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Messages - Kate-Birchtree

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19
Essex / Re: Samuel Smith & Sarah Bedell - Chelmsford - Husband in workhouse but not wife?
« on: Friday 04 August 23 10:51 BST (UK)  »
Quote from: Millmoor on Friday 04 August 23 09:32 BST (UK)
Gro indexes have a death for Samuel Smith age 64 in West Ham RD J quarter 1860 which would seem to match with the burial you have found. Not sure if you are aware of the digital images now offered by Gro - they only cost £2.50  and are instant on payment. This would be the most cost effective way of testing your theory.

William

I've downloaded the image, but unfortunately it looks as though it's not the right Samuel. This one was recorded as a "baker" by occupation...  :( Was definitely worth a try though!

20
Essex / Re: Samuel Smith & Sarah Bedell - Chelmsford - Husband in workhouse but not wife?
« on: Friday 04 August 23 10:06 BST (UK)  »
Quote from: Andy J2022 on Friday 04 August 23 08:34 BST (UK)
Quote from: Pheno on Friday 04 August 23 08:15 BST (UK)
Workhouses were also hospitals/infirmaries and he could have been there having medical treatment, especially as he appears to have died before the next census.
That was my first thought too. However he is listed as a 'pauper', not a patient. Patients are listed earlier in the census return for the institution under the heading 'hospital' ( see page 2 of HO107/1775/523 for example: https://search.findmypast.co.uk/record/browse?id=gbc%2f1851%2f4355465%2f01008)

Thanks for this info - very helpful to know about the hospital possibility for future records. The pauper situation still has me scratching my head though! I'm sure there's a logical explanation though...

21
Essex / Re: Samuel Smith & Sarah Bedell - Chelmsford - Husband in workhouse but not wife?
« on: Friday 04 August 23 10:04 BST (UK)  »
Quote from: Kate-Birchtree on Friday 04 August 23 09:20 BST (UK)
Quote from: Millmoor on Friday 04 August 23 09:16 BST (UK)
I think that Thurston has been transcribed as Thornton on Family Search. See the attached 1861 census transcription.

Bingo! Thanks so much. This explains why I couldn't find the Thurstons' 1861 census anywhere on FS  ;D This one lines up exactly with the one on Ancestry (aside from the transcribing problems).

Great idea re the GRO. I'll give this a try!

22
Essex / Re: Samuel Smith & Sarah Bedell - Chelmsford - Husband in workhouse but not wife?
« on: Friday 04 August 23 09:20 BST (UK)  »
Quote from: Millmoor on Friday 04 August 23 09:16 BST (UK)
I think that Thurston has been transcribed as Thornton on Family Search. See the attached 1861 census transcription.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M71T-7PZ

I cannot see a death for Samuel in Chelmsford between 1851 and 1861. Have you considered that he may have died in Leyton?

William

Thanks for your reply - in between receiving the first post reply and yours, I looked closer at the records and have a theory that he may have died in Leyton (West Ham) in June 1860. There's a burial for a Samuel Smith at Emmanuel, Forest Gate on 7 June 1860, which is the same church his adult daughter Mary was buried in less than a year later.

Thanks for the pointer re the spelling error - I will definitely have a look!

23
England / Re: Fathers on parish marriage registers - deceased or alive?
« on: Friday 04 August 23 09:18 BST (UK)  »
Thanks all for your input - appreciate it!

Quote from: Jebber on Friday 04 August 23 09:12 BST (UK)
To add to what has previously been said. You should not accept as fact everything you read on certificates without confirmation from other sources.

Absolutely agree. I try to use these types of "facts" as clues or at least jumping-off points. I've already found so many records or facts that I've either considered or excluded, only to do a 180 later because of inaccuracies in the source.

24
Essex / Samuel Smith & Sarah Bedell - Chelmsford - Husband in workhouse but not wife?
« on: Friday 04 August 23 03:45 BST (UK)  »
Hi everyone

Bit of a mystery here: per censuses, husband appears to be in the local workhouse (married) while wife (also married) and children are living at home.

Google tells me that husbands and wives (and their families) would not enter the workhouse separately: that it was an all-or-nothing package deal (to paraphrase).

However, were there any known exceptions or anomalies with this practice?

My Samuel Smith (a carpenter, possibly also/later a boot/shoemaker, born about 1798 in Essex, place unknown) and wife Sarah Smith (born 1800, Chelmsford) were married in Springfield, 1824 and are recorded on the same census, with their children, in 1841 in Chelmsford.

