Wedding photo mystery solved... or is it?

 

When Jayne Shrimpton responded to my plea on Twitter as to a possible date for this wonderful wedding photograph, I was delighted. At last I could finally get an answer to a question which has always remained a mystery.

 

Those of you who have read this blog before might recall that in a previous post about the above picture, I reported that my aunt hadn't been sure if the bride and groom were my great-grandparents John Griffiths and Sarah Eliza "Lizzie" Baugh or John's younger brother Arthur and his bride Lily Clay.

 

The two weddings took place almost a decade apart, in 1894 and 1903 respectively, but my limited knowledge of late 19th century and early 20th century fashions left me floundering over which of the two this could be.

 

Jayne offered to analyse the photograph on Family Tree magazine's Q & A page and in the August issue, the picture duly appeared having been scrutinised by Jayne's expert eye.

 

This was her verdict...

 

She conceded that late-Victorian and early-Edwardian scenes can look similar at first glance. "They often convey an ornate effect, even an air of grandeur," she says, "mainly due to the elaborate female fashions of the 1890s and early 1900s." 

 

She continues, "We see the bride dressed in the white ensemble which was becoming fashionable throughout society by the early-1900s." 

 

 She goes on explain the subtle differences in more detail, pointing out that female fashions were more distinctive than men's and changed more rapidly. At the time of both weddings ladies wore one-piece dresses, or more usually a separate bodice and skirt, tailored to fit closely at the waist and then flaring out towards the hemline. "A soft feminine style," writes Jayne, "that expressed the prevailing art nouveau aesthetic lines of the whole era."

 

But it's the styling of the upper garments, particularly the sleeves, which help differentiate between the two dates. In the 1890s, the puffed, leg 'o mutton style of sleeve would have been in evidence but, as we can see from the bridesmaid (pictured above), they are narrow in the upper arm, widening below the elbow and flaring at the wrist where they are gathered with a tight cuff.

 

Hats too are a clue, as unlike during the 1890s when they would have been plate-like, sitting horizontally on the head, in the early 1900s they were worn on a slant, with upturned brims and decorated with flamboyant ostrich plumes, as they are here.
 

 

I'm extremely grateful to Jayne for her analysis and for the opportunity to learn a little of the fashion of the time.

 

However, there's one small fly in the ointment. As I mentioned on my previous blog, I have my doubts as to the groom being Arthur, having compared another photograph of him with that of the groom.

Arthur

Groom



 

Looking at the two pictures side-by-side, I'm not convinced they're the same man. It may be the angle at which the photograph was taken but it seems to me that Arthur's chin is longer that that of the groom's, and that his nose is shorter.

 

So if it's not Arthur, then who could it be?

 

John and Arthur weren't the only Griffiths brothers. There was also Thomas, Boaz, Jabez and Hillary. Who's to say that this wedding wasn't one of theirs?

 

A quick check through the records shows that Thomas never married, and that Boaz and Jabez married in 1898 and 1910 respectively. Hillary's wedding, on the other hand, when he married Alice Jane Lowndes, took place only one year after Arthur's, in 1904.

 

So using Jayne's assertion that the fashion features are closely dateable to c1901-1905, it seems Hillary could be a credible alternative candidate. Now all I need to do is to find a photograph of Hillary to compare to the groom pictured here to confirm my theory!

 

 

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To find out more about photo dating, you'll find lots of help in Jayne Shrimpton's book, Family Photographs and how to date them.

 

Or why not send in your own conundrums, photograph related or otherwise, to Family Tree? You can contact them via Facebook, email or Twitter or for a quick response, visit their forum at www.family-tree.co.uk/forum to ask the experts or readers of the magazine for their advice.



 

Purles of wisdom... Part 2: Searching for Harry

My previous post, Purles of Wisdom... part 1, told of the early stages of my investigation in to the Purles, the family my husband's ancestor, Eliza Mott Viner married into in 1844.

