RootsChat.Com
England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => London and Middlesex => Topic started by: bugbear on Tuesday 29 October 13 11:14 GMT (UK)
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The tree I have been building for SO's data has grown nicely.
Gramps tells me I have:
689 people
2080 events
1130 citations
862 pieces of digital media
Impressive, eh?
Sadly...
On one line, the BICE family, I hit a roadblock with an direct ancestor born in 1862. John Thomas Bice (only the great grandfather of my partner, so not even super distant).
Now, this man is sort of famous (in a small way) in genealogical circles.
When I first encountered him, I hit google, and found:
2004 - http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/BICE/2004-08/1091961827
2004 - http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=14860.0 (Shanko)
2006 - http://boards.ancestry.co.uk/surnames.bice/277.1/mb.ashx
(follow-up came there none on that last one)
Now, his data in baptism, census and wedding records is fine, all the way back to his presence (as a lodger) in his father in law's home, (1881 census) age 17. (Class: RG11; Piece: 1385; Folio: 49; Page: 21; GSU roll: 1341337.)
His claimed DOB is 1862, Stoke Newington. Sadly, there is no record in the ENTIRE country of a John Thomas Bice anywhere near that date, let alone in Stoke Newington. His wedding shows a father called "John", a bricklayer.
I also cannot find him in the 1871 census, when he was 7.
I deem is "quite likely" that he (or his father) moved to London from the massive Bice cluster in Cornwall.
The only approach I have considered that holds out hope is to "simply" build a genealogical tree for all the male BICE lines in Middlesex, since it's rather a rare name and hope that J T Bice shows up "by implication", but that's a lot of work for no guaranteed result.
I don't want people to do my research for me, but if anyone can suggest approaches, even laborious one, I'm all ears.
BugBear
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When did he die?Might he have fudged his birth date to retain his youth?I see several Bice (and variant) births in Middlesex so family group sheets might be worth doing.
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When did he die?Might he have fudged his birth date to retain his youth?I see several Bice (and variant) births in Middlesex so family group sheets might be worth doing.
DOD - 1938-09-25. If he was fudging his DOB, he was pretty consistent about it from an early age, it only varies from 1862 to 1864 across every reference I have.
BugBear
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Another avenue,A******y has a few trees for Bice born 1860-65 but lacking birth records,I wonder if his mother re-married as he is a no show in 1871.Try a search with given name and place of birth only??
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Hi
Any clues from the names of witnesses for his marriage? ie siblings?
KR
Gaie
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Hi
Any clues from the names of witnesses for his marriage? ie siblings?
KR
Gaie
Interesting thought. They are William O'Henry (I think, the signature isn't super clear) and Sarah Ann Kirby.
I'll look into them.
Edit;
A quick look in my own dataset shows Sarah A Cole, a sister of J T Bice's bride, "Jessie Amelia Cole" marrying a Joseph Kirby in 1875. This makes her, by the time of the wedding in 1882, "Sarah Ann Kirby", which is interesting and nice, but not helpful.
BugBear
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Have you looked into:
1. The Harold Bice b. 1864 Marylebone district (and then seems to disappear)
2. The Elizabeth Bice m. 1867 Islington - possibly to William Tom? (Possibly as a widow in Fulham in 1881 - b. 1827 Cornwall). Don't spot an obvious hit for her in the 1871 yet.
Plenty of possible alternate spellings - Byce/Bace/Bayes/Bias/etc.
It is possible that John Sr did not exist - John Thomas may not have known (or not known accurately) the details of his relatives if he was adopted (informally) or fostered out.
You could look through the 1871 for John/Thomas kids b. Stoke Newington of the right age, particularly those who do not have both parents, and check if they can be found in 1881. Any who can't be found under their 1871 name in 1881 could then be checked for possible connections to the Bice family.
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Have you looked into:
1. The Harold Bice b. 1864 Marylebone district (and then seems to disappear)
2. The Elizabeth Bice m. 1867 Islington - possibly to William Tom? (Possibly as a widow in Fulham in 1881 - b. 1827 Cornwall). Don't spot an obvious hit for her in the 1871 yet.
