Trying to flesh this out - Adrien BAUDOUIN

[Silvercup]

I think I have found Adrien's daughter Zoe on the 1881 census transcribed as Berdovan. She was a teaching sister in a covent - does that mean she was a nun?

[Joney]

Yes, nuns can be recorded in a variety of ways. I was looking at a 1901 census entry showing a convent yesterday. Some are just recorded as 'Member of the Community', some as  'teacher' - crossed out but still legible and the description 'nuns' added against the first woman on the list, with ditto marks repeated for the others. Nuns could be running boarding schools, working in local Catholic elementary schools while living at the convent etc.  Others would be running the convent, cooking, cleaning as their occupation.
What is the name of the convent and where is it, by the way  ? Is it definitely a Catholic establishment ? I know I have  read posts about Church of England nuns on Rootschat, so it's worth checking.

[Silvercup]

It's the Convent of Our Lady of Sion in Powis Square, which I believe from their present day website is Catholic.

[Joney]

Yes, so she's a Catholic nun. I wonder if some of the other members of the family could be Catholics then ? St. Anne's, Soho is a C of E church, but in the 1850s only a marriage in a Church of England church was a legal marriage. I know of a French couple in Liverpool who married in St. Bride's (C of E) in the morning and in the local Catholic church in the afternon for this reason.

The real test is can you find Catholic baptisms for the children ? That tells you that at least one of the parents is Catholic. A baptism entry in a register may make it clear which one. Not always, of course. It depends who said what to the priest. It may be worth looking for records for the local Catholic churches wherever they were living.

[philipsearching]

How many different spellings of Baudouin can we find!

Anglicised to BALDWIN could add more!

[Silvercup]

I expect Adrien being from France was Catholic?

I'm off at a tangent anyway as it's Eliza Roffey's family I'm descended from rather than the Baudouins! I'm just finding it interesting as he's pretty much the first person I've found who isn't a bricklayer or a labourer 

I'm basically trying to find out more about the childhood of my gt grandmother Emily Elizabeth Jervis, born 1896 but missing from the 1901 and 1911 censuses. She was Eliza Roffey's niece and the story was that she was raised by a rich Aunt and there was French blood apparently, so thought that Eliza might fit the bill. But struggling to see any connection.

[Joney]

It's always interesting when you come across something slightly different. I follow up those out of pure curiosity. Sounds like the lady you're chasing must have been mistranscribed or she's not where you're expecting her to be. It's worth asking if anyone on Rootschat can spot her.

I am also tempted to believe the Catholicism comes from the French origins in this case, but it's always worth checking everything you can - just in case. The more we know about our ancestors, the easier they are to find, as a rule

[Silvercup]

Thank you, I started a thread previously about Emily's whereabouts

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=784296.0

I got some amazing help from people on here, discovering who her real father was and leading me to the Eliza Roffey of this thread. But her whereabouts itself remains a mystery!

It's frustrating because I'd rather find out more about her childhood than just go back generations in parish records finding names.