RootsChat.Com

Hi

I am trying to trace beyond my 2 x g grandfather James Cripps. According to his attestation papers when he joined the 4th Hussars in 1861 and the subsequent UK census returns for 1881/91/01 he was born about 1843 in Carlow to James Cripps and unknown mother.

He married Sarah Jane O'Toole in 1872 in Meerut, India. She was born in 1856 in Dublin to Felix O'Toole and Margaret Kelly.

He died in 1905 in Battersea, London. She died in 1934 in London.

I have searched the parish records for Carlow but to no avail (some of them are in a pretty bad state). I haven't even been able to find any records for siblings that might have helped. I don't have a great deal of experience of researching Irish genealogy and as I understand it, it can be quite a different prospect to the British side of things.

Any help or ideas about either James or Sarah would be extremely appreciated.

Thanks

Philippe

Hi, yes that would be the correct family. The problem I have always had is that Emily Delly doesn't seem to exist and the Emily that I have found to be the best candidate was Emily Turner b Swanley 12/08/1854.

The marriage record for Henry Reynolds and Emily Delly shows her father, Robert's occupation as labourer. The witnesses are James Reynolds and Mark Clement. Mark Clement signs 3 of the 4 marriages that appear on the image of the record on Ancestry.

My theory has always been that because Emily was 17 years younger than Henry Reynolds that there may have been family resistance to the marriage. Which is why she doesn't get married in her parish, which was the normal procedure for the time and why she changes her's and her father's name. I wanted to see whether, in others opinions, was a legitimate theory, even though the evidence is circumstantial.

On the 1939 register Emily Reynolds is living with her daughter Maud Alice Armstrong on Lowfield street, where she has lived all her married life, and her date of birth is the 12/08/1854 matching that of Emily Turner from Swanley.