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Ask the expert – complicated family

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

From Mike Coomber:

‘For several years I have been trying to find the birth certificate for my grandmother, without success. I always thought that her birthday was 15 July 1891 but I cannot find a corresponding entry in the indexes. Unfortunately her name was quite a common one – Alice Brown – and all I can find is entries in the 1901 and 1911 censuses. In the 1901 census she was living with her ‘grandmother’ in Derby.

Is there anywhere else that I should be looking or anything else I should be doing?’

Stephen says:

‘Hi Mike,

This is indeed a tricky one.

I started by looking for Alice Brown with a grandmother in Derby in the 1891 census, and assume that the entry is the one at census reference RG13 piece 3223 folio 114 page 1, i.e., that Alice is living in the household of the widow Hannah Bruerton and her unmarried children Emily, John H and Florence M. Alice is nine years old and born in Manchester, whereas the rest of the family is from Derbyshire. As Alice’s own parents are not resident overnight on census night, this begins to set off warning bells. Is she indeed a grandchild of Hannah, could one or both of her parents have died, was she illegitimate, why would she have been born in distant Manchester etc?

Using earlier censuses, plus birth, marriage and death records, it is possible to reconstruct at least part of the immediate family. I am sure you have already done this yourself. John Bruerton was married twice, first to Lucy and secondly, in 1874, to Hannah Hicklin. In the 1861 and 1871 censuses, John is with Lucy, of course, while from 1881 through to 1901 he is with his second wife Hannah.

Hannah would have been about 40 years old at the time of marriage, and is likely to have had children from a previous relationship, just as John Bruerton did (with Lucy). In fact, the 1881 census return shows, in addition to persons named Bruerton, an 8-year-old Hannah Hicklin, born in Findern, Derbyshire – presumably Hannah Snr’s daughter from a previous relationship. This Hannah may have been the mother of your grandmother Alice Brown. Please see census references as follows:

• 1891, Brixworth – RG12, piece 1207, folio 107, page 8
• 1901, Ashton – RG13, piece 3799, folio 5, page 1

As you will see, she is a kitchen maid and then a domestic cook, in the homes of clergymen Rev William Bury and Rev Francis Burrows, respectively. Of course, in both years she is single and has the name Hicklin, not Brown. Ashton under Lyne is in Manchester, however, and this makes me wonder whether she was indeed the mother of Manchester-born Alice Brown. Perhaps Brown was the surname of the unmarried birth father?

I did find references to an Ann Hicklin possibly marrying a John William Brown in Derby 1881 and a Frances Annie Hicklin possibly marrying an Ernest Brown in Walsall in 1891 (I say ‘possibly’ as there are two marriages on each page of a marriage register of that date, so the groom may have been relevant to the other marriage on the same page). I felt able to eliminate the latter, but the first might merit further consideration.

If the above Hannah proves to be incorrect and merely a coincidence, then you will need to continue looking for other candidate children of John Bruerton or Hannah Hicklin (or even of different partners of them), born before 1865 at the very latest

My recommendations to you would be to start by ordering a copy of the 1874 marriage certificate of John Bruerton and Hannah Hicklin to see if the latter was a spinster or a widow. If she was a spinster, then look for her possible illegitimate children, including Hannah Jnr. If she was a widow, then look for her first marriage (which would of course be to as yet unknown Mr Hicklin) and for their legitimate children.

You are still some way from clarifying exactly what transpired in this potentially complicated family, but I hope the foregoing gives you some new leads and ideas to pursue.’

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!

Ask the expert – clues in the British Army Service Records

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

From Betty Watts:

‘This is a long shot but thought I would try this long outstanding research on you.

My grandfather William Richard Berry was born in 1872 and according to 1901 and 1911 censuses, this was in Limehouse, Middlesex. The only relevant baptism I could find gives his father as Charles (spelt Berrey) whereas on his marriage certificate he is recorded as William. His son, my uncle, was Charles William. The mother was Jane Philpot (I have not found a marriage for these two which I hoped would perhaps add William to his name).

I have found William in the 1891 census at Dorchester Barracks, place of birth Middlesex. In the 1901 and 1911 censuses he gives Limehouse as the birth place.

