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Kathryn

Re. the birth and marriage records already ruled out, I didn't think it would get to that point so early on!

Nat

Thanks Kathleen

Nathaniel,

I'm sorry if you think it was a "cold" response from me.

I was attempting to do as Kathleen said .... alert other people that there was more than one thread on the topic, and that they should in fact check to see what had been found before spending time ........ and possibly MONEY .... searching through the records for you.


I say MONEY because some people will use their own credits to search on pay-per-view sites in an attempt to help others.

In fact, many of us do work on all the boards ...... and some people get very upset when they find that all the information they have managed to find is already there on the thread on another board. They feel they could have more profitablyspent the time helping someone else instead of repeating what has been found.


I hope you understand now



sylvia

Nathaniel, people here who lend a hand do it because we have a ball poking through family histories, and because we just like to help. We've all been helped ourselves.

You would perhaps be amazed at the "cold" response to the help offered.

I think that for every 10 people on whose questions I spend time, maybe - maybe - one offers any sort of acknowledgement at all, whether in the thread s/he started or by PM. Most threads just sit here, with replies from people providing requested info, and their originators never seem to give another thought to them -- or if they do read them, they have nothing to say about what they've been given, or asked.

The helpers are in fact getting pretty tired of the rudeness of the helpees overall, I say as merely a general observation.

Part of the problem is the forum itself. It is essentially incomprehensible. There is no rhyme nor reason to where one should post things. Efforts were made to persuade people to keep this particular board to what it had been used for in its earlier incarnation -- finding living people. To no avail.

I find it's the rank newbies who tend to post in the trying-to-find forum, so I tend to hang out here and offer what I can for them. I'm currently making an effort to persuade everybody in that category to learn how to use FreeBMD so they can go fishing for themselves, instead of me giving them a fish.

Your post contained all the right stuff -- everything you knew, and what you have speculated. Another problem here is people posting inaccurate info, say, and then coming back ten posts later to say oh, I checked with mum, and dear old Aunt Sally was actually called Sarah, and she was born in 1900, not 1910, and ... blah blah, all the things that should have been disclosed, accurately, in the first place.

Well, actually, you didn't. I did the searches to find the Harry Bennett + Ann Allen marriage, and the 1854 Harry Bennett birth, when you had already ruled them out ...

Sylvia was attempting to alert other users to the fact that someone else might be working on your problem. It was absolute proper for her to do that. And as one of the people working on it, I appreciated her alert.

I'm still persuaded that if you think about it, you will realize the problem that multiple postings cause, although it might not have occurred to you when you first posted.


Meanwhile ... all the Harry Bennetts who died between 1866 and 1871 were 4 years old or younger at death (search done for Harry Bennett deaths 1856-1871 at FreeBMD).

That leaves a couple of dozen others before 1866 whose ages are not stated in the index (most of whom were probably also very young). None of them seems to be anywhere in the vicinity of your Ann.

Do you take "coachman" to mean a household employee, or an inter-city transportation worker?


Seriously -- I think unmarried mother is the most likely explanation. And a very common one at that. Still doesn't give you a record of his birth, though. I wonder whether she was unmarried when he was born, she married, he took his stepfather's name (also not uncommon) ...

The possible Harrison connection ... could his given name have been Harrison?


He could have been registered under a surname that was either Ann's birth surname or her partner's surname, then reverting to Bennett. There are 3 Harrys born in King's Norton in mid-1853 and early 1854 who would fit the bill for c1854 in the censuses. And a slew of Harrys in Birmingham/Aston.


Time for me to do some work. I just hate to leave a puzzle unsolved. Check out

http://genesreunited.co.uk/boards.asp?wci=thread&tk=973506

if you're curious.

Sincere apologies, Kathryn! I didn't realise it was unfair.

Hi Kathryn,

Thank you for your reply, and all the thought you've given to this!

I've not been able to identify Harry and Ann's marriage unfortunately. I thought I had, with the certificate of Harry Bennett and Ann Allen, 10th April 1848, but it gives Ann as 35, widow, father: Thomas Bates.

I've also searched high and low for a birth certificate, to no avail. The closest match was the one you identify, Henry Bennett, first quarter of 1854, but the parents were William and Esther Bennett, and William was a gardener.

