Hello, I'm stumped, would love it if someone can help me with this one!
It's a bit of a convoluted story so I hope you can follow it!
I have a great, great, great grandmother Martha Wiltshire born in South Stoneham around 1839. Her parents were John Wiltshire (b 1814) and Harriet Wiltshire (b1815) . John and Harriet had the following children - Martha, James, Henry, Elizabeth, Charles and two further children Jane and Emma. I am interested in Jane in particular. She appears to have been born in 1856 according to the census of which she appears in the 1861 aged 5 and still at home with her father (Harriet died in 1861) but by the 1871 census she is 15 and in the workhouse. She then disappears completely.
This line of ancestry is on my grandmothers MOTHERS side of the family.
Fast forward to 1906 and my grandmothers FATHERS, father remarries very quickly as his wife has died and he is left with a lot of children. The lady he marries is an Annie Down. Her marriage cert States her father is a John Wiltshire and she is born in Southampton. (She has come to South Wales to marry my Great, great grandfather Herbert Clifford). Later on her neice May Bignell comes down to help, falls in love with one of the sons of Herbert, Reuben and my Nan is born. My nan can easily remember 'Nannie Annie' as she was known but interestingly her nieces would call her 'Aunt Jane'.
I'm sure that Jane Wiltshire and Annie Down are the same person despite the census showing Annie down living in Neath as having a birth date of 1861, not 1856 as Janes is. Coincidentally Harriet , Janes mother died age 46 in 1861, could she have died in childbirth and Annie given away?
It doesn't add up with the difference in birth dates though.
I'd love a bit of help if anyone is inclined please x