In 1851, Sarah is recorded with (some) children as "Married" but sans husband:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:SGVX-WGC

Meanwhile, there is an 1851 census record for a Samuel Smith (house joiner), married, as an inmate at the Chelmsford Union Workhouse: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:SGVC-V1N

By 1861, it looks as though Sarah was listed as a widowed lodger (should be mother-in-law - recording error?) living with her daughter Mary Thurston nee Smith, son-in-law John Thurston and granddaughter (Alice) Mary Thurston in Leyton:
https://www.ancestry.com.au/sharing/3820819?mark=7b22746f6b656e223a224e31584b4c75553668535934474b5a4d703047446e75487873534379614f773133344e636f5144486542593d222c22746f6b656e5f76657273696f6e223a225632227d (apologies if you don't have an Ancestry subscription - I can't find this one on FamilySearch or FreeCen)

I checked for the possibility that Sarah might have remarried, but I imagine the chances of divorcing, remarrying, remarrying with the same surname and having THAT husband absent on census night are just a little slim?! (I couldn't find any correlating remarriage records, anyway...)

If Workhouse Samuel Smith is the same as Sarah's Samuel Smith, then:
  • Is it even remotely plausible that he would be in the workhouse, while she's at home with their children?
  • Are there any repositories online where I might be able to access more details or documents about the Chelmsford Union Workhouse inmates, admissions, etc? I'm in Australia, so I'm limited to what I can access online unfortunately
  • Is it possible that wife Sarah and some of the children might have been in the workhouse with Samuel (between the 1841 and 1851 censuses) but Sarah and children discharged earlier? Was that a 'thing'?

25
London and Middlesex / Emma Groom - Convict in Middlesex c1795 - Brick Wall
« on: Friday 04 August 23 02:18 BST (UK)  »
I'm hunting a very elusive Emma Groom, who was (according to very vague convict records) born around 1795 (possibly March) though I've seen 1794 and 1796 recorded as well. She's noted as being from Middlesex, though this could easily refer to her place of residence and not her actual place of birth.

In 1815 she was tried at the Old Bailey for pickpocketing, but found not guilty. In 1817, she was tried again and this time, sentenced to 7 years' transportation. She was sent to New South Wales on the Friendship and arrived in January 1818. She later moved on to Tasmania, where she died in 1830.

I suspect an alias (due to many exhaustive searches with almost no useful outcomes), but can't be sure.

Prior to her conviction, the only clues I have are that:
  • Her occupation was recorded as a "mantua maker"
  • That she possibly lived, in about 1816 (at the time of her final crime), on Adam-and-Eve Street in what I understand to be the parish of St Marylebone. In her Old Bailey transcript, her victim explains that she asked him to come inside what she claimed to be her home on that street (though it's quite possible it was a fake address). It may still suggest she lived in the general area, if not that street.
  • Her future children (born in Australia) were named Francis Henry Groom and Emma Frances "Fanny" Groom. The 'Francis/Frances' emphasis makes me wonder whether (assuming "Emma and/or Groom" were aliases) her real name was either Frances or Fanny (or if a parent/brother/sister was called Francis/Frances/Fanny. (To confirm: her children took her name in Australia).
  • There are some records for both a Frances and Fanny Groom born around the right time period (c 1795) in Middlesex, but initial checks seem to suggest that those people lived in England past 1818.
  • Her alleged year of birth makes it possible but not wildly likely that she married before her conviction and transportation. There are no mentions of a marriage in any of her convict records.
  • I can't imagine these were her first crimes - I suspect other possible run-ins with the law, but I assume they must be under a different name.

FamilySearch can't/won't show me the majority of the parish register images for St Marylebone (assuming, of course, she was born in that exact parish...)  :'(

I've tried searching National Archives and some occupation/poor law records (or at least those that are available to me or that I know of). I can't turn up anything around Emma or potential parents. I was hoping to find some kind of apprentice record for Emma (being a mantua-maker) but no such luck.

Any help would be so appreciated!

P.S., it looks almost certain that Emma was not (directly) connected with the Groom family of Harefield, Buckinghamshire. (That would have been convenient, because one of them was a Francis Henry Groom...)

26
England / Fathers on parish marriage registers - deceased or alive?
« on: Friday 04 August 23 01:59 BST (UK)  »
Hi all

Apologies if this is an obvious question, but I'm wondering: in the 1800s (particularly the mid-to-late 1800's), would parish marriage registers consistently specify whether a bride or groom's father was deceased or alive at the time of the marriage?

Or is the answer actually that it's just a lucky dip of "whatever the church felt like recording at the time"?  ;D

In case it's useful to know, I'm referring to an ancestor whose marriage occurred at St Giles without Cripplegate in London, but this question is really intended as a broader query about how these records were "typically" handled (if such a thing!)

Context:
I have an ancestor whose name and occupation is recorded on their child's parish marriage record in 1858. I'm trying to sleuth whether they passed away before or after this. Based on the marriage record alone, I initially assumed he was still alive at that stage (as there was another child's marriage record, which occurred about ten years later, specifying the father as "deceased").

However, I'm not so sure now - this record is possibly at odds with other records I've found, swaying me to wonder whether he passed away before 1858 after all.

27
Australia / Re: SA Cheltenham Cemetery photos wanted - Bampton & Finn
« on: Wednesday 02 August 23 14:54 BST (UK)  »
Thanks for your suggestions! Great idea to contact the ACA. Here's hoping they photographed the ones I'm after 😊

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