I would agree they are both very interesting. Harold certainly does disappear.
A William Tom aged 64 (c1812) died in Islington in 1876.
William Tom is a very Cornwall name. There was one baptised there in 1812,
http://www.cornwall-opc-database.org/search-database/more-info/?t=baptisms&id=2866302
plus one in 1811, and three William Toms-s, in 1812 and 1813, just for example.
An Elizabeth Jane Simmons Bice was baptised in St Clement in 1827, but she is accounted for in 61 and 71 (husband Richard Nicholls, called Ann in 71; she married as Elizabeth Ann Symons Bice).
I have a bit of a peripheral fascination with the Cornwall Bices as my grx2 grfather, a bit of a mystery man (but not so mysterious as his son, to the point that I only know who his father was by figuring out who he was first!) was business partners with one of those Bices at one time. I summarized it in this old thread:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=468214.0
I imagine that my gr-grfather and the business partner's son were childhood friends or at least acquaintances, being the same age and born in the same place. The business partner's son went on to be an MP and knighted in Australia. My gr-grfather didn't. ;)
Once I finish this pressing overdue job here, I'll have a ponder on your John Thomas!
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Rats. Wilm Tom, 1814 Cornwall, and Elbth Tom, 1827 Cornwall, are in St George the Martyr Southwark in 1871 with no kids.
But someone there has done something to the record (it didn't work - I think it was meant to correct Elizabeth's place of birth) and you could always try contacting them.
It would have worked well though if John Thomas's second name was actually Tom, unbeknownst to him -- as in the common practice of giving a child of unmarried parents the father's surname as a middle name. Still worth considering.
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Aha. Multiple trees at Anc'y/Mundia show Willam Tom born 1811 Little Petherick
http://www.cornwall-opc-database.org/search-database/more-info/?t=baptisms&id=2242046
as marrying Elizabeth WILLIAMS in 1867 in London, residing in St Geo the Martyr in 1871 and dying in 1876. Someone seems to have got the marriage certificate. I don't see a Bice+Williams marriage to work, though.
And oh good, someone else has her as Elizabeth BALL, Mr Tom being a mere twig on that enormous tree. There was, however, an Elizabeth Ball + James Bice marriage in St Columb in 1850. But no James Bice death to fit. ... James is a brother of "my" Samuel Sandoe Bice, in the household in 1841; he and Elizabeth are in the 1861 census, but she is shown as born c1832.
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You could look through the 1871 for John/Thomas kids b. Stoke Newington of the right age, particularly those who do not have both parents, and check if they can be found in 1881. Any who can't be found under their 1871 name in 1881 could then be checked for possible connections to the Bice family.
Please forgive my ignorance and stupidity. I'm not quite following your suggestion. Can you expand on what phenomona you're hypothesing, and (thus) what footprint it would leave in the document trail, that I could look for?
I'm not doubting you, I'm failing to understand you. :'(
BugBear
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It's a big undertaking and usually only works if there is some more specific info known about an individual.
I discovered, immediately upon first researching him, that there was nothing in any record about my gr-grfather before his 1883 marriage; he had sprung from nowhere, with two distinctive given names and very unusual surname. I did not know where he was born, but I knew his (approx) year of birth.
Unfortunately for me, we knew that after he married in England 1883, he was in Australia for the 1891 census, and I could not find him in 1901 for love nor money, to at least find what age and place of birth he gave. He then immigrated here to Canada.
Let's say their names were, for illustration:
My gr-grfather was Edward Arthur Moonwalk.
His daughter was Alice London Moonwalk.
His father was Fiscus Moonwalk.
I got an early clue: when searching for the birth of a daughter of his that we had just learned died in infancy, Alice Moonwalk, I found that she was Alice London Moonwalk -- and I found the marriage of a person a generation older with the identical given names and surname, otherwise unique. No idea how they were related, but they had to be. And when I searched for someone with the same given names as my gr-grfather born around the same time, I found an Edward Arthur Smith, let's say (the surname was nearly as common!).