I have looked for his service records several times at The National Archives in Kew and also online but unfortunately they are missing. I do have a prayer book with the following inscription:

Pte. W.R. Berry
2nd Dorset Regiment
Good Friday
South African Field Force

I have even tried the Dorchester Army office, although not lately. I did find a William Berry in the 1881 census in Stoke Common, Hants, with a birthplace of London, Middlesex. He was the grandson of Henry Philpot but there was also a Frederick Berry, aged 45, unmarried.

There’s another William in the 1881 census, in Gifford Street, Islington, aged nine, born in Middlesex. He’s the grandson of Thomas Berry. I have had many wrong birth certificates over the years so I’m still left with nothing positive. William married my grandmother Florence Annie Ridsdill in 1898.

I have been researching this branch since 1984 so you can guess how frustrated I feel but I’m ever hopeful that something will turn up.’

Stephen says:

‘Thanks for writing in with your question, Betty. I have done a little digging using a few online sources on findmypast.co.uk and have found some new leads for you to follow up.

Firstly, I have found army pension papers for William Richard Berry in the findmypast.co.uk collection of records of men pensioned from the British Army during the 19th century.

The record is composed of five pages. These give various details including a physical description (with tattoos) and a nice outline of his military career. Before he joined the Dorset Regiment on 22 January 1891, he had previously enlisted into the 3rd Battalion Hampshire Regiment, from which he purchased his discharge. I am reliably informed by a military historian colleague that, at that date, discharge could be purchased for £10 within the first three months.

At the time, £10 would presumably have been a tidy sum (especially as he was only 18 years and one month old when he joined the Dorsets, and is described as a labourer). Perhaps army life suited him in the long run, however, as he subsequently served 12 years with the Dorsets and then, in 1903, signed up for a further four years’ service in the Army Reserve, before discharge on 21 January 1907.

Most of his service was at home, but he did serve overseas in the Second Anglo-Boer War, from November 1899 to June 1900. For this, he was awarded the Queen’s South Africa Medal, the latter with two clasps – Tugela Heights (fought during February 1900) and the Relief of Ladysmith (1 March 1900). You can easily search the internet for these two actions to find out more.

This is all interesting information, but there are two other facts to extract from these so-called ‘Chelsea Pensioner’ service papers.

Firstly, upon enlistment into the Dorset Regiment, William’s place of birth is given as Bishopstoke, Hampshire, but then struck out and replaced with London, Middlesex (the correction is initialled by the recruiting officer). This could of course have been a simple clerical error (the form was completed on behalf of the soldier, not by him) but I do not think so – see below…

More significantly, on the fifth page, the column 12 for next of kin is completed with the details of an unmarried sister, Mary Jane Berry, of 11 Harbe[r]son Road, Balham in London (she is later struck out following the marriage of William in 1898, as from that point his wife was of course his next of kin). Note that this address falls under Streatham in census returns. In the 1891 census, at this address are Henry and Emily Phillpott and one Mary Merry (sic – presumably an error by the census enumerator) – the last named being the Phillpotts’ 24-year old niece, born in Bishopstoke, Hampshire. The head of household Henry Phillpott is also from Bishopstoke. I note that you refer to a Jane Philpot in your emailed question. To view this image, go to findmypast.co.uk’s census reference search and search under the following citation: RG12 piece 455 folio 60 page 13.

Now if you search the 1881 census for the siblings Mary and William Richard Berry, you come across the following entry in Winchester: RG11 piece 1234 folio 66 page 27. Here a widowed Henry Philpott is with his son William Philpott, his unmarried stepson Frederick Berry, his granddaughter Mary J Berry (born Bishopstoke) and his grandson William Berry (born London, Middlesex). This is certainly the right family.

Track back to 1871 and look at another Winchester district census return – reference RG10 piece 1213 folio 54 page 7 for Stoke Common in Bishopstoke. Here Henry and Ann Philpot are in residence with unmarried sons William, Henry and George Philpot, unmarried 19-year old ‘son-in-law’ (meaning step-son) Richard Berry and grandchildren Mary J and Walter W Berry (aged four months and 11 months respectively, both born in Bishopstoke). Walter W is another sibling of your William Richard, while Richard would be William Richard’s uncle – William Richard himself won’t be born for another two or three years.

