman because her birth place was again shown as Ireland.

Their children were: Esther 6; Mary 2; and Elizabeth, six months. Also in the household was a 16-year-old agricultural labourer called John Haggar, a lodger. Immediately close by the Mann home was a 140-acre farm employing five men and two boys and it seems likely James was working for the farmer.

I managed to get Tess Daly’s ancestry on this line back another generation to her great-great-great-grandparents who were called William and Rachel Mann. They are found in the 1851 census with their son James – then aged 20 and unmarried – and five other sons at a place called Water Hales, White Horse Side, Navestock:

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William was also an ‘ag lab’, aged 48, while his wife Rachel was 46. Both, then, were born almost at the beginning of the 19th century. Their sons were: William 22; James 20; David 13; Isaac 11; George 8; and Steven 6.

In 1841 the family were at Navestock Heath, Navestock, with four of their sons, William, James, David and Isaac, and a daughter of 15, Elizabeth:

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So as well as having Irish ancestors, plus kin from Lancashire, Cheshire and Derbyshire, it seems Tess Daly might just about qualify as an Essex girl as well!

Roy Stockdill

Roy Stockdill has been a family historian for almost 40 years. A former national newspaper journalist, he edited the Journal of One-Name Studies (for the Guild of One-Name Studies) for 10 years. He is on the Board of Trustees of the Society of Genealogists and is commissioning editor of the ‘My Ancestors…’ series of books. He writes regularly for Family Tree magazine.

Ask the expert – disappearing act

Our resident expert Stephen Rigden, pictured below, answers your queries.

From Linda Paddington:

‘I am curious to find out what happened to my great-grandmother’s second husband (possibly my great-grandfather). Her name is Clara Monger and he is Thomas Tillin, born in 1849 in Ufton, Berks. He married Clara in 1870, nine months after my grandfather (James Monger) was born. She does not name him as James’s father on the birth certificate but this could be the usual practice as he was born out of wedlock. They appear together on the 1871 census but the 1881 census is a bit of a mystery.

His name appears to have been crossed out in the section where the street should be. Clara is noted as head of house – this could have been an error on the part of the clerical staff filling in the form and possibly Thomas was there. Clara names him as the father of her youngest daughter Emily Maud in 1885 on the birth certificate. After that I cannot find any trace of him. Possibly he left the country or did not want to be found on census forms.

I was told he died in 1917 in Aston, Birmingham. The birth certificate I have is for Thomas Tilling with a ‘g’, although the age seems correct. His widow, A Tilling, is the informant. I’m still not convinced it is the correct Thomas – I think it is Thomas Tilling born in Gloucestershire. Please can you help me trace the elusive Thomas?’

Stephen says:

‘Dear Linda

This is a curious business indeed. Thomas Tilling appears as Tilling on the 1851 and 1861 census returns, but then marries your great grandmother Clara Monger as Tillin in 1870 and is with her on the 1871 census return as Tillen. Such variation in last name spelling is, of course, not so unusual but it does inevitably mean that you have to be alert to all possible variants and to consider each one in every search you undertake. The permutations include exchanging both vowels (i.e., Tellin, Tillen etc), and with or without the terminal ‘g’. This is to capture not just genuine name variants (i.e., as used by the bearer) but also clerical mis-renderings of the name.

The evidence of the 1881 census (with Thomas’ name accidentally entered in the address column and then struck out but not written into the name column) probably tells us only that the couple was still married at that date. I am sure that Thomas was not at home on census night in 1881.

As you point out, there were rules governing the registration of births at this period which are not always helpful for the genealogist, as they may disguise actual paternity. There are two ways in which this could affect your own research. Firstly, if the parents of a child were not married, it was customary for only the name of the mother to appear on the birth certificate unless the actual or putative father also presented himself at registration or otherwise claimed paternity. As you say, therefore, Thomas may well have been the father of your grandfather James, whose birth certificate is silent as to paternity. On the other hand, James retained the last name Monger (e.g., 1871 and 1881 census), so perhaps Thomas wasn’t his father.