Eventually, I found the family that matched all these clues, in the 1861 census: that Edward Arthur Smith, with a sister named Alice and a father named Fiscus. Born in Cornwall. And when I finally found my gr-grfather in London in 1901 (his surname bizarrely mistranscribed at two different sites), he gave the same place in Cornwall, for his place of birth. So both he and his sister (that we had never heard of) had adopted the same fake surname, and both had assigned it to their father when they married, while retaining the father's real given name: Edward Arthur Smith and his sister Alice London Smith became Edward Arthur Moonwalk and Alice London Moonwalk, and their father Fiscus Smith became Fiscus Moonwalk. Oh, the clincher was when I finally found that the sister's real name at birth was actually Alice London Moonwalk Smith. Why all this happened -- and especially how she came to have Moonwalk as a middle name -- I have yet to find out. YDNA testing has not helped at all!
I know that's pretty complex; explaining everything I did to find and confirm the fact that all these people were the same as the others takes an extra dimension or two. A big stroke of luck I had, when it comes to people changing names, was that theirs were distinctive and they retained enough of them, and their birth details, to make them identifiable. While the little info I did have to start with was about the same as what you have -- given names and approx date of birth, and father's given name -- I had that huge stroke of luck, of finding his apparent sister in records, that gave me a triangulation point you don't have. And they had given their father his real given name, while changing his surname.
But the idea is: you are looking for someone who looks like your person. And then you see whether that person can't be accounted for after a certain point, the point where that person hypothetically became your person.
You, unfortunately, are looking for someone named John born c1862-1864 possibly in Stoke Newington. But things to look for include, first off, people with the same given names born at around the same time and place -- on the assumption that a person is more likely to change their surname, for one of several possible reasons, but keep their given names. That was the first thing in my case: finding the birth of the person with the same given names, born at the right time, and then I found him in a census as a child, and discovered that he disappeared from all records (after death of first wife in 1873) right before my gr-grfather emerged from nowhere (in the 1881 census, once I knew what I was looking for, i.e. place of birth, to confirm it was him).
So the phenomenon is: John Thomas's birth was registered under a different surname, not Bice, and finding him means finding someone who otherwise matches his details but has a different surname. And then tracking that person forward from the point where you find him, whether a birth record or a census, to see whether he has an existence parallel to your John Thomas. If so, he isn't your John Thomas. If you can't find him, you have an hypothesis to work on, and look to see whether there is any connection between anyone in his vicinity (e.g. a mother in the census or on a birth certificate) with the surname Bice.
I hope this hasn't been too much of a headache, but my case is a good example of how these things happen and how "proving" them works. ;)
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Wow - you have my deep admiration for chasing that down. But the technique (in my case) would pivot on drawing a conclusion from NOT finding something. I have already discovered in this fascinating hobby, that NOT finding a record is really rather more common than you might hope.
The thought of setting off on a laborious chase based on "absence of evidence" requires a little more desperation than I feel.
That time may come though. :'(
BugBear
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At the risk of setting some kind of world record for lag in a followup;
The suggestion from the 2004 (!!) thread that this might be JT Bice's family in 1871:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=14860.0
RG10/546 Folio 78 Page 63
is NOT a possibility. The same family shows up beautifully in 1881, with all members present.
Class: RG11; Piece: 461; Folio: 48; Page: 38; GSU roll: 1341101.
BugBear
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Well (pace the other spellings) would anybody care to guess how many people with the surname "BICE" were in "Middlesex" in the 1881 (according to A**try) ?
Thomas Bice.
He's it. The only one. A rare breed indeed.
I'm amazed I haven't done that particular search before.
Edit; there appears to be another Bice, called Joseph. He's in "London"
I think that the "Joseph Bice" family and the "John/Thomas Bice" families are the only Bices in the South/East.
BugBear
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That's exactly what it means: a conclusion from not finding something. But also from all the other suggestive facts. ;)
Undertaking that chase may be daunting -- but if a person goes by a name other than the name their birth was registered under, at some point in their life (childhood as a result of a parent's marriage, adulthood for any number of reasons ...), that's the only way they will be found. And obviously, the only way to know whether a person did go by a name other than their registered name ... is to find them doing it. ;)
I'm not sure whether it's actually been mentioned here, but in the 1881 household where JT is with his future wife's family, he is enumerated as Thomas Bice.