Meeting of the Royal British Bowmen, 1822
 image courtesy of en.wikipedia.org

As manufacturers of archery equipment, the Purle family appear to have been well known in archery circles of the time, their bows and arrows being considered of the highest quality.

Arthur Credland, the editor of the Journal of the Society of Archer-Antiquaries, confirmed this with a quote from experienced bow and arrow maker, James Duff (1870-1935) : "During all the many years I was in London, the finest arrow maker known to me was Harry Purle."

Having learnt that Eliza and William did have a son called Harry - Harry Richard Purle - born in Leamington, in 1855, it seemed possible that this was the Harry in question. But my hopes were dashed when I discovered the record of his death 1881, aged only 26. 

At first I wondered if something archery related had been the cause of his demise. Had he speared himself while crafting one of his famed arrows? But sadly, when his death certificate plopped on to my door-mat, I read that the poor young man had died of 'phthisis', a condition common during in Victorian times and better known now as consumption or TB.

Besides, it seems his occupation was not a maker of archery equipment, but a commercial clerk, though I suppose he could have been working within the family business, albeit not as one of the craftsmen.

However other Purle family members were involved in archery manufacture, so I decided to dig a little deeper in my "Harry Hunt".

I started by going back to James Purle, William's father, born in 1795. On the first census (the first of real use to the family historian, anyway) in 1841, he's recorded as being a bowyer (bow maker) born in London. William, his eldest son and Eliza Mott Viner's future husband, is 20 years old, but his occupation isn't recorded. William's younger brothers are, Henry aged 15, Charles 9 and Robert 7.

By 1851, the picture becomes a little complicated (doesn't it always?) as James now claims to have been born in "Somersetshire", his name is listed as "Jas" William Purle and the transcriber has suggested his middle name is not William but Wilson! That made me wonder if I'd got the right James Purle (despite there being a Bath/Somerset connection), especially as this time his occupation isn't recorded so I couldn't confirm the archery connection.

But his sons Henry, Charles and Robert are all present, though none claim here to be employed in the archery trade. William has by now, of course, left home having married my husband's ancestor, Eliza, in 1844, and we already know (see Part 1) he's trading as an archery manufacturer then.

By 1859, however, it seems that two of William's brothers, Charles and Robert, have joined the family trade as when both marry that year they cite their respective occupations as 'Bowyer' on the documentation.

Sadly, though, Robert dies a few short months after his wedding, no children follow and neither have I found any children for Charles.
 

Henry, meanwhile, having declared his occupation as a carpenter at his (second) marriage in 1852, pops up on the 1881 census as an "archery bow maker". Perhaps now that his carpentry skills are honed, he's now able to apply them appropriately and join the team!

The same census reveals that William's eldest son Frederick, born in 1846 who was an apprentice

"manufacturer of archery" in Bath in 1861, (see Part 1) is still a bowyer
 and his children are listed, the eldest of whom is called... Harry! Will this young scholar go into the family firm? Could this be the famous Harry Purle, so praised by James Duff?

Fast forward to 1911. We now have Henry, William's brother who's now a "retired" archery manufacturer. His son, also called Henry, has followed in his father's footsteps and also become an archery manufacturer, (the word "wood" is helpfully filled in alongside) but at 57 and unmarried, Henry junior has no sons to continue the trade.

But our Harry is also there  on the 1911 census and he's making archery equipment. I'm sure now that this must be the legendary Harry Purle. The time-scale certainly seems to fit in with James Duff's working years.

As to how much longer the Purle family continued to make archery equipment, I've yet to find out. There doesn't seem to be much "out there" about the trade itself and I was reminded by current traditional longbow manufacturer, Pip Bickerstaffe, that the trade guild's were very secretive about their craft back in the day, and little was widely known outside the workshops. But perhaps there's a chance more can be learned if records exist and I'm still pursuing leads in that direction.



 

Finally, I have one pressing, and potentially sad, mystery to solve - what became of James Purle, born in 1795 in either London or "Somersetshire". While browsing records on Ancestry I came across an entry for a James Purle in The City Road Workhouse in Holborn, 1873. Was this "our" James? Was this where he died? You can be sure I'm on the case!