Secondly, the child of a married woman was customarily registered as the child of her husband even if they were separated. Even though Thomas’s name appears on the birth certificates of your grandfather’s younger siblings Henry Thomas and Emily Maud Tillen (registered in 1881 and 1885 respectively) and the law assumes that he was the father, it is not necessarily the case that he was (nor, of course, that he wasn’t!). This possibility is raised by his absence from the family home on the 1881, 1891 and 1901 census returns, in all of which his wife Clara is alone but describes herself as married. She then died in 1905.

I do not believe that I have found a single instance of the correct Thomas Tilling, Tillin, Tillen etc on any of the four English and Welsh census returns from 1881 to 1911 inclusive. There are of course several candidates in each year but I believe that most can be eliminated by a combination of factors once one traces them across the census years and looks at their places of birth, occupations, spouses, children etc.

I am afraid that this probably also applies to the candidate Thomas Tilling who died in Aston in 1917. His age at death is a good fit; however, I believe this man can be found on the 1911 census in Aston – as Thomas Tillings, although he signs his name as Telling. The details given do not look promising – he was born in Gloucestershire, describes himself as a widower, says he has been married 24 years (placing his marriage circa 1886/87) and he has five children (all alive in 1911). He features on the 1901 census as Thomas Telling, a general labourer from Fairford, Gloucestershire and is married to his wife Mary. I also noted that a Thomas Telling (sic) married an Amelia Grimes in Aston in 1912, so this would be consistent with the informant at the death of the Aston man being his widow, A Tilling.

Notwithstanding this, I would of course review this impression if the source of your information (‘I was told he died in 1917 in Aston’) is family papers or lore, rather than, for example, recent research by a third party.

It is possible that Thomas was merely coincidentally absent from home on census nights but for this to happen across so many census years seems improbable, given that he was seemingly an agricultural labourer (and not, for example, a seafarer, a fisherman, a soldier etc – occupations which may lead to a man being genuinely away on census night). This leaves us with a man who disappears from his family at some point between 1871 (at the very earliest) and, say, 1891, and probably in the mid- or late-1880s.

It’s possible that he remained in England, perhaps tramping around finding casual work on farms, or he may have moved to a big city and become a labourer there. Of course it is not impossible that he found the means to emigrate (or assisted passage) and headed to North America or Australia or New Zealand. A change of name is not inconceivable either, for example, if he wanted to re-marry discreetly in England and minimise the risk of being charged with bigamy – recently, we have been digitising various criminal justice records in preparation for publishing them online and it is striking how many men and women who came before the law had two or more aliases.

This, however, is all speculation. It may be that this problem will remain insoluble, but equally it is just possible that new records may be released that give you the breakthrough you need. In advance of that, there are a few things you could consider – for example, contacting the Berkshire Family History Society for advice or (if you haven’t done so already) posting details of Thomas Tilling on genealogical message forums. Do mention his parents Richard and Sarah – as per the 1851 and 1861 census returns – as then you may attract responses from others researching their descendants, who may have concrete or anecdotal information on Thomas.

Good luck with your research, Linda!’

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Famous family trees: Miranda Hart

Here’s the latest post in our series of blogs exploring the family trees of the famous. Experienced family historian, Roy Stockdill, investigates the family histories of the famous, both living and dead. This month Roy delves into TV star Miranda Hart’s family tree.

She’s over six feet tall, very funny and falls flat on her face a lot in her TV sitcom. It’s the brilliant Miranda Hart – who else?

Miranda Hart (image courtesy of metro.co.uk)

What is less well known is that the statuesque star of Miranda and Call The Midwife is rather posh. Miranda has denied this on chat shows but it would be no surprise if her favourite bedtime reading was Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage, since her family history occupies several pages in the bible of the aristocracy and upper classes.

Miranda descends from the Hart Dyke baronetcy which goes back to 1677. Her family tree is liberally sprinkled with those bastions of the upper classes, high-ranking army and navy officers and Anglican vicars. Indeed, her background suggests she should be in Downton Abbey!

Miranda was born Miranda Katharine Hart Dyke in Torquay on 14 December 1972, the daughter of David Hart Dyke CBE and Diana Margaret Luce who were married in 1967 at Salisbury, Wiltshire registration district.