Since he married as John Thomas, this could mean:
- his name was John Thomas Bice and he went by his middle name, and used it for the census
- his name was Thomas John Bice but he went by his middle name, but used his official first name for the census
There's a somewhat interesting Bice household in Cornwall -- parents John, a copper miner, and Caroline (in one census called Catherine) and a bunch of sons of the same generation as our John Thomas -- all of whom are bricklayers in the 1881 census. In 1851-61, the family has both a John and a Thomas already, though, and the kids are regular as clockwork at about two-year intervals before and after 1850, and pretty much all accounted for. (If you do a search in 1881 for Bice, occupation brick*, you get those five in Calstock and Thomas in Stoke Newington.)
One thing I might consider ... during the 1850s there was rather a massive exodus from Cornwall; the population actually declined significantly. In 1861, my "Moonwalk" people are an example: wife and kids had shifted to Plymouth, husband "Fiscus" was elsewhere -- nowhere found by me yet, but he gave an address in London on the draft mining lease in which he was partners with Samuel Bice in 1859, and was living in London by the late 1860s when he had a child there, went bankrupt and "re"married. I wonder whether that John Bice of Cornwall might have sojourned in London for a time in the early 1860s, for work? possibly as a bricklayer? And left behind a child, possibly without knowing. He is absent from the household in Cornwall in 1871, but Caroline (Catherine) calls herself married (youngest son Francis aged 6 - 1863 birth?) while by 1881 she is widowed. I can't see him anywhere in 1871, and there are actually no John Bice deaths recorded between 1859 and 1898.
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It appears (from perusing all "Bice" births in the London area from 1850-1900) that there was a slight influx around 1880-1885. After that there seem to be (roughly) 5 Bice families producing children (I'm still working through it all).
A "quickie" query in FreeBMD shows only 6 Bice births in London, Middlesex, Surrey prior to 1880.
From 1880 to 1900 there are 25.
I'm hoping that they all came up from Cornwall, and at least one is related to my JT.
BugBear
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Review/Summary:
Further work in BICE activity in South East England reveals the following patterns;
It appears that quite a few "wives and families" lived in London (taken generally) prior to 1880. In nearly all the census record I've seen, the husband is absent.
Further, BMD data shows several births, a (very few) childhood deaths, and some FEMALE Bice's getting married. The first male Bice to marry is Joseph in 1884.
All of the Census data I've view so far shows that these Bices come from (unsurprisingly) Cornwall, mainly Falmouth. At least one family came from Cornwall, and returned there, with the Cornish census return showing some quite surprising "London" places of birth.
I now suspect that my JT Bice is part of this pattern, and that the stated birth locating of Stoke Newington (stated with complete consistency of every Census he's on) is simply not the case...
I also noted that Bice is spelt very variably. In London, one might put this down to local enumerators not understanding a thick Cornish accent, but I found a Bice census in Cornwall where the surname is spelt "Brice".
BugBear
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Your conclusions pretty much reflect what I had already said about demographic patterns in Cornwall.
Re spellings, are you going by modern (mis)transcriptions of names or are you checking original images? It is not too likely that the surname Bice would actually have been misspelled in Cornwall at the time. (And of course if the original says Brice, the name may well have been Brice, unless there is evidence from other records that it was actually Bice.) Ah, you may be referring to the Joseph and Jane Bice household in Hackney in 1841. (I had been going to mention that older Joseph Bice but decided there was no point in just collecting them ...)
I don't see any particular reason for concluding that JTB was not born where he said he was, especially given that no birth elsewhere can be found for him. Not that I would ever conclude that anyone was born where they said they were either; I just wouldn't conclude either way w/o evidence.
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My memory's going; the "Brice" is in London, for Joseph(b1840) m Jane(b1853) in 1891.
Clearly "Bice" for these people on the other documents I have.
I was indeed collecting them, that I might proceed by elimination.
