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Famous family trees: Michael Kitchen

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

Michael Kitchen

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

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

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

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

The Kitchen family in 1911

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

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

Thomas Henry Kitchen in the 1901 census

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

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

William Kitchen in 1861

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

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

Richard & Ann Kitchen in 1841

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

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

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

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

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

Roy Stockdill

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

Ask the expert – 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!

Millions of East Kent parish records now searchable

We’ve added new parish records to our Canterbury Collection, bringing the total to over 2 million. The records date as far back as 1538 and provide rich details for family historians.

The  Canterbury Collection of records on findmypast.co.uk now includes the following:

Baptisms: 902,849 records -  see a list of parishes and dates covered (PDF)
Banns: 110,576 records -  see a list of parishes and dates covered (PDF)
Marriages: 467,738 records -  see a list of parishes and dates covered (PDF)
Burials: 680,198 records -  see a list of parishes and dates covered (PDF)

To search these records, select ‘Kent’ from the list of counties on the parish records search page.

Search the Canterbury records now

Click to enlarge

Some of the records include details you might not expect. One shows vicar Thomas Patten’s note about the marriage in 1744 between John Housden – “a young gape-mouthed lazy fellow” and Hannah Matthews – “an old toothless wriggling hagg”.

We’ve improved your experience of searching these records. We launched the collection last year with a browse facility, rather than our usual search. Now we’ve made it possible for you to search the Canterbury parish records, as you would search any of our other parish records.

We are working in association with Canterbury Cathedral Archives to bring you the Canterbury Collection. This release coincides with the reopening of the renovated Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library reading room.

To search these records, select ‘Kent’ from the list of counties on the parish records search page.

Search the Canterbury records now

Ask the expert – rare last name

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

From Mike Harnett:

‘My grandfather was born as Frederick Edward Foreacre in 1866/7 in Greenwich. His birth was not registered but he was adopted/taken on/raised by Susannah Harnett. Frederick married as Frederick Harnett to Sarah Annie Elizabeth Boult in1889. My question is: would he have had to produce evidence of his name when he married? I am searching for his family but I’m not finding any positive identity. He is one of my ‘brick walls’ people and central to my family as you will appreciate.’

Stephen says:

‘Dear Mike,

Thanks for the question. The short answer is no: it would not have been necessary for your ancestor to produce any evidence of identity when he married in 1889. Identity was taken upon trust in England & Wales, as was the bride’s and groom’s statements that they were free to marry (assuming no one protested at the publication of their banns, or declared that they knew of a lawful impediment during the marriage ceremony). As far as I am aware, this situation did not change until the 1990s or later.

On the 1871 census, as you know, your grandfather is aged 4 years and living with his foster mother. Potentially, therefore, you have a very difficult situation confronting you in your research. It is possible, even probable, that your ancestor never knew the names of his birth parents. On the other hand, he was blessed with an unusual birth last name – I must admit that I have not come across it before. There are only two Foreacre families in Greenwich registration district in the 1871 census, viz that of costermonger Henry and his wife Caroline at Mary Ann’s Buildings in Deptford and that of boiler maker John Thomas and his Maltese-born wife Mary at Lower Park Street, Greenwich.

You may well need to consider potential variations and misspellings of the surname as well, such as Fouracre, Fouraker and Foweraker. In this last respect, there was also a John Hill Foweraker (also Fouracre in some records) who married a Margaret Hopkins in March quarter 1862 in Greenwich registration district. Margaret was residing with her mother at Creed Place, Greenwich in 1871, seemingly still married but her husband was not at home on census night.

It is likely that Frederick Edward was a child of one of these families, although of course you should not rule out him having been an orphaned Foreacre, or an illegitimate child of an unmarried female Foreacre. As there seem to be fewer than a handful of candidate families at the present time, it is worth your while looking at each of these, on earlier and later censuses, and in civil and parish records, to try to piece together the family structure of each (given the rare albeit variable last name, they may well prove to be related to one another) and see if you can eliminate one or more and, of course, to see if you can fit in your grandfather.

One of our previous ask the expert answers explains the idea of ‘family reconstruction’ and may help you. Unfortunately, I don’t think there will be an easy answer.

Good luck with your research, Mike!’

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!

Love knows no age in the Cheshire parish records

How old were your ancestors when they got married? Chances are they were probably in their twenties. While this was very much the norm, a couple of rather unusual marriages in the parish records from our Cheshire collection prove that people continued to marry much later in life.

