Maureen Selley, chairman of Devon Family History Society, got in touch with us about this intriguing discovery in a 1911 census return. Is there a simple explanation, or does the record tell a more scandalous tale? Read on for Maureen’s story…

News of the release of the infirmity column of the 1911 census came at just the right time, while I was preparing for a family history slot on BBC Radio Devon. A quick trawl through my own family’s 1911 images revealed no infirmities, so I was pleased to see items in the press and in Nick Barratt’s blog mentioning a ‘stinking proud’ daughter - ideal!

Looking at the image for Richard Woodward in Avon Road, Highbury, Islington, however, I noticed that both descriptions, ‘Feeble Minded & Stinking Proud’, probably referred to Richard’s wife, who was called ‘Wife abducted’. His daughter had no name on the census return, but was also described as ‘abducted’. The enumerator put a line through ‘& Stinking Proud’ but accepted Richard’s description of his unnamed wife as feeble minded:

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A quick search of the 1891 and 1901 censuses revealed Mrs Woodward as Blanche and their daughter as Maud. Richard Woodward married Blanche Emily Creasy in the June quarter of 1890. Maud, their only child, was born a respectable 9-12 months after the marriage (June quarter 1891), so not in the same year, as it might appear from Richard’s 1911 census entry.

What was going on? Was Richard a deserted husband? Had his wife and daughter really been abducted? Was he feeling hard done by or simply completing the 1911 form with his tongue very firmly in his cheek? Richard was in his mid-30s when he married Blanche, who was 13/14 years his junior. Perhaps Blanche had found herself a toy boy?

Searching findmypast.co.uk for the ‘abducted’ wife and daughter revealed that they stayed with their Creasy relatives on 1911 census night at High St, Hadlow, Tonbridge:

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Ellen Creasy (nee Pine) was Arthur Creasy’s second wife. His first wife Susannah (mother of Harold) was alone in 1901 and died later that year. Husband Arthur was not positively identified in 1901.

I then noticed the faint pencilled note below the family listing on the Creasy 1911 census image. It appears to have been written by the enumerator and says ‘No. 3 Harold Creasy apart from wife’.

Harold’s wife, Mary Eldridge Creasy, (nee Simpson) and her son, nine month old Arthur Harold John, were staying at 29 Duckett Road, Hornsey, with Mary’s parents.

So, abducted Blanche and Maud were just visiting…weren’t they?

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

From Maureen Probert:

‘I have been trying to obtain a copy of my great-grandmother Annie Lyons’ birth certificate. She married George Carter on 23 February 1884 in Bolton Registry office and she died in Bolton in 1905. I have a copy of the marriage certificate and her death certificate but I can’t find out where she was born. One census record says Accrington, another says Bolton. Annie was born around 1863 – I have checked the birth records but I cannot find her birth. Her father must not have registered her birth - his name was Thomas Lyons and I can’t find him either. I just can’t understand why her family don’t seem to exist.’

Stephen says:

‘When a question like this is asked, two thoughts immediately occur to me: firstly, the possibility of birth outside England and, secondly, birth under a different surname.

A quick look at census returns from 1871 to 1901 for Accrington (included in Haslingden registration district), for Bolton district, and more generally for Lancashire county shows that a significant number of the families named Lyons are from Ireland. For example, in the 1871 census, there are 350 persons named Lyons resident in Lancashire with Ireland as place of birth.

This total includes a married Thomas aged 35, born circa 1835/36 in Ireland and old enough to be Annie’s father (although there are no children co-resident with him at the address he is visiting in Halliwell township in Bolton). Unfortunately, very few of these census returns are more specific about place within Ireland, which makes it difficult to take research back across the Irish Sea, although if you track them forward through later censuses you may find out more exact information.

For this first possibility to be true, the information in the 1891 and 1901 censuses (to the effect that Annie was born in Accrington or Bolton) must of course be untrue. It is not unusual for census birth place information to be incorrect – it was simply volunteered by the householders without any evidence being provided or checks being made, and there is plenty of scope for error. This leads me to the second possibility, which assumes that Annie was indeed born in Lancashire.