BugBear
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I'm not sure whether it's actually been mentioned here, but in the 1881 household where JT is with his future wife's family, he is enumerated as Thomas Bice.
Since he married as John Thomas, this could mean:
- his name was John Thomas Bice and he went by his middle name, and used it for the census
- his name was Thomas John Bice but he went by his middle name, but used his official first name for the census
On the name front:
He's "Thomas" on four or five documents, but he's principally "John Thomas".
There's a totally anomolous "Thomas George" in 1914 which I put down to the verger getting mixed; William George Bice is marrying the Daughter of William George Redford, so there's ample scope for confusion.
BugBear
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Just another sidenote on the hypothesis first hypothesized by jorose and expanded on by me: birth/early life under a surname other than Bice -- yesterday I unravelled precisely one of those, so you can see how it worked:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=666975.10
(page 2 being where I took the known data and found the people) -- a pair of siblings appearing from nowhere at the ages of about 13 and 20, no record of birth, no previous census record, etc., and ultimately being identified by searching for their personal characteristics rather than their names, and their births found and childhood census found, under not one but two completely different surnames.
What that case (and my own) had, of course, was the triangulation point: a second person (sister, in both cases) to use for searching and then confirming the hypothesis. (And what I had there too was someone ... of the boy persuasion in both cases here? ... who resisted thinking outside the name box to the very end.)
Nobody's saying that is your answer. Just that the question needs to be asked.
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There's a somewhat interesting Bice household in Cornwall -- parents John, a copper miner, and Caroline (in one census called Catherine) and a bunch of sons of the same generation as our John Thomas -- all of whom are bricklayers in the 1881 census. In 1851-61, the family has both a John and a Thomas already, though, and the kids are regular as clockwork at about two-year intervals before and after 1850, and pretty much all accounted for. (If you do a search in 1881 for Bice, occupation brick*, you get those five in Calstock and Thomas in Stoke Newington.)
Apologies for coming back to this after a long pause.
This may say something about my search skills (or A***stry's indexing) but I can't find that 1881 census. Could you (please) post the GRO ref?
Oh rats - in 1881 John Bice, head of household was dead, so only Caroline shows. Found it!
RG11/2216/33p 7
BugBear
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Reviving this thread:
You've probably elimated this chap:
John Thomas Benjamin Boyce Jul-Aug-Sep 1862 Shoreditch London
The name Boyce came up when I searched for Bice.
No, he's new, although the Benjamin never came up in subsequent records.
I'll look into it, thank you.
BugBear
Right. I've found the FreeBMD reference, and (looking around) I think I've found
the family, in the 1871 Census (Class: RG10; Piece: 454; Folio: 27; Page: 1; GSU roll: 823362). They're living in Shoreditch, with father
John Boyce a Furniture Dealer.
The family is quite large - 5 children born between 1859 and 1870.
Despite this, I can't find a single one of them in the 1881 Census.
Since I know that there "may" be spelling issues on the surname, most of my searchin, beyond the initial trivial probes, have been on forename combinations.
I've look for the parents, as a couple, I've looked for various combinations of the children, and I've looked for each parent combined with 1 or 2 of the children.
I've tried many combinations, and this technique has served well in the past in the face of transcription difficulties. It's failing me now.
Can anyone find where this family were by 1881?
BugBear
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Looking backwards, I can find a double baptism in Spitalfields St Stephen, 15 May 1864, for "Clara Hester Jane" and "John Joseph Benjamin".
FreeBMD shows Jun 1864 for "Clara Hester Jane", but (start of thread!) Sep 1862 for "John Thomas Benjamin".
In all the records, the surname is clearly BOYCE.
BugBear
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Found Clara in 1911, married, traced back to a marriage St Andrews, Hoxton, in 1882 (only 1 year after the 1881 census);
Clara Esther Jane Boyce marries a John Rolfe; her father is listed as John Boyce, Ginger Beer Maker, and the residence of the couple is 6 Phillipp St.
But I still can't find them in the 1881 census.