I hadn't considered that Ann might be a single mum, and that Harry Snr might be fictitious...it is quite plausible. As is the Ann Harrison thought...

Could the Harry Bennett marrying in 1848 be the Harry we're after... and perhaps Ann Allen died and there was another Ann... Or is that entirely a red herring? The 1848 Harry was listed as a clerk on the marriage certificate...

You're not getting it, Nathaniel. And it has nothing to do with whether it's "okay with" Sylvia, as you, I suspect sarcastically, ask.

Yes, different people look at different boards.

And that's why it is not fair to other people to post multiple threads on different boards asking the same thing. Surely you see that -- you might have three different sets of people slaving away at your question, doing *exactly the same work*, i.e. wasting time in the case of any two sets of people, because someone else is already doing it or has already done it.

If you must do that, then you are the one who should point out that you are asking the question on another board as well, and give the url for the other threads.

I take it that all the time I spent trying to solve your puzzle was wasted. Or maybe you're composing your reply as I type ....

Yes it is Sylvia, I hope that's ok with you! I hypothesised that maybe different people look at different boards here, but you obviously look at all three! :-)


Ed. Apologies for the rashness here, I was tired.

Grasping at straws, if we look for Ann born in Kenilworth in the IGI, there is this one, Allen as in the marriage list:


ANN ALLEN
Birth: 14 MAR 1818
Christening: 17 MAY 1818 Kenilworth, Warwick, England
Father: THOMAS ALLEN
Mother: MARY HANDS


-- with father Thomas, as in your family name tradition.


I'm not seeing what you're seeing in 1861:

Ann Bennett, "aged 38, but 'born Kenilworth' rather than Aston/Birmingham; a servant, and...married."

Oh yes. Good old Ancestry scribes:

Anne Bennett
abt 1823
Knebworth, Warwickshire, England
Servant
Edgbaston Warwickshire


In 1861, Harry Jr. was in Harborne, which is near Edgbaston.


Here's an alternative Ann Bennett in 1851:


Name: Ann Bennett
Age: 29
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1822
Relation: Servant
Gender: Female
Where born: Birmingham
Condition as to marriage: unmarried

Civil Parish: Rushton Grange
Ecclesiastical parish: Cobridge
County/Island: Staffordshire
Country: England

Registration district: Wolstanton
Sub-registration district: Burslem
ED, institution, or vessel: 2a
Household schedule number: 174

Ann Bennett 29
Frederick W Griffith 12
Dorothy Hitchin 56
Isaac Hitchin 59


A bit far afield perhaps.


Who are these Harrisons in 1861? It's interesting that Harriet was born in Harborne but Edward in Birmingham. They are both called "Head" and both apparently entered as unmarried. But I wonder whether they're these:

Marriages Mar 1856
Brown Samuel Birmingham 6d 198
Burk Bridget Birmingham 6d 198
Harrison Edward Birmingham 6d 198
Walker Harriet Birmingham 6d 198


In 1871 Edward and Harriet Harrison are in Harborne, married. Edward's age in 1861 might be 29 rather than 24. In 1851 he's the son of Edward, in Harborne. So they must have married there.

His trajectory parallel's Ann's somewhat. Can't find a marriage for them in Staffordshire -- the Harrison household was in Birmingham in 1841. I'm just wondering whether Edward or Harriet was a sibling of Ann.

There is indeed this person in Harborne in 1841:


Name: Ann Harrison
Age: 20
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1821
Gender: Female
Where born: Staffordshire, England

Civil Parish: Harborne
Hundred: South Offlow
County/Island: Staffordshire
Country: England

Registration district: Kings Norton
Sub-registration district: Harborne

Name Age
Ann Harrison 20
Alexander Simson 20
Anna Simson 25


... but no indication of a Harrison-Bennett marriage.


Muddling along, getting nowhere.

This is also on Records Office AND on Tips Board

I love a puzzle. ;)

You don't say whether you've identified Harry and Ann's marriage, so I'll assume not.

For Harry Bennett marrying Ann 1845 to 1855 in Warwickshire, we have possible:


Marriages Jun 1848
ADAMS Ann Birmingham 16 342
ALLEN Ann Birmingham 16 342
Bennett Harry Birmingham 16 342
FORD James Birmingham 16 342
INGLEBY Sarah Ann Birmingham 16 342
Macfarling Jane Birmingham 16 342
MACKFARLING Jane Birmingham 16
Stanley Thomas Birmingham 16 342
Woodfield Francis Birmingham 16 342


More than one possible, unfortunately -- Adams, Allen and maybe even Ingleby. And of course the two most possible are damnably common names. Just no hope of identifying her/them in 1841, at least w/o a father's name.

