Find Ancestors

Just to note that Margaret posted a follow-up in another thread:

http://genesreunited.co.uk/boards.asp?wci=thread&tk=973507

Hi folks,
thanks for your help i couldn't have found that in a month of sundays. i'll get onto it right away and let you know. by the way,i know i said i was retired but your jobs sound the next best thing! got any vancancies?!
Thanks a trillion. I'll know who to contact for the paternal side of which i am stuck. By the way i've just bought credits for Ancestry.

3rd grandchild due any day now so may dissappear for a few weeks-but i'll be back!!

cheekily yours.
Margaret

Damn work does get in the way doesnt it!

This is just one for the ages, isn't it?

You gotta just keep thinking sideways. When the only Charles birth I found that matched the Charles Crawford in Gaza's household was named Charles Carter Inness, I just ran sideways with that ... and it worked.

I see everyone is studiously ignoring my Hills and Moncks. ;) But that's how I trained in this discipline. Started out at the very beginning looking for the birth of my Ernest Augustus Monck c1852. Some genealogist years ago, retained by my mum's cousin, had come up blank, except for the report, as we heard it third hand, that he might have been born in Ireland, Cornwall or Germany. Well duh. There are Moncks in Ireland (the Viscounts, e.g.), Gen. George Monck came from Cornwall, and Monck could be an anglicized German name. Great.

If it weren't for the fact that both Ancestry and the Archives have Ernest transcribed in 1901 as "Morick" (and his kids as "Mark"), I would have found the birthplace, Cornwall, to start with. As it turned out, the 1901 census entry was the very last thing I found.

Searching for his birth by given names in case of mistranscribed surname, I found an Ernest Augustus Hill in Cornwall. Searching for his daughter Ada who died in infancy, I found her to be Ada Lennox Monck born 1894. And because BMDs weren't yet separated at Ancestry, I also found the marriage of an Ada Lennox Monck in 1875. And lo, Ernest Hill had a sister Ada. Huge coincidences began to pile up, and eventually, after months of labour, became a coherent theory that was confirmed by every trick I tried.

Oops, work has just arrived that must be done urgently! Dang.

Oh well done, sorry Ive been really busy earning my living! Plus doing my dog rescue voluntary work!

So there may be something in this after all, havent read it all through but will in a sec.


Ah and now I understand Margarets pm to me. Rotten GR had buggered up the posting so we didnt get it all - well geniuses us that we managed to work it out at all and YES you are a genius and very tenacious finding that birth but what a strange one!

So Margaret, you MUST buy that certificate from GRO online for £7 using the reference given above and you MUST tell us the outcome.

Well done guys, a truly worthy job. xxx

Oh, by the way.

You realize that you are now required to solve the mystery of Mary Emma Hill born in Jersey around 1843, supposedly the daughter of Francis Hoare Hill born 1819 in Tamerton Foliott, Devon, and Sarah Emma Bond, born in 1819 in St Stephens by Saltash, Cornwall, who never seem to have married, and who (Mary Emma) subsequently had many children with John Cheshire, whom she never seems to have married, unless she did so under some other surname that I still can't find anyhow ... whose brother Ernest Augustus Hill, born 1851 in Linkinhorne, Cornwall, and sister Ada Lennox Monck Hill, born 1854 same, who was an actress at the Adelphi Theatre in London in 1870-71, changed their surname to Monck sometime between 1873 and 1875 ... what was the question? Oh yes; who the heck was Mary Emma Cheshire née Hill whose family thought she was Montmorency??

I'll be waiting!

;)

First, before you get any more answers, you must say:

You are a genius and a truly wonderful person, Kathryn B!!!

Okay, we'll assume you've done that. ;)

(edit -- we crossed in the post. Total respect is quite satisfactory!)

GRO is General Registry Office -- the place where all births, marriages and deaths had to be registered starting in 1837. An index was prepared of all names in alphabetical order for each quarter -- so there are four indexes per year. The index lists surname, given name and registration district, and the volume and page of ... I actually don't know of what. The books in that particular registration district, I guess. But it's the info you need for ordering certificates.

I'm Canadian, and this system has always struck me as particularly unwieldy. I'm just grateful that someone is indexing it and making it searchable. I do my bit by correcting their mistakes. ;) Many dozens of mistakes I've corrected ... most for complete strangers' ancestors I run across with mistakes in their transcriptions.

FreeBMD is the group that is transcribing all of the records, from the mainly handwritten lists, and putting the data in a searchable database. You access it here:

http://www.freebmd.org.uk - click the red "search", then do what you want to do.

Spouse's and mother's surnames are only specified from mid-1911 onward, unfortunately.

I found that birth record at Ancestry -- because Ancestry does "fuzzy" searches -- it finds things that look like what you're looking for, e.g. it found Inniss when I searched for Inness. FreeBMD doesn't do that so well.

If you go to FreeBMD and search for a birth with given name "Euzajena" and surname "Inniss" -- you don't need to specify any date or place, 'cause there will only be one of them -- you will get the data I gave you in my previous message.

