Hi all,
This is something I've been stuck with for almost a year now, so I thought it about time I asked for some help!
I'm trying to find a woman named Eliza Jane Watson in 1871 and 1911. She was born in West Dean, Gloucestershire in 1858, and is with her family in Coleford for the 1861 census. Her parents were John and Elizabeth Watson, who emigrated to Iowa at some point during the 1880s.
(Eliza) Jane married George Horne in Folkestone in 1879, and subsequently John William Davis in Windsor in 1900. I have found Eliza on the 1861, 1881, 1891 and 1901 census records, but cannot find her in 1871 (age 13 -- quite possibly a domestic servant somewhere) or in 1911, when presumably she will be with John, whom I cannot locate either.
According to the 1901 census, John is around the same age as Jane, was born in Westminster, and is a worker in a linoleum factory. I don't yet have a copy of John & Jane's marriage certificate - I will get one at some point - but I'm not sure it will be of much use in finding him in 1911.
John and Jane had a daughter, Lucy Horne b. 1889, Chertsey. In 1891, (Eliza) Jane and Lucy are living together as lodgers in Staines, Middlesex, as Jane Davis and Lucy Smith -- I think this is due to an error by the enumerator, who has confused Lucy with the Smith family she and Jane are lodging with.
In 1911, Lucy is living with her elder half-brother Percival Horne. From what I can gather, Lucy was a domestic servant all her life, and died in Wandsworth in 1959. It doesn't look like she ever married, though I've no idea if she ever had children as she's only 20 on the last census.
I cannot find either John or (Eliza) Jane in 1911, either together or apart. Presumably both are under the name Davis, but I've ruled out every possible match I've seen so far. As far as I know, Lucy was the couple's only child to survive infancy, so there isn't another child they would be living with. By 1911, Jane only has two surviving children from her first marriage - Percival and Frederick - and both are accounted for on census records.
So far I've only found John in 1901, but of course he has a very common name and I have no idea who his parents were, only that he was apparently born in Westminster... but the very same census also states that his wife was born in Merthyr Tydfil, which she wasn't.
Any takers?
I'd love to know what became of John & Jane, and I have no idea why Jane is AWOL in 1871... all the family bar her are accounted for at home, and I can't find her as a servant or lodger in the local area. Given that she and George Horne later married in Folkestone (1879), I have considered that she may have been working in Kent by 1871... but she'd have been very young for a trip like that, and so far there's no trace of her.
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Topic: Lost in the ether: John & Eliza Jane Davis (Read 2960 times)