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There are some excellent websites listing old medical terms for causes of death you may come across on death certificates and giving explanations. Rootsweb has a fairly comprehensive glossary. A good source of alternative 'medical/diseases' list sites are on Cyndi's List.

Peter Higginbotham is an authority on the history of workhouses and has an excellent website worthy of a read www.workhouses.org.uk
 

Purles of wisdom... Part 1

One thing I especially like about family history, is what else you learn along the way about other aspects of history, particularly on subjects you'd not ordinarily go out of your way to research.



     Richard Mott Viner, born 1809      
           Eliza's eldest brother     

This was the case with an ancestor of my husband's, Eliza Mott Viner, born in 1824 in Bath. The "Mott" part of her name dates back to a maiden name from the previous century in a place called Ogbourne St Andrew, in Wiltshire and continues to pop up as a middle name in different branches of the family for the next 150 years, which has often been extremely useful for making connections.

But I digress. The Mott trail is a different story altogether. This one centres on the family into which Eliza marries, and their connection with bows and arrows, and all things archery or, if you prefer, toxophily - a new word on me and the start of my education on the subject.

Sadly, I don't have a photograph of Eliza, only of her eldest brother Richard, taken in 1875, aged 66.

Eliza married William Frederick Purle, in Bath in 1844. William, born in 1821, was a "manufacturer of archery", as was his father, James Purle.

William and Eliza appear on the 1861 census, living at 4 Somerset Buildings in Walcot, Bath,

 

along with their children, Frederick aged 15, Alice 11, Laura 9, Harry 6 and Walter 3. William's occupation is recorded there also as a manufacturer of archery and it looks as though 15 year old Frederick is apprenticed to the trade.

William is also listed in the 1860-1865 Bath Post Office Directory as one of the city's archery dealers, at the same address as in the census, along with others: John Fare, S.C. Silverstone and Joseph Somerton, all trading in different parts of the city. It's noted that both our William and Mr Fare, as well as dealers, were also manufacturers and teachers.

An advertisement for his wares appear in the Bath Chronicle & Weekly Gazette, during 1864 and 1865, as well as in the Western Daily Press, Bristol, in 1865.

But it appears that William Purle only traded in Bath for a relatively short period in the 1860s.

During my initial research about the Purle family as archery manufacturers, I came across a mention of a particular arrow being made by "Purle of London". Indeed records suggest that William and Eliza left Bath for London immediately after their marriage, as their eldest son, Frederick was born in Marylebone a year later, in 1845, and their daughter Alice's birth was also registered there in 1850.

At this point, however, things begin to get confusing.

Despite William citing his birthplace on the 1861 census as "Somerset, Bath", he appears on the 1841 census, aged 20, living in London, with his father James and mother Elizabeth, and being born in the county of Middlesex. James is also apparently Middlesex born, though Elizabeth is not. William's occupation isn't given but his father James is recorded as a "bowyer" which is backed up by an entry in the 1841 edition of The London Post Office Directory as being "Purle James, bow and arrow maker" at 15 Stephen Street, off Tottenham Court Road.

There is a baptism record of a William, parents James and Elizabeth Purle in St Anne's, Westminster in 1821 which would seem to confirm his birthplace is London and not Somerset, but this James is recorded as being a coachman, rather than a bowyer. Is that because he'd not yet begun his career as an archery manufacturer or is this a different James? A James "Wilson" (possibly William?) Purle of around the same age, shows up on the 1851 census in Marylebone, Middlesex as being born in "Somersetshire", with wife Elizabeth (born 1801 in Herefordshire), and with sons Henry, Charles and Robert. Frustratingly, James's occupation is not noted. Henry is a carpenter, Charles is a coach trimmer and Robert is learning the same trade. Of course by now, their elder son William (if this is indeed our William's parents) is married to Eliza Mott Viner by now and living in.... where? Probably London, seeing as Alice was born there in 1850, though I haven't yet found the family recorded. The 1851 London census does have gaps, so perhaps this is the reason I've failed to track them down.

