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Hi
As the Success Board is only for successes through GR I thought that I'd start a post with our own successes and triumphs and theories that have turned out to be true. I thought that I'd post mine about my great, great grandmothers father, and how she was initially born illegitimate.
My 2xgreat grandmother Mary Ann Kate Roberts (1863-1943) was born Mary Ann Walder on the 31st December 1863 in Slaugham, Sussex, the illegitimate daughter of Mary Ann Walder born in 1839 in Slaugham, the daughter of a pretty successful wheelwright.
The birth was registered on the 28th January 1864. Three days later, Mary Ann Walder Snr's grandad John died. But by mid 1864, Mary Ann had moved to London and married a Thomas Roberts, a widowed 51 year old servant and footman on the 25th July 1864 in West Hackney Church, Stoke Newington, London. On the 6th November 1864 the baby was baptised "Mary Ann Kate Roberts, daughter of Thomas & Mary Ann Roberts, a servant" at the same church in London. I needed to find more out first.
This was just over 3 years after the 1861 census. Mary Ann Walder was at home in Slaugham, Sussex in 1861. I could not at first find Thomas Roberts on the 1861 census at all, esp not in London. But, I found him after a little while in 1861 in Sussex, the same county Mary Ann lived in. He lived not too far away from her in Brighton, and was a 47 year old Domestic Servant, wed to Esther and had a daughter Ann aged 9. No other children. His details tied in with my Thomas Roberts.
I later found that Esther Roberts was still alive when Mary Ann Walder would have fallen pregnant which was around the spring of 1863. Esther had died in the Dec Qtr of 1863 in Brighton. When the cert arrived, she had died aged 42 on 14 November 1863 of "Phthisis, for years, certified". This meant that Mary Ann Walder was about 7 months pregnant at the time and it explained and just occurred to me why she had the baby born as illegitimate just afterwards.
Due to Thomas's occupation as a servant, and the length of Esther's illness, it appears that when Esther was really ill, Thomas was lovers with Mary Ann and had got her pregnant while his wife was laid up dying of TB. Thanks to the dates of events, it appears that once Mary Ann's grandad John Walder died on 31 January 1864, Thos & Mary Ann then swiftly moved to London inbetween say end of February and early June 1864 if they wed in July and giving how many weeks it took to arrange a wedding. This must have been to escpae a scandal back in Sussex.
Thomas's elder daughter Ann went to live with Thomas's sister in Bermondsey.
Ben
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nudge
Anyone had any other success stories similar to mine?
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I also changed a family legend.
The story went that gt granddad John was working for de Lesseps on the Panama Canal when his first son James was born, as the mother Annie did not make it back to England in time. I decided to find out more about the canal and discovered that de Lesseps first failed attempt was 1881-1889. Since James was born in 1868 that meant the legend was wrong. A couple of relatives tried insisting that it was true and when I pointed out that the dates did not compute they demanded to know what the parents were doing in America in 1868. I suspect John could have been helping build the trans America railway, although I have no proof of that as yet.
A younger son was b in Mt Albert, Auckland, NZ in Feb 1881 and his b was registered by Annie who gave usual place of address as Te Aroha, which is quite some distance away. I then remembered as a teenager hearing somebody say that John had gone overseas to work leaving Annie living in a tent on a farm at Te Aroha, with several young children. Bingo, that is probably when John went to Panama.
An American member of a website I am on found the arrival of John and Annie in America in 1867, 2 weeks after their marriage in Leeds. John is listed on the manifest as a mechanic, as were some others on the manifest, so they were obviously going over for some big job. The member also found for me that Annies father, stepmother and sister had gone to America in 1861, after the English census which is the last place I had seen them. Annies sister married twice and has descendents but I have not been able to make contact yet.
Huia.
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When I started out researching my tree I turned to my Mother to find out about her family.
All my Mother knew about her paternal Grandmother was that she died young, she had Irish blood and her name was Cordelia. So I searched the indexes for my Grandfather's birth and ordered the certificate. When it arrived I found that Cordelia's maiden name was Macaree.
Well it certainly sounded Irish so I looked for the marriage certificate in the hope that her age would be on it. I knew that my Grandfather was the second child and was born in 1903 so I looked for the marriage from 1901 backwards. (I was experienced enough to know that in my family the first child was usually born about 6 months after the marriage)
I didn't have to look far. The marriage happened in June 1901 and when I received the certificate it indicated that Cordelia was 19 when she married.
This was back in the dark ages, before census and BMD's were online so it meant another trip to the Family Record Centre to look for Cordelia's birth. Thankfully it was there in 1882 in Ashford, Kent. Once I'd found that out I trawled the 1881 for Ashford and found that there was only one Macaree family there, James, Matilda and their children all born London and Kent!
I've since got the family back to the late 1700's and there still is no Irish blood but enough evidence to show that they were originally Hugenots!
There are lots of other stories that I have been able to prove (the catmeat man, the decapitated great aunt and I found the child my grandfather claimed benefits for who had died in infancy) Theres also a lot of stories that have been very wide off the mark.
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