Hi,
I'm looking for a bit of a sense / plausibility check on this one
My 4xG Grandfather is James Worth (father of my 3xG Granny, Sarah Worth wife of Thomas Letherby)
James' age fluctuates on each census:
1841 Age 26 Birth Year 1815
1851 Age 34 Birth Year 1817
1861 Age 40 Birth Year 1821
1871 Age 45 Birth Year 1826
I can't find him in 1881 and believe he died in 1885 aged 62. All censuses have him in Bridgwater with wife Jane. Until now I have had no idea of Jane's surname, but I have been revisiting them this afternoon.
James consistently gives his birthplace as Bristol in '51, '61 and '71 and in '61 and '71 he is in the same place - Friarn St - in Bridgwater
Jane doesn't appear to know what age she is either:
1841 Age 25 Birth Year 1816
1851 Age 35 Birth Year 1816
1861 Age 37 Birth Year 1824
1871 Age 50 Birth Year 1821
She consistently gives her birthplace as
Dunster in '51, '61 and '71. Can't find her after that and I suspect that she is the Jane Worth who died in Q4 1881 in Bridgwater, age given as 59 (from FreeBMD).
Looking on FreeBMD there is only 1 James Worth marriage between 1837 and 1841 with potential spouse forename Jane (in Liverpool in 1839), I don't think that's a goer, but a search on FreeREG for any James Worth marriages in Somerset (all places) between 1830 and 1837 throws up a single marriage, in 1835 in (and this is where it gets interesting!)
Dunster between James Worth and Jane Summers.
So far, so exciting - strike up the band, as finding Jane's surname has the possibility of taking me back further, but wait.....
From FreeREG, the only Jane Summers born in Dunster between 1800 and 1825 was baptised in Dunster on 6 June
1812 in St George's, Dunster (from FreeREG) with parents Charles and Eliza.
There is a bit of an issue with this:
No matter how much Jane's age fluctuates on the census, it never takes her birth year back to 1812, which is four years earlier than her earliest 'census' birth year. If indeed Grandpa James Worth's wife is Jane Summers, a birth year of 1812 is 12 years' earlier than the birth date calculated in the 1861 census (although she only aged 2 years between '51 and '61 and then 13 years between '61 and '71
)
With some of my Scottish and Irish relations, I have seen ages fluctuate which I suppose takes into account that some of the ages given might be 'best guesses' in a time when no-one was filling in their birthdate on forms etc to the extent that we do today.
Following naming conventions, there is no child called Charles that I can find born to James and Jane - only son on the census is Henry (who may be named for James' father), however, there is a Charlotte. I might be clutching at straws here though!!!
I suppose I'm just wondering whether the 1812 Jane Summers' birth seems reasonable given that everything else seems to 'fit'.
What do you all think?
Rockford