As to William's assertion in the 1861 census that he was Bath born, while it's not impossible that he was born in Bath and baptised in London, it may be that he felt that as he was trading in the city, it was commercially prudent to present himself as being a local!

So was William and Eliza's return to Bath an attempt to expand the trade beyond London? Was it something to do with Eliza's family, the Viners? It's worth noting here that it was around the 1860s that Eliza's brother, Richard Mott Viner (pictured above) moved to London with his family along with his parents Richard and Mary Ann Viner. Richard was a carpenter and Richard Mott was a tailor. Exact dates as to when they relocated are difficult to establish because both the 1851 and 1861 census lists seem to be missing many of the relevant Viners and Purles!

And so back to London once more, it seems, (for the moment, anyway) and evidence that the Purle's reputation in the archery trade was flourishing. Arthur Credland, the editor of the Journal of the Society of Archer-Antiquaries, tells me that a certain James Duff (1870-1935) who had nearly fifty years' experience in archery, making longbows and arrows with the famous makers of the 19th century, said in his book on the subject: "During all the many years I was in London, the finest arrow maker known to me was Harry Purle."

It so happens that Eliza and William did have a son called Harry - Harry Richard Purle, to be exact, born in Leamington, in 1855. In fact there appears to be a key link back to Leamington - the two younger sons of William and Eliza's were born there.

Interestingly, in September 1860, there was a "group" baptism of all the Purle children except for Frederick (whose baptism had already taken place in Marylebone), in Leamington Priors (see left). So why here? Was archery big in Leamington and they'd moved there for the trade? There's certainly a street called Archery Street and I also came across an illustration of an Archery Competition in 1852 which took place in Jephson Gardens, a location renowned for entertainment of all sorts.

On contacting the Leamington History Group, their secretary kindly replied to inform me that, yes, Leamington was a major centre for Archery in the mid-Victorian period and for many years the National Championships were held there.

So did the Purle family supply the famous toxophilites of Leamington? Did they move there only for commercial reasons or did they have other links to the town? And another critical question came to light just as I thought that Eliza and William's son must be the famous Harry Purle, mentioned in James Duff's book, when I stumbled upon the death of Harry Richard Purle in 1881, aged only 26. What happened to him - did he have a nasty accident with a bow an arrow?

I'm afraid you'll have to wait for Part 2 to find out, as for now my investigations continue...

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If you want to look up ancestors who had a trade, a selection of Trade Directories of several areas of the country can be accessed online at Leicester University's Special Collection 

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Regular readers of this blog know that the distinguished Mr C J Vincent, pictured left, is a mystery man in the centre of my search-n-find radar.

The good news is that thanks to an online Q&A session with Ancestry Hour a couple of weeks ago, Tom of Forces War Records, identified (from his cap-badge in the photograph) that our man served in WW1's Tank Corps. This
has given me an exciting new line of enquiry, though, as ever, it's slow progress.

But as soon as there's something worth reporting, you'll be the first to know!

Mystery unravelling... slowly

Isn't often the way when you're looking for something, you'll find something else you'd been hunting for previously.

 

So was the case recently while I was snatching a few minutes on my latest challenge - trying to unmask the identity of this distinguished young man, which, I have to confess, has become a bit of an obsession lately.

The note on the back of the photograph scribbled by my late aunt, tells me he was Vincent Talbot but such a person appears not to exist - I certainly haven't been able to find him on my family tree.

When I posted the picture on Twitter, an eagle-eyed "Tweeter" noticed that the signature on the front seemed to suggest that his name was not Vincent Something but Something Vincent - perhaps C J Vincent?

If I had any military knowledge, I might be able to narrow things down a little by identifying his regiment by his uniform (to an untrained eye, his long boots suggest a cavalry connection?), particularly by his cap badge.

But although I've scanned in the photo at the highest resolution I can, there's a limit to the clarity I can achieve for comparing it against cap badge images online, though I suspect an expert would probably recognise it easily.