EDIT; "Darn" I've found Clara Esther Jane Boyce, but she's not with the family; she's a servant in the Ramsey household (Class: RG11; Piece: 391; Folio: 6; Page: 8; GSU roll: 1341084)
BugBear
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Found Sarah Emma (or Emma Sarah) marrying a James William Fossett in 1896, again in At Andrews Hoxton, John George Boyce is listed as father "time keeper", and deceased.
Still no census for 1881 for these people!
BugBear
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Just so we all know who is being looked for, in 1871:
John Boyce 45 - c1825 furniture dealer
Eliza Boyce 39 - c1832
Joseph Boyce 12 - c1859
John Boyce 10 - c1861
Clara Boyce 7 - c1864
Ellen Boyce 4 - c1867
Emma Boyce 8 mo. - c1870
and a Henry Robson nephew 25 born c1846
all reportedly born in Shoreditch
Robson must be the result of a marriage of a sister of Eliza (no Boyce+Robson marriage to fit). Henry Thomas Robson birth reg 1845 Shoreditch.
The father may be John Nutt Boyce? Marriage possibly to Eliza Garrett 1859 Strand ... but he died aged 75 (i.e. born c1817) 1892 Wandsworth. An Eliza Boyce aged 65 (i.e. born c1828) died 1893 Wandsworth. Possibly rounded/guessed ages? Can't see that couple in 1891 ...
In 1861 the couple are John and Eliza'th in Shoreditch with son Joseph. Unfortunately, a Charles and Susan Boyce had a son Joseph in Shoreditch just before this one so forward tracing is iffy.
I wonder whether this is the household in 1891 in Hackney:
Eliza Boyce widow aged 50 tent maker
Emma Boyce daughter aged 20 tent maker
Robert Boyce son aged 16
Alice Boyce daughter aged 18
all born Shoreditch
Alice Mary Boyce 1872 Shoreditch
Robert William Boyce 1874 Shoreditch
There is a Robert William Boyce + Kathleen Maud Tyler marriage in Pancras in 1907 (Boyce-Tyler births in Pancras after 1911) and children Robert William 1908 and Rose Kathleen 1910 would seem to be theirs, but blamed if I can see them in 1911. Oh right. Everybody except Rose is going by their middle name, surname Boyce ... and the details for father William are way off our Robert so it isn't him; this one actually was born William Robert 1888. Can't spot a marriage for Alice Mary either.
I have to reinterate that I am unconvinced that someone born Boyce in the 1860s would have become Bice by the time he married. Especially when other children in the family are findable as Boyce. Name spellings were fairly settled by then, and the two names are distinct names in their own right.
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John/Eliza wedding (full forenames as per the baptisms from earlier)
Elizabeth Eliza Guest to John George Boyce , 29 Jul 1855, Christ Church, Highbury Grove
https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2D3C-QS6
The "Boyce" name is consistent and solid :-(
I'm now just annoyed that I can't find them in 1881, but I don't think this is "my" family.
BugBear
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Just so we all know who is being looked for, in 1871:
John Boyce 45 - c1825 furniture dealer
Eliza Boyce 39 - c1832
I wonder whether this is the household in 1891 in Hackney:
Eliza Boyce widow aged 50 tent maker
Emma Boyce daughter aged 20 tent maker
Robert Boyce son aged 16
Alice Boyce daughter aged 18
all born Shoreditch
Hmm. In 20 years, Eliza has only aged 5!! Emma's about right though.
Found a good death (FreeBMD)
Deaths Dec 1882 (>99%)
BOYCE John George 53 Shoreditch 1c 92
That's an 1829 DOB.
Wowza; Eliza didn't hang about: (FreeBMD again)
Marriages Jun 1886 (>99%)
BAINES David William Bethnal Green 1c 596
Boyce Elizabeth Eliza Bethnal Green 1c 596
Rogers Henry Bethnal Green 1c 596
Tavender Florence Bethnal Green 1c 596
Married a Rogers or a Baines.
OK. She married the Baines. Because she REMARRIED in 1902 as Baines!!
