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Ask the Expert – missing birth

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!

Ask the Expert – military mystery

Our military expert Paul Nixon, pictured below, answers your queries.

From Jenny Fitzgerald in London:

‘I really hope you can help me with my query as this has been a mystery for 20 years. I will fill you in with the background, as this is necessary for the questions.

My great grandfather John Ernest Parkinson was born on 8 September 1856 in Ostend, Belgium, to John Parkinson. I have a copy of his birth certificate, written in old Flemish, that I’ve had translated into English. One of the witnesses on the birth certificate was a captain Veynoe domiciled in Dublin, in English Service; the other was a local Inn keeper. Annoyingly, it does not state the occupation of the father.

I searched for any military records of John Parkinson born Pentonville, London in 1832, in the new records on findmypast.co.uk, and found him serving in the Army Hospital Corps from December 1858 until discharged with TB in 1869, during which time he spent eight years in India – a fabulous find. The record showed he died on 1 May 1871 and I now have the death certificate which confirms it is the right person. The census taken just before his death shows him at home with his family.

So, I have a couple of questions: why would John be in Belgium with a heavily pregnant wife in 1856? I suspect he may have been in the army because of the witness, but if he was in the army, why in Belgium?

Also, why did he join the AHC if he had been in another division two years prior? Would he have been conscripted, or joined voluntarily? Thanks for your assistance.’

Paul says:

‘I’ll answer the last question first. He would not have been conscripted but would have joined voluntarily, and it was not uncommon for soldiers to transfer from one regiment to another. You see that a lot, particularly with cavalry regiments as a matter of fact.

I’m not sure why he’d be in Belgium in 1856 but his military papers in WO97 may state whether he had previous army service. If he did not, then he was presumably in Belgium as a civilian.’

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!

Ask the Expert – the first wife

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

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

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

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

Steve says:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

World Cup competition answers and winner revealed

Thanks to all of you who entered our World Cup competition. As the tournament is over, it’s time to let you know the correct answers to the questions and reveal our winner!

Question 1: What was the recorded occupation of William Matt, aged 36, living in Easthampstead, Berkshire in the 1911 census?

Answer: Snob! Lots of you correctly added that a snob was a bootmaker and repairer at the upper end of the trade.

Question 2: How many first names was Ann Pepper, born in West Derby in the Jan/Feb/Mar quarter of 1883, given?

Answer: A whopping 25 first names! Ann was given a first name for every letter of the alphabet except P: Ann, Bertha, Cecilia, Diana, Emily, Fanny, Gertrude, Hypatia, Inez, Jane, Kate, Louisa, Maud, Nora, Ophelia, Quince, Rebecca, Starkey, Teresa, Ulysis, Venus, Winifred, Xenophen, Yetty and Zeus. The mind boggles!

Question 3: Can you tell us what disability Chelsea Pensioner Bartholomew Murphy, born in Wexford in 1841, who served in the 36th Reg Of Foot, is reported to have?

Answer: Malformation of feet and overlapping toes. Poor chap!

Question 4: Which ship was Joseph Dugemin a passenger on?

Answer: The Titanic.

Our lucky winner is Rosemary Rowley from Macclesfield, Cheshire who wins a digital camera, vouchers for a year’s Full subscription to findmypast.co.uk, ‘Tracing Your Shipbuilding Ancestors’ a book by Anthony Burton, a family history starter pack, a 1911census.co.uk mouse mat and the all-important findmypast.co.uk pencil!

Congratulations Rosemary and thanks to all of you who entered. We hope we provided you with some amusement during the World Cup.

Your experiences – Living Relatives search success

In previous findmypast newsletters we asked you to email us your experiences of tracing your ancestors. Thanks to all of you who got in touch – your stories make for really interesting reading. Read on for Trevor Bailey from South Australia’s fascinating story:

‘My 84 year old mother had long suspected that her father (who was accidentally killed in 1934 when she was still a child) had a previous marriage with children, but it was never talked about by her own mother. As an only child, my mother longed to know if she had any half brothers or sisters. As my grandfather had a rather common name, and lived in London, however, checking for any previous marriages on the General Register Office registers produced too many possibilities to easily investigate.

Seeing as I did at least know my grandfather’s exact date of death, a British friend suggested he could check for a will or probate when he was next in London as I live in Australia. In a week or two, a copy was on its way to me and it named my grandfather’s first wife as a beneficiary. Armed with this information, it was not long before I had obtained a copy of their marriage certificate and then names of two daughters. While they would have been my mother’s half-sisters, both had died just a few years ago.

Tracking down descendants of the two daughters meant finding their marriages to obtain their married names. I eventually found a son for the first married daughter but I thought it unlikely I could ever make contact, assuming he was still living. He might have emigrated, too. I tried findmypast’s Living Relatives search facility and obtained a list of well over 100 possible names and addresses in Britain, as the son’s name is a fairly common one.

On an impulse, I decided to order a birth certificate for the son and found that his parents had the unwitting foresight to give him a middle name with an unusual initial (which had not been recorded on the GRO birth lists). I then repeated the search on the Living Relatives page and narrowed my list down to 11 names and addresses. I wrote a letter to each person, giving some details about my grandfather and my email address. Within a week, I had a reply from the right person and found he had an extended family of children, siblings and cousins, some in Canada. My elderly mother was thrilled to bits with the news.

