Genealogy Chat

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I would like to share a success story. Sorry if I rant on a bit but am just so overjoyed. My ancestor Thomas Roberts married in London in July 1864. He was a widower, servant, father also called Thomas Roberts and also a servant. One of his later children was baptised Elizabeth Emily Goodacre Roberts in 1868. For months I had been searching for Thomas prior to 1864. His ages on 1871 and 1881 censuses didnt accord, yet the county of birth, Kent did but the parishes didnt. I eventually found a Thomas Roberts aged 47 in 1861 living in Brighton, Sussex, 15 miles south of where his much younger wife Mary Ann Walder, my ggg gran then lived. He was a servant and Chelsea Pensioner born in Kent, married to Esther. Occ and birth county tallied with my Thomas. Esther died in Nov 1863 in Brighton, 8 months before my Thomas wed in London in 1864. I sent off for the birth cert of Ann Elizabeth Roberts Thomas daughter by his first wife Esther in 1851. His army regiment was stated so I got his discharge papers from the PRO, and his signature on his discharge papers in 1856 matched the signature that my Thomas wrote when he wed in 1864, as I had the GRO copy of the cert but also got a copy of the original from the London Metropolitan Archives. My Thomas died in London in 1889 and the age 76, accorded with that of the Thomas Roberts who was in Brighton in 1861. So born about 1813 Ann Elizabeth Roberts was found on 1871 census working as a servant in Bermondsey, London. When she wed in in 1873 she described her dad Thomas as a soap maker which is an occupation my Thomas had 13 years later in 1886. Even with all this proof that the Thomas in 1861 in Brighton was my Thomas who wed in London in 1864 I still searched for clues then I found a Frederick Goodacre Roberts death in Mar Q 1861 in Brighton. I obtained his birth cert and he was a son of Thomas and Esther. Goodacre had to of been a name in Thomas's family. That proved he was the same man once and for all with my Thomas who wed in 1864 having given Goodacre as a middle name for one of his children by his second marriage. To cap it all, I found Thomas parents marriage, a Thomas Roberts to Ann Goodacre in 1807 in Kent by license. Thos was a servant. That finally confirmed I had been tracing the same Thomas Roberts all along. His baptism in 1813 was to Thomas and Ann Roberts. So my ggg gran was 26 years younger than Thomas. Ben

Well done Ben - you certainly seem to have dotted the i's and crossed the t's with this one. Congratulations, P.

Too true, middle names can be very helpful, even if you don't realise it at the time. When I first started my family tree, I discovered that one of my Dad's brother's had the middle name of 'Escott'. My Dad had no idea why and none of his 7 siblings were alive to tell me. I knew that my Grandma's maiden name was Davis (Dad's mother) and she was one of 13 children. Grandma's father was William...Can you imagine how many William Davis's there are? Anyway, after a bit more research I then discovered that Grandma's Grandmother was born an Escott...So now I know why my Uncle Richard had the name middle name of Escott!