Her father, a retired naval officer born on 3 October 1938 at Gosport, Hampshire, commanded HMS Coventry, a Royal Navy destroyer sunk in 1982 by Argentinian warplanes in the Falklands War. He later became an aide-de-camp to the Queen. He had a twin brother, Robert, who died in a car crash in 1963. Miranda’s mother, born in 1939, is the daughter of Sir William Henry Tucker Luce (1907-1977), an admiral’s son who was governor of Aden from 1956 to 1960.

Miranda’s paternal grandfather, the Rev. Eric Hart Dyke (1906-1971) was born in India on 28 July 1906 and married Mary Alexander, who descended from a Scottish baronetcy, in 1935 at Okehampton, Devon. Before becoming a clergyman in 1952, the Rev. Hart Dyke was a Royal Navy commander in WWII, being twice mentioned in despatches. From 1953 to 1963 he was Rector of Cowden, Kent.

Eric Hart Dyke was born in India because his father, Miranda’s great-grandfather, Colonel Percyvall Hart Dyke (1872-1952) served in the Indian Army for many years, fought in numerous campaigns before, during and after WWI and was a much-decorated soldier.

He married Louisa Catherine Cave, an admiral’s daughter, at Kensington, London in 1900 but they are not found in the censuses of 1901 and 1911, presumably because they were in India.

Miranda’s maternal grandfather, Sir William Henry Tucker Luce, however, does appear in the 1911 census as a boy of three, living with his mother Mary Dorothea, three brothers and four servants at Anglesey Road, Alverstoke, Hampshire:

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I couldn’t find Mary Dorothea’s husband John Luce, Miranda’s maternal great-grandfather, in 1911 but he was then a Royal Navy captain in command of the battleship Hibernia and almost certainly at sea. He remained a commander throughout WWI and became an admiral in 1921, dying in 1932 aged 62.

Miranda’s maternal great-grandmother Mary Dorothea Tucker who married John Luce at Weymouth, Dorset, in 1902, was the daughter of a woollen manufacturer from Somerset – perhaps an example of what the Victorians and Edwardians called a girl from ‘trade’ marrying into the upper classes?

Returning to the direct Hart Dyke line, I found Percyvall Hart Dyke (the unusual spelling of his first name is found several times in the family) in the census of 1891. He was then 18, described as a ‘Gentleman cadet Sandhurst’, living with his father Thomas Hart Dyke, an estate steward, three elder sisters, a single woman described as ‘Companion to daughters’ and four female servants at Ashton Lodge, Long Ashton, near Bedminster, Somerset:

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Thomas, son Percyvall and his sisters were also at Ashton Lodge in the census of 1881 with a governess and four other female servants:

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Thomas Hart Dyke (1834-1906), Miranda’s great-great-grandfather, was married in 1863 at Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, to Georgina Isabella Russell Fullerton who was only 18. Somewhat curiously, Georgina was missing from the censuses of 1891 and 1881, although her husband and children appear in both. Possibly she was indulging in the wealthy Victorian lady’s passion for foreign travel.

The couple were together in the 1901 census, however, and were possibly on holiday. They were staying in a lodging house called Lynwood at Weston Super Mare on the Somerset coast, kept by a 75-year-old widow, Mary Childs:

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This time, Thomas, aged 66, was described as a magistrate, while his wife Georgina was 10 years his junior. Also with them was their daughter Ethel, a single woman of 33, and Constance Fullerton, 59 and also single, who was probably Georgina’s sister.

The only other census in which Thomas and Georgina are found together was the 1871 when they were living at 8 Gloucester Row, Clifton, Bristol with their three young daughters, all under four. Percyvall had not then been born. Thomas was described as an estate agent and civil engineer:

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Thomas died at Bristol in 1906 but Georgina outlived him by many years. She is found in the 1911 census as a widow of 66, of independent means, at 9 York Crescent Road, Clifton, Bristol. Her eldest daughter Ethel, 43 and still single, was with her in the census, along with a cook and a parlour maid:

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Georgina Isabella Russell Dyke, Miranda’s great-great-grandmother, born at Sunderland, Co Durham, in 1845, had a long life and died at Bristol in 1933, aged 87.

