Genealogy Chat

Oh, and another thing: John Macey aged 30 in Hertford in 1851 was a Brick maker. And so was Hannah Harris's father Charles when she got married in 1892.

When I started out on this lark, one of the first things I did was to see what I had in the way of certificates. One certificate did not fit the pattern, it was for a daughter Jane born to Charles Macey in 1871 at 4 Middle Street, Shacklewell, Middx. I am having trouble locating the birth record for my great grandfather, Alfred Worboys (or Warboys) whose birth date from the 1881 and 1891 censuses was around 1848 in Hertford. So over to Hertford I went a couple of weeks ago, didn't get much further with Alfred, but on the 1851 Hertford census happened to spot a Macey family in the next road to where a possible sibling of Alfred was born. The other person whose birth record is iffy is my grandmother, Hannah Jane Harris, I have her marriage certificate. No Hannah Harrises on freebmd or familysearch matched. So I wondered if she had dropped the Hannah and was just known as Jane for the 1881 census. And lo and behold, there is a Jane Harris aged 10. And the address is: 4 Middle Street, Shacklewell! So: did the Maceys and the Worboys both emigrate from Hertford to London; could Jane Macey have become Jane Harris by one parent's death and remarriage; did the Maceys change their name to Harris?the plot thickens!