A rapid exchange of scanned family photos and other documents ensued, then phone calls. We are all now planning a Skype link up and making new holiday plans. Persistence does sometimes pay!’

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!

Ask the Expert – lost grandfather

Our expert Stephen Rigden answers your questions:

‘Can you help me break down the brick wall that I have concerning my grandfather please?

My grandfather was: William James Wilson 1860-1937. I have found a marriage entry for him: he married my grandmother, Margaret Rees, in Swansea on 22 June 1893. On the certificate he gives his age as 32yrs and his occupation as house painter. His father’s name is given as William Wilson, deceased, occupation mason.

I have also found him on the 1901 census for Wales, when he and my grandmother are living at 113 St Helens Road, Swansea, Glamorganshire, Wales. He gives his age as 40yrs and his place of birth as Manchester, Lancashire, England.

Until the 1911 census for England became available I had thought that he might have been the William James Wilson living in Kirkby Ireleth, Lancs shown on the 1861/71/81 and 1891 censuses. However, on the 1911 census that one is still at home, unmarried and working as a ‘general labourer’, whereas my grandfather was married, living in Swansea (at 93 St Helens Road) running a painting and decorating business, (‘Wilson and Co’) and had six sons!

I have searched exhaustively through the various censuses and the birth index, but am unable to find any definite matches. I have ordered six birth certificates, none of which match the information given on my relative’s marriage cert.

His son’s names were (presumably some family names were used):

William Havelock, born 1894
Evan Douglas, born 1896
Ernest Rencella, born 1897
George Felix, born 1900
Richard, born 1902
Archibald, born 1903.

I would welcome some advice as to how to find any further trace of my grandfather as I am completely stuck with this. I am unable to find a definite birth entry for him, and unable to find him at all prior to 1901. Hoping that you can help!’ From Isobel

Steve says:

‘As I am sure you expected, this is not the sort of question that yields up a quick and easy answer! I imagine that you’ve been looking at this problem for months, if not years. So it requires systematic consideration of all possible eventualities. I will list some of these here for starters. I expect that you will have thought of and eliminated many of these already, but perhaps the underlying suggestions will help others out there facing comparable difficulties in their family history research.

1. He may not have been named William James at birth. He reversed his forenames, or added one.
2. His birth may appear as male in the General Register Office indexes, at the end of the A-Z sequence of forenames for the surname Wilson.
3. He may not have been born as Wilson. He may have been called Willson. Or Wilson may have been the name of his step-father, following the marriage or remarriage of his mother.
4. He may not have known where he was born. He may have believed that he came from Manchester and stated that in good faith, but perhaps he only grew up there to migrant parents who came from somewhere else: his mason father might find have found job opportunities lacking where he came from but plentiful in the city. Perhaps your grandfather was born somewhere else entirely in northern England.
5. He may have been born outside England and Wales. Some of the names of his children point to real or imagined Scottish roots, as does the surname Wilson. However, other names hint at the solid respectability of the late Victorian era tradesman class and may have been aspirational or fanciful, perhaps derived from reading matter rather than recycled from earlier generations of the family.
6. He may have modified his age, especially if there was more than a one or two year difference in years between him and his wife. Even though his recorded ages on his marriage certificate and the 1901 census are compatible with one another, once he had knocked off a few years, he may have felt compelled to keep up the pretence.
7. It is not possible to get death certificates for all the many men named William Wilson born between, say 1809 and 1843, and dying in England and Wales before 1893 but, if you have a great deal of patience and a subscription to a census website such as findmypast.co.uk, you could try looking at the 1851 to 1891 census returns to isolate the masons. You would then need to sketch basic trees for each of these candidates to see if one or more had a son named William James or similar born at about the right date, and then tentatively address and see if you can definitively eliminate these by turn.
8. His father could have been a highly specialised monumental mason or stone mason, or he might have been a bricklayer. He may not always have been a mason. Although this is a skilled trade, he may have been a master, or a journeyman, or a casual labourer who had to take other work when need be. Perhaps he appears on the earlier census returns with a different occupation.
9. The story might not be entirely reliable in several particulars. What would bring a house painter from Manchester to Swansea at some date between 1860 and 1893? Britain is criss-crossed with the improbable long- and short-distance migration routes of our ancestors. Many, of course, lead from country to town. Why would a Mancunian head for South Wales? One would think that there would be sufficient house-painting opportunities in Lancashire, and enough home-grown house painters in Glamorganshire, to make this surprising. Perhaps he had an earlier trade or calling? Or perhaps his family moved to Wales when he was still a boy?
10. Perhaps his seemingly modest story – born in Manchester circa 1860 to a father William, mason – was entirely invented. Identities could be changed with ease in the 19th century. Aliases could be taken to start afresh, and to leave behind bad memories or a dubious history. I have recently been looking at the data underlying the Chelsea Pensioner records which findmypast.co.uk is in the process of digitising in association with The National Archives: although we have not calculated any reliable statistics, perhaps 1 in every 1,000 soldiers had an alias. It may not help you advance your research but it remains a real possibility when you have carefully and methodically ruled out all the more usual explanations.’

We hope this is useful to your research. If you would like to pose a question for Steve, please register or opt to receive newsletters in My Account.