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My wife's paternal grandfather served in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers during WW1, from 1915. At some stage thereafter he was transferred to the Royal Defence Corps. We assumed that was because he had been wounded and thus was no longer fit for front line duty.

 "First World War Daily Reports (Missing, Wounded & Prisoner of War)". My wife's grandfather was the last entry on page 2 of the results from my enquiry.

This is the relevant line: "J Jeffrey   11710   Private   1918   Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers"

I wonder if there is somebody here who would have access to the details of my wife's grandfather's entry for me? I would be most grateful.

Is it possible for somebody to look up an entry in the Irish Petty Sessions Court Registers 1828-1912? This has just come online apparently, according to Find My Past.

This is the entry I'm interested in:

First name: Sophia
Last name: Jeffreys
Year: 1876
Role: Defendant
Court: Drogheda
County: Louth

My wife's great grandfather Jeremiah Jeffrey, who was a British soldier from Cambridgeshire, England, married a Sophia Martin in Drogheda in 1872 and I'm curious to know if this is the same person.

Many thanks.

I wonder if somebody could advise me on this before I start exploring further.

My wife's father, John Jeffrey, who was born in Belfast in 1918, had a grandfather, Jeremiah Jeffrey, who was from Hauxton in Cambridgeshire (dob 1851).

My wife's family is Catholic. A joke her father used to make when he was alive was that he had a relative in Cornwall who was a Presbyterian minister. No specific location was ever mentioned, or any dates, and I don't even know for sure that the man's surname was also Jeffrey.

I discovered a couple of days ago what appears to be a link between the Jeffrey family in Hauxton and a William George Jeffery (different spelling of surname), born in St. Just, Cornwall, in 1857, who married a Beatrice Mitchell in Redruth in 1895. Beatrice Mitchell's family was from a place called Rosewarne, south of Camborne. Wiliam George Jeffery was a Boot Maker, clearly not the Reverend I'm looking for, but he and my father-in-law's paternal grandfather Jeremiah Jeffrey do seem to be relatives of some kind. This at least establishes a tenuous "Cornwall connection".

I don't suppose there is such a thing as "A Complete Alphabetical List of Every Presbyterian Minister in Cornwall Ever", but, rather than exploring Cornwall resources generally, is there a particular resource I could start with in trying to discover who the mysterious minister was?

With thanks.

Hello. 

I'm researching my wife's family. Sophia Martin was my wife's paternal great grandmother.

I have quite a bit of information about her already, but there are some mysteries I would like some help with.

What I know (or think I know in a few cases):

Sophia Martin was born in Drogheda, Co. Louth, Ireland, on 15 December 1849.

In September 1872, she met, in Drogheda, Jeremiah Jeffrey, a soldier with the 20th (East Devonshire) Regiment of Foot (Jeremiah Jeffrey was English, from Hauxton, Cambridgeshire).

Sophia and Jeremiah married in Drogheda on 13 November 1872. The next information I have is that a son, Patrick Joseph, was born in Newry on 15 March 1874. Evidence suggests that Jeremiah Jeffrey transferred from the 20th to the 2nd Battalion of the 13th (1st Somersetshire) Regiment, which was stationed in Drogheda in 1873 and in Newry in 1874 (the 20th was elsewhere by then).

By 1881, Sophia Jeffrey and her soldier husband were in India. They had a daughter, Elizabeth Ann, born at St. Thomas Mount, Madras (now Chennai) on 2 September of that year.

The 2nd/13th had arrived in India by January 1879 via Glasgow and Aldershot, although the information I've found has a gap between 1876 and 1879, so it's possible that Jeremiah and Sophia were in India earlier or that they were somewhere else after Aldershot and before India.

The 2nd/13th came to Madras after 2 April 1881 (on which date it was in Kamptee). Jeremiah Jeffrey's regiment was given as Royal Artillery on his daughter's birth record. He died on 25 March 1882 in the military hospital at St. Thomas Mount, at which time his unit was M Battery, 2nd Brigade, Royal Artillery.

Sophia Jeffrey gave birth to a son, Jeremiah Arthur, eight months after the death of his father, on 23 November 1882.

The next record I have of her whereabouts is in the 1899 Belfast Street Directory.

I have no further information about Sophia's two older children, Patrick Joseph and Elizabeth Ann. Jeremiah Arthur Jeffrey died in Belfast in 1924 when my wife's father was six. I have no information about Sophia's death. The last information I have about her is in the 1911 Census, where it's recorded that she'd had 4 children "born alive" and had 3 still living. I have no clues to the identity of the fourth child.

My main area of interest at the moment is the gap of 17 years between Sophia Jeffrey becoming a widow in India and turning up in Belfast. The 1901 Census gives her occupation as Linen Weaver, so presumably she came to Belfast seeking work.

I'm wondering what would have happened to her after her husband died in Madras. I know she remained there until her son Jeremiah was born. Would the Army have then sent her back to Ireland? Would she have had to make her own way home? What would usually happen in those circumstances?