Meanwhile I continue to trawl whenever I can, on the off-chance I'll stumble across its like eventually.




So what's this about finding something I wasn't looking for while on the "Vincent" case, I hear you ask?

Well, it was while studying the confusing note on the back of the photograph that something occurred to me about another unsolved family mystery.

My aunt had originally written that "Vincent" was "Nell Booth's brother" but this had been crossed out in favour of "Polly's son" and then under a piece of added sticky label, I could make out "Minnie's cousin", followed by another suggestion, "Nell's son", amended to read "Polly's son... I think." (Is it any wonder I'm confused!)

Polly would have been Polly Benbow Baugh, pictured here on the right,  the younger sister of my great-grandmother Sarah Eliza Baugh.

Polly married George Augustus Talbot in 1894 and they had two daughters: Mabel Maud in 1895 and Anna Helena in 1896. I've failed to find the family on the 1901 census but George was born in Capetown in South Africa perhaps they'd been abroad visiting family during the census.

Notes on the back of the photograph on the left suggests this is Polly pictured with her "young son". Was this "Vincent" as a baby?

The problem is that I've only managed to find the births of the two girls and not of a son, though as the family had South African connections, perhaps he was born overseas.

Besides, I'm inclined to agree with my fellow Tweeter that Vincent is a surname and as such could well have no connection with my family at all!

It was then I homed in on the name Nell. Who was Nell? And where had I seen that name before?

Another ferret through my photograph collection unearthed a young woman in a wedding dress, on the reverse of which was written, "Nell, Polly's daughter."

Another conundrum. Polly's daughters were called Mabel Maud and Anna Helena... but maybe...

A quick check in my trusty Oxford dictionary of names, told me that Nell can be a shortened version of Helen or Helena. So this young woman known as Nell surely has to be Anna Helena Talbot.

That's when the penny dropped through the proverbial treacle.

If you've read this blog before, you might recall the post The Mystery of 138 photographs, in which I begin with a photograph of an unknown young woman called Nellie, taken in 1918. If you look closely at the photo on the right and compare it to the one of Nellie below, from that blog post, I think you'll agree it's the same person.

Anna Helena "Nell" Talbot married Herbert Booth in 1918, a few months after this photograph was taken, in Nantwich, Cheshire.

So, one mystery solved, at least! Now back to Mr Vincent...

A brush with death

With 2015 being 70 years since the end of the Second World War, this month sees a particularly poignant anniversary - that of the last Nazi bomb attack responsible for civilian deaths. On 27th March 1945 a V2 rocket (the world's first guided ballistic missile) hit London's East End, killing 135 people, the second worst V2 strike on London, in terms of lives lost. One final V2 would fall later that day in Orpington, Kent killing one person.

London, of course, had already suffered the horrifying effects of mass incendiary bombs at the start of the infamous 'Blitz' (a word derived from the German for 'lightning war') and many other British cities would be targeted, including Coventry, a city not so far from Wednesfield, near Wolverhampton where my mother lived with her family during the war.

The devastation in Coventry in 1940

Although bombing raids on Wolverhampton were nowhere as frequent as in Coventry and Birmingham, the risk was considered great enough to install anti-aircraft guns on the edge of the city after the horrific and infamous attack on Coventry in November 1940, and provision had already been made for air-raid shelters.

My mum used to talk about the warning sirens and the drills at school, diving under their desks and the carrying of gas masks. Under the family's house in Wednesfield was a cellar – a small, damp and dingy space at the bottom of a flight of brick steps which ran underneath the stairs – which served as their own air-raid shelter. But on the day disaster struck, no one was using it.

Why Mum and the family were not in the cellar at the time isn't clear. As Wolverhampton appeared

My mum (right) and her sister

not to be a target in the same way as neighbouring cities, perhaps the adults had become jaded about disrupting their sleep to sit in a cold hole in the ground for no apparent benefit.

But whatever the reason, at some point in the evening, with Mum fast asleep in bed and the adults still downstairs, the house took a hit from a rogue incendiary bomb.