Marriages Mar 1902 (>99%)
Baines Eliza Elizabeth Shoreditch 1c 110
Carroll Charles William Shoreditch 1c 110
Cray Clara Shoreditch 1c 110
Larcombe Walter Fisher Shoreditch 1c 110
BugBear
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Too many assumptions there, I think. ;)
Check out Eliza Elizabeth Larcombe with husband Walter Fisher Larcombe in 1911. A good generation too young.
The 1891 census I posted, with the nice round age of 50, seems the most likely to me.
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Too many assumptions there, I think. ;)
Check out Eliza Elizabeth Larcombe with husband Walter Fisher Larcombe in 1911. A good generation too young.
The 1891 census I posted, with the nice round age of 50, seems the most likely to me.
Oops - I didn't do follow up checks on the marriages! :-[
BugBear
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but 1901! Anc'y cleverly chops the household up, but it looks like this, in Hackney:
Henry J Watts 32 painter
Alice M Watts 28
Henry J Watts 2
Alice M Watts 2
Eliza Boyce 62 mother-in-law, widowed, canvas sail maker
I'm certain these are not John Bice's family, but if anybody ever comes looking for them at RootsChat, they will be waiting. ;)
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In support of your 1891 census, I note their address; 6 Downham Rd.
1891 Census also has John Rolfe + Clara Rolfe (nee Boyce...) at 55C Downham Rd
In the 1896 wedding of Emma to James Fossett their address is 57 Downham Rd.
Not conclusive but very "compatible".
BugBear
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Hello bugbear, I'm back to Bices!
I probably mentioned I've been doing YDNA testing in connection with my Cornwall ancestors.
I have just encountered the Cornwall YDNA project (which I swear wasn't there when I looked for it two years ago).
It has a Bice participant, a descendant of the William Skinner Bice c1790 discussed in this older thread here:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=468214.0
Is your partner a male-line descendant of John Thomas - or do you have access to the spit of someone who is? (You don't have to answer about your partner himself, of course; I just wonder whether there are male-line descendants of John Thomas whom you are in touch with one way or another.) (Or oops, have I got it backwards, and you are the male half of the equation??)
A son of a son of ... is what is needed, to do the test. So if your partner has a living Bice uncle, for instance, or male cousin of a Bice father -- no matter the distance of the relationship from your partner as long as the person is in the direct male line from John Thomas Bice.
If so, doing the testing could come up with something for you (even if not a Cornwall Bice connection). If you want to PM me, I can give you some links to check out what there is, and how to get going if your partner is interested.
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Thanks for the thought - I'm sure ( ;) ) I could find a male line descendant
(isn't that what FreeBMD and the internet are for ? ...).
But (TBH) I'm quite happy at the moment with the knowledge
that J T Bice certainly is descended from the West Country Bices (because
there is no other possibility).
It's the lack of "social" history about him that's so galling.
BugBear
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have you looked at the Channel Islands? Symons and Bryce families both occur together there.
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I've bought SO a Ancestry DNA test for Xmas. We shall see. :)
BugBear
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Hi Bugbear, it's a little too bad you went with Ancestry, in my humble opinion.
For US$30 (if I recall correctly) you can upload the results to Family Tree DNA once you have them, to try for matches there.
What I was originally suggesting was YDNA testing, the one that is used to trace a male line. That is not done by Ancestry. You mentioned that you might be able to find a male-line descendant in your husband's family, so I would still consider that -- since there is a male-line descendant of William Skinner Bice c1790 in the Cornwall YDNA project at FTDNA.
I would strongly suspect that the various Bices in Cornwall are all related, and YDNA tests can show connection with a common male ancestor pretty far back. Autosomal testing will not identify cousinships beyond 5th cousin (i.e. same grx4 grandparent), really, and may not do so reliably that far back.
Otherwise, you might see whether the Bice descendant at FTDNA has done (or would do) an autosomal test of the same kind as Anc'y's (called Family Finder at FTDNA), so that you could upload and compare, or would test at Ancestry himself.
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Understood - of course, doing one test doesn't preclude doing others...
I'll see what happens.
BugBear
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Understood - of course, doing one test doesn't preclude doing others...
I'll see what happens.
BugBear
'tis done.
BugBear