For the 1861 census, the citation for this family is RG9 piece 694 folio 62 page 29. Here Henry and Ann Phillpott are with his mother Elizabeth Phillpott and their children William, Mary and Henry Phillpott, together with 13-year old ‘daughter-in-law’ (step-daughter) Jane Berry and 9-year-old ‘son-in-law’ (step-son) Richard Berry.

You will need to examine all these records very carefully to piece together what is quite a complicated family structure. It is clear that Henry Phil(l)pot(t) married Ann(e) Berry in 1859, and that both had children from previous relationships – Henry had sons William and Mary; Ann(e) had children Frederick, Jane and Richard; while together they had Henry Jnr and George.

It is possible that Ann(e)’s children were born illegitimately – I think she is the Ann Berry with 5-year-old Frederick in the 1841 census at census ref HO107 piece 404 book 10 page 5. It is also possible, although I haven’t been able to prove it, that Ann(e)’s daughter Jane Berry, the step-daughter of Henry Phil(l)pot(t), was a single mother with children Mary Jane, Walter W and William Richard. You might be able to start proving or disproving this by getting the birth certificate of Mary Jane Berry – what would appear to be her birth was registered in June quarter 1866 in Winchester registration district (volume 2C, page 103).

Good luck with your research!’

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!

Ask the expert – workhouse birth

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

From Val Dunne:

‘The 1871 census shows my great-grandfather, aged 10, as a pauper, living in a house in Everton with his sister, aged 16, a servant, and the head of the house who was no relation. I am unable to find birth certificates for both brother and sister. If they were born in a workhouse, would they be on the national register of births?’

Stephen says:

‘Hi Val,

The short answer to your question is ‘yes’. The indexes to the civil registers of birth should be complete from July 1837 to date. A longer answer is ‘yes in theory, but not necessarily in practice’. Despite the threat of fines, registration was not made completely mandatory until 1875. Before that date, there was under-registration, due to a variety of factors: lack of awareness of the requirement, indifference, wariness of authority, non-compliance and transient family lifestyle, for example.

In addition to this, there is an inevitable small-percentage loss of actually recorded events due to clerical error, e.g., when copying an entry from the original district register of births into the quarterly copy prepared for the General Register Office, or accidentally turning two pages instead of one and missing out an entire spread of entries, or perhaps loss of entire registers in transit between the district level and the central office. There are also more contemporary hazards – for example, pages inadvertently not microfilmed and, therefore, not digitised for the online versions with which most of us are familiar these days, and entries that transcribers have mis-indexed (although this is unlikely to apply in your case, with your two missing entries).

Estimates of under-registration of birth vary, and perhaps can be exaggerated – the level will always be uncertain and unknowable. Even if the level never topped, say, 7%, this would still represent a lot of missing births (and potential genealogical brick walls!). In the very earliest years, to maybe the mid-1840s, one can see from comparing the civil registers with parish registers that some entries in the latter do not appear in the former. The reverse is also true of course, because the parish registers of the established church by their very nature exclude Catholics, Non-Conformists, Jews and others.

For certain districts, one sometimes also notices an unusually high number of entries indexed as ‘male’ or ‘female’ in the civil births (i.e. unnamed at registration) which bear names in the parish registers (i.e. because the child is baptised and christened). Don’t forget to consider these, just in case (they don’t necessarily denote an infant death).

Your great-grandfather would have been born circa 1860/61, by which time one would expect levels of under-recording to have fallen, although clearly not sufficiently for the state, as of course it acted to make registration compulsory from 1875. Moreover, one would definitely expect workhouse births to have been registered. Separate workhouse birth registers existed, at least for some institutions, and one would assume that these were copied to the central authorities in the normal way.

It is also worth remarking that while some families were born into poverty and never escaped it, others could fall upon hard times with alarming speed – in the mid-19th century there was no real equivalent of the modern welfare state. Just because your great-grandfather was a pauper in 1871, therefore, it doesn’t mean that he would have been born into poverty circa 1860/61.