A further generation back, Miranda’s great-great-great-grandparents were the Rev. Thomas Hart Dyke (1801-1866) and Elizabeth Fairfax – probably a descendant of the Yorkshire Fairfaxes who played a prominent part in the Civil War on the Parliamentary side against Charles I – who married in 1833 at Newton Kyme, near Tadcaster, Yorkshire.

Thomas was firstly the Rector of Lullingstone, Kent, the Hart Dykes’ home parish, and later of Long Newton, County Durham. He was a son of Sir Percival Hart Dyke (1767-1846), who became the fifth Baronet Dyke of Horsham, Sussex, in 1831, and his wife Anne Jenner.

So Miranda descends directly from the fifth baronet, Sir Percival, who was her 4-times great-grandfather. Beyond him the baronetcy passed to other male members of the family. The current holder of the title, the 10th Baronet, lives in Canada.

In the 1841 census, three generations of the Hart Dykes are found at the family seat, Lullingstone Castle, Kent. The household comprised a dozen members of the Hart Dyke family and 21 servants:

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Sir Percival and Lady Dyke headed the schedule, followed by the Rev. Thomas and his wife Elizabeth and their four children, plus four presumed siblings of Thomas (relationships were not given in 1841).

By the census of 1851, the Rev Thomas had moved north to become the Rector of Long Newton, Co Durham, and he and his wife are found there with eight servants:

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Two of their sons, Thomas, 16 and Percival, 15, were pupils at the famous public school, Rugby:

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In 1861 the Rev. Thomas and Elizabeth were still at the Rectory, Long Newton, with one son, Francis, and seven servants:

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I couldn’t find Thomas Jr in that census, however, possibly because he was abroad somewhere.

The Rev. Thomas Hart Dyke died in 1866, aged 64, but his wife Elizabeth outlived him by many years. She was still alive in the 1891 census, aged 89, living at Hill House, Acomb, near York. She was described as ‘Living on own means’ and had three female servants with her, plus a 37-year-old single Irishwoman called Margaret Moneypenny who was a nursing sister described as Elizabeth’s companion:

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Elizabeth Dyke died just over two years later in 1893 at the age of 91, possibly the longest lived of all the Hart Dykes.

Limited space forces me to truncate the illustrious pedigree of Miranda Hart beyond her direct ancestor, Sir Percival Hart Dyke, the 5th Baronet Dyke of Horsham, as chronicled above. Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage, however, takes it back three more generations to the first Baronet, Sir Thomas Dyke, who was MP for Sussex and then East Grinstead in the late 17th century and Commissioner of the Public Accounts.

Sir Thomas was created a baronet in 1677, married the interestingly named Philadelphia Nutt in 1695 and died in 1706. Sir Thomas and Philadelphia Dyke were the 7-times great-grandparents of Miranda Hart.

The name Hart appears to have come into the Hart Dyke family through the second baronet, also Sir Thomas Dyke, who married in 1728 Anne, the daughter and heir of Percyvall Hart of Lullingstone Castle.

Roy Stockdill

Miranda Hart’s ancestry is taken back by Burke’s Peerage two further generations to one Thomas Dyke of Cranbrook, Kent, who died in 1632. It was his grandson, Sir Thomas, who became the first baronet.

So the next time you chortle at Miranda’s clumsy antics on telly, remember that her family history is not what you might expect…

Roy Stockdill has been a family historian for almost 40 years. A former national newspaper journalist, he edited the Journal of One-Name Studies (for the Guild of One-Name Studies) for 10 years. He is on the Board of Trustees of the Society of Genealogists and is commissioning editor of the ‘My Ancestors…’ series of books. He writes regularly for Family Tree magazine.

Ask the expert – advice for beginners

Our resident expert Stephen Rigden, pictured below, answers your queries.