And in 1841 there isn't an Ann Adams or Allen in Kenilworth, so that clue doesn't help. And there are a gazillion other Anns of about the right age in Kenilworth, of course.

Now of course this is a little bit cart before horse -- if you think that marriage might be Harry, getting the cert would tell which Ann it was, if it was an Ann.

Do we even have Harry's birth cert to know his parents' names? It seems not. I assume you're taking his father's name as Harry from his marriage cert. Hmm. Are you wondering at all whether that Harry was fictitious -- and Harry Jr. was actually born to an unmarried Ann Bennett?


In 1881 we have these Harry Bennetts born in Birmingham:

Harry Bennett Fanny abt 1854 Birmingham, Warwickshire, England Head Birmingham Warwickshire

Ambrose Harry Bennett Alice abt 1855 High Gate Birmingham, Warwickshire, England Head Aston Warwickshire

Harry Bennett Thomas,
Elizabeth abt 1857 Birmingham Son Aston Warwickshire


And in the births, we have, in that place and date range:


Ambrose Harry Bennett 1855 Jan-Feb-Mar Aston Warwickshire

Harry Bennett 1856 Apr-May-Jun Aston Warwickshire

Harry Somerville Bennett 1859 Apr-May-Jun Kings Norton (To 1912) Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire


Nothing that matches your Harry well. And no Thomas Henry Bennett.

But there is:

Name: Henry Bennett
Year of Registration: 1854
Quarter of Registration: Jan-Feb-Mar
District: Birmingham (1837-1924)
County: Warwickshire
Volume: 6d
Page: 19

and I think I might order that one up to see who the parents were, or parent was.

Still looking ...

I wonder if anyone can solve this puzzle!

I have traced my mum's ancestors back to Harry Bennett, born 1854: He married Fanny Daniels in 1876 at Harborne Parish Church and they lived in Cumberland Street, Birmingham until the mid-1880s before moving to Coventry, where Harry died 6th Jan 1891, aged 36. Fanny was left with 6 children, aged between a few months and 13.

Now, in 1901, Fanny had with her Ann Bennett, 78, widow, mother-in-law, living on own means, along with 3 of the children. Ann died later that year. Ann was listed as having been born in Aston, Birmingham. I've traced Ann to Edgbaston in 1881 and 1891 where she was a cook to the Avery family who manufactured weighing machines. I've also traced her to 1871 where she was a cook for another family. In each of these censuses she's listed as a widow.
I've traced her to 1861 too, I think, aged 38, but 'born Kenilworth' rather than Aston/Birmingham; a servant, and...married.

I was perplexed as to the whereabouts of Harry before 1876, but eventually found him, I think - in 1861 in Harborne, as a boarder, aged 7, to Edward and Harriet Harrison, and in 1871 in Birmingham, also as a boarder, and just round the corner from his mother, aged 17, to George and Sarah Jane Higgs.

Harry and Fanny's marriage certificate gives his father as Harry Bennett, coachman, deceased.

So here is the puzzle. Where is this elusive Harry Bennett to be found? He was alive in 1854, in order to be a father to Harry (Jnr), and was alive in 1861, apparently, but had died by 1871. His occupation was a coachman... So did he travel? How might I find him?

Harry and Fanny's eldest son (my great great grandfather, 1877-1955) was known as Harry, but his full name was Thomas Henry, and the same applies to his son Thomas Henry (1899-1985) and to his son Ralph Henry (1926-). But I've no evidence that Harry bn. 1854 was anything but 'Harry'. Or his father for that matter.

I've searched the 1861 census, and found 7 possible identities - all married and all born in or living in Warwickshire. One of them is a coachman, Thomas, 39, born Coventry. However, a quick search reveals his wife, Elizabeth, in a nearby village, with his name also at that address, but crossed out. The others are, variously, tailor, needle painter, stoker in the navy, painter, collier and travelling sawyer.

So...any ideas!? Where might Harry Bennett be?