My grandmother, Wyn, rushed upstairs into my mum's bedroom which was at the back of the house above the living room. The bomb had come through the roof and landed at the bottom of Mum's bed, setting the floor alight. Having pulled Mum out of bed, Gran dragged the heavy feather mattress on to the burning floor-boards to smother the flames before scooping Mum up and carrying her downstairs.



Mum's wartime ID card

The fire would eventually burn its way through to the ground floor and land on the piano below but not before Gran was able to bustle Mum into the kitchen at the end of a corridor to the rear of the house. She dumped her on a chair and wrapped her in the old mac used for visiting the outside privy in the rain.

By now Mum could hear shouting as help arrived and very quickly the fire was extinguished before it could take hold, aided, no doubt, by Gran's quick thinking with the feather bed. Another house in the street had been similarly attacked and the assumption was that a German bomber had jettisoned what was left of its load as it headed for home.

As children, my sister and I loved to hear this story, particularly when visiting my Gran's house, as the heart-shaped repair in the plaster where the bomb had come through the ceiling was still clearly visible.

Mum said that the overwhelming memory of that night was shivering at the unwelcome chill of the cold mac Gran had draped around her to keep her warm, as she sat in the kitchen in her nightdress. But I'm sure, rather than the mac, it was the shock of the incident which caused her to shiver!

 

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An excellent and detailed account can be found of Coventry's blitz (including other aspects of the city's history) on the Historic Coventry website.

Images of the London Blitz,  "Germany's Campaign of Terror over London", can be viewed on the All Day.com website.

 

 

 

Unravelling who's who - the groom

OK, blog readers. You're going to work for your supper this time. I need some help here!

 

This year I set myself the challenge of working out who's who in this wonderful wedding photograph. The likelihood of identifying everyone pictured is extremely remote, of course, but it would be lovely to put some names to faces, at least. I have a few notes, albeit rather vague ones, plus a few other photographs, to get me started.

 

So... first off - the groom.

 

Underneath a photocopy of the picture, my late aunt had written,

"Groom and Bride 

Arthur & Lillian

or John & Lizzie. (It looks very much like John)"

The 'John' to whom she refers is her grandfather, my great-grandfather, John Griffiths, or Jack as he was more often known, born in 1861. Arthur, born 1872, was her great uncle, John's youngest
brother - sons of Jabez and Mary Ann Griffiths (nee Dukes).

Clue One: Comparing faces.

Here are Jack and Arthur photographed together (date unknown). Jack is seated.

Brothers John and Arthur Griffiths

The close-ups:

John (Jack), from photo above                                     - the groom -                                           Arthur, from photo above

 Mmmm. Looking at this evidence, the groom looks much more like John than Arthur.

Clue Two: The wedding date.

 

John married Sarah Eliza "Lizzie" Baugh in 1894. Arthur married Lillian Clay in 1903.

 

According to Jayne Shrimpton's excellent book How to Get the Most from Family Pictures, a white tie or bow tie became the norm for men at weddings and other formal occasions during the 1890s, as can be seen in this photograph.

 

For women, elaborate lace and frills on bodices were becoming popular, as were increasingly decorative hats with flowers, ribbons and feathers, along with ever wider brims.

 

On the other hand, the trend for vast hats continued into the next decade and, to quote Jayne, "Bridal styles in fact varied widely during the early 1900s", and having studied the examples in her book and on the internet, it's clear that wedding fashions merge during this period, making it harder to differentiate. Even the clothes of the elder ladies give no real clue as they would be more suited to wearing styles from their own era and men's conventions continue much the same as before.

 

 

So if the fashions of the wedding guests can't help, I would have to return to the photographs and conclude that the marriage is of John Griffiths and Sarah Eliza Baugh.

 

 

However, there's one small fly in the ointment. Why did my aunt limit her suppositions to only two possibilities? All in all, Jabez and Mary Ann Griffiths had seven sons. For all I know, it could be any of them!

