Death at Liverpool port?

[alan.h]

I'm just starting out on trying to find out what happened to my 2x great-grandmother. Family legend has it that she emigrated (or went on a trip for the benefit of her health) to the USA from South Wales. She became ill and returned to Liverpool but died as soon as she got there, never making it back to Wales. That's the only connection to Liverpool and I've no link to the area apart from this vague detail, so I don't know where to begin really! To add to the dilemma she had a very common name - Catherine Price (or she may have used her, equally common, maiden name of Thomas). She is meant to have taken my great-grandfather with her.

I have found them both in the 1881 census (in Wales) and by 1901 my great-grandfather (Thomas Price) was married and living back in Aberdare. Since I cannot find either of them in 1891 it make some sense that that is the time they would have been abroad.

There are simply so many death records for women named Catherine Price or Thomas that I don't know where to go from there. Can someone help me be more specific in my search? If she did die immediately on arriving then which registration district would the port have been in, or if she first went to hospital where might that have been?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[heywood]

Hello,

You haven’t given any years of birth for Catherine or Thomas. This might help.
I thought I had them in 1881 but that Catherine Price is the daughter of Eleanor Jones. Is that her?

Heywood

[alan.h]

Yes, that's her! I'm not sure if Eleanor Jones was indeed her mother or whether this is a red herring or an error on the part of the enumerator.

Catherine would have been born c1856 and Thomas was definitely born in 1878. It does look as if she left her husband soon after Thomas's birth.

[CaroleW]

Family legends can get exaggerated over the years.

Where is her husband John Price who she married in 1877?  Have you researched him to see if he remarried as that could narrow down any date of death for Catherine

What was John's occupation on the 1877 marriage cert as he is not with Catherine in 1881

If she died in Liverpool - that's where her death would have been registered yet nothing matches her profile on freebmd

Have you found her and Thomas on any outgoing passenger records?

[garstonite]

it will take a while looking through the years but there might just be something in the newspapers??

http://www.old-merseytimes.co.uk/merseysidedeathsmain.html

[alan.h]

Thanks.

John Price was back at the White Lion pub in Aberdare in 1891, where he stayed until his death in 1900. That was the address for both of them on their marriage certificate in 1877.

I've asked a cousin in Canada to look in the US census (which I think was 1890) but Catherine and Thomas didn't show up then, nor can I locate them on any passenger lists - but then I'm a novice when it comes to looking at those.

[alan.h]

Thomas (my great grandfather) wasn't born at the White Lion (in 1878) so I'm assuming that means that the couple cannot have been together for very long. His father, John Price, was the landlord there. Another family legend is that father and son were never reconciled after Thomas's return from the USA, even though they only lived a few streets away from each other.

There is no record for John ever remarrying.