I've already checked the image; the vol and page numbers are correct. But you can click on the spectacles icon beside the name to see the image at FreeBMD (it probably won't be as clear as I'm seeing at Ancestry). You can see how someone who didn't know what s/he was looking at would have read it as s/he did. But I knew what I was looking for, so I knew what it actually said.

Now you order the birth cert.

http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/

And when you have got it, you come back here, click on "my threads", find this thread, and tell us all the answer!

For us who are interested, when we click on "my threads" after that, we'll see that there's something new in this thread because it will have popped up to the top of the list.

I know I'm dying to know the answer! Who were her parents, and how did she end up being reared by Ellen Parker and Charles Crawford and going by the name Crawford all her life??

Now get going!

Kathryn
Totally gobsmacked now!!
Thank you so much.

absolute respect to you.
Regards
Margaret

Hello kathryn again,

sorry to be a pest but what GRO stand for?

totally ignorant me

LOOK WHAT I'VE FOUND!!!!


Name: Euzajena Rosina Lenacharle Mabelle Carter Inniss
Year of Registration: 1856
Quarter of Registration: Oct-Nov-Dec
District: Chorlton
County: Lancashire
Volume: 8c
Page: 499 (click to see others on page)



It actually says Gazajena Rosina Lena Charletta Belle Carter (trails off a bit for the Charletta Belle).

Edit: It probably says "Inness" -- an "e" with a random dot -- it's between an Inness and an Inniss, so it's hard to say. ;) The FreeBMD transcription is "Inniss" -- but when ordering the cert you might want to note that it could be "Inness".

Searched births for given name "carter" surname "inness", after finding that Charles.


Also:

Name: Ellen Louisa Carter Inness
Year of Registration: 1858
Quarter of Registration: Oct-Nov-Dec
District: St Martin in The Fields
County: Middlesex
Volume: 1a
Page: 295


Ta da. Now you can find out who her parents were!!

Hello kathryn B,

let me explain. I've taken up this task from my daughter as she is a new mum and no longer has time and i'm retired ,ha,ha. My daughter passed on what she had from Ancestry web site, this is how she obtained 1881 census, sometime ago. It's difficult trying to pick up things from someone else. I must admit I've been working on the other side of the family that has mysteries too.

it's totally time consuming isn't it,but life must go on etc etc . Is there a name for people like us?

I must admit I've been thrown by the family insisting that either Gaz was French or her daughter Violet. which now appears to be untrue. How can they have got it so wrong. You must admit though it is an unusual name.
hope you can see what i've written about 1881 census, if not please point me in the right direction, i certainly didn't mean to be secretive there's no point, it's only ignorance on my part.

Regards
Margaret

And this is them in 1841:


Name: Ellen Parker
Age: 3
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1838
Gender: Female
Where born: Cheshire, England

Civil Parish: Astbury
Hundred: Northwich
County/Island: Cheshire
Country: England

Registration district: Congleton
Sub-registration district: Congleton

Jas McMahon 30
Ann Parker 13
Ellen Parker 3
John Parker 35
John Parker 10
Margt Parker 6
Mary A Parker 30
Ann Wright 60

(JaneyCanuck, formerly KathrynB)

Although in 1861 it says that Ellen Crawford (mother of Gaza) was born in Gateshead, Durham, I wonder whether this isn't her in 1851:


Name: Ellen Parker
Age: 12
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1839
Relation: Daughter
Father's Name: John
Mother's Name: Mary Ann
Gender: Female
Where born: Congleton, Cheshire, England

Civil Parish: Congleton
Ecclesiastical parish: St Peter
County/Island: Cheshire
Country: England

Registration district: Congleton
Sub-registration district: Church Hulme
ED, institution, or vessel: 6i
Household schedule number: 122

Ann Parker 23
Ellen Parker 12
John Parker 45 - born in Ireland
John Parker 20
Margeret Parker 15
Mary Ann Parker 43

And the plot thickens -- this has to be the birth of the John C Parker in the household in 1861:


Name: John Charles Carter Inness
Year of Registration: 1859
Quarter of Registration: Oct-Nov-Dec
District: Brighton
County: Sussex, East Sussex
Volume: 2b
Page: 225


Looks like maybe Ellen had a pre-existing marriage.

-- note: it looks like "Carter" on the image, but I wonder whether it wasn't really "Parker" on the original.

Hi Margaret!

Me, I pay for the dreaded Ancestry. Love it and hate it, but it works if you know how to work it, as the 12-steppers say. ;)

You have to be creative. I searched for given name GAZ* and nothing else, at one point.

Sometimes I used FreeBMD instead of Ancestry for searching for births marriages deaths. I do it particularly for marriages before 1911, when the spouses' surnames were not connected in the GRO. At FreeBMD, you can search for a name -- given name, surname or both -- that appears on the same page as another name -- given name, surname or both.