There are other reasons why you might not be able to find his birth – you don’t give any specifics, so I can only speculate, but here are some possibilities: he may have been born outwith England & Wales (e.g., Ireland, or Isle of Man); he may have been registered under a variant of his name; he may have been born illegitimately and his birth registered under his mother’s name; or he may have been born legitimately, lost his father to premature death and taken the surname of a step-father after a remarriage of his mother; or he may have been informally fostered and taken the name of the family in whose care he was placed. Note that each of these possibilities could equally apply to the sister that you mentioned.’

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!

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!

Ask the expert – father or uncle?

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

From David Mirsch:

‘I’m having trouble tracking one of my ancestors through English records. Specifically, she is listed on a marriage certificate in 1881 with her father, but she is never associated with this man in any census records. She is, however, shown on census records with his brother.

I am certain the marriage certificate is hers since her husband has a very unusual name and is my ancestor. She was born in late 1860 but the marriage certificate lists her age as 20. She was also several months pregnant at the time of the marriage. My question is this: with marriage laws being what they were at that time, if her real father was against her marriage and refused to approve it, could she have substituted her uncle as her ‘father’ on the marriage certificate? Her age would seem to indicate the need for parental approval. Have you heard of anything similar to this?

Thanks for any help you can offer. It is greatly appreciated.’

Stephen says:

‘Dear David,

I believe that pretty much anything went, and that you will have to consider all possibilities in your research. Certainly, if aged 20 in 1881, legally she was a minor and not ‘of full age’ but the system of civil registration of marriages was essentially trust-based (and, therefore, open to both error and fraud).

She would have been asked for her age, but she wouldn’t have needed to provide a birth or baptism certificate. She would have been asked for the identity of her father, but again without any evidence being sought by the registrar. In essence, the registry clerk would take and record in good faith the declarations of the would-be bride and groom, unless there was a reason or suspicion to do otherwise.

In my experience of mid- and late-19th century marriage certificates, it is not at all uncommon to see recorded, in lieu of the birth father, a step-father, an uncle, a fictitious father, a blank or a line when the father was estranged, and a blank or a line when the father was known to the bride or groom but had died (rather than the late father being recorded as, for example, ‘John Smith, deceased’ as he should have been).

Good luck with your research!’

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!

Ask the expert – missing merchant seaman

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

From Vera Baccino:

‘My question is: how can you trace someone if you cannot find a birth certificate? My grandfather James Wiseman was born in around 1882 and he lived in Liverpool, where I have two wedding certificates 1911 and 1914. His age, however, indicates he was born 1887. My mother says his father was a Polish or Russian Jew, so the name may have changed but I have searched the census and cannot find any trace of him.’

Stephen says:

‘Dear Vera,

Thanks for your email. The precipitate and excitable answer to your question would be to respond that maybe your grandfather Wiseman, or at least his father, was born as Weissman or Weismann, and anglicised his name. Weissman to Wiseman would be but a short hop. There certainly were Jewish Wiseman families on Merseyside – a quick look at the 1911 census shows families from Elisavetgrad (modern Kirovohrad) and Korets, both in Ukraine, for example.

Wiseman is a widely-distributed family name across the British Isles, however, and although some Wisemans are clearly Jewish in origin, one must be cautious – your ancestor may just as easily have come from Ireland or Scotland, or from the banks of the River Irwell in Lancashire, as from the Pale of Settlement in the former Russian Empire.

I see that James Wiseman married, firstly, Jane Seddon in 1911 in Liverpool and, secondly, Catherine McComish in 1914 in West Derby (for those readers who don’t know, West Derby has no connection with Derby or Derbyshire, but is the old registration district covering areas of Liverpool such as Croxteth and Kensington).

At the time of the 1911 census, his young family was residing with Joseph and Mary Soley – Mary was Jane Seddon’s sister – at 81 Braemar Street in Kirkdale. Actually, in the 1911 census, James has been struck out by a census clerk, on the strictly correct grounds that he was “at sea” on census night and only those resident overnight should be recorded on the form. His entry is still perfectly legible – he was aged 25, married, with the one child (Annie, probably an infant), a fireman (i.e. stoker, shovelling coal on a steamship), born in England and British.