The second possibility I mentioned takes into account such factors as the high levels of parental deprivation (i.e., death of one or both parents of a child), remarriage of the widowed survivor of a married couple, illegitimacy and informal fostering (“adoption”) patterns. All these complicate family structure, perhaps especially in urban and industrial areas. In other words, even though Annie named her father at the date of her marriage as Thomas Lyons, this may not have been correct – Lyons may have been a step-father, for instance, or a foster parent, and Annie herself born and registered under a different surname.

This may be unlikely; however, it is not impossible that both scenarios – birth outside England and birth under a different surname – are true.

To investigate the above possibilities thoroughly will take time and patience and, very probably, the reconstruction of partial family trees for each candidate, Thomas Lyons, for example, so that by a process of elimination you close in on the truth. It could also happen that you persevere with such searches and still get no closer to finding out the answer. Unfortunately, not all family history problems are soluble and many family historians are left with brick walls which no amount of research seems able to overcome.

Good luck with your research and please let us know how you get on.’

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!

Today is Winnie the Pooh’s 85th birthday and to commemorate his author AA Milne, we’ve been investigating Milne’s family history.

Educational ancestors

We discovered that Milne came from a family of school teachers. Our first stop was the census records on findmypast.co.uk where we found Milne in the 1891 census. He is recorded at Henley House School, Mortimer Road, Hampstead, aged nine. He is listed as a scholar with his father, John Milne, the schoolmaster. John was born in Jamaica and was married to Sarah Heginbotham. See the record here:

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Ten years later, the 1901 census tells us that Milne’s father had moved on from Henley House School and was the schoolmaster at Streete Court School, Westgate-on-Sea, Kent. Milne was living with his aunt and uncle as a Cambridge undergraduate at this time.

Milne’s uncle, Alexander Milne, was the principal of the Boys’ Private School, University School, Holmesdale Gardens, Hastings. Alexander is listed in the Teachers’ Registration Council Registers 1914-1948 on findmypast.co.uk. He registered on 1 July 1919 and his career in education spanned 1871 to 1932. View Alexander’s record here:

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Our research revealed further evidence of teaching in Milne’s family. Milne’s mother and maternal grandmother, both named Sarah Heginbotham, were school mistresses at Brooklyn House, Wellington, Shropshire at the time of the 1871 census.

Milne’s paternal grandfather, William Milne, was recorded as being an inspector of schools in the 1861 census, which made us wonder whether he was the catalyst for the family’s teaching tradition.

At the time of the 1911 census, Milne was living at Broadgates, Steeple Bumpstead in Essex with his parents. Milne was recorded as being a journalist, working on his ‘own account and Punch‘. By this time, his father was a retired schoolmaster.

Milne on the move

We were intrigued to find Milne 20 years later in the passenger lists on findmypast.co.uk travelling as a first class passenger to the USA with his wife, Dorothy.

The couple were aboard the Aquitania, which departed Southampton for New York on 21 October 1931. In the detailed log, Milne is described as an author and his address is recorded as being 13 Mallord Street SW3. View the record here:

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As Milne’s ancestry demonstrates, you can glean huge amounts of detail when you find your ancestors in the Teachers’ Registration Council Registers 1914-1948 on findmypast.co.uk. We are working in partnership with the Society of Genealogists to bring you these rich records.

Our expert Stephen Rigden, pictured, answers your questions.

From Edward James Pace:

‘I’m having problems trying to find details of the death of my grandfather and, naturally, his parents. I have submitted his details in various searches and can get no results:

William Frederick Pace, born in 1876, joined the army in 1893, left the army in 1911 and rejoined in 1914. His service no. was G/27234 and he served in the Middlesex Regiment as a Sergeant.

William married Henrietta Mann in 1904. Their children were William, Thomas, Edward, Alice, Millicent and Emily. He died in 1918 – he was killed or wounded in France/Germany and cremated in England.

One would think that there is sufficient detail to find all about him easily but I’ve had no joy. I’d really appreciate if you can assist me in my frustrations.’

Steve says:

‘With other ranks – NCOs and privates – it is always a good idea to consider possible variations on given names, especially the loss of a middle name. I found that your grandfather died not in France and Flanders but here in the UK – in fact, his death was registered as plain William Pace in Croydon. This is good news in the sense that it means you can use the reference given in the March quarter 1919 civil death index to order a copy of his death certificate.