Daniel Broadbent married Martha Cheetham in Mottram-in-Longendale on 9 March 1780. You can take a look at the record of this marriage below. Alongside the information you would expect to find written in the parish register, the following note has been added:

‘Behold! N.B. A peculiar marriage! Daniel Broadbent was aged twenty-three – Martha Cheetham aged eighty-three’.

Parish register recording the marriage of Daniel Broadbent and Martha Cheetham

Another ‘peculiar marriage’ can be found in the parish registers of St Oswald, Chester. George Harding and Jane Darlington married on 6 May 1776 and a note on the record below informs us that ‘George Harding is in the 105th year of his age and Jane Darlington in her 75th’.

Parish register recording the marriage of George Harding and Jane Darlington

Have you found any similar marriages in your own family tree? Please do leave a comment and let us know how old your ancestors were when they got married!

The father of low-carb diets in our parish records

We’ve just spotted a bit of a character in the Westminster parish records that were published earlier this week and thought we’d share his story with you. The record below details the baptism of William Banting, son of Thomas and Ann, on 11 December 1796 at St Martin in the Fields.

William Banting's baptism record from the Westminster parish records

William Banting grew up to become the father of the low-carbohydrate diet when he published a pamphlet entitled A Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public in 1863. The pamphlet detailed the diet that had helped Banting (an overweight undertaker – we said he was a character!) lose weight, namely by cutting out bread, butter, milk, sugar, beer, soup, potatoes and beans and replacing them with meat and fish.

Following the publication of his pamphlet, the term ‘banting’ or ‘to bant’ began to be used when people referred to diets and is still used today in some languages. Have you come across the phrase before? We’ve spotted it in Graham Greene’s novel Travels with my Aunt which was published in 1969 – over 100 years after Banting’s diet guide!

New Cheshire parish burial records published

Search 3,749 new Cheshire parish burial records on findmypast.co.uk

These records could provide essential new information for those of you with Cheshire ancestors.

Further details are as follows:

Type of records: Burials
Number of records: 3,749
Date range: 1800-2002
Parish / place: Appleton

The Cheshire Family History Society provided findmypast.co.uk with these records, in association with the Federation of Family History Societies.

Search Cheshire burials now

Search 18,000 new Thames and Medway records

If you have Thames and Medway ancestors in your family tree, you’ll be pleased to know that we have just published 18,219 new Thames and Medway baptism, marriage and burial records on findmypast.co.uk

Local specialist Rob Cottrell provided findmypast.co.uk with these records. This release represents the latest update to our Thames-side and Medway records collection.

See the table below for the details of these records:

Read more about this exciting collection on our Thames-side and Medway page

Search for your Thames and Medway ancestors now

Thousands of new Gwent parish records published

You can now search 79,842 new parish records for Gwent on findmypast.co.uk

The records cover the period 1634 to 1933 – a vast time span in which to search for your ancestors.

The Gwent Family History Society provided us with these records, in association with the Federation of Family History Societies

Read on for the details of this exciting release:

Search for your Gwent ancestors now

Yorkshire Day: the unknown Brontë sisters

We’re continuing to mark Yorkshire Day today at findmypast.co.uk and have found something rather poignant in our parish records collection.

The Brontë sisters, authors of the novels Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, all hailed from West Yorkshire. The sisters’ fame stems from the fact that all three were gifted with the ability to write imaginatively, but also because they all died tragically early. Charlotte Brontë died at the age of 38, while Emily Brontë and Ann Brontë both died when they were 29.

What many people don’t realise is that there were actually two other Brontë sisters, Maria and Elizabeth. These two girls died even earlier than their famous sisters. You can find the girls’ burial records in our parish records collection. These burial records were transcribed by volunteers at the Keighley and District Family History Society.

Maria Brontë's burial record - please click to enlarge

Maria Brontë was buried on 12 May 1825, having died at the age of 12 years. Her younger sister, Elizabeth Brontë, was buried just one month later on 18 June 1825. Elizabeth died when she was just 10 years old. Both children are buried at St Michael in Haworth, West Yorkshire.

Elizabeth Brontë's burial record - please click to enlarge

If they had survived, would Maria and Elizabeth have gone on to become great writers too? The talent certainly seemed to run in the Brontës’ genes!