Click to enlarge

As it was clear from the census that James was a mariner of some kind, next I looked at our collection of merchant seamen records. I found no fewer than five CR cards for him – these being a kind of ID card that merchant mariners carried. Two cards are CR1s, a further two cards are CR2s, but the best find is a CR10 card which includes a passport-style photograph – see the image on the right.

These cards give a multitude of information about his voyages on specific ships (identified largely by their official registration numbers), plus, for example, James’ height (he was only a touch over five foot in height) and a description of a fascinating tattoo (flag of all nations on his right forearm). One has to say that he doesn’t look Jewish (as far as it can be said that there is a definably Jewish look, although one could attribute this to him being, say, only half-Jewish).

His role on board ships seems to have varied between donkeyman, greaser and fireman. The CR10 card also gives an exact date and place of birth – 3 August 1882, Liverpool. Clearly, Liverpool is where James himself believed and/or claimed to be from, although there are other explanations, e.g., maybe he believed he was from Merseyside but actually moved there with his parents as an infant or young child, unremembered.

As you say, however, there is no apparent trace of this James Wiseman on the 1901 or 1891 census – nor under any of the various permutations of the Jewish surname Weis(s)man(n), Weiszman(n), Wiesman(n) etc. – and no obvious birth for him in 1882. A number of things could explain this, even if we leave to one side under-capturing of households in the census.

Firstly, of course – feeding into the Eastern European Jewish immigrant suggestion – he may not have yet arrived in England, or may be in the census but under an (unknown) original Ashkenazi Jewish name, as yet un-anglicised. A great many Jewish families arrived in Britain between 1901 and 1911, so this is a possibility. It would be time-consuming (if possible at all) to establish, however, unless he became naturalised. This was probably the course of action of only a minority of Jewish immigrants at this date, due to the expense and the dealing with the authorities that it involved.

Secondly, he may have been born outside England and Wales but still within the British Isles, i.e., in Ireland, Scotland or Isle of Man etc. Before you go considering research in the former Russian Empire, I think you need to look further into the possibilities elsewhere within the British Isles. Scottish birth, marriage and death records can be accessed on the ScotlandsPeople website. Basic Irish and Manx BMD indexes are also available online but there are no immediately obvious entries there and it is uncertain how complete the records are.

You might wish, therefore, to consider all these places, and even the Channel Islands, which provided a disproportionate number of British merchant marines. There are other possibilities, such as Wiseman being the name of his step-father, rather than birth father, and you may need to work through each possibility carefully in a process of elimination.

Good luck with the search, Vera!’

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!

Ask the expert – Peruvian Navy

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

From Bob Andrews:

‘On the marriage certificate of my great grandfather (George Thomas Andrews, married at Plymouth on 28 April 1867) his father’s (Thomas Ebenezer Andrews, born on 8 June 1833) occupation is recorded as ‘Engineer Peruvian Navy’. I have been unable to discover any details to support this fact. I would like to know if Royal Navy personnel were seconded to the Peruvian Navy in the 19th century. I have found George’s service with the Royal Navy but not his father Thomas Ebenezer Andrews. I have also been unable to find a death date for Thomas Ebenezer, although I suspect it to be between 1867 and 1871. I would be most grateful for any help on this subject.’

Stephen says:

‘Hi Bob,

Thanks for writing in with a copy of your great grandfather’s marriage certificate. His father’s stated occupation of ‘Engineer, Peruvian Navy’ is remarkable but isn’t perhaps as improbable as it may at first appear. I wouldn’t claim to have any knowledge of the history of the Peruvian navy, although the British signed various treaties with Peru following its 1821 independence from Spain – for example, in 1837 and 1850, touching upon commerce and navigation.

British commercial interests in Peru included mining and bird guano (used for fertilizer), and I expect also the construction of railways later in the 19th century. Moreover, the British Royal Navy and merchant marine were everywhere – take a look at the dropdown list of ports at which British (and other) ships were calling in an admittedly more modern period (1890-1960) in the outward-bound passenger lists of record series BT27.