He appears on the official Commonwealth War Graves Commission website simply as W Pace; he died on 13 February 1919 and is buried in Islington Cemetery. The fact that he died in England also explains why he may not appear in some of the other WW1 record sources such as Soldiers Died in the Great War, available on findmypast.co.uk

Interestingly, the individual I believe to be your grandfather appears on the 1911 census as William Edward (not William Frederick) Pace. He is with the 2nd Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment at Guadeloupe Barracks, Bordon, near Aldershot. He is aged 36 and his birthplace is recorded as St Pancras. As you may know, soldiers and their wives and children ‘on the strength’ are on separate ‘military establishment’ census returns in the 1911 census.

In your grandfather’s case, his wife Henrietta (born in Clerkenwell) is shown together with three children William, Edward and Emily respectively born in Thayetmyo (Burma), Kassauli (India) and Alderney (Channel Islands), which shows something of your grandfather’s military career in the years up to 1911.

Your grandfather, however, does not appear to have been born in St Pancras as there is no corresponding entry in our fully indexed births nor, for that matter, an obvious entry for a person of his name born in St Pancras in the 1881, 1891 or 1901 censuses.

Further research shows that he married in July 1905 and was born in Shoreditch to parents Edward Pace, a carpenter, born in Shoreditch circa 1844/45, and Emma Burchell, born circa 1853/54 in Kentish Town, who were married in June quarter 1872 in St Pancras registration district. Hopefully with this extra information, you will be able to start researching your family tree further back in time more successfully.’

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

This week it was actor Rupert Everett’s turn to trace his family history. The programme focused mainly on Rupert’s grandfather, Cyril Frederick Cunningham Everett.

Rupert Everett (copyright Vicki Neave)

Cyril was born on 12 June 1886 at 20 Porchester Terrace, Hyde Park, to Georgina Teague and Frederick William Cunningham Everett. Here we can see Cyril Everett, aged 4, living as an ‘inmate’ in The Home For Little Boys in Horton Kirby, Kent on the 1891 census:

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The 1901 census reveals that Cyril Frederick still lived in the Home For Little Boys in Kent.

In 1908 Cyril went to Nigeria, where he worked on Lagos port. He travelled to and from Nigeria many times in the following years - we counted 15 separate journeys from the UK to Nigeria in our passenger lists. Here you can see one of the many journeys Cyril made:

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This records Cyril as a Civil Servant and also informs us that his last address in the United Kingdom was Browning Avenue in Boscombe.

Our passenger lists show that Cyril’s wife, Marcella, visited him several times in Nigeria. The journey she made in 1923 is recorded here - she’s recorded as Mrs C F C Everett:

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Cyril’s mother (Rupert’s great-grandmother), Georgina Everett nee Teague, appears on the 1871 census with her parents, Rupert’s great-great-grandparents, George and Esther Teague. George was a Railway Porter, Esther a Housekeeper and the family was living in Marylebone:

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The 1881 census shows Georgina living with her widowed mother Esther. Georgina was a Dressmaker while her mother was a Housekeeper. They were living at a ‘home for old ladies’ in Marylebone:

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Georgina Teague is a bit of a mystery: she literally disappears after the 1881 census and her marriage to Frederick William Cunningham Everett in 1883. Can you find out what happened to her? If you have any luck, post your findings underneath this blog post.

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.

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:

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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:

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

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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.

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

As the 2010 Wimbledon Championships head towards the closing stages, we’ve searched our census records from 1841 to 1911 to find some interesting tennis-themed entries.

In the 1901 census, a male Venus Williams can be found working as a labourer in Hampshire. Venus’ parents were hawkers and lived in a tent/caravan along with Venus’ seven other siblings. Here you can view the census return:

Venus Williams on the 1901 census - click to enlarge

In the 1891 census, a Miss Mary Wimbledon aged 3 can be found in the house of her 22 year old sister Ann Ball at 160 Latimer Road, London. Also present in the house were Ann Ball’s husband Richard and their son James, who was 7 weeks old.

