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« on: Friday 11 March 11 17:56 GMT (UK) »
Researching the Matson family tree, I am having some problems making sense of the following and wonder if anyone could provide any pointers?
On the 1871 census [RG10/4782/37/14] there is a Robert (born 1822) and Sarah Matson (born 1824) living together along with a George H Tennison (age 19), described as their son-in-law. This would suggest that they have a daughter who has married George.
Forward ten years to 1881, [RG11/4758/75/2] we have Robert and Sarah this time with George R Tennison (age 4) visiting, who is their grandson. This also adds up, in that their daughter and George have had a son.
Also in 1881, the daughter is recorded [RG11/4757/149/15] - Mary E Tennison (age 27) is living with George H Tennison (age 29) and George R Tennision (age 4) is also recorded with them.
The difficulty I have had is finding records of Robert and Sarah getting married, Robert and Sarah having any children and George and Mary getting married! The only record I have for a Robert Matson and a Sarah getting married is in 1867, but this is a Sarah Tennison which is strange given the context, however it could be an error or it could be fact!
I cannot find Robert and Sarah with children of their own on any of the census records I have managed to find.
I also cannot find a Mary Matson marrying a George Tennison, my only tenuous search here has found the possibility that this is Mary's second marriage. I have found that Mary Watson is recorded as marrying John Harper (1868) and then Mary E Harper marrying George Tennison (1874) (from BMD records) and it's tenuous but Watson could be a transcription error.
To add to this complicated family, on the 1901 census, [RG13/4467/113/30] George R Tennison (now 25)is again with his grandmother Sarah (age 77 - still recorded as married) and this time is joined by his sister, Winifred (age 23) who is recorded as born in Dublin - all the other people mentioned here are recorded as born in Hull. I suppose if George and Mary lived and married in Ireland perhaps this would explain why I can't find records on Ancestry?
If anyone has any thoughts I'd appreciate them, and apologies if this should really be in the census forums as it's heavily census research based. I think I'm too lost in this to make sense of it when it might all be very obvious really... I've just typed this all out again as well as I lost the first version so apologies if I don't make sense anywhere!