I expect that your great-great-grandfather Thomas was in, or attached to, the Peruvian Navy for a relatively short period of time, perhaps restricted to all or part of the Chincha Islands War of 1865-1868 during which Peru (and Chile) fought against the Spaniards. I imagine it would not have been at all uncommon for British mariners to take up posts in the Peruvian Navy at that time.

Note that, strictly speaking, this would be in breach of the Foreign Enlistment Act. This was enacted in 1819 to stem the flow of British men eager to support the cause of South American nations against the Spanish – as Richard Cobden observed in 1863, the British ‘generally sympathise with everybody’s rebels but our own’. The 1819 Act was probably not rigorously observed, therefore, it is likely that Thomas was not officially seconded, but volunteered for political or financial reasons to serve with the Peruvian Navy.

Official Foreign Office correspondence of the time may refer to British subjects joining up with the Peruvians, or of the activities of the Peruvian Navy circa 1867. If you have the opportunity, and are sufficiently interested, you could try browsing through the surviving files that The National Archives holds in Kew – for example, pieces within FO177, FO 178 and FO855. TNA’s Catalogue entry for Home Office piece HO45/7800 also refers to material which may be of relevance and interest. Such materials would almost certainly only supply you with background context, however, and not with any details specifically about Thomas, so you would need to manage your own expectations.

By the way, if George was indeed 21 years at marriage in 1867, as the marriage certificate records, then he would have been born circa 1845/46 and, therefore, it seems unlikely that his father Thomas was born in 1833 as per your email – that would have made Thomas only 12 or 13 years of age when he fathered him.

Finally, for those readers who are not aware, the General Register Office’s overseas BMDs are online on findmypast.co.uk and include returns of births, marriages and deaths despatched to England from British embassies, high commissions and consulates in South America, as from elsewhere overseas. If you search the deaths for last name Smith and region South America, for example, you will receive three and a half pages of search results.’

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.

Ask the expert – military conundrum

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

From David Griffiths-Parry:

‘My late father started his family history research a year before he passed away, and I am carrying his work forward.

His grandfather Francis David Parry was born in Liverpool, Lancashire on 19 April 1883 and died in Liverpool Lancashire in 1958. I have traced Francis David Parry’s family back to 1846. Prior to this date, they lived somewhere in Wales.

The surname is often recorded as ‘Perry’ and this may have been due to handwriting/dialect. Throughout his life he was addressed as ‘David’, but also ‘Francis’. I have searched the military records on findmypast.co.uk to find Francis David Parry, but to no avail.

My father claimed that Francis David Parry served in the Merchant Service in 1903. During WWI he served for 4.5 years and was in active service in France for 3.25 years. His army number was 17344. He was wounded in 1916 and at some stage was deafened by gas. As far as I know, he was not a prisoner of war. I am guessing he enlisted for WWI in the city of Liverpool.

If you can offer any advice I would be most grateful. I am aware that I can obtain records from The National Archives at Kew.’

Stephen says:

‘Dear David,

Thanks for your question.

Firstly, I looked up your great grandfather on the Medal Index Cards (record series WO372) available online at The National Archives’ ‘Discovery’ – this contains the record sets formerly accessible via its Documents Online pages. This gives some interesting information about Private 17344 Francis D Parry of the 2nd Btn, South Lancashire Regiment.

He was entitled to the usual British War and Victory Medals but also, as an early volunteer, to the 1915 Star. From his regimental number, he would have joined up in mid or late March 1915. He first served abroad, in France, on 18 December 1915, as part of a draft to replace losses in the 2nd Btn (which was a pre-war regular battalion then fighting with the 75th Brigade in the 25th Division of the Expeditionary Force). He was discharged on 8 June 1919 in class Z, which means that he was liable to recall if hostilities resumed before the formal peace was concluded.

At the time of the 1911 census, as I am sure you know, he seems to have been a dock labourer for the stevedores Coggins & Griffith, who were based at 29 Roberts Street, down by the Liverpool docks. The fact that he names a specific firm may suggest that he was a permanent employee rather than casual labour.