Ann Ball also appears 10 years earlier in the 1881 census when she still carried her maiden name, Wimbledon. She was recorded living with her parents, William and Elizabeth Wimbledon, and her four siblings. The family were living at 14 Thresher Cottages, Kensington, where William worked as a brick maker and Elizabeth as a washer.

A Fred Perry can be found in the 1861 census living with his parents and sister who were tailors in Sawbridgeworth:

Fred Perry on the 1861 census - click to enlarge

Another person by the name of Fred Perry can be found in Lenton, Nottinghamshire as a lace winder, aged 14. Much like the Fred Perry of Wimbledon fame, the name seems to lend itself to those working with fabric!

In the 1841 census we found a rather large Tennis family living in Smith Street in Warwick. The head of the household was William Tennis (40), recorded living with his wife Margaret Tennis (40) and the couple’s three daughters and six sons - creating a household of 11 Tennis’.

Debra Chatfield, our marketing manager (pictured right), said: “These finds outline just a few of the fascinating people who can be found in our census collection. The census records are an amazing resource for researching our own family histories, for providing a snapshot of British social history and for having fun at the same time.”

Thanks to all of you who sent us your experiences of researching your family tree. We’ve received lots of fascinating stories - read on for Michael Lonsdale from Tarleton, Lancashire’s story:

‘My great grandparents, Thomas Barlow Lonsdale and his wife Helen Elizabeth nee Wilson, have always been something of a mystery.

I tracked Thomas and his family from 1900 to the late 1500s in Burnley, Lancashire and found they had connections to the Pendle Witches.

Thomas married Helen Elizabeth Wilson on 19 February 1899 in Kilburn and I knew that a son (my grandfather) Thomas Alfred Lonsdale had been born 29 May 1900 at 6 Claremont Road, Willesden, Middlesex, but search as I may they were nowhere to be found in the 1901 census.

I found the records on findmypast within seconds. The original enumerators sheet showed Thomas Lonsdale with wife Helen and son Thomas living in Linden Avenue, Kensal Rise, Middlesex. The name was quite clearly Lonsdale - how it had been transcribed as Southall I will never know.

From the information from the findmypast 1901 census I was now able to start to look for my great grandmother’s birth. This hasn’t proved easy and even now I know nothing about her before the day she married my great grandfather. The 1901 census says she was born in Yarmouth, Suffolk in 1872. Her marriage certificate tells me she is the daughter of a fisherman named John who was deceased and that her aged tied in with a birth in 1872. I have been unable to locate her in either the 1881 or 1891 census and can find no registration of her birth.

I hoped that the 1911 census would shed a little more light but it was the complete opposite. In 1911 my great grandmother was living in 3 rooms in Clifford Gardens, Willesden, Middlesex but there was no sign of my great grandfather or his 2 children.

They had had a daughter, Edith, who was born in 1902 and I eventually found her living with an aunt in South London. I’d expected to find my great grandfather close by but eventually found him in a convalescent home in Bognor Regis, but there was still no sign of Thomas Alfred now aged 11.

Over the years of research I had found many spelling variations for my surname and I had tried all these. I had even searched for variations on both his first and last name, but nothing. I put that research down and started on another part of the family.

Some months later I went back to look for my grandfather but with wild cards and variations in use - still nothing.

I don’t know what made me do it but instead of putting in Lonsdale/Lansdale/Landesdaile/Sonsdale and all the rest of the variations, I put in Lousdale and up came my grandfather and a few other Lonsdales.

My grandfather was living with the Cripps family in Maidenhead in Berkshire. My first thought was to wonder who the Cripps were. When I checked the 1901 census I found they were living at the same address as my family. I wondered why, when the father had 2 sisters, a brother 2 half-sisters and a half-brother, his son was living with strangers.

After some months of research I have found many coincidences between the 2 families and I am hoping that I will find a link between them and my great grandmother Helen.’

If you have an experience you’d like to share with us and our readers, email casestudies@findmypast.co.uk with ‘My experience’ in the subject line. We look forward to reading your stories!

We’ve researched the political party leaders’ family histories, using our family history records and other public records, and found some fascinating details.

The Tory and Labour party leaders are commonly thought to have wildly opposing backgrounds. Genealogical research, however, has found that the family histories of David Cameron and Gordon Brown are not so different after all.