From Barbara Humphry:

‘I have held back from paying a subscription as the one time I had one, I kept finding myself blocked from going any further through my ignorance of how to go about the next move. I was born in 1928 so computers were not part of my education. I cannot go back beyond my mother’s father as there seems to be no record of him. His name was Henry Hobbs and he was a corn and seed chandler at 1 Salisbury Street, Marylebone, London so it should be possible to trace him but I have had to give up the search. I have no birth date but his death was recorded as 6 December 1917 in Marylebone, aged (family memory) 69.

If you can give me any advice as to how to find out more I would subscribe again. Life is short and I have already too many spent far too many hours in fruitless search. Thank you.’

Stephen says:

‘Dear Barbara,

Thanks for your question. Starting your family history can seem daunting at first, especially if you are not very confident with a computer, or if you think you know only limited information about your ancestor. This needn’t be the case, however, and I strongly believe that most people with British ancestors should be able to research most lines of their family trees back to at least 1800 and very probably another 25 to 50 years or so – sometimes surprisingly quickly. I would, therefore, encourage you not to give up, and to keep looking. If you are worried about using a computer, then perhaps you could either contact your local family history society or local library – someone will very probably be only too happy to help you.

Looking at the limited information about your maternal grandfather, the first thing I would do isn’t to look for his death entry in the civil indexes (although it is true that I might want to buy a copy of his death certificate, or search for a will for him). Instead, I think the combination of facts in your possession – name + occupation + place + date of 1917 – is good enough to find him on the 1911 census of England, which is perhaps the single most useful source of information for a family historian starting out.

Sure enough, if I search the 1911 census for a Henry Hobbs living in St Marylebone, I find four candidates. We find that the first of these – a 60-year old – is correct when we look at the transcript. This shows that the corn chandler Henry Hobbs was residing at 1 Salisbury Street with his wife of 23 years, Emily Barbara, aged 42, plus four children – Walter (aged 16), William (13), Winnifred (12) and Lilian (10). The children were all born in Marylebone but the wife was born in Long Ashton in Somerset and Henry himself in Clayhanger in Devon (but right on the border with Somerset). The other thing that the 1911 census uniquely provides, as well as duration of marriage, is the number of children born to it – in this case, Henry Hobbs has declared that he and his wife had 11 children in total, of whom seven were alive in 1911 and four had died.

Now you have found the 1911 census, you have multiple options. You can see that if Henry had married 23 years earlier, this places his marriage circa 1887/88 (1911 minus 23 years, and adding a year because the 1911 census was taken in April, so it’s slightly more likely that he was born in 1887 than 1888). Do treat this with a pinch of salt, however, as human memory isn’t always infallible! This also means that you should be able to find him with his wife and growing family on the 1891 and 1901 censuses. As we know that he was aged 60 in 1911, this means that he would have been born circa 1850/51. We should be able to find him on the 1861, 1871 and 1881 censuses, and, if lucky, on the 1851 census too (if he was born before that census was taken).

Research isn’t always quite so simple, however! Again, we have to be careful with information recorded on the census. When we go to the 1901 census, Henry is aged 45 years – meaning he ‘aged’ 15 years in the 10 years between the 1901 and 1911 census! He is a corn merchant living at 53 Lisson Street in Marylebone. We also learn the identity of two new children, Gertrude and Adry. Next, when we look at the 1891 census, 10 years earlier, Henry is aged 40 – an age which is consistent with the first census we looked at, the 1911. At this date, he is residing at 22 Paul Street and is a butcher with a live-in servant. It is clear that, having made money in butchery, he made a career move and went into buying and selling grain in London. On the 1891 census, we see that daughters Eveling (sic) and Gertrude were both born in Exeter.

Once this stage is researched, there is so much you can do – search birth, marriage and death indexes, search all the available censuses, and then look at other records prompted by the results of your research – and not just for Henry but also for his children and other family. In fact, your family tree could extend both backwards, sideways and forwards quite quickly.

Good luck with your research, and please don’t give up!’

If you’d like to send your question to our experts, please register or opt to receive newsletters in My Account. Unfortunately our experts only have time to answer a few queries each month. If yours wasn’t answered this time, you could be lucky next month!