So I found Charles Crawford in 1851, unmarried:

ame: Charles Crawford
Age: 30
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1821
Relation: Son
Father's Name: John
Mother's Name: Martha
Gender: Male
Where born: Congleton, Cheshire, England

Civil Parish: Congleton
Ecclesiastical parish: St James
County/Island: Cheshire
Country: England

and searched at FreeBMD for a Charles Crawford who may have married an Ellen -- i.e. is on the same page of the GRO as an Ellen -- anywhere, anytime from Mar 1851 to Dec 1861, for good measure. There was only one result.

So here's her parents' marriage:

Marriages Sep 1861
Blackshaw Tom Edwin Congleton 8a 351
**Crawford Charles Congleton 8a 351
HANCOCK Sarah Congleton 8a 351
**Parker Ellen Congleton 8a 351


-- note they were married *after* the birth of Gaza and John, but were living together by at least as early as the spring of 1861, in the census.

Hello Heather,
I'm bowled over, I didn't think anyone would bother with this newbee. how come you two have done things so quickly when it's taken me months to get this far.

According to 1881 census
Herbert Evans -head -29y- b.west Wittering
Gara Evans-25y-b. Brighton
Herbert -2y- .b. "
Gertrude-6mths
Ellen Taylor - servant- 14ys

as a matter of interest how did you access 1881 as Genes Reunited don't appear to have it.

I thought I'd searched 1861 and 1871,couldn't find it there, i'll have to revisit them. I must admit I didn't search for Inness as I coudn't read it and dismissed it as being christian name. it certainly looks as though,we're on to something here. are you saying that Margaret Inness is the mother of Gazajena? I'm trying to get my head around it.I'll have to check dates to see if it's pos(you prob have already). another snippet- you said Gazajena sounds Italian, we have been told that there could be Italian blood in family and certainly that colouring would make sense now.

i can't thank you both enough for putting me back on track. I'm just puzzled as husbands mother(now deceased) always insisted that her mother was educated at the Notre Dame Di Sion in Paris. I think now it must have been a local school of that name,or perhaps they're all fantasists!

Can I be cheeky and ask if you know how to obtain her will as this might tell a lot as I understand there was a falling out over it.

Thanks again for everything.

Kind Regards
Margaret
p.s Hope work hasn't suffered too much!

Here she is in 1871:


Name: Gaza Crawford
Age: 14
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1857
Relation: Niece
Gender: Female
Where born: Manchester

Civil Parish: Brighton
Town: Brighton
County/Island: Sussex
Country: England

Registration district: Brighton
Sub-registration district: St Peter
ED, institution, or vessel: 22
Household schedule number: 109

Elizabeth Carr 60
Henry Carr 66
Gaza Crawford 14


And of course, you ask the perennial question, Heather ... why do people not just spit out what they know, instead of keeping it all to themselves like they're testing us?

Sometimes they don't know -- but one way or the other, I wish they'd say!


Oh, ps -- what we do have here is the pain in the bum GR system doing its thing again.

Filter the board by surname Crawford, and you'll see that Margaret *did* give that information. We just can't see it.

If this is the right girl - LOL and we need Margaret to confirm - I am a bit confused why she didnt know what her birth place was or give us more of the 1881 details.?

I want to play! Since I should be working too. ;)

From the info in that list of marriages, this is her in 1881:


Name: Gara Evans
Age: 25
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1856
Relation: Wife
Spouse's Name: Herbert
Gender: Female
Where born: Brighton, Sussex, England

Civil Parish: Brighton
County/Island: Sussex
Country: England

Street address: 16 New York St
Condition as to marriage: Married
Occupation: Household Duties

Registration district: Brighton
Sub-registration district: St Peter
ED, institution, or vessel: 42

Gara Evans 25
Gertrude Evans
Herbert Evans 29
Herbert Evans 2
Ellen Taylor 14


It caught my eye because of the born-in-France part.

I have a mystery in the 1870s, when my gr-grfather from Cornwall and his younger sister changed their surname from Hill to Monck (one of the sister's given names at birth). We descendants in Canada only ever knew him as Monck, and had no idea he had family (heh), let alone that it was called Hill. His tale had to do with being descended from (or the son of ...) the black sheep younger brother of a Viscount Monck.

I've never ever found anyone else from that family -- until last month. From notes I had added in the censuses at Ancestry, the grx2 granddaughter of my gr-grfather's older sister contacted me. I was gobsmacked and ecstatic. It turned out she knew nothing from before her ancestor's marriage, let alone that her name was Hill.

*Her* family's story was that the grx2 grmother's birth surname was Montmorency, and she was from France! Now in her case, this could be because she was born in Jersey, per all the censuses. I've never found a record, and still don't know whether she or her younger siblings, or any or none of them, were actually children of both of the parents named on the others' birth certs.

Okay, too much babbling. My new cousin suspects that the tale arose from some incident in which her ancestor was putting on airs and someone said Oh là là, Miss Montmorency! I wonder, given the family mystery I already have, whether there wasn't something to it ... wink.


So the question in Margaret's case is -- where did this info/story about Ms. Crawford being born in France come from? It could be a tall tale, but you never know, there could be something there!

Nudge for Margaret