 

 

So, dear readers, what do you make of it? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

 

Meanwhile, I'd better get back on the case. Perhaps the other brothers never married...

 

 

 

 

 

Mystery children and missing siblings

The headstone of Thomas Shelley (d.1881) and
his wife Bessey (d.1877) in Claverley churchyard.

This week I've been tracking the wayward offspring of my 3x great-grandparents Thomas and Bessey Shelley, who lived in Staffordshire and Shropshire.

Thomas and Bessey (nee Holland) married in 1840 and in the 1841 census, were living in Cheswadine, Shropshire along with Thomas's widowed mother, Phoebe.

By 1851, they're residing in Adbaston in Staffordshire and have a sizable family -

Emma, aged 9 (my great-great grandmother)
William, aged 7
Mary Ann, aged 6
Eliza, aged 5
Martha, aged 3
and Joanna, aged 1

 

Move on 10 years and the family is scattered. Emma is servant at a farm near Market Drayton, Thomas appears to be working away from home (on census night, at least) as a farm bailiff and Bessey is on her own with Eliza in Church Aston, Shropshire. I'm uncertain about William's whereabouts - it's possible he could be working as an apprentice. But I could find no census record for Martha, Joanna or Mary Ann.

It's common knowledge that childhood in Victorian England was a precarious existence so I checked the death registers and sadly, found both Joanna, who died aged 6 in 1858 and Mary Ann who died in 1860, aged 15. There's also the death of a William Shelley listed in 1859 but as there are several William Shelleys, without further information, I don't know yet if he's Thomas and Bessey's son.

But at least, Martha is alive and well, as she pops up again on the 1871 census back home with her parents in Claverley, Shropshire. Although she gives her surname as Shelley, she'd actually married Charles Dawber in 1868 and has her daughter with her (10 month old Rosa Vida Dawber) who is listed as grand-daughter to Thomas, head of the family.

Also back in the fold is Emma, along with her illegitimate son, my great-grandfather George, aged 1, and there are two new additions to the family, Mary J C, aged 9, and grand-daughter, Agnes, aged 5. But who are Agnes's parents? There's no sign of Eliza, though she may be working away from home. (An Eliza Shelley of the correct age is listed as a servant in a village called Moseley near Brewood, Staffordshire but no place of birth is recorded for her to cross reference.)

 

By 1881, Emma has left home to marry George Wenlock, leaving little George behind with her parents, presumably because Mr Wenlock is not prepared to take on a son who is not his own. But by 1881 Thomas is now a widower, as Bessey died in 1877, the year after Emma got married.

George, aged 11, and Agnes, now 15 are listed, not as grandchildren though, but as son and daughter to Thomas. And another daughter is now back in residence - Eliza - presumably returned to help look after the family following her mother's death. Mary J C, who would now be 19, does not appear. Perhaps she married, though I haven't located her yet.

As I discovered a few months ago (see blog post Out of the woodwork and on to the tree), Emma had another illegitimate son called Charles, born in 1873, who was adopted by a local family. And it transpires that she was not the only sister to have a child out of wedlock, as Agnes's birth certificate shows that her mother was the unmarried Martha Shelley. No father is recorded.

Like George Wenlock, it seems Charles Dawber was not prepared to take on another man's daughter and Martha has no option but to leave Agnes in the care of her parents when she married.

If the William listed in the death records was Thomas and Bessey's son, it would mean that Thomas and Bessey lost a child on three consecutive years. Even if it wasn't, losing Joanna and then Mary Ann, would be traumatic enough. Did their loss influence their decision to take on the illegitimate offspring of their daughters? Or did they do so simply out of a sense of duty?

I'm not yet clear as to the parentage of Mary "J C". Although she's recorded as a daughter in the 1881 census, Bessey would have been 46 when she was born. While that's perfectly feasible, I do wonder, given that the 1881 census records George and Agnes as son and daughter when we know they weren't, whether Mary J C's mother wasn't Bessey at all. And if not, who was she?

I can see I've got more digging to do before this muddle is unravelled!