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Messages - B.E.

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1
Dorset / Re: George Lawrence b.Beaminster 1810
« on: Thursday 09 August 12 18:17 BST (UK)  »
Shirl,
Do you know, that's so blindingly obvious, I'm seriously embarrassed! For some reason we were all assuming that Mary moved to Yeovil after George's disappearance/demise, but it doesn't of course have to be that way at all.

In theory, if Mary was telling the truth that she was still married in 1861, then it can't be either of the 1854 or 1859 deaths. If Trish's new find [thanks!] is the right lady, then she was widowed in 1871, so an 1863 death remains a possibility. On the other hand, if they weren't actually living together in 1861 he could have been absolutely anywhere!

I suspect the family are going to have to plump for a death certificate if they want to prove that 1863 is the right one.
Cheers,
Brian

2
Dorset / Re: George Lawrence b.Beaminster 1810
« on: Tuesday 07 August 12 08:32 BST (UK)  »
Sorry, my cock up!

The 1862 death is the baby to whom I referred (I mistyped as 1852).

Our George Lawrence's wife was indeed Mary Skinner, but there was no son called Lawrence - that was the surname. I think somebody must have jumped to the same conclusion as me when first looking, but OPC clearly states the age of the child, a detail not available on FreeBMD.

3
Dorset / George Lawrence b.Beaminster 1810
« on: Monday 06 August 12 16:55 BST (UK)  »
We're struggling to find any trace of the above gentleman after his appearance in the 1851 census. He was a blacksmith in Fleet Street, Beaminster at that point. In 1861, his wife, Mary Lawrence, appears to have moved to Yeovil (a servant in the Granger household) and describes herself as married. She reappears as a 'windower' (presumably widow!) in the 1881 census, living with her son's family in Dorchester. There's no obvious trace of George. He appears not be the George Lawrence who d.Beaminster in 1852 (that was a 6-month-old baby), nor yet the one who was up before the beak at Dorchester in 1855 and imprisoned for assault with intent to ravish (that was a scallywag from Fontmell Magna). We've also checked emigration records in vain.

Can anybody come up with any lateral thinking here? Any theories for his having escaped the attentions of both the census enumerator and the death registrar?

[And, as a side issue, any trace in 1871 of Mary Lawrence b.North Cheriton(?), Somerset c.1800?]


4
Handwriting Deciphering & Recognition / Re: Beaminster shops
« on: Tuesday 19 June 12 18:29 BST (UK)  »
I think I've been through every book, directory, etc, on Beaminster that exists. I even have the working notes of Marie Eedle (who wrote the History of Beaminster), but she could only narrow it down to the same small area I've arrived at myself.

5
Handwriting Deciphering & Recognition / Re: Beaminster shops
« on: Monday 18 June 12 20:48 BST (UK)  »
Thanks, but yes, I've done the directories. They confirm that the shops were in the street, but not exactly where!

And I spend half my life on the OPC pages. Again they confirm the existence of the people and the businesses, but not the precise location...

6
Handwriting Deciphering & Recognition / Re: Beaminster shops
« on: Monday 18 June 12 18:14 BST (UK)  »
Thanks. Yes, I have that one already - I think the poster in the window was advertising fireworks, but it didn't really tell me what sort of shop it was.

I'd like to make the assumption that adjacent entries in the 1911 census were a solid guarantee that the households were next door to each other, but I suspect it's unsafe. The census has the New Inn next to Fred Poole the barber next to Thomas Gibbs the shoemaker. It's Tommy Gibbs I'm really interested in - I want to find out exactly where his shop was.

7
Handwriting Deciphering & Recognition / Beaminster shops
« on: Monday 18 June 12 17:38 BST (UK)  »
Four questions:
1. Do you think the name on the shop outside which the people are congregating might be 'Poole'?
2. Does the pole outside suggest it was a barber's shop?
3. Can you identify what's on display in the shop window nearest the camera?
4. Can you date the photo based on the roadsign, fashions, etc?

Thanks in anticipation of a miracle!

8
Dorset Lookup Requests / Re: Dorset Lunatic Asylum Patient - Phoebe Senneck
« on: Thursday 29 March 12 22:00 BST (UK)  »
Fair enough. It looks as though the Charminster OPC transcription stops at Page 21 - there are over 50 fewer names on the actual census than in the header block.

I've no more idea than you why she should end up in Charminster. You can imagine she'd be left somewhat exposed as an epileptic without the protection of her mother after 1865. Was there possibly a relation in Dorset who 'adopted' her, nominally as a servant, only to find her illness too much of a burden? I'd never previously heard of private patients in a lunatic asylum - I'd imagined these places to have the same stigma associated with them as the workhouse - but I can now see I was misguided.

9
Dorset Lookup Requests / Re: Dorset Lunatic Asylum Patient - Phoebe Senneck
« on: Thursday 29 March 12 17:07 BST (UK)  »
Alan,
The absence of responses probably reflects the tricky nature of this one. Did her mother have exactly the same name, thereby explaining the death of a Phoebe Ann Senneck in the Portsea area in 1865? If not, then the 1871 census reference and 1873 death are indeed a mystery!

I can't actually find the lady in 1871. I'm looking through the list of patients at the asylum and there's nobody with anything like that name. It may of course be a Charminster OPC transcription error.

Her being described as a lunatic for having epilepsy is unsurprising. As late as the 1930s my aunt was committed for bed-wetting and we've no idea what happened to her thereafter.
B.E.

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