Edworthys of Exeter/ Newton Abbot?

[RJMortimer]

Didn't put this in as felt it would be even more info to confuse everyone! Frederick John Turner Edworthy had Fred William Stabback Edworthy in a previous marriage to Eliza Sanford

[Milliepede]

**removes spanner**

Time for a tea break

[Schweitzer]

Hi Ryan, I've only just started researching Frederick John Edworthy (FJE), so you may not still be "around", but here's hoping. He was the grandfather of a friend of mine, Mary Bright, thru his son Willie. She knew him when she was a child in Topsham, but he told no-one about his background, even his son, Willie!
I was interested in all the stuff you and your correspondents found. Here are a few extra details that you might not have:
1. I have the 1841 census for FJE's mother, Sarah Edworthy, age 12, living in Exeter just down the road from where I live, with her parents, John and Anne Edworthy, and her five siblings.
2. Then the 1851 census, when Sarah age 22 is working as a House Servant to a family in West Teignmouth, Devon.
3. I looked up Union House where Sarah was living in 1854, when she gave birth to FJE. It is a large workhouse in Wolborough. I don't have a record of it when Sarah was there, but in 1881 it had about 250 "inmates" (mostly "paupers") and 10 staff.
4. There is a bit of a gap until the 1911 census, where Sarah is shown widowed and living with her daughter, Mary Jane's family in Westbury-on-Trym, Glos.
But FJE's whereabouts between 1854 and 1872 are still a mystery. The search continues!
I would love to contact you personally, so we could perhaps compare notes by email, but I understand I need to post 3 times before I can do this? Could you by any chance contact me from your end?
Best wishes,
                   John Rafferty

[JaneyCanuck]

Hi John - it works both ways: you can't send or receive until you have 3 posts.

Easily fixed: just add two more posts here ("Hello" and "Thanks" ) and that will do the trick, and then you can send a private message.

If Ryan still has the same email address he should receive notice of both your post here (as I did) and your private message.

[Schweitzer]

Thanks, Janey, but Sarah, one of the administrators and co-founders of Rootschat, contacted me and said I was good to go! She also mentioned that relevant stuff about historic searches should be posted on the open Forum, so that all those interested can see it. Only modern, personal stuff about people who are still alive should be the subject of personal messages. So I shall try and adhere to that!
Thanks for your advice! Everyone is so friendly and helpful on this site!
John Rafferty

[JaneyCanuck]

Ah, maybe Sarah would put her info in the thread too then.

Of course I agree that relevant historical info should be in the thread, in case it is again resurrected -- so that everyone can see what is known and what is still sought. (It is frustrating when posters collect info privately or at other sites and don't disclose it in their thread here, for sure.) That doesn't mean that related people should not be in touch privately, I certainly hope.

[JaneyCanuck]

So John!

From what you have posted, it seems that you know that FJE's mother was the Sarah whose household I posted on 29 October 2013, from the 1841 census:

John Edworthy, 26, gardener
Anne, 27
> Sarah, 13
John, 8
Fanny, 6
George, 4
Ann, 2
Elizabeth, 3 mo.

In 1851 she was a servant aged 22 in the Rowell household in West Teignmouth, and an Anc'y user corrected her name from Edwarthy in 2011.

You have Sarah living in Union House "in 1854, when she gave birth to FJE".

Does this all mean that you have a birth certificate or baptismal record for FJE?

In any event, it does seem that his parents were unmarried, so the "Frederick Edworthy (deceased), a sailor" named on his marriage certificate was fictitious. Possibly FJE did know who his father was, or that he himself was named Frederick for his father; possibly his father was a sailor, but the fact that FJE was a sailor casts a shadow on that fact (as I mentioned, a groom assigning a fictitious father his own occupation was what occurred in my own family, for example).

[Schweitzer]

Thanks, Janey, for all that. Yes, I have the 1841 and 1851 census info for Sarah Edworthy, as mentioned in my earlier messages today. It's interesting that in 1841 Sarah was living just down the road from me here in Exeter. The address is Dorset House, Magdalen Street (or Road, I'm not sure). But there is no Dorset House there now. And an earlier poster on this long thread found the baptismal record for FJE, which gives Sarah as the mother, no father mentioned, and Sarah living in Union House, Newton Abbot. No one has found an actual birth registration record. I was wondering whether perhaps FJE was baptized as Edworthy, but later his birth was registered under a different surname?
I agree with your theories about FJE's mysterious father!
It's a toughie!
Best wishes, John

[JaneyCanuck]

I'm flummoxed - can't see any reference to a baptism in the thread. 

-- but hold on, found it at FindMyPast:

Frederick John Edworthy, April 21st, 1854, mother Sarah, Wolborough, St Mary, "Union House in Newton Abbot"