South Dublin Workhouse Problem

[Gaynorf]

Thank you. There are several Mary French's, classed as servants. This one has been traced forwards through her date of birth (alleged) and it isn't her. Thank you so much for your help though xx

[Gaynorf]

Hi, thank you all.

We have Thomas's full history from the age of 7 with the Wests.  It is unlikely they paid 11 for the child as this would have been around £1000 in those days and the West's are quite poor, living in two rooms. Matilda was also widowed quite early and lived with 2 children (she had 3) and her mother. We have all the West's history as they were part of the family during Thomas's children's time: my husbands aunt etc.

Mary French was def. an inmate, not a nurse. We have her timescale in the workhouse.

We have tracked two down that might fit loosely with her history and year of birth (+/-) and the family stories. One died (we are getting her birth cert) and the other left for America, which fits in with the family tales minus the 'married a rich dr' lol.

Adoption at that time was not a legal process and Thomas never changed his name and was registered as a boarder. He wasn't abandoned and it would have been easy for her to leave the baby in the workhouse.  That sadly was a common practice.  We suspect she initially paid for the Wests to look after the baby and we are looking backwards for their family history.  We have no baptism record for Thomas which is strange but we are working on it.

Thank you so much for the minutes link, to the board of governors.  We will try that out next week.

Thank you all.  It's so strange, we have been able to go so far back with other family members on the grandmother's side thanks to church records but Mary is a dilemma.  There is also the risk that she used a middle name, made up a name etc etc, but my gut is going with the two most likely ones.  Thank you.  Feeling inspired again!

[hallmark]

......staffed respectively by nuns (Sisters of Mercy) and deaconesses, with a large number of pauper inmates acting as nursing assistants.



Could she have been an Assistant?

[dathai]

Shrink Link not working for me at moment but if you enter F for French and M for Mary into search boxes on 1901 census .address as'' James's ''do not enter street into address also click on female you get 2 F Ms age 21 and 27 both born Dublin,there are too many pages for me to go through to see why they are there.

e g
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai003720223/

[hallmark]

Yes.... Shrink Link not working here too!!

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/results.jsp?census_year=1901&surname=F&exact=&firstname=M&county19011911=Dublin&county1821=&county1831=&county1841=&county1851=&townland=James%27s&ded=&age=&sex=&relationToHead=&religion=&education=&occupation=&marriageStatus=&marriageYears=&childrenBorn=&childrenLiving=&birthplace=&nativeCountry=&language=&deafdumb=&houseNumber=&familiesNumber=&malesNumber=&femalesNumber=&maleServNumber=&femaleServNumber=&estChurchNumber=&romanCatNumber=&presbNumberDiv=&protNumber=&parish=&barony=&yearsMarried=&causeOfDeath=&yearOfDeath=&familyId=&ageInMonths=&search=Search&sort=age&pageSize=50