David Cameron - blue blood, ‘White Mischief’ and Scottish lineage

David William Donald Cameron was born in 1966 in London to Ian Cameron and Mary Mount. The well-heeled Tory leader is a fifth cousin twice removed of the Queen and a seventh cousin of Princes William and Harry, and a descendant of William IV.

David’s paternal great-great-great-grandmother, Lady Agnes Hay and her parents, the Earl and Countess of Erroll can be found in the 1841 census. Here you can see Lady Agnes Hay’s 1841 census return:

The Countess is David’s royal link - Lady Elizabeth FitzClarence, the illegitimate daughter of William IV.

Through Elizabeth, he is also related to Josslyn Victor Hay, 22nd Earl of Errol whose dramatic murder in Kenya in 1941 was depicted in the film ‘White Mischief’.

Perhaps the least known element of Cameron’s background, however, is that he is also a distant cousin of Boris Johnson, the Tory Mayor of London. Both descend from King George II (1683-1760) - albeit by illegitimate lines.

The Scottish Cameron side of the family has also not been commonly explored. While Gordon Brown’s ancestors were farming in Fife in the early 1800s, the Camerons were also tilling the land around Inverness. William Cameron, David’s great-great-great-grandfather was recorded in the 1851 census as a farmer at Upper Muckovy, just outside Inverness. William’s son Ewen then went into finance, and beginning a tradition of financiers that continued until David Cameron entered politics.

Gordon Brown - Scottish farmers and a family secret

The current Labour leader’s background is well-known and often discussed; he descends from a line of hard-working and upwardly mobile Scottish farmers and stonemasons. The prime minister was born James Gordon Brown in 1951 in Renfrewshire, the son of a Minister in the Church of Scotland, John Brown. Before that, the Browns were farmers in Fife for three traceable generations.

There is, however, a little-known family secret in Gordon Brown’s family’s past, discovered by extensive searches through online records. One of Brown’s great-grandfathers was born illegitimate in the late 1840s as a result of a relationship between a farmer’s teenage daughter and a man 20 years her senior - a doctor of medicine who became a wealthy GP.

Francis Troup Manson, a great-grandfather of Gordon Brown on his maternal line, was born illegitimate to Jessie Cruickshank, a farmer’s daughter of about 16 years old. It is quite probable that the affair would have caused people to gossip in their small Highland village.

Gordon’s paternal grandfather was called Ebenezer Brown and his parents, Brown’s great-grandparents, John and Mary Brown are recorded in the 1891 Scottish census living at Brigghills Farm House in Auchterderran, where John was a farmer. Here is Ebenezer Brown’s 1891 census return:

Nick Clegg - an intriguing multi-cultural family

Nicholas William Peter Clegg is the youngest of the three leaders and was born in 1967 at Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire to a Dutch mother and a half-English, half-Russian father. He speaks five languages and has by far the most cosmopolitan background of the three, with a Russian baroness as a grandmother and a Dutch mother who was once a Japanese prisoner of war in WWII. He is also currently married to a Spanish lawyer.

Nick Clegg’s paternal grandfather is Hugh Clegg, whose 1911 census return you can see here:

Hugh Clegg married a baroness who was the granddaughter of the Russian nobleman Ignaty Zakrevsky. This nobleman had a daughter called Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya, born in St Petersburg in 1891, and Nick Clegg’s great-great-aunt. She became a countess through her first marriage and then a baroness through her second.

She was suspected of being a double agent, spying for both the Soviet Union and British Intelligence, leading to her being called the Russian Mata Hari. She was known to be a heavy drinker, and also had affairs with the writer HG Wells and the Russian literary giant, Maxim Gorky. She also wrote books and film scripts, including ‘Three Sisters’ directed by Laurence Olivier in 1970.

Like both Brown and Cameron, Clegg also has a more ordinary side to his family tree. In his direct paternal line, his great-grandfather was a schoolteacher and clergyman from Leeds who married a master mariner’s daughter from Hull called Gertrude. John Clegg ran schools in Suffolk and Huntingdonshire.

Nick’s paternal great-great-grandparents, Simeon and Mary Clegg, can also be found in the 1871 census. The couple were living at 3 Grange Street in Leeds and Simeon was employed as a butcher.