Earlier, in 1901, he is a 17-year-old coal carrier working for his mother Jane, who is described as a coal dealer, in Circus Street (very close to his 1911 address in Downe Street). It is not inconceivable that he had a career in the merchant navy at some date between 1901 and 1911. Unfortunately, this is a period not covered by the large collection of merchant navy records on findmypast.co.uk, digitised from sources at The National Archives, which is divided between a mid-Victorian era series (1835 to 1857) and a largely inter-war period (1918-1941).

We also have merchant marine crew lists 1861-1913 on findmypast.co.uk, but these, although extensive, are by no means complete. I checked them but there is no apparent reference to the correct Francis or David Parry or Perry.

There is no reference to your ancestor in the Maritime History Archive’s online database, which covers seamen aboard Newfoundland-registered vessels engaged in the Atlantic trade. I don’t believe there are any other large collections of digitised merchant seamen records for the 1900s online at present, although this could well change in coming years. This means that, for now, you may well have to take a yomp down to Kew, or engage a professional researcher there to examine the available paper records at The National Archives, for example, crew lists in record series BT99 and BT100. I cannot stress enough how speculative this would be in the absence of name indexes.

You could also take a look at an online information sheet 43 called ‘Tracing Seafaring Ancestors in the Merchant Navy’ to be found on the Merseyside Maritime Museum’s website, which may help by way of background.

As matters stand at present, therefore, there appear to be no immediate ways forward for your research into Francis David Parry’s possible career in the merchant navy between the 1901 and 1911 census years – sorry!’

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!

Ask the expert – 'old school' research methods

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

From Linda Jones:

‘How can I trace a maiden name? I know my ancestor was called Mary Ann, born in Liverpool in 1838. She married a John Jones, born in Liverpool in 1842 and their first child was born in Crewe in 1868. Mary Ann and John Jones are very common names in Liverpool.

John was an engine tuner who eventually ended up in Swindon with his family. John’s mother was Mary and we think his father was another John. Any tips would be helpful.’

Stephen says:

‘Dear Linda,

Thanks for your email. This is an example of when it may be best to use ‘old school’ family history methods. We’re all spoilt nowadays by the proliferation of vital records available online; however, not all answers can be found with ease online and without resort to paper!

In this case, where you have a marriage between two people with very common names – John Jones and Mary Ann with an unknown maiden surname – the easiest and surest answer is to purchase a birth certificate to ascertain the maiden name. Of course, it could be Smith or Jones or Williams, but on the other hand it may be more unusual and, in any event, you would then be able to conduct a more focused two-surname online search for John marrying Mary Ann.

I suggest that you buy the birth certificate of whichever of their children either most interests you, or means the most to you; or (given that there will be so many Joneses each quarter of the registration calendar) the one who has the most distinctive name. You can order the birth certificate online from the General Register Office, which will post it out to you (usually with three to five days if you’re in UK) for the statutory fee of £9.25.

I had hoped that you might be able to avoid buying the birth certificate, if the baptism of their first child (in Crewe, in 1868) was included in findmypast.co.uk’s Cheshire parish registers collection. I should emphasise that these are Anglican registers. There are 17 baptisms entries for Jones in Crewe in 1868 +/- 1 year. From spot-checking these, however, it appears that they do not usually record the mother’s maiden surname. So back to paper certificates…

When the certificate arrives, it should show the maiden surname of Mary Ann, as well as others details such as exact place of birth, informant at registration of the child, etc. You can then search for and purchase a copy of the marriage certificate online in the same way, and from that you should get confirmation of the name and occupation of Mary Ann’s father.

With luck she was indeed born in 1838 and, therefore, her birth will (or should) appear in the civil registration indexes (there is known to be a degree of under-registration of events in the early days of civil registration). If, however, she was a little older than you currently expect, and her birth was registered before July 1837, she won’t be in the birth indexes, and you would need to consider Anglican parish registers (or appropriate Non-Conformist or Roman Catholic registers, if applicable). You can